Blur

Wilma is recovering from cancer surgery and won’t return until next semester. Another of my morning stalwarts has an appendectomy so I average only 4 or 5 students all week, including 85-year-old Isabel who is in her second decade of ESL Level 1 with very dim promotional prospects.  Aspiring-teacher, Miranda, in her churchy long skirt is too advanced for my Level 1-2 class so, despite my pathetic enrollment, I send her over to the main school to enroll in a hybrid ESL/Child Development class for more advanced speakers.  I stick to the book and let them use the computers a lot.  Isabel is actually pretty good on the computer and does remarkably well on literacy activities.  One of my young mothers has logged about 100 hours, working on her phone at home, all the way through a Burlington English course.  The other few are more casual about attendance and are unlikely to proceed to the next level.  I am more sapped by this intimate morning class than my jumpin’ 45ish evening class. 

My class is to be observed and recorded by the assistant principal right after we return from Thanksgiving break.  I am to submit a lesson plan for review this week.    The District evaluates teachers on a comprehensive Teaching and Learning Framework, which breaks down the elements of effective instruction into about 100 specific practices.  I am to be evaluated on a rubric based on 3 mandatory categories plus 3 possible areas for improvement that I’ve chosen for myself and one selected in conjunction with my administrator. 

I attend two workshops—one on effective teaching practice for the hybrid vocational/ESL class that I teach and a second to pilot a new ESL course outline.  My head is swimming with contextualized cooperative learning and rubrics and bottom up lesson planning. We are to create a lesson plan based on the new course outline and I create an exercise using Google maps.  Each group is given a destination different destination (Good Samaritan Hospital, Staples Center, The La Brea Tar Pits…) and is to calculate the time and cost of travel by car, public transportation and by foot.  I give them the URL to the government website that calculates the cost of a trip based on distance and car model.  This flushes out the unit that they’re finishing about giving and getting directions with a bit of practical application and critical thinking.

The e-mail I receive regarding a cancelled meeting is incorrect so I arrive at school to discover that the 2 ½ hour lesson that I’ve planned that’s based on the pilot course outline will have to be squished into 90 minutes.  And I’ve made a couple of missteps.  The interface on the directions function of Google maps is different on Android and Apple phones and both are different than the interface on a computer.  It is a challenge for students to pull up step by step directions to copy.  Furthermore, the government website that calculates the cost of car journeys is hinky and keeps freezing up.  Plus, I realize that calculations are based on gas costing $2 a gallon. The advanced students at least learn to use Google maps to determine walking, public transportation and driving times and directions and have gotten some practice in comparing data.

The group for evaluation of the new course outlines is dinky but comprised of dedicated teachers who are committed to becoming more effective.  Most of the teachers at my school are too exhausted to tackle this workgroup.  I am the only representative. The rigorous Teaching Learning Framework is quite daunting.  This coupled with the introduction of what appears at first blush as a radically changed course outline, I fear is going to put a number of my colleagues over the edge. 

I fret about adapting my own pretty nascent teaching practice to not only a comprehensive learning and teaching framework in addition to a revised course outline.   There are pages and pages of materials to distill and absorb with very few sample or usable lesson plans.  I note this to the curriculum expert coordinating the workgroup and she agrees that it would be preferable to have some lesson plans that correlate to the new course outline but that the change doesn’t really preclude continuing to rely on the approved textbooks to serve as a framework.  The other thing that dawns on me is that much of what’s been codified into the Teaching and Learning Framework and the new course outline is stuff that I do intuitively. 

The textbook that I use is boring and doesn’t please me aesthetically, but it comes with a decent digital component and each chapter has a good assortment of printable collaborative projects and worksheets designed at three different levels of difficulty.  When I rely solely on the textbook and the enrichment materials that come with it, I feel guilty that I’ve done too little.  But I realize that, dry as it is, the framework that the textbook provides is solid and lends itself, when I have the time and imagination, to creative expansion.

Another tweakage of mindset is that after intense days of workshops and the consideration of the art of teaching, is a blurring of teacher and student.  I’ve helped a few teachers at my school with cooperative learning ideas and using digital materials in the classroom.  Boiling it down, the process of facilitating a student’s mastery of English or a teacher refine her practice is pretty much the same.  You need a place where it’s ok to make mistakes, i.e. my misstep with the Google map directions. It is fundamental to build on prior knowledge.  I come to the classroom with a rudimentary familiarity with things digital.  I’ve used a computer to run a business for years.  For most of my colleagues, up until relatively recently, there is no imperative to use a computer in a classroom. On the other hand, they bring years of experience and well-honed cultural sensitivity.  My work ethic, for decades, has determined my economic survival.  For teachers, the district is a nebulous, unforgiving and labyrinthian entity.  Which, unlike me, they’ve learned to navigate, and battle choose.

Consistently planning lessons reliant on cooperative learning is a challenge.  Frequently, when placed in groups and given a project to complete, students of my big evening class bail.  There seems to be a culturally rooted conclusion that I am slacking off.  “I’m not here to learn from Victor.” The size of this class also makes it difficult for me properly monitor each group.  The Learning Framework that will be used to evaluate me states that it is preferable that students be engaged in groups, completing projects that require higher level thinking and analysis.  But I have to limit group time with this bunch.  I can get away with partner work if I keep the pace brisk, but it seems to flow the best when they’re all engaged together.

What seems to work for this group is when I ham it up and do a lot of call and response work. “Why doesn’t the cucumber belong with the melon, the apple, the orange and the mango?”  “Put your right hand on your left shoulder.”  “Boys, you read Part A. of the conversation but substitute ‘HIM’ for Jonathan.  “Girls, you read Part B and substitute “HER” for Maria.”

“The word ‘suck’ is what you do with a straw, but it also means that something’s pretty bad.  You can say it with your friends but not to your boss. And also, “pretty” means attractive but it also means ‘very.’  It’s such a stupid language.  Why would you want to learn it?  And by the way, ‘stupid’ in English isn’t nice but it’s not as bad as ‘estupido’ in Spanish. But it’s another ‘friends not boss word.”

The textbook emphasizes that students examine cultural differences.  Unfortunately, while right-minded, the book constantly refers to “your country.”  I project this phrase onto the whiteboard and vigorously obliterate it with a thick black dry erase marker.  “This is your country!” I intone.  “We welcome and need you here.  It’s fine to have two countries.” A bit of Borsht Belt schtick and a smattering of tent revival.  I block the doorway and make them tell me something before they leave.  “What is your favorite place in Los Angeles?”  “Griffith Park,” “Malibu” “Disneyland” “Venice Beach.”  “I’m giving you a million dollars for a vacation.  Where are you going?”  (“would” doesn’t come up until around the 3^rd level).  “Paris.”  “Brunei.”  “Berlin.”  “Barcelona.”  “Russia.”  “Cabo San Luis.” “To El Salvador to see my mother.”