Professional Inventory

You can tell it is that time of year again. The beginning of the school has officially taken place as I blog about education over and over.

Today, in an effort to strengthen myself emotionally and mentally and I suppose to prep myself for the upcoming school year even though my bitter, apathetic attitude sometimes takes me elsewhere, I repeat an exercise I did in an earlier post listing my proud "achievements." You may call these affirmations if you so choose. I do. This time I focus on education. The following are things I am proud to say I do. Teacher friends of mine, you can take pride in the fact that some of these are taken from you. Like that old commercial in the 80s with the kid whose Dad found his drug stash, "You! I learned it from watching you!"

First and foremost, I have made it through a decade of urban schools. I keep hearing myself say I have taught a decade or ten years because I am proud of that. I feel like that is a long time. Enough to have its own word: decade.

I choose to take this as a positive: I have taught the same grade at the same school for 9 of those years. This is a good thing because I have wanted to bolt many times and have not. I have continued to fight the good fight. It may be a testament to my good luck more than ability but I have avoided cuts and layoffs throughout the decade. Many have taken place.

I know my curriculum. Having taught the same grade in the same district means I have taught the curriculum enough to "know it cold" as my dad would say. So I can anticipate what to present to the students and I can spend more time focusing on how instead of what.

I have a good relationship with fellow teachers and staff. Through the years at my school I have worked with numerous people who have come and gone. I'd like to think I have had positive relationships with the majority of them. I like 90% of them and can get along with the other 10%. The proof is in the pudding as I maintain close friendships to numerous teachers who have not only left the school, but left the state as well. Comoprozac, a frequent flyer of this blog, is a prime example. He is also an example of a teacher who I have learned a good bit from. I have tried to copy his effort to introduce diverse groups of influential people to his students that they would not read about in their textbooks.

I have been able to develop effective strategies of classroom management and academic instruction on my own to solve problems in my classroom that no one taught me how to deal with in graduate school. Despite being shot down in my graduate classes, my idea of implementing a behavior wall to chart good days for individual students publicly, this strategy has been effective for me and copied by fellow teachers and complimented by parents of my students numerous times. It may not be "theoretically" kosher but it works.

In addition to this management tool, I have developed methods to figure out math problems beyond the tradition algorithms that have worked for numerous students. Again, they have not been by the book, but more than one student have taken it and used it well.

I also have created different chants and slogans on my own that have stuck with former students in later grades (or so they say when they come back to visit). J.E.L to remember the branches of government. SYW to stand for Show Your Work. Those are just two of my standbys.

I teach with passion. My frustration may make it look like I don't care. At times I don't. But in my heart I have a passion for this. You can see it when I become Pastor Huey. The students (and more so the teachers) come alive when I start singing to the mountaintops John 3:16 (that's my room number) and giving my students the power!!! It's a rounding strategy I came up with. A long winded explanation that I will pass on since typed words don't do it justice, but trust me 3-5 fellow teachers and my former principal almost lost their minds when I whipped it out one Saturday morning as we tutored our kids for the test.

I can relate to the kids. I am not 10 anymore. I don't listen to hip hop. I never grew up in the inner city. But I can talk to the kids on the kids' level. I can thank another friend of mine that I teach with for reinforcing this. I blogged before about the football games at recess. He and I have used this and other opportunities to build good relationships with our students and other kids in our school. We have built trust. This goes a LONG way when we are enforcing discipline.

I go the extra mile. I stay after school, I come in early, I come in on Saturdays to do the extra things to help our kids pass the tests. I have done it without getting paid, I have done it with compensation. The bottom line is: I have done more than the basic line of duty.

I created and run a Math tournament at the end of every year. It helps keep the last day meaningful and motivates kids to learn their math facts. It also provides a structure in which to teach fairness and sportsmanship as well as class and dignity in defeat or success.

I am open to changes and I am not afraid to use other people's ideas or share my own. I always peak in my neighbor's window to see what she is teaching and how she teaches it because I think this woman is the greatest teacher that ever walked the planet. I "steal" ideas from her all the time and she loves to copy me. She still holds my "Less is More" motto as a guiding light to this day.

For the record, when I entered my school our percentage of passing scores on the 4th grade Ohio Reading Proficiency Test were in the 10%-25% range. Now they are in the 40%-50% range. I have taught 4th grade this whole time. That means I have played a major role as the scores have doubled.

I believe I could go on. I am still proud that I was invited to a graduation this year. That means a former student progressed through high school successfully. For my ego, it means he had 8 more years of teachers after me and I was the one he invited back to his graduation. ME. That feels damn good.