I can finally add those four letters to my email signature....

NBCT. Yes, after all this work, I happily placed those letters after my name.

I have worked for three years to earn this certification. The word "Accomplished" is used often in the process. This always sort of bothered me though, especially when I didn't pass in my first two tries. I knew I was an accomplished teacher. I knew that I went above and beyond for my students. It bothered me that I was not getting the official stamp of approval from this organization to validate what I knew.

Of course, certifying feels great. I am very glad that I stuck with the process. For anyone else thinking of doing it, or anyone who did not pass in their first (or second) year, I would say, do it, and keep going.

However, you have to keep this thing in perspective. There are tricks to it. You have to play by their rules. You have to show you are accomplished in the VERY PRECISE ways that they ask for. For those of us in urban districts like Philadelphia, we do not always get to teach in a world where this is easy to do.

My first year, I know that I fell short of what they were asking me to demonstrate in the classroom. However, much of what I wrote up in my entries ended up sounding like a blame-game, and I see that now. I repeatedly mentioned that I just "couldn't" teach the way that they were asking, because our principal never allowed for any flexibility. And this was very true, I was at a school at the time, where I was threatened with write-ups if I strayed from the core-curriculum. However, the National Board people don't want to hear this. They want to see that accomplished teaching, and evidence of its success, no matter what.

Alas, I tried again. My second year, I had to "borrow" classrooms of students, as I was a traveling teacher. This made things quite interesting. So now, I had to prove I was accomplished while working with students that I barely knew. And, was paying $700 to do so, which was beginning to nag at me. (Don't want to digress too much, but many of us in the process were wondering at the money making purpose of this organinzation, much like all the standardized testing out there in the world.)

So, here is where I will call out the NB scorers a bit. I did my video entries in two very different schools. For those that know the city, one classroom was a very tough 9th grade mix of kids at Gratz, and the other was a very respectful group of kids at the Leeds Military Academy.  I taped one time, one 20 minute lesson, and had exactly what I needed at Leeds. This small group entry scored wonderfully, passing, and labeling me "accomplished." To be honest, I barely knew these students. Yes, my lesson was quite awesome, as was my write up, but I was floored that this system labels someone accomplished based on 15 minutes of tape, when they knew nothing else.

Now, for the Gratz taping. I taped MANY times in order to get a lesson that I thought could even possibly work. (And had to bribe the kids with pizza in order to get the most out of the lessons, as they were quite used to not participating actively in their Enlish 1 class.) Through the months, I really got to know these kids. I tailored and changed my lessons to meet their individual needs. I know in my heart and gut that my write up was just as good for this entry, but I did not pass. This entry was not scored as if I was an "accomplished" teacher.

So, this left me perplexed and quite jaded with the process last November, when I learned that I fell short of passing for a second time. I began to see just how subjective this really is. I KNOW that I was genuinely a more accomplished teacher with my Gratz students, yet that entry is not the one that passed. It did make me wonder who scored it. It made me wonder if it was someone who never saw a typically urban, high risk classroom setting, and if that altered their ability to score fairly.

But, frustrated as I was, I was not going to try for the first two years, and not finish the third and final attempt. I only had a few points to make up, so I only re-took some of the tests. (Still, three re-takes, that was another $1000...adding to my pressure and frustration). I figured that the tests were at least a bit more objective, even though they are still essays that someone must read and score.

Well, fast forwad to last Saturday, I finally passed!!! I was, and am, thrilled. I did learn a lot about myself as a teacher in the process. I also learned though, that there is no way you should allow some outside group of assessors, who never meets you or your students to make you feel accomplished or not.

I will do my best now to help others through this process (though there are very strict guidelines to what is allowed, so please know that). If you have any questions, just ask!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Back from Hiatus

I was getting frustrated with sharing my thoughts and observations, as I felt I was seeing the same things year to year.

However, each day there truly is something (or a few somethings) that I see that that makes my head buzz with either shock or awe. I don't think that most people outside of the education world really know what goes on inside school walls, and as it is "public" education, that it should be made more public. Hence my original idea for the blog title.

If I can be one small voice in expressing what really goes on in a large urban district, then despite my frustrations, I feel like I might as well keep on sharing. Whether it is for simple awareness, or to hope on a larger scale for political change in education, truth is needed.

So, I am going to make a real effort to share more of my experiences in Philadelphia high schools. In the meantime, starting again today, I will re-commit to my daily "Thumbs Up/Thumbs Down" on Twitter.

And as an afterthought...some statistics I just learned in a course I'm taking. Just some mind candy for y'all.

58% - the graduation rate of Special Ed. Students
5% -  how many in our nation's adult population are ex Special Ed. Students
50% - how many in the prison population are ex Special Ed. Students

The professor said, "Our traditional special education model is fatally flawed."

And as an after, after thought...perhaps a homework assignment... Find any research at all that shows that summer school helps to close an achievement gap or brings struggling students closer to grade level success. Please share if you find it. I doubt you will.

Maternity Musings

Being a new mom gives me a totally new perspective on, well, everything. Teaching and all of the issues (time management, pumping at school, childcare, getting around 440 with a stroller, etc) that come with it has been eye opening.

First of all, our maternity leave policy is just sad. I know it's not only in teaching, but 6 weeks, unpaid, is just awful!! At many private companies you get at least 6 weeks, often 12, and it's paid. Had we not been responsible and saved up so I could stay home longer, I would have been an absolute wreck. I have a great baby, who sleeps pretty well, but there was NO WAY I would have been ready to return to work in March.

Then, unfortunately I had some trouble with major post-partum depression/anxiety issues. For me it was more the anxiety piece, but it was no joke. I was going to counseling through my midwives at The Birth Center, as well as a family therapist that I'd been seeing for years. I asked Employee Health Services if my wage-continuation/maternity leave could be extended due to my condition. They said I would have to get a letter written from a psychiatrist. Well, my counselor or midwives are not psychiatrists, so I found one and set up a few visits. She wrote me a letter right away, seeing my condition, and we sent it to Health Services. Within hours, I was told that the district physician did not consider my condition "medically severe" enough.

I was apalled. Thankfully, I'm mostly better now, but at that time, there is no way that I should have been cleared to work. As is often the case with mental health issues, it was not given the attention that it deserved. What frustrates me is how the district made their decision, by using a doctor who never even met me. How is that fair, when my midwives, counselor, and a psychiatrist all confirmed that I was suffereing from depression and anxiety?

I don't mind talking about it, and I'm not embarrassed about it. Maybe if enough people put it out there, things will change. I did ask if I could appeal, and was told that I could go through the union if I wanted to fight it. I'm sure I could have, and maybe even would have won, but at that time, 6 weeks post-partum, I was busy taking care of a newborn. Adding in a union fight would have only added to my anxiety, so I didn't appeal.

Now, with more clarity and sanity back in my life, I almost want to go back and do something about it. But, what's done is done.

So, then came actually returning to work. Which, thankfully, has been fine. All of the staff who stepped up to help in my absence was great! I'm thankful for all the well-wishes and loving words for Estrella and I. Not once was I ever made to feel guilty for taking over 3 months off. Not once have I been pressured to make up work that I may have missed. Super shout out to all the teachers, principals, secretaries and other staff that made coming back much easier than I had anticipated.

The hardest part (well, other than leaving my precious baby at home) has honestly been finding places to pump at work. This is something else that really should be addressed in a district our size. I know there are actually laws about this, and it's time the district got with the program. I do realize that they have more pressing concerns, but I've had to pump from my car on a a few occasions (luckily I have a car with a full AC outlet) and that's not okay. I generally use nurses' offices (since there are rarely nurses in most of my schools anyway, which is a whole other issue) and that's not so bad in terms of privacy, but the schools are just dirty. No lie, yesterday, in the nurse's office as I'm setting up my pump, a roach ran across the table. ACK! ICK! GROSS. Period. 

Two. More. Weeks. I love what I do, and these few weeks were good to "get my feet wet" with the working mom thing, but I'm ready for the summer with my baby girl. I'll stock up with more sanitizing supplies and be ready for September when it rolls around.

It's been a while...yet, not much has changed

Here we are, June 1st, and once again the SDP budget for next year has everyone in a frenzy. Here we are, getting ready for summer vacation, and once again many teachers are unsure if they will return to their positions in the fall.

Is it stressful? Yes. Is it annoying? Yes. However, I'm trying to go with precedent here, and believe that things won't be so bad when the end of summer rolls around. I know the district operates at a huge deficit, and this is a problem for sure, but ultimately, the city will not just leave students to be without classrooms and teachers come September. (Though, scary rumblings that Chester is actually closing the doors to its high school make my head spin!)

So, what are we to do. We're told to wear red every Friday, and stand in front of our respective buildings. I don't do this. I never have. I know I have some very union oriented teacher friends who participate, and I'm sorry, I just can't do it. Instead, this morning at my school, there was a teacher breakfast (complete with shrimp and grits, gotta love it) which is a much better way to come together as a united front. As the secretary here said (and a shout out here to all the great school secretaries, you are amazing!) these breakfasts are about morale building. And, boy, morale is something that is missing in a lot of schools.

Alas, I will leave on June 19th not knowing for sure where I'll be again in the fall. I've gotten myself to a place mentally where this is okay. I've taught now for 8 years, and with the exception of 2 years in a row as an 8th grade English teacher, I've never been in the same position year after year.

It's just sad to me that education is something that always seems to be on the very public chopping (or auction) block. I do this because I love it. I don't like to hear teachers blamed for problems beyond our control. However, this involves society in general opening their eyes to the real problems (mainly poverty and its symptoms), and no one wants to do that.

I feel like I was writing almost the same thing last spring...sigh.