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Ms. T. is blogging about her experience working in a Collaborative Team Teaching classroom. CTT classes have a mix of students in general education and special education, and each class has two teachers, one with special education certification. Ms. T is the general education teacher in her classroom.

As the year draws to a close, I begin to reflect on the changes that have taken place in my teaching life throughout the last year. I left a wonderful school, with an amazing administration, and a great team of coworkers. I moved states away to New York City to spend a torturous time finding a job (but at least I found one). I have felt miserable more days than I thought possible working at this school, more days than I’d ever thought possible, period. Teaching has always been my highlight, my enjoyment. The past few months have taught me one thing for sure. It’s not always easy, and sadly, it’s not always fun.

Yet, despite all the less enjoyable thoughts that come to mind when I think about the second half of 2008, I can also find some truly amazing things that have happened. (more…)

After four months of continuous test prep for January’s English Language Arts exam, her fifth graders refuse even to engage with the text anymore, reports They Call Me Teacher:

My students give up before the test prep reading is even handed to them. They already know what answer they are going to choose… without even reading the options (or the story). They have already mastered the fake reading… where they look blankly at the text and then, after a few moments, move on. No matter how many times we model, partner, attempt to hold students accountable with underlining and highlighting and written explanations of why the answer they chose are the best answer… it doesn’t follow through into testing. These students are completely capable of finding the most basic answers in the text, but they don’t care. It’s not important to them. … And WHO could blame them?

Via Edwize, second grade reading teacher Miss Brave explains why she has to record her students’ assessment data all over again:

This morning we had a meeting at which we were told we would have to re-enter each student’s individual results onto a class summary sheet. Had we, in fact, already done this? Yes! But when we asked what happened to the last summary sheet, we were dismissed with a curt, “I don’t know.”

Um… So, okay, let’s review. As part of my job, I did the following:

• Administered the assessment to each individual student.
• Graded the assessment of each individual student.
• Entered the assessment of each individual student onto a class composite summary sheet.
• Handed off the data to people who are supposed to be in charge of entering it into the computer.

And those people, as part of their jobs, did the following:

• Lost my data.

Guest-blogging at NYC Educator, teacher Yo, Miss! wonders if she should anonymously help this student’s family:

“When are you putting up your Christmas tree, Stacey?” Tiffany asked. (Not their real names.)

“Oh,” Stacey said softly, “um, I don’t know.”

“I thought we were late!” Tiffany exclaimed. “I guess you’ll probably be later than us.”

“It’s not that,” Stacey said. “My dad said we might not have a Christmas tree this year.”

“Why?” Tiffany asked.

“He says we can’t afford one,” Stacey said. “He only gets paid when he works, and he isn’t getting work, really, right now. Like, one or two days a week only, sometimes.”

And two teachers blogging at Daily Kos recently related stories of their students’ fears and realities as their families make tough choices.

Four students from CIS 339, a Bronx middle school known for creatively integrating technology into its classes, spent Thursday night live-blogging the school’s Parent Expo. At the Expo, classes shared their work with their parents through slide shows, displays, iMovies, and more. Here are some excerpts from their on-the-scene reports, and here’s the full story.

Eighth grader Aurelie set the scene:

All classes are empty right now. Teachers are a little bit tense and hope that parents and students will all be there for the rendezvous. Some students are preparing some of the speeches they will present in front of the class when parents arrive. The entrance of the school is crowded by people signing in. Balloons and some small tables are placed just where people walk by the principal’s hallway.

Fellow eighth grader Osafo learned from younger students:

In Ms. Marmora’s English Language Arts class the children made a video to explain the books they have been reading in class. The difference between the video these kids made and videos from other classes was that they recommended the books. After watching the videos, I felt like going to get a copy of each of their books.

(more…)

Our colleagues at Livable Streets Education (like us, an initiative of The Open Planning Project), have been “encouraging students to explore and question the environments around their school and in their neighborhoods, and to voice the changes they want to see on their streets.” Here, they present some advice to drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists from 1st graders at Manhattan’s PS 87.

Marni Goltsman, whose son is autistic, says she and her husband have pushed the boy to take part in activities against his wishes because over time, he has come to enjoy and learn a lot from those experiences. But now that he’s five, she asks, should they begin respecting his preferences?

[T]here are two problems with this approach. The first is a new problem: Brooks is getting older. It’s one thing to ignore a toddler’s protests—it’s quite another when a increasingly verbal 5-year-old describes to you exactly what he doesn’t like, and asks you point-blank why he has to do it. And the second is a an old problem that’s been around ever since he was diagnosed: How far can we push him without sacrificing his self-esteem? If this is simply too challenging for him at the moment, which may very well be the case, then why are we torturing him by having him face his deficits in front of us and his peers week after week? Should we instead be taking a break from soccer and working on something else? Or should we design a more appropriate intervention, like having his physical therapist work on ball skills with him one-on-one?

New York City elementary school teacher Peace in the Classroom is dismayed that her school has been designated as under “corrective action” according to the No Child Left Behind law:

Just because we are a community school and we take EVERYONE who walks in the door, including children from a transitional shelter that is in our catchment area, we suffer the consequences of having low-performing students. It is not a reflection on the actual teaching or achievement of our “home grown” students, the ones we keep from Pre-K through 5th grade. What do they want schools to do? Shut their doors? Only let in a select few? I am proud of the fact that we educate everyone equally. I am proud to have over 80% ELLs in my class. The media always puts down these “underperforming” schools and it’s so sad that my school has been categorized this way.

Ms. T. will be guest-blogging every other week or so here at GothamSchools, sharing her experience of working in a Collaborative Team Teaching classroom. Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) is when two teachers work in a classroom that is 60% general education students and 40% students with special needs.

The more I learn about Collaborative Team Teaching, the more I believe in its potential to succeed with students. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit a school and experience what a CTT classroom should look like and discuss what makes this particular classroom (and school, for that matter) successful.

The first, and best, thing I saw was the actual teaching and learning taking place in the classroom environment. A weird thing for a teacher to say… Doesn’t learning and teaching happen in my classroom? It does, kind of, despite the constant battle with five students potentially destroying any chance to teach. Seeing an effective classroom reminded me of what a classroom is supposed to look and feel like as a teacher engages her students in learning. Unfortunately, it made me realize that my crazed mind was starting to think the chaos in my room felt normal. The lack of self-control among a group of my students was starting to cloud all memories of the good life of teaching.

During our visit, we saw two teachers who have been a team for multiple years, a team that has gotten about 95% of their students to get level 3’s (meeting the standards) on state tests. We saw that a CTT classroom can prove successful when set up and ran correctly. We saw hope… Until we walked out of the classroom and were forced to go back to our own classrooms, to our own schools. (more…)

Blogging at Time Out Kids, New York City mom Susan Avery wonders how to respond to this modern-day dilemma:

It was 10am on a school day when my middle school-age daughter called. “What’s wrong?” I answered, knowing something was up. She’s not the kind of kid who sneaks in calls during the day, so I was sure it was something bad.

“I totally forgot my homework and English is in 20 minutes!” she whispered. “Can you e-mail it to me?”

I breathed a sigh of relief before becoming annoyed. Remembering her homework is her responsibility. Yes, I could send it to her with a click of a mouse, but should I? What kind of message would I be sending along with her essay?