James Fulmer’s blog

Ok so. This would be one of the last articles that I would choose to write about had I the choice. I don't really know what teaching for me entails yet, so I certainly wont be able to say anything intelligent about how we should teach teachers to teach. I do have that snaking suspicion that something else could be done to prepare us for teaching short of actually just throwing us into the thick of things. But, I’ve already been indoctrinated by my cult-like alma mater to think that all other colleges are a waste of time and money and really just give out degrees for showing up. But I get the feeling this might only be true for some or half or most degrees at some or half or most colleges, in which case, there isn’t anything all that startling about it. However, it does seem like education classes get bad reviews across the board, and it’s not just our strange pseudo master’s classes.

To give some defense for the sad plight that education courses are apparently experiencing, I really don’t feel like teaching can be made into a science. This sentiment is rampant throughout this article.  The one thing I learned from my summer school crash course, and these few months actually teaching, is that teaching is not a science. I like the idea of tracking student performance to help filter out bad education programs that spit out ineffective teachers. But that’s about as far as I’ll go. And I get the feeling that even if people tried to jump behind the completely “systematizing” and pigeonholing teachers and students approach it would at best serve as the new facade for each school district. The wheels would keep turning as they always do underneath. As far as I can tell, you should go into teaching knowing and expecting to get your hands dirty, like hard labor dirty, moving obstinate rocks across what once looked like short distances. Although I suppose the reality is you still move the rocks, but depending on your school district, you might be asked to wear a lab coat at all times which you are expected to keep spotless and sweat-stainless at all times.

Once again, this is all conjecture... and I was hoping not to have much of it after leaving St. John’s. Thanks Ben.

I’ll go for the main points first. I liked the speech because it was both joyful and heartfelt. If I can get through two years and still know how to be joyful, to joke without it being completely bitter or sarcastic, than I’d consider myself blessed. And I wouldn’t even mind still being conflicted in the end about whether or not what I’m doing in Mississippi is worth the effort, theirs and mine. I’d choose living, breathing, feeling conflict over stale  and hardened acceptance any day. I also enjoyed the shout-out to Karl Nastrom. At least I assume it was Nastrom. I liked how his quote filled out in my head. You work hard at teaching and... well Pete said it blows up your face. But I figure that was for lack of a better understanding of the result. Thus a sort of half-joke was engendered. Of course, I don’t believe myself to have a better understanding. I feel like the foundation of my teaching experience, my job, the students learning experience, academically and non-academically, is confusion. You put more work into teaching, you get more confused. Pete at the very least seems to know as little about his effect as I do, a few months in. And somehow I’m not at all surprised. I really can’t stress enough though how much I enjoyed the jokes in the beginning. And they really seemed substantial. In the way puns can’t even pretend to be. Or most one liners from comics you don’t actually know, or haven’t shared a common experience with. Unfortunately for my teaching persona, I’m not able to attempt those sorts of laughs with my students. It’s nice to know that there’s potential for MTC people, even though we are as varied as we seem. Side note: I’m wondering about Madison now... I definitely didn’t get the jokes and am not clever enough to deduce the truth from them. I’d love to know more... any takers.

Its crazy to me that a family asked Pete to speak at their daughter’s funeral. It’s crazy on so many levels. That sounds like a movie to me. And the very last thing I expected when coming to Mississippi was to find myself in the middle of the Freedom Writers script or something. Once again, I am sufficiently befuddled. All I can think of to do is congratulate Pete. It must have been worth your effort.

I have a group of students who have been trying to get a club started since middle school that I agreed to sponsor for them. It's probably as the least educational club I could have sponsored but I still think its the best thing ever. The club started as an anime appreciation club though it's turned into a video game, yugi oh card game, anime watching, chess playing, manga reading, and general hang-out club for the nerds of my high school who are tight nit in part because of the rest of the school's attitude towards them. These students are also the most well behaved students that I have and also have the highest averages. This was another reason why I didn't matter what the club was about, I thought they deserved something like this.

This is one of the many reasons why I am in MTC and not TFA. I believe I was given a healthy dose of realism before I started teaching. The image of moving the tick mark, used by Ben, helped a lot in itself to set the tone for the kind of high expectations I should have. Especially, if I want to get something, though it be less than I would 'prefer', done. I also know that I'm still struggling with my own lesson planning for the beginning of the year because I did want to win the kids over by having easier material but I also realize that I lost some kids who were bored with too much review on simple concepts. Of course, the reason I reviewed the material was because their peers were have such trouble. It does seem though, on the surface, that students are learning more efficiently when I go over new material. I have to think now about all the different variables to distill some useful.

I really wish I knew a lot more about world history so I could actually use the list of countries and states HDI to get a broader context. However, the fact that Mississippi is so far below mexico, which I have lived next to my entire life and visited many times, would be startling had I not been teaching here for the past few months. As the writer implies throughout his article, it is 'embarrassing' that a first world country is allowing for some of its states to fall so far behind. However, the longer I'm here the more sticky the situation seems to me. I can't ever remember in America's history a time when the populous came together and helped an impoverished and neglected community. The only thing that I can think of is the volunteer's who came after Catrina, but that was much more striking as far as one day the next day transformations go. The HDI problem in Mississippi has been lagging for a while now.

I just pushed create instead of save because I'm tired.

To begin with, I spent a long time thinking about the hidden rules among classes page. There were so many points that really struck me, not just for the poverty section, the section that we're reading this book for. It got me to think a lot about where I'm coming from and the people I've been surrounded by for the majority of my life. The juxtaposition became even more interesting as a result of my thoughts on my own economic classification. Even a few things that the rich are expected to know have coincided with other experiences and information I've gathered. I recently read that the rich 'actually' make the best examples for money handling. For some reason, I always thought the conservative middle class approach was the best, but apparently you really do have to spend and invest money to make money. The more smart risks you are taking, the more money you are making.

My main goal is to be respected by my students. The reason why my goals are so narrow right now is primarily because the head of the math department runs the H building because of his silent teacher look and redwood size. Some of my students still laugh when I pass out consequences and yet, the math head is somehow able to make kids who don't even have him shape up. It'll probably help a lot when I stick around next year, but I know there's a lot more I could be doing in class. Or less maybe. I probably talk to much or make punishments too much of an event. I'm trying to learn the silent teacher part because it seems the sort of respect you get from that is more effective and efficient.

It was kind of hard to pick a funny moment for my class because really there are just funny people in my class who normally and naturally do funny things. However when I began to think about an embarrassing moment, I immediately remembered a experience that sort of fit both bills.

Ummm, the first week was crazy hard. But management wasn't really my biggest problem. Like our good friend trevor, I was stuck with a class that no one on campus knows anything about. It's called Survey of Mathematical Topics and it was created last year for students who passed the math state test but didn't want to take precal or trig or whatever it is they take after that. No one really talks about anything other than Algebra I here. So on top of its being made so recently, there are no pacing guides or lesson plans or resources because the teacher who taught it left last year along with all the materials. So the only information i've EVER been given about this class is that it deals with 'stuff like balancing a checkbook.' i'm actually laughing at this now. which is a good sign. On top of this class, I've got a compensatory math class for 12th graders who havent passed the alg. I state test plus a random 9th grader. Lord knows why he's in this class. But because it's so small, I'll be damned if I tell anyone he probably shouldn't be there. He's probably going to learn 3 times as much in this class with its 7 students. You're a lucky man Ricardo Wiggins. Your grandma sounded nice over the phone. Best of luck to you!
Then of course I'm teaching 4 classes of tranition to algebra. These are where my classroom management problems come. 4th period is hell, though somewhat simmering down. 3rd is being a total bitch right now and 7th could become a major problem for me because I'm so tired by the time I get there and that class is filled with some of the more mature minds of 9th and 10th graders that I have so it's more difficult to convince them to follow the rules.
So back to my three preps. That was and is my real problem right now. I've got three preps. and for one of them, I've got absolutely no textbook or guidelines or resources. So far I've taught them about simple and compound interest... I sincerely doubt that the rest of the year will be as rigorous or useful as this first week.
So I had a really tough time the first week just dealing with the anxiety and feeling like I just wasn't going to be able to make it. The whole year loomed over me like... well I wasn't going to survive it, whatever it was. I came home one day and was feeling so anxious and crappy that I had to go to bed at 5 or something just to force myself to stop thinking about it. Luckily that was the worst of it and the next day I felt a lot better and have been slowly feeling better about what's going on. Once again, I've been okay with management issues. I've been very strict and consistent. I was afraid for a few days that I was being too hard and that they just wouldn't respond well to it ever and that it was only going to cause them to hate me and do less work out of sheer dislike for their teacher. This was happening which was why I feared for it in the future. But they got used to my strictness, my rules and me somehow and for some reason that I don't pretend to know or understand.
Every once in a while I'll get lax with a class and it does devolve every time and i'm further convinced that strictness and never letting up is the only way for me to work my class. I'd love to hear that some other first year has been able to make things work with out such a stoney faced approach.
I've been praying for everyone. I'll continue to, and please email me and ask for prayers if things get really tough. The prayers of my family were the only reason I got through the first week. I hope everyone has their head above water.