Hideo Update

Hideo got to come home from the NICU on Christmas Eve afternoon. He is so sweet-tempered -- he sleeps pretty well and is eating really well. I forget how fun it is to have a newborn baby -- but boy it's tiring, too. But I think everyone is adjusting well, and my pain is definitely better.

Emiko is getting used to having a baby brother. She will look at him, say, "Baby!" and then she tries to steal his blanket. Occasionally she tries to poke him, but she says, "Gentle. Gentle," while doing so. Very cute.

We all had a very Merry Christmas -- hope you and yours are having a great holiday season!

Welcome Hideo!

Here is Hideo William -- he was born via c-section at 6:26 am on Saturday, December 20th. He is 6 lbs 10 1/2 oz, and is 19 inches long. And he's super cute. He was a little early, so that's why he has the nasal cannula and feeding tube.





I never imagined I'd have a c-section -- I've always been a big proponent of natural childbirth. But my water broke at about 2:30 Sat morning, and Hideo was breech. He was in the worst possible position for birth -- his head was on one side of me and his feet on the other, with his back in between -- as if he were laying across me. I don't know how that could have been comfortable for him! Since my water had broken, they couldn't try to reposition him. And since he was in such a screwy position, I had to have a classic c-section, were they have to cut vertically into my uterus. Ouch.

So it was the most invasive surgery I can imagine, and I'm in some pain. I can't drive for four weeks (ugh) and can't pick up my toddler -- who is very confused about why Mommy spent four days in the hospital. But we'll be ok. I think once he's home with us, Emiko will catch on quickly.

Hideo is still in the NICU, but gets to come home tomorrow! He no longer has the nasal cannula or the feeding tube -- but he still has a bit of jaundice. That's why he couldn't come home with me today. I'm ready to get him home!

I'll have more pics posted tomorrow -- just you wait!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I just got my present!

Winter Break/Maternity Leave Starts Today!!!

I was going to try to work up through today, since today is the last day of school before Winter Break starts. But we had another big winter storm last night, and decided I did not want to deal with driving in to work in snow and ice. It took me two and a half hours to get home from work Tuesday night -- I was convinced my water was going to break before I got home. I was willing this baby to hang in there a bit longer. I was also pretty convinced I was going to pee my pants!

I managed to get home without going into labor or losing bladder control. But that was enough for me. Plus, there's not much going on at school this week -- yesterday was the school talent show, so I had zero students for either 8th or 9th period.

I did have one disgruntled freshman girl who had gotten her progress report and discovered that I had "given her a D." I hate when the kids do that -- act like their grade is something I just provide out of thin air. I said, "I did not give you a D, you earned one." Then she got really snippy with me, reminded me how bogus I was, and said her mom wanted to speak to me. She wanted me to give her my phone number so her mother could call me. I told her that I was not giving her my number. She said, "Then how can my mama get in touch with you?" I said she can call the school. So the girl told me that her mama would call the school, and I would change her grade. Then she flounced back to her seat and bitched about me the rest of the class.

I kept thinking, "Sweetie, in twenty more minutes, I will not be your teacher, and your sub will be in charge of dealing with you and your grade. Hallelujah!" When I went to sign out, I had no messages in my mailbox.

I told our payroll clerk that I was taking today as a sick day, and that I'd call her when I had the baby. Then I turned in my classroom key and my CPS-issued laptop to a friend of mine in the English department. I said a few goodbyes to people, and that was that.

So now I'm just waiting to have this baby boy -- I think it won't be too much longer. I'll post lots of pics. I'm sure this blog will be less interesting without school stories, but I have plenty of stories that I haven't shared yet, so I'll still have some material.

I realize that baby stories are not everyone's cup of tea, so I will try to keep them to a minimum!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

CPS CEO Arne Duncan Obama's Pick for Education Secretary?

I'm not surprised by this, but I'm not too excited. I really wish President-Elect Obama had consulted me before making this pick.

I'm trying to decide if I want to write a longer post about this. Right now class is about to start. I may get back to you. In the meantime, discuss amongst yourselves.

OK, I'm back. Reading the Tribune article has motivated me to write more about this. If I were not a CPS teacher, and had no idea how things worked in Chicago, then I might think Duncan a fine pick for Education Secretary. But I am a CPS teacher and I have a better idea of how things work in Chicago than I'd like, to be honest.

There are some great schools in CPS. The great schools are the ones that only accept the top students in the city. For high school, students have to apply during their 8th grade year and their 7th grade test scores pretty much determine their educational futures in the city. For the students who get into these marquee schools, more power to them.

My school does not attract the top talent in the city. At my school, the average ACT score is a 15. My school was named a "drop out factory" by Johns Hopkins University last summer. Less than half our freshmen graduate high school in four years.

We have no central heat or air. The bathrooms have no ventilation. They usually have no toilet paper, soap, or paper towels, either.

Often we only get a class set of books, so each student has to share. Should a book go missing, well, then someone has to do without.

My students are 90% free or reduced lunch. We have a high homeless student population. Our classrooms are overcrowded, and we still have some classes being taught by subs, because apparently Arne won't let us hire more teachers.

A reference is made to Duncan in the Trib article as believing that education is a civil rights issue. I don't disagree. So how can he reconcile the substandard education so many of the students in CPS are receiving?

Most of my students come to 9th grade with reading scores several years below grade level. Which means students in CPS are being allowed to leave elementary school without the skills they need to succeed in high school.

There is a reference in the Trib article to our graduation rates improving. That's misleading -- CPS sometimes "disenrolls" students who are not succeeding -- if a student is "disenrolled," it's like he or she was never a student at all. That student is not counted as a drop out.

Duncan (and Mayor Daley, who gave him the CEO job in the first place) doesn't seem to be a fan of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU). Sometimes I'm not a fan of the CTU, but I still think it has an important function. In the schools that Duncan has championed that are run by private organizations or charters, teachers are not unionized and make a fraction of the salaries paid to unionized teachers in CPS.

Of course salary should not be one's foremost concern in any career, but CPS teachers must live in the city of Chicago, by law. Chicago is an expensive city. The year I taught in a charter school, I took a $10,000 per year pay cut, and my benefits were far more expensive and far less attractive.

I feel I am rambling -- I'm trying to update this between classes. The bell just rang, so I have to get back to work. I hope Duncan is a fantastic Education Secretary -- I hope all my reservations are unfounded. I realize that not all schools have the challenges facing CPS. But our schools aren't that great -- I don't think the man should be that proud of the job that he has done.

What Makes a Great Teacher?

I read this article by Malcolm Gladwell yesterday, and I found it rather fascinating. It was published in The New Yorker, but I read it online.

I like Malcolm Gladwell -- I heard him speak a few years ago, and he was entertaining. Plus he has incredible hair, which is just a bonus.

Gladwell is trying to figure out how to predict who will be a good teacher. He explains the impact of a good teacher on a classroom of students, versus a bad teacher. According to the article, a good teacher can teach students a year and a half worth of material in a year, while a bad teacher will teach students only a half year's worth of material. The impact of a good teacher is more powerful than classroom size (something I never would have imagined).

He even makes the point that it is more advantageous to have a good teacher in a bad school, versus a bad teacher in a good school.

The problem is that there is no good way of predicting who will be a good teacher. Teacher education programs are completely useless at this.

Gladwell then draws a parallel between predicting who will be a good teacher with how to predict which college quarterbacks will be successful in the NFL. As any sports fan knows, often the most celebrated college quarterbacks utterly fail in the NFL. Gladwell uses University of Missouri quarterback Chase Daniel to illustrate this point.

It's a great article, and it really got me thinking. I do think we need to change the system of educating teachers.

When I started college in 1991, I was originally a French and political science major. But by the middle of my second semester, I realized I wanted to major in English. I've always loved reading and writing, and the English degree just felt like the right fit for me.

I knew even then, in the back of my mind, that I wanted to teach high school English. There were a couple of things that kept me from doing so. One, I was in the Fulbright Four Year Honors Scholars Program at the University of Arkansas, and I felt I was too smart to just teach high school. I know that is ridiculous and pompous, but I was a little full of myself in high school and college. Those of us in the honors program felt like we were in the elite at our school, and we aspired to careers that matched our exemplary skills.

So I was going to get my PhD and do extraordinary research and get published and travel the world.

Furthermore, it bothered me how little I felt that the education majors in my English classes seemed to know. At that time, you could get a BSE in education for your teacher certification. I think you only needed twelve hours of core English classes to be certified to teach English. This seemed woefully inadequate. Add to that the fact that most of the education majors I had class with were sorority girls who appeared to be more interested in their MRS degree, and you can see how I'd be turned off by this.

Again, I know how snotty this makes me seem. Please remember that this was many years ago -- I got better! If you made it through college without being uppity and pretentious, well good for you.

So I got my BA in English, and set out to see the world. I soon realized that I did not want a PhD. I really wanted to be a teacher. But I wasn't there yet.

I had lots and lots of dumb jobs. I lived in San Francisco, which I loved but could not afford. I had many retail jobs. I sold plastic binding in St. Louis. I worked at Starbucks. I was a data entry clerk for the University of Arkansas Physical Plant. I even owned my own bookstore for awhile (which was a disaster).

In 2000, my mom lost her fight with breast cancer after ten long years. I lost my whole world. Then I decided it was time to get my act together.

I moved back to Arkansas (I was still in St. Louis) and enrolled in the College of Education at the University of Arkansas. By that time (2001), the UA had changed its requirements for teacher certification. Now you had to have a four year degree in your content area, and then completed a masters degree in teaching. From start to finish, it's a five year program, but as I already had the degree in my content area, I had to spend one year in undergraduate education classes before I could start the masters program.

The undergraduate education classes were less than inspiring. The instructors seemed to have very little recent classroom experience. But I got through it, because I'd heard really good things about the masters program.

I would say the masters program was valuable, but still not applicable to my actual classroom experiences. For one, I knew I wanted to teach outside of the state of Arkansas (I love Arkansas, but wanted to live in a major city and didn't want to stay in the Bible Belt). Not one of my professors had any experience teaching in an urban district, much less an inner city environment. And I had no idea what that would entail, either. I think I may want to get my doctorate in education at some point in the future, just so that I can help prepare teacher education students for what really happens in a classroom. But that's a post for another day.

I've already written about what my first year teaching in Chicago was like, so I won't go into that again. I'll just reiterate that it was really, really difficult and I cried in my car a great deal.

So I agree with Gladwell's assertion that teachers should be treated like apprentices -- if you can make it through a two or three year induction program and can perform, then you should get to teach and get paid really well. How you actually perform in a classroom is far more powerful than anything you will learn in an education class. Granted, you will have to be given the support to do that -- which doesn't happen for most new teachers.

I'm definitely against the idea of tenure, although now that I have it, I'm glad. But it is crazy that just because I've taught for a number of years, I should not have to worry about being fired. I don't think that is a good way to keep teachers motivated. Until there is a good and consistent method for evaluating teachers, though, I think it will have to remain in place (especially as far as Chicago Public Schools is concerned).

At any rate, the article kind of got my excited. I am not a great teacher, but I do care about my students, and I normally am able to establish a rapport with them that is valuable to me. I want to use my maternity leave to not only take care of my new baby, but to reevaluate why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place. I am hoping that I can start the next school year with a renewed passion for the profession. I need that, and I know it would benefit my students, as well.

How I Ruined Santa for My Sister

This is a true story, according to my sister. Although I do not remember this. My sister shared this story during her toast to me at my wedding reception. I do not think I've ever laughed so hard in my entire life.

According to my sister, when I was around 9 or 10, and she was around 7 or 8, I sat her down on her bed and we had the following conversation:

Me: "Do you know what sex is?"

Heather: "Nooo. . ."

Me: "It's when Dad puts his penis in Mom's vagina!"

Heather: Painful, stunned silence.

After about five minutes of my letting this information sink in, I then add, "And there's no Santa Claus, either!"

My poor sister insists that Christmas was never the same for her after that.

But I am the older sister -- it was my job to share such knowledge with her.

Merry Christmas! (And Heather, I'm really, really sorry I did that to you!)

The Bad and the Good

Sorry I've been lax in blogging the past couple of weeks. I've been so tired and have been working on Christmas crafts (that's a separate, upcoming post). This baby can show up at any time, and I want all my Christmas decorations done before then. I don't know why this is so important to me, but it is. Part of my nesting instinct, I suppose.

At any rate, school is as chaotic as ever. I came to work yesterday and collected my substitute folder. I had to spend Wednesday at another school for a professional development session, so I had a sub. It's always scary trying to figure out what the sub did and how the students may have treated the sub. My sub wrote me a note saying that most of the students were pretty quiet, although none did any work.

She didn't have any trouble until 9th period. A student came to class at 2:50. 9th period ends at 2:55. The sub told the kid that she could not mark him as present when he is that late. This made the kid irate -- he started yelling racist comments to her about white power and slavery and whatnot (the sub is white; the student is black).

I wrote up that student and took the form to the assistant principal, who said she would put him in in-school-suspension for the day. At least I would not have to put up with him for the day.

I made it to my lunch period, which is 7th period. I was just getting settled to eat my lunch when some student pulled the fire alarm. On the coldest day of the school year thus far. It used to be that when the fire alarm was pulled, the fire department showed up in a couple of trucks and inspected the building, but it would appear that the connection to the fire department has been severed, so when the alarm goes off, no one from the fire department shows up. I'm pretty sure this is illegal, and if we ever have a real fire, we are screwed.

But every time the fire department would show up, our school would get a hefty fine. So this is the solution they came up with. Neat, huh?

The alarm went off, the building was evacuated, and the kids had a big fight. We were just about to go back in the building when the alarm was pulled again. So we stood outside in the cold a bit longer. I was smart and got my coat and scarf before I left the building.

They finally let us back in and there were about four minutes of my lunch period left. I had eaten a salad and my yogurt, but nothing else. I managed to cram my cupcake in my mouth before the bell rang. I'd been thinking about that damn cupcake all day long!

The day ended at last, and I made my way to my car. Parking at my school is always an issue, because the lot the teachers use is also used by students. A disgruntled student broke my car window two years ago, and after that, I do not like parking there. Plus when it snows, they don't bother to clear the lot. Twice this week I've had to park in the lot, because you can't park on the street when it snows. Walking across the layer of ice is never fun, but it's even less fun when you are 34 weeks pregnant.

Yesterday I was able to park on the street, right in front of the school. I get in my car, and hear loud thumping noises. Students are throwing frozen snowballs at my car. While I am in it. One of these students is yelling at me. I look over at him (I don't know him) and he is asking me if I want some weed. He then shows me the joint he is smoking. Awesome.

I've been trying to think of good things that happen at work. Just to attempt to balance out some of the bad. I have two examples of positive interactions I've had recently, just so you won't feel too sorry for me!

I have a student in my sixth period class who is a good kid. He doesn't say much, but he's always on time and he is always respectful. He does his work, and he has an A in my class. At report card pickup, he and his mom came to talk to me. His mom was almost in tears, because this kid had never passed English before. She told me that he has spent the last two summers in summer school making up the English credit he had failed. I would have had no idea he had this trouble -- in my class he is great. So the fact that he is successful with me made me feel really good. I don't know if I should get any credit for his success, but I'm going to feel good about it, anyway.

My other success story is a student I'll call Dee. I had her last year in my 9th period sophomore English class. She was terrible in that class -- rarely came to class and when she did come, she was really late and would sit there listening to her headphones. Never did any assignments.

One afternoon I had had enough. I made her stay after class to discuss her grade and performance with me. She sat down with me and I asked her if she lived with her mom. She said she did. I asked her what her mom did for a living. She told me her mom cleaned hotel rooms for a hotel downtown.

I said, "Dee, this is not meant in any way to disparage your mom. But do you think that when your mom was a little girl, that she dreamed of cleaning hotel rooms? Do you think that's what she imagined she would be doing for a living?"

At that question, Dee started to cry. Which made me feel really bad. I got teary, too. I told her that kids are supposed to be tributes to their parents. And her mom wants a better life for Dee. That Dee owes it to her mom to make her mom's work and sacrifices worthwhile.

Dee just looked at me and kept crying. It was pretty intense. I again tried to make sure she understood that I was not insulting her mom -- that I just wanted her to think about the situation. I said that cleaning hotel rooms is an honest job, but it's the kind of job you take because you need a job to feed your kids. That Dee has a chance to have get an education that can allow her to get a job that she truly wants.

Then I asked her what she wanted to do when she grows up. She said she wanted to be a teacher. I told her that was a terrible idea, and we both laughed. It helped alleviate some of the tension. Then we talked about what she needed to do to get caught up in my class, and the goals she needs to work towards to get through high school so she can go to college and become a teacher.

The next day, she cut my class. But the next day after that, she came, and has come ever since. She got all of her work made up and ended up with a B, I think. I was so proud of her. I gave her my email address, and she'll email me occasionally. Nothing about school -- she'll just ask me how I'm doing or how the baby is doing, or will remind me to not let the kids get me stressed out.

She's in my 5th period junior class this year. And she's still coming to class and doing all her work. Her birthday is January 22, and she was hoping that I would have my baby on her birthday. I told her that was not going to happen -- sorry. That she should have had a December birthday and that I better have had this baby before January 22nd!

When I'm having a terrifically bad day (and there have been many lately) I do three things. I look at pictures of my daughter online. I rub my huge belly. And I think about students like Dee. I have had some amazing students in my career. I just have to remember that. It is so easy to dwell on the bad ones. But I need to dwell on the good ones.

The other good news is that I have made it through week 34 of this pregnancy, and I'm still pregnant. My daughter was born at 34 weeks to the day. So this baby won't be a preemie, or at least not as much a preemie as Emiko was. Yay! I'm hoping this baby boy can make it to December 19th at least. That's my goal. That's the day winter break starts, and he would be considered just about full term. I'm crossing my fingers and thinking happy thoughts.