Exam Pressure

It’s been several weeks since I posted anything. This time of year is filled with frenzied activity; everything from open house to Christmas shopping has worn me out. I leave at 6:30 in the morning, and because of tutoring, don’t get back home until after 7:00 in the evening. It seems that every weekend is filled with some time consuming activity, and the homework, quizzes, and tests that need to be graded are never-ending. Since this is semester exam week at most schools I meet with my last outside tutoring student last evening. Before leaving school at 2:15 yesterday I got my last papers graded and finished 2nd quarter grades.

Today I am giving semester exams to my 5th and 6th period classes before going home to rest before the faculty Christmas party this evening. This year we are going to a local restaurant for dinner and drinks. My wife and I are both planning to attend, provided the predicted winter ice storm doesn’t materialize before we leave. The snow storm on Tuesday this week complicated travel to the point that a normal half-hour trip to one of my tutoring students took almost 2 hours. The storm tonight is predicted to be worse, and if it is we are staying home.

Right now I am writing this while watching my regular chemistry class take their exam. There are 23 of them; 3 have dropped since the beginning of the year. For the most part I like them. Almost all are interested in doing well, if not prepared to work hard for it, and I can see from their note cards that they put in some effort to prepare. Sure I have some problem students in this class—a colleague likes to refer to them as “mouth-breathers”—but even these poor souls are well intentioned.

I have one student in danger of failing the semester. He failed 2nd quarter, mostly because he doesn’t turn in homework or lab reports, but is very bright. If he fails the semester exam he will fail first semester and have to repeat this summer. I have faith that he will come through with at least a D.

On Monday and Tuesday I gave the A.P. Chemistry semester exam. The grades this year were somewhat disappointing. Of 28 students in the class there were 5 D’s and 3 F’s on the exam. One of the D’s was earned by a young man ranked number 2 in his class. The girl just ahead of him in class rank got an A. He is always complaining that he can never keep up with her, and he is correct.

A quick look over the faces of my regular chemistry class shows an intense look on almost everyone. Several have a chance of getting an A if they do well on the exam. For most, this test will be the difference between a B or a C for first semester.
Many of the most promising students in class, based on their standardized test scores, are in that B-C range. The best of the group in terms of grades are almost all girls and all of just average ability, again based on standardized test scores. The one boy who has a legitimate chance of getting an A is a basketball player. The A would not be in question if not for his uneven performance. Another young man is very capable, but misses so much school that he is always trying to catch up—he has a lock on a B but no real prospect for an A.

One of my solid C students, a young lady, is holding her head up on her hand, mouth open, eyes glazed over; her signature look. The only time you would know she is awake is when she is startled by something I say; which is usually followed by her asking me if what I just said was going to be on the exam.

Parent-Teacher Confrontations

Last week ended with Parent-Teacher conferences on Thursday afternoon/evening and then a welcome free day on Friday. My Friday off consisted of bringing my car to the shop for its 100,000 mile check up—but that’s another story.

I have 131 students, and had 18 conferences scheduled. This is about an average number for teachers in our building. If you teach freshmen, you will have more parents who want to see you; the new Biology teacher had 40 appointments scheduled. If you teach seniors very few will bother. I teach sophomores and juniors; almost all of them honors students, so I get a mix of parents who are concerned because their child doesn’t have an A, or their child has an A and they just want to hear how wonderful they are. I tell all my students that if they have an A to tell their parents not to schedule a conference; threatening to find something bad to say about them if their parents do. Of my 18 scheduled conferences 12 were with students that had an A.

I had identified 11 students whose parents I wanted to speak with, emailing each the week before, requesting a conference. These were underachievers or discipline problems, and only 5 of them replied--three to tell me that a meeting was impossible because of their schedule, and two to make an appointment. Both of those appointments were productive, resulting with an agreement that the student would be dropped from Honors Chemistry at semester. I will be contacting the six who didn’t reply this week to inform them that I have decided to request their child be dropped from Honors into a regular level class. I will give them one last chance to meet with me before I turn in the paper-work.

All in all the conferences went rather well; most of the conferences with a potential to go badly were not scheduled. Email is a wonderful thing because it allows me to keep a record of all correspondence with parents; something that might be helpful if a parent complains that their child was reassigned without consulting them.

Several of my problems this year stem from problems with the teacher that left last year. He had been told many times not to sign students into an advanced level of science without my permission, but ignored these directives and moved students up from basic level to regular level, and regular level to honors without my approval. This unfortunate situation has caused many of these students to struggle; requiring them to be moved back into an appropriate level this year. Parent teacher conferences always work best when teacher and parent work in partnership for the good of the student. They tend to be nonproductive and negative when they become adversarial in nature. Just ask my colleague who had a 20 minute meeting with a parent wanting to argue a single test question on a previous exam. The student in question had a 102% average in her class.

A Day Off The Tredmill Is Not Always A Bad Thing

Yesterday was “Step-Up” day when local 7th graders are invited to spend the day at our school to see what High School life is all about. Our administration sponsors buses that picked up 400+ children from 20 or so local grade schools for the festivities. Activities included a tour of the facilities, a science lab demonstration, a mini band concert, and the performance of a scene from the fall play. Lunch is provided for all who attend, including teachers from the feeder schools who accompany their students. We do our best to show off our current students by having them act as tour guides for the visitors.

Needless to say, the day is almost a total loss from the teaching stand-point. Class periods are shortened and many students are missing. I had 7-10 students missing for the first four classes, with more than half gone for 7th period. The students that were present worked on a homework assignment that is due tomorrow. I never try to teach something new on a day like this.

Opinions vary among my colleagues, from acceptance and tolerance (myself included) to bitter hostility for the unwanted disturbance. Days like this are annoying, but necessary for the future of the school. Without a constant stream of new students to fill the desks, none of us would have a job. I find the day to be an agreeable distraction in my normally busy schedule. My students worked at their desks, I graded papers, and 400+ 7th graders and their teachers got a day off school—who could complain.

Some school districts are very sensitive about missed teaching time—even to ridiculous levels. A former student of mine who now teaches science in the area almost got fired because of a planned field trip. She told me that she wanted to take her students to a local museum to see an exhibit related to what they were learning in class. The administration canceled the field trip, saying that it took time away from teaching that was needed to meet state and local learning standards. She wasn’t happy, but canceled the trip, notifying the parents that they could take their child out of school to visit the exhibit on their own if they had time and thought it would be worth the effort.

The administration called her in and threatened to fire her for “inciting truancy.” Apparently even the suggestion that a parent might want to keep their child home, even if for a legitimately educational purpose, undermined the districts attempt to meet state standards. Lucky for her, cooler heads prevailed and she got to keep her job. If she hadn’t been so serious when telling the story I would have thought that she was joking.
In case you’re interested, her school has relatively low scores on the state exams. Too bad the administrators seem to have no idea what to do about it.

Why I hate Politics

Yesterday, election day, the students were very interested in knowing who I was going to vote for. In all my years of teaching I have never discussed politics in my class or given students any indication of who I would vote for, and this year was no exception. Several were quite upset because I would not indicate a preference, but I do not believe in classroom endorsements. Unfortunately, many of my colleagues aren’t of the same mind.

I really don’t discuss my preferences in voting with anyone, not even close friends. Even my wife isn’t sure who I voted for. We host Thanksgiving for the family every year and my only rule at the family gathering is—no discussion of politics in my home. When politics are discussed, invariably everyone doesn’t agree, and a bitter fight ensues. I would rather eat pumpkin pie and enjoy watching football.

In a complete reversal of one of my most strongly held beliefs, I will now tell anyone who reads this blog whom I voted for and why. I voted for John McCain.

I am not a member of the Republican or Democrat Party, and consider myself an independent. The first presidential candidate I ever voted for was George McGovern. I have voted tor Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. Bush, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton in different elections. I almost never vote in a primary, and many times don’t make up my mind until days before the election. Usually something happens in the last few days of an election to sway my vote one way or the other. This year I listened carefully to what each had to say and tentatively decided I would vote for Obama. I believe that taxes should be lower on the middle class and higher on the rich, we should have a health system like that of Canada, and the money many CEO’s make is obscene. I know he is untested and inexperienced, but decided that it was reasonable to give him a chance to “fix” what we both agreed was wrong.

About a week ago I was watching one of those political discussion programs on TV and watched a young woman and an older man debate the candidates. The woman got upset at one point when the older man accused Obama of wanting to raise taxes. She looked into the camera and asked the people “out there” to listen carefully—then stated that Obama would lower taxes on every family that made less than $250K a year and that McCain would lower taxes for the rich only. The older man began laughing; making the young woman even more agitated, and countered that Obama would raise taxes on everyone after taking office. The older man explaining that Obama planned to get away with it by arguing that the deficit was worse than he had expected and had no choice. The next day stories surfaced that Obama’s economic advisors were still debating whether $250K or $125K would be the cut-off for a tax cut.

I brought this up with a colleague who is a vocal Obama supporter, hoping that he would have a better response than the young woman on TV. The only thing he did was to argue that McCain was going to raise taxes on me and lower them on the rich. Trying to discuss this calmly, I told him that I wasn’t afraid of that because the almost certain Democrat control of Congress would not allow it, adding that I wasn’t sure that that same Congress would make Obama keep his promise. At this point he got angry and started yelling at me for being a dangerous “ultra conservative.” This is why I don’t like to discuss politics.

At that point I knew that Obama was a politician, not a leader, and would say anything to get elected. The promise of a middle-class tax cut was a lie, and Obama knew it! More importantly, if he would lie about this, what else were we being promised that he knew he could never deliver, and why should I vote for him, even if everyone else in the world was?

I hope I am wrong and Obama will do, or at least try to do everything he promised. If so I will vote for him in four years. If not, in four years I will be driving around with a bumper sticker that says "Don't Blame Me, I Voted For McCain" and will have the moral authority to scold those of you who fell for the apparent lie. I almost did