M--- Goes to Science Camp

For the last two years, Science Camp was my favorite week of the school year and this year continued the trend. As I am really just a glorified chaperone, I get to watch my students engage in the most authentic learning imaginable: walking through the woods and constantly acquiring and applying new knowledge. I love my Direct Instruction, it’s clearly right for teaching arcane math skills, but a hike at science camp is education as it should be.

This year, however, my experience of science camp centered around one student, M----. M---- has spinal bifida and is paralyzed from the chest down. As with most of the students I’ve run into with serious disabilities, he copes by developing a charming personality. He has a great sense of humor, strong vocabulary in both English and Spanish, and keen sense of empathy.

Unfortunately, these personality traits do not always translate into academic success. In class, he is often listless and unfocused. He rarely participates and often does not complete assignments. Much of this stems from his being pulled out of class for various special services five or six times a day, leaving him disconnected from the stream of any lesson. The services are vital and unavoidable, but the result is a constant sense of disengagement for and from M---.

Science Camp brought M---- to life like nothing I have seen before. I saw him engaged and participative during lessons, willing to venture out of his chair for a chance to dip his hand in a cold stream, and anxious to push himself, literally and figuratively, so as not to miss a moment. One day, I took him in a special off-roading wheel chair on a rather difficult hike. We traversed rocks, steep hills, narrow paths and corkscrew turns. M--- bounced from side to side of his chair, peering over the edge and sticking his hand out to grab at flowers and grass, focused for every minute.

Usually M--- is very reluctant to wheel himself about, relying constantly on others to the point of immature development of his arm muscles. By dinner on the second day, he was pushing himself to and fro without a second thought. One evening, I watched as M--- pushed himself across the camp to the nurse’s station, with an accessible water fountain, and brushed his teeth by himself for the first time in his life.

Supervising shower-time, I came into M---‘s cabin and was greeted by a chorus of boys exclaiming, “M---- can drift!” “Drifting,” for those who did not appreciate the third incarnation of the Fast and the Furious, is when a car turns by slamming on the brakes at a high rate of speed. The boys would take turns pushing M--- up to speed down the length of the cabin, then let go, and he would slam on the brakes and turns his chair ninety degrees. This made me a little nervous, but M--- was having far too much fun for me say no. I answered the liability angel on my shoulder by noting that he was wearing a seatbelt, after all.

There were, of course, compromises in M---‘s experience. He could not go on the day-long “Epic Journey,” that is a large part of the camp lore. He was, as at school, frequently pulled out of various activities to receive treatments. I heard from another teacher that he complained of realizing some of the new extents of his disability, as well as his abilities, as he watched others in the outdoor environment. Nonetheless, I can’t help but focus on his statement that he wanted to stay at the camp for 20 days.

This post would not be complete without recognizing the woman who truly made M---‘s trip to Science Camp possible. M---- requires certain medical procedures thrice daily. His family could provide this in the evening, but not the morning. A nurse from the district volunteered to drive up to the camp all three mornings at 6AM and again at 11AM to facilitate this. She rearranged her own life and the day-care routines for her own children to allow M--- to attend the camp. I would do a great many things for my students but getting up at 4:30? Wow.

By the end of camp, M--- had driven himself to exhaustion, literally. He had to get up hours earlier than the other students, and often stayed up late joining in their whispered conversations. On Friday, he complained of dizziness and met our queries with glassy-eyed unresponsiveness. Most shockingly, he crashed his chair and almost fell out. We tried to get him to lie down, but he refused to miss a moment of the camp. We compromised and his mother picked him up just an hour or two early. It was the only time I’ve ever seen M--- cry.

Thank you!!!

As I mentioned earlier, I’m at science camp. For most of my students, this is the best week of the year, sometimes of their young lives. I want to thank the people who made it happen. I think this is worth making public because if any of you are in the position of anyone on this list, I hope you’ll do what they did.

1) The Teachers. Science camp is only possible if the teachers are willing to make it happen. I love it but my grade-level partners might not. They have to participate in all the organization and preparation, as well as acquiesce to living in the woods with their kids for 100 straight hours. It’s worth it, teachers, it’s unquestionably worth it.

2) The Man. My principal rocks for many reasons, not the least of which is his willingness to promote science camp. It costs the school a hefty portion of our field trip budget ($8500) and probably a week of instructional time, but The Man doesn’t even flinch. Most of the schools in our district don’t go, so he has the political out if he ever wanted it. But The Man knows what’s right for our kids and he sends us every year.

3) The Donor. A good friend of mine heard that our beloved science camp was endangered because of the expiration of a large grant. He’s a very charitable man, in addition to being brilliant, successful and handsome. (Disc: He reads this blog.) Rather than lavishing his philanthropy on somewhere it could do benefit to his career, or at least get him into a swanky charity ball, he quietly and anonymously gave it to our school through Donor’s Choose. I certainly don’t expect him to do it again, so if you, kind readers, have any desire to be similarly generous, please let me know.

4) The Parents. It kills me, but 12 parents could not summon the psychic wherewithal to allow their kids to attend a camp provided for them, for free, by the school. I called and begged. The principal called and begged. They wouldn’t budge. I thought this was bad but the school we’re up here with convinced less than half of their students to attend! That sort of number makes me appreciate the parents who are willing to allow their children to go. This year, I took heaps of pictures to try and convince more of next year's hold-outs to let their kid go.

What am I missing?

I’m at science camp with my kids, enabling me to blog the way blogging was meant to be, short, reactionary, and hoping for a response. I just finished reading WaPo’s NCLB article and it offers me a nice chance to ask what I’ve always wanted to know:

Why is it 100% “proficient” rather than 100% “improving?”

I realize that the formulators of NCLB were not educators but why hasn’t the education community rallied around the idea of a growth model? Even the very notion of “no child left behind” implies a dynamism better incorporated in constantly moving, individually identified, targets. The growth targets should be asymptotic, encouraging schools to focus on the lowest and neediest, while still demanding that the high-performers are challenged enough to improve. This would instantly solve the savage triage situation schools are put into now, where students who are not possibly going to pass (or not possibly going to fail) must be left to the wolves for the school to survive. The marks for all levels could be calibrated by the pace of improvements students would need to make to pass the CAHSEE by the end of 12th grade. Thus, it would never be sufficient for the school to raise a student to a level inadequate for them to graduate high school.

I realize that 100% is a powerful rhetoric no one wants to back away from. Nor should we. All students should have an equal opportunity to attain an excellent education. But demanding that 100% of my 5th graders, some of whom speak only a year and a few months of English, pass a test most native speakers fail, is not “unrealistic,” it’s sheer idiocy. However, demanding that every student in the state make meaningful improvements every year sounds like a really good idea.

What am I missing?

Humorous note of reality – I’m actually coming to you live from my students’ cabin. There’s a group refusing to go to sleep, so I’m just typing away while I supervise. I love wi-fi.

Those Damn Details

There are many things I am not good at, including, but not limited too, hitting a baseball, handwriting, driving in San Francisco, eating without spilling, and minding the details. Most of my incompetencies rarely impact my ability to be successful in this world, but those damn details come back to haunt me endlessly.

I am not good with task lists, schedules, speedy replies, materials organization, or really, when you get down to it, “being responsible.” I take responsibility for my mistakes, I live a socially responsible life, I’m even trying to be more environmentally responsible, but in the classic report card sense, when it comes to “being responsible,” I’ve got an F. It’s not that I’m lazy or a procrastinator. If anything, it’s quite the opposite; I fill my mind with so many things that I can’t possibly remember all of them. But like I tell my kids: that’s a reason, not an excuse.

This has been a lifelong issue for me. Hardly a week goes by where I don’t hear both of my parents’ voices echoing in my head, telling me that if I don’t become more responsible, it will come back to haunt me. One of my earliest memories of education was my responsibility sheet in kindergarten. I remember how we were supposed to bring it in and get a sticker every day. Most weeks, I think I had one sticker.

Lately I have been struggling with a series of “responsibilities,” from GATE testing to grant writing. The most recent and urgent is that we’re leaving for science camp tomorrow and I forgot to order the lunches. I promised myself that I would dominate the responsibilities of science camp this year. I was all over the multiplicity of forms, I emailed my spread-sheets of cabin groups, health lists, and special needs the appropriate week in advance, we booked the buses and the subs months in advance, we had three parent meetings, and I personally called all the English speaking no-go’s to beg their parents to let them attend. But in the end, do I manage to forget a big one? Yep. I took “responsibility” for my mistake, I went to Costco tonight and bought materials for 45 elementary school lunches, but a more responsible teacher never would have blown it in the first place.

At the beginning of my first year, my credential supervisor told a seminar of student-teachers, “When I was a principal, I asked teachers to rate themselves on organization, 1 to 10. I never hired anyone who didn’t say they were a 9 or a 10.” At the end of her year of supervision she said, “You know, you’re one of the only one of my students I would actually hire if I were still administrating.” I thanked her, but reminded her of her earlier comment. She said, “That’s a good point, I take it back.” I’m still unsure if she was kidding or not.

Such a lacking in the skill-set is fine for an academe or a writer, but hardly acceptable for a teacher. Now, I’ve reached a point where my lack of organization is embarrassing and professionally detrimental. There are consequences to my mistakes that affect others, notably the students I work so hard for. I’m also concerned that my inattention to details will compromise the advancement of my career, tempering recommendations and reputations. Yet this doesn’t seem to be enough to bring these issues to an end. My past is littered with systems and plans for organization and responsibility. I even bought a PDA, hoping that my love of gadgetry would carry over into organization. No such success. On the way over to Costco, I found myself banging the steering wheel in deep frustration. Despite trying my hardest to be focused and responsible on one project, I still couldn’t do it.

Any suggestions?

The Resources We Need

Most of the time, I can delude myself into believing that I have all the resources I need to be successful. I have unlimited copies, a $200 yearly supply budget, five working computers, a high-speed laser printer, and an LCD projector. I even, not too rub it in too much, have air-conditioning.

But a school is not just a classroom; it is an entire system. We would not want a hospital consisting of just operating rooms, no matter how well equipped they are. We treat our children’s bodies with a dizzying array of specialists, ---a doctor for getting pregnant, another to have the baby, a different one to treat the tot, another for when the tot-turned-teen has acne, and certainly two more when the teen-now-college-kid has appendicitis or breaks his hand. Yet we treat our children’s minds to a generalist. As just three of my many needy students can show, we need so much more than teachers at a school.

A--- is dangerously hyperactive. Running around a corner at full speed, unconscious of where he was or what he was doing, he recently knocked a first grader to the ground and sent her to the hospital with a concussion. A few days later, he tackled a classmate at recess and then immediately broke into tears, sobbing for forty-five minutes because he truly didn’t mean to do it. He has no access to health care, and thus no access to ADHD-treating drugs, and finally, unable to sit still long enough to learn, no real access to education. I cannot diagnose or prescribe anything, I can recommend and recommend but that does not make the doctor appear.

P--- is a great kid. At my conference with his mother, she admitted that she had no idea what to do with him as he began to grow into a pre-teen and test the boundaries of discipline. His father has left and she’s far from her family. I’ve watched him get ruder and ruder around the classroom and the school. I’ve watched his homework disappear and his tardies inflate. I’ve talked to his mom, but I’m a novice in teaching and still only a recipient of parenting. I cannot give a mother the advice she needs to raise her son.

T--- comes from a horrifically abusive home. He is a smart and charismatic child deeply tormented by what he’s seen. Despite obvious aptitude, he is disruptive and emotional. His remaining parent is as lost on how to help him as we are. Everything about him cries out for someone to help him understand who he is and what he has seen. I am sure that his issues would be familiar to a professional, but I cannot begin to counsel the boy. All I can do is hand the mother a business card for a center she probably cannot afford and whose hours she definitely cannot attend.

Every year, I find myself trying to help families cope with children perpetually overdosed by the chemical imbalances produced by their own bodies. Every year, I find myself trying to help parents wholly unready for the demands of child-rearing. Every year, I find myself trying to help children with tremendous psychological burdens. I’m a young unmarried guy, hailing from the suburbs and a blissful childhood. I have a BA in History and Japanese. I’m a life-long reader, I have a real love for elementary math, but I’ve taken only one semester on Psychology for Educators. I face these problems with no idea what to do and no real professionals to turn to for help.

Schools need ---not golly-gee-it-would-be-nice-to-have--- schools need full-time counselors and social workers. The treatment desperate students and needy families get at schools is often more based on personal experience than professional expertise, and yet it is often the only treatment they get. It is ludicrous to pretend that these issues are outside the scope of schools. Our mandate is to educate, but if these psychological, social, and medical obstacles are standing between our children and their education, we cannot just leave them there and throw up our hands.

Why don’t we have these resources? Money. Relative to our puny discretionary funds, people and their benefits are enormously expensive. Specialists are often even more so. $20,000 covers all the paper, pencils and office materiel we need for a year. A cheap psychologist is $80,000. Even imagining the impossible sacrifice of all supplies, supplementary materials and before/after-school tutoring, our school could still afford to employ only one such additional employee. However, as we all know, relative to the monies we dump into the social costs of poor education, these specialists are a bargain. Why not service our needy children with psychologists and social workers, rather than prosecutors and sheriffs? Health, mental and medical, can be the source of an inequality as savage as any other.

Drawing the Line

I have wrestled with this all year and found no real resolution. It is a relatively personal issue but one that I believe faces a lot of young teachers: drawing the line. How many hours in the twenty-four hour day should I give to The Cause? When should I push myself to work a little harder, when should I relax and take a few hours for myself?

Paul Tough set the high-bar for educators everywhere by implying in his prominent NYT magazine article that KIPP teachers, questionable paragons though they may be, work 15-16 hour days. Other professionals and business people work hundred-hour weeks and cite this as part of the reason for their great status and remuneration. My kids are more needy than KIPP’s and their education more urgent than any bottom line, so does that mean I should work seven 18-hour days a week?

TFA encourages “relentlessness,” which I would translate to “all day, every day.” That’s fine for corps members on a two-year adventure before the cushy academic life of policy school, but not for teachers who want to make this a life-long career. Our profession needs Type-A workaholism but it also needs wisdom and experience. I want to teach my way to the Educator Hall of Fame but I don’t want to burn out along the way.

Allow me to get specific. After spending my first-year trying to import the sleep deprivation practices that worked so successfully in college to teaching, I have learned that I am a far superior teacher when well rested. Perhaps lawyers and investment bankers can read their briefs and study their prospectuses after working until two the night before, but I cannot provide the dynamic instruction required to simultaneously manage and educate 35 ten-year-old minds bred on a steady diet of X-Box and MTV without good rest. Consequently, I refuse to sacrifice sleep, leaving me with an approximately 17-hour day. I already work an 11-hour day at school, 7AM to 6PM, plus another hour or so a night at home. 12 hours are already gone to teaching and another goes to getting up and going to bed. This leaves four, reduced to three and a half by my short-but-suddenly-significant commute. Three and a half becomes two if you’re willing to recognize the relative necessity of cooking, eating, and cleaning up a good dinner. That leaves me with two hours on the weeknights. That’s a thorough read of a day’s set of writing, or a delightful game of Scrabble and a blog entry.

But there are also the weekends. I claim a goodly bit of those for myself. I enjoy long walks and good movies, which take time, though I give up about a few weekend days a month to professional development, accumulated professional urgencies, or school projects. Perhaps more should go? Every Saturday? Half of Sunday too? After weekends come vacations. I’ll admit it: I didn’t do a drop of work over my most recent February break. A teacher at my school came in to prepare materials for the next unit. While I did have to move apartments, I still ached a bit with guilt.

And so we come to the heart of the problem: there is always more that I can do for my students. Not just the dreamland “more” of hunting down that ten-thousand dollar science grant or fashioning more thrilling hand-puppets than ever seen before, but the near-vital “more” of filling out the paper work to evaluate failing students for special services or reading and commenting on student writing. Likewise, there are always more hours in the week, even allowing for seven-hours of sleep. Where do I draw the line?

I think it would be easy to draw the line if it were only a question of profits boosted and money earned. But the return on investment in teaching comes not in pennies per share but lives transformed. I know my law of diminishing returns as well, but I also know that a diminished transformation is certainly better than none at all. I hear constantly that, for our neediest of kids, “nothing is ever enough.” But I live a slightly different perspective: For our young, idealistic teachers, what, if anything, is too much?