I was really pleased with my reading habits this year. I read more than I ever have. In 2017, I read 26 books. Given some demanding life commitments that I knew I had this year, in January I set a goal of reading 20 books. As of right now, I have finished 30. Yay me! (And thank you NYPL for being amazing.)
So when I read Patrick Honner’s post Books I Read in 2018 where he summarizes his year of reading books, I was inspired to write this post. He also inspired me to request On Writing Well from the library. Thanks Patrick!
Most of my reading this year revolved around race. This continued the trend from last year as it’s something that has been on my mind a lot. In addition to reading about race and getting closer to my own whiteness, I was more conscious of the race of the authors I chose to read this year, ensuring that authors of color made up a large percentage of my reading.
Nonfiction | This is usually where I live when it comes to reading. The most impactful were:
Messy by Tim Harford. I’ve always believed that disorder and randomness are highly underrated. This book helped me to better see why.
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo. This was probably the most thought-provoking book I read this year. As a white man, it helped me understand how my own ignorance and privilege has contributed to our racialized society. Written for white people, it was unapologetic and bold.
Teaching to Transgress by bell hooks. Chapter 10 was probably the most important chapter of any book that I read this year — and maybe ever.
Goodbye Things by Fumio Sasaki and Essentialism by Greg McKeown. During late summer and early fall, I read a string of books centered around living with less. Less stuff, less ideas, less commitments. Both well-written, these were two of my favorites.
Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. Easily 5 stars. I knew next to nothing about Apartheid, so (once again) my ignorance was on full display here. I savored Noah’s superb storytelling all the way to the end like a good meal. I was sad that it had to end.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck by Mark Manson. This was such an engaging book from start to finish. This is technically a self-help book, but it didn’t feel like it. It’s more of a reality check; it’s woefully pragmatic and I love it.
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. While I haven’t finished this yet, I already know that it’s special. Both vivid and powerful, he shares a lived experience in a way that feels like an obligatory read for anyone in this country.
Fiction | I told myself that I wanted to read more fiction as compared to last year. I succeeded! Last year I read 3 books and this year I read a whopping…5. I’m trying to get better. Notable were:
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. This really made me think. It took me to places that I never knew I always needed to be. It transformed something that’s in the news every day — young black men who are targeted by the police — something tangible for me. Reading it was a visceral experience. I read it before the movie came out and still haven’t seen the movie, but I want to.
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I read this near the end of the year and the timing was perfect because it tied together so many social issues and stereotypes. It centers on one African woman’s journey in — and out of — American culture. Plus, the writing was stellar.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. Having taught several autistic students through the years, and never making an effort to truly understood their experience, this book was fascinating and informative. It provided such a clear and unadulterated look into the perspective of an autistic young person.
Another school year in the books. As with each passing year, a lot happened in 2017-18. Bullet points seem appropriate.
First and foremost, my adventures with problem-based learning took up most of my mental real estate. That journey deserved its own post.
This was truly the year of the whiteboard. I had 12 of them wrapped around the edges of my classroom this year that we used every day. It was great.
I need to step my game when it comes to the cohesion and collective responsibility that my department shows for one another. Just like last year, I felt isolated this year. More than ever, this year I desperately needed support from colleagues that I didn’t receive. There are lots of reasons for this, but my own introverted nature certainly didn’t help matters any. Next year I hope I can be a better teammate and leader.
While PBL took off in room 227 this year, I’m very disappointed that my push to address racial inequities in my classroom stalled. I failed to build on many of the conversations that I started with my students last year. For example, my Mathematicians Beyond White Dudes initiative halted after Vivienne Malone-Mayes (No. 3). This was due primarily to my borderline obsession with implementing problem-based learning and all the struggles related to it. This issue is deeply personal and I’m very very dispirited that I let it trail off. Several of the kids even called me out on it near the end of the year. This only adds more fuel to the fire for next year. Specifically, with all this work on PBL and discussion-based learning, I’m now interested in exploring the intersection of those two strategies and the racially relevant pedagogy that I hope to espouse. I have a few books lined up this summer that I hope will help me think more about this.
I’ve begun toying with the idea of planning and organizing a ‘Math Night’ next year. This is an exciting idea that I hope I can follow through with.
For the first time ever, I had my kids meaningfully write about the mathematics they were learning this year. It was a ‘metacognitve journal,’ a way of reflecting on their thinking about a particular problem that we solved. I only did one in late spring and it helped me realize that critical reflection like this journal must a component of my classroom moving forward, especially as I move to intentionally develop problem-solving skills in my students. I dramatically underestimated how long it would take me to grade them! Agh!
This year I thought a lot about public and private school collaboration. I spent full days visiting both Phillips Exeter and Horace Mann schools. Both were worthwhile experiences. I hope to continue this work next year – especially with Horace Mann because of proximity.
In the spring, I was very close to having a parent observe my class. I was inspired by an NYCDOE survey that asked whether I’ve had any parent visit my class this year. Although it never happened, for the first time it made me seriously think about the inherent boundaries that exist between parents and the spaces in which their children learn. I may be opening a can with this one, but I would really like to have at least one parent in my room to observe instruction next year.
I got away from standards-based grading this year. As a result, I wasn’t able to help students identify and understand their strengths and weaknesses in any sort of accurate way. This should change next year.
Recently, a colleague of mine just spoke about getting kids to ask more questions in class and he mentioned the use of sentence starters. I’ve been exposed to them for years and never used them. I think they’re so inviting and accessible for students and can help elevate how they articulate themselves. I would love to try them next year.
I taught a math elective this year called ‘Explorations in Mathematics’ that started off strong but fizzled out after the first semester. Much of this had to do with programming.
One of the non-teaching highlights of the year was chaperoning a trip to Denmark in April. Along with 5 other teachers, guidance counselors, and administrators, we accompanied a wonderful group of 24 students on this unforgettable overseas adventure that included homestays with Danish families.
For the 2nd year in a row, I was nominated for a Big Apple Award. I don’t know why I was, but I am grateful and humble nonetheless.
I helped my school adopt the Math for America PLT model as part of our Monday PD cycle this year. This was a useful and engaging way to give teachers a direct say in the PD they experience. As far as I know, a first for school too.
I submitted the two remaining components of my National Board Certification. In December we’ll see what Pearson thinks of me.
Being the second year at my school, I found myself considerably less stressed about everyday happenings than last year. My sense of community grew.
-2. I always enjoy writing my end of school year post. It’s a great way of wrapping my head around all that has happened during the last ten months.
-1. It’s the last day of school – what a difference a year makes! This time last June I was finishing off a ten-year tenure at my previous school, eager for a new beginning. Well, this year was eventful, to say the least. No lie, part of me is surprised that I actually survived it.
0. I should start with how whiteboarding transformed my instruction this year. I’ve had small, desk-sized whiteboards for years, but usually only pulled them out for review. After Alex Overwijk’s session last year at TMC16, I knew that I had to use some VNPS and VRG this year. It only took until March, but I did. I dabbled with creating flow and it was a game changer!
1. All the classrooms are shared at my school so this is a stretch, but I’m thinking of completely defronting my classroom next year. It probably won’t fly next year, but I want my desk in the middle of the room.
2. After I hit my groove with the large whiteboards, it was all downhill from there. We dry-erased ourselves to death. I was also lucky enough to have desks in my room that are dry-erase friendly. I also picked up these sheets, which came in handy while sketching trigonometric and polynomial functions.
3. Through all of this, I discovered the immense learning value and functionality in dry erase. Kids were far more willing to get an answer wrong, to take risks. They knew their work wasn’t permanent. In fact, not only was it easy to edit their work, it was downright fun at times. At a deeper level, they stopped caring so much about being wrong.
4. My standards-based grading ran into a wall this year. This deserves a post in and of itself. But to make a long story short: I made my SBG marks cumulative for the year. What a student learns (or doesn’t learn) in October is still reflected on their grade in June. This means that they had the opportunity retake any concept from any point during the year with no penalty. At the same time, they could also lose proficiency if they demonstrated a lack of understanding on a particular concept – even if they first learned in back in October, say. Most kids didn’t like the system, but I REALLY did. Hmm…
5. Three other bits about my SBG this year. First, as the year progressed, I began to drift away from SBG with my non-Regents (non-state tests) students. It got so hard to make their retakes a priority over my Regents students. This is a problem that I hope I address next year. Second, shortly after the year began, I started requiring students to reserve their seat ahead of time for retakes (instead of just showing up). Before this change, it was a mad house of 25 kids after school trying to retake their concepts. I limited it to 15 students and then it was ok. Lastly, I never found a way to for students who initially demonstrated proficiency to move up to mastery. My focus was on moving kids up from developing to proficiency. The solution may lie in not requiring them to tutor with me before retaking. We’ll see.
6. For the first time in my career, I wrote an end of year letter to my students. I write them all the time anyhow, so I figured why not end the year with one final letter. Each class got their own and it was almost two pages. I included a remark about every student in each class. It really hit home with the kids. One student even said that she was going to frame it.
7. I blame this on my first year blues, but I let too much go this year – especially with my first period class. They were off the wall for much of the year and I was pretty embarrassed by the lack of control I had. I gave them too much latitude early on and it came back to bite me. Across the board, I need to tighten things up next year.
8. Being naive, I attempted to have a parent newsletter. Just like last school year, it went strongly for three months and…flopped. Badly. I don’t want to give up on this idea, but it’s not looking good.
9. I need to call more parents. Maybe instead of a damn newsletter, I make an effort to call each and every parent at the start of the school year. And then follow up as necessary.
10. Being the first year that I’ve taught Common Core Algebra 2, I struggled in knowing what to exactly teach the kids. Let’s just say that I learned a lot of mathematics this year. And I was good until around December…and that’s when the pacing calendar went out the window. I was forced to omit two entire units.
11. For the past several years, I did my best to preplan entire units. I’m talking having detailed handouts for every lesson before the unit begins. Th goal was to think ahead and build strong connections between lessons and key ideas. Because of my struggles with the curriculum, I came to the realization that this practice actually causes me more harm than good. By trying to follow the road map that I constructed prior to the start of the unit, I didn’t leave room flexibility in my students’ thinking that naturally occurred as they learned new things. This whole situation makes me think of this nugget of wisdom that Patrick Honner dropped on me a couple of years ago.
12. My homework structure got better this year. Unit-based DeltaMath was good. Having students check the paper homework it was a success. I realized, though, that I gradually stopped lagging it. This may be related to the curricular issues, but found it hard to plan the homework each night. Next year, I might give the students homework on Friday and make it due the following Friday – with all lagged problems. Then again, I’m now toying with the idea of no homework at all.
13. My A.P. is outstanding. She was the breath of fresh air.
15. A huge professional accomplishment this year was submitting component 2 of my National Board Certification. Damn that thing was work. OMG. I just remembered that I have to submit two more of these next year.
16. Math for America honored me with a Renewal Master Teacher Fellowship. My growth during these last four years has much to do with their influence on my career, so I’m thoroughly pleased that I will be continuing to grow and lead through this dynamic community. On a semi-unrelated note, I co-authored a post on the MfA blog.
17. In March, I was named a Big Apple Award Finalist. Frankly, I don’t know how the hell this happened. I’m grateful though.
18. At the beginning of the school year, I had every student write me a letter introducing themselves. I gave loose guidelines of what I hoped they’d tell me and said that I would write each of them a personalized letter in return. Well, it’s June 28 and not only did I not write everyone back, but I didn’t even read many of the letters until last week. (Reading their letters after a year of getting to know them was pretty interesting, though.) Shame on me!
19. The Token of Appreciation was lost on two different occasions in two different classes this year. Nonetheless, it was still a great year in appreciating the small moments that exist between us.
20. As I stood outside my classroom door this year, I started dishing out high-fives to random students (and staff members) as they walked by me. It was spontaneous, fun, and a total mood-lifter. Also, my fifth-period class always gave me a round of applause at the start of class. I gave them an applause as they exited. It was strange – and totally unforgettable.
22. The Mathematicians Beyond White Dudes initiative was a huge success this year. At the end of the year, I even had a girl present a mathematician that she learned about on a school field trip.
23. I learned how far we need to go, as a school community, to deliberately address race and other social issues with students and staff. A lot goes ignored. Too much in fact. More to come.
24. I’m super excited for next year. I should be teaching the first ever mathematics elective at my school, which will be treat. It’ll probably be filled with kids that need a class and not because they’ve elected to be there, but I’m still eager to explore mathematics beyond Regents and A.P. exams, which is all they know. Also, I hope to kickstart either a mathematics or Educators Rising club next year. I’m on the fence about which it’ll be. The summer will help me decide.
25. The Day in the Life series that I wrote this year challenged my will at times, but I’m glad I stuck it out. It was a wonderful way to capture what was probably the most pivotal year of my career.
27. During a group quiz towards the end of the year, I took notes on student discussions and specific things that students did as they related to productive group work (explaining thinking, showing work, asking good questions, being helpful, etc). At the end of the quiz, I spent three minutes sharing one outstanding thing that I witnessed from each group. It helped push back against social status and helped show them what’s important…which isn’t to know lots of mathematics. I want to do more of this public acknowledgment of student thinking.
28. I learned a lot about my goals this year. Looking back at the goals I set back in September, I made reasonable progress on numbers 2, 4, 6, and 8. If I go ahead and say that I “achieved” those goals (which is pushing it), then that means I had a success rate of 4/10. Whatever. In the end, what I really take from all this is that my focus this year was far too broad. I wanted to change way too much.
29. If I’m honest, it’s the end of June and I’m bothered by the fact that I still don’t feel rooted in my school. While I feel the wheels turning in the right direction, right now I’m not completely invested in what’s happening here. I suppose this is normal given that I just finished my rookie year. But still.
30. Anyhow, year 11 is now in the books. Here’s to making 2017-18 great. See you next June.
-1. It’s that time of year again. The last day of school. Time to get decompress, reflect, and wonder where the hell the year went.
0. Last year proved to be eventful, but this year actually doubled up on that. Whew. Another change in administration. Another roller coaster ride.
1. Probably my biggest takeaway from this year was what I learned about leadership. A huge part of this was my participation in the Learning Partners program and my role as a Model teacher. Visiting other schools and spearheading change in my school made me realize where I am in my career and expectations that I should have for those around me.
2. I loved my classroom set up this year, especially the U-shaped group structure. It allowed me to efficiently assess student understanding. Also, the desks could easily be pushed together for a more intimate group setting. Next year: systematically establishing interdependency by making group work the norm. This will be huge.
3. Game changer: the video-based professional development that I facilitated this year. I experienced so much growth related to this. A more detailed post coming soon.
4. Over the years my parental outreach has been dismal. This year I was proud that I began sending out a monthly “newsletter” via email that contained upcoming events, class announcements, etc. But about three months in, I fell off. Next year, I want to use MailChimp or a similar service to help with this. This is a must do!
5. I promoted far more inquiry in my lessons this year. I had students doing more – more sense making, more investigating relationships – not just paying attention to procedures. I have a long way to go, but I made significant progress.
6. My homework policy this year drifted into nothingness. I started the year strong and slowly, over time, stopped checking it. It was disappointing. I love the idea of lagging it, but I want to greatly simplify the homework experience. Possibly include a reflection (which I want to heavily promote next year) question followed by 2-5 mathematical problems, 1-2 of which are lagged. I may also go with one weekly homework assignment where concepts aren’t indicated for each problem – similar to an exam.
7. As a means of promoting introspection, I chose to compose one deeply reflective tweet per day during the #MTBoS30 challenge in May. I forced myself, every day, to think earnestly about an aspect of my teaching in a concerted manner. I was pushed out of my comfort zone and it was awesome.
8. Lagging my unit exams was a great experience. I just need to ensure that I don’t fall too far behind, which happened this year. I also liked the audits as a means of keeping student knowledge, and records of their knowledge, current. I’m definitely going to stick with both of these assessment structures moving forward.
9. This year I officially began the process of becoming National Board Certified. It will no doubt be a long, arduous process, but a welcomed one.
10. My interest in robotics declined this year. Instead, I’ve rediscovered and rekindled my long-lasting love for mathematics. Although I’ve taught mathematics my entire career – my wholehearted dedication towards perfecting how I teach the content hasn’t always been there. Things are different now.
11. After a couple of years planning, I kickstarted an after-school bicycle club. Moving on two wheels has long been a passion of mine, so sharing this love with students was special.
12. Reflecting on the goals I set for the year, what didn’t I accomplish? Conferencing with students didn’t happen…like, at all. A complete waste of an awesome table I set up in my room. Earning highly effective. Eh. Thankfully, I’ve moved beyond the whole rating thing this year. The retakes culture in my classroom improved this year, but I still need to do better at promoting/mandating this growth mindset structure. There were many after-school sessions where every student was working on a different concept. It was beautiful. I’ve also raised my expectations for students, but I’m still not where I need to be. I did seek student feedback, but more so at the end of the year. I tried, but still couldn’t manage to have my students effectively answer “why am I doing this?” during lessons.
13. My end-of-year algebra 2/trigonometry state exam results were much better this year. I’m proud (read: disappointed) that I’m getting better at teaching my students how to be better test takers of mathematics.
14. Starting in October, every Friday I sent a Reflections email to my colleagues in the mathematics department. It was always an impromptu collection of highlights and interesting happenings from the week we experienced. It was a way of digesting the week in a positive, motivating way. It allowed me to connect with my department on a personal level and they seemed to enjoy it. I’m so proud of this.
15. My standards-based grading was more focused and worthwhile this year. I am thinking of a shift that puts more emphasis on depth of understanding within the domains of mathematics (and not assess concepts in isolation). I was able to use the performance data to drive instruction and remediation strategies, like tutoring. I also began emailing progress reports to students and parents on a weekly basis, which was a big step forward. Although, the layout of the email could be improved.
16. The Token. I just love this. It created a warm atmosphere that went beyond mathematics and injected a good dose of humanity into us all. There were multiple Fridays when I forgot to initiate the passing, which I’m not happy about. That said, the kids took upon themselves to pass it without me many times. Next year, I want a small, simple poster that displays the current holder of the token.
17. I created a class calendar in my room using whiteboard paper. This was simple, but meaningful. I will make it larger next year. I need to post student birthdays!
18. I got far fewer Friday letters this year. Maybe I should get into the habit of placing the box near the front of the room on Fridays so that we all can be reminded? At the same time, I wrote my students a lot this year – especially while they took exams.
19. I have been highly critical of those making excuses this year, including myself. If something doesn’t happen, it’s because that thing wasn’t a priority. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Discover what matters and pour everything you have into it. Don’t look back.
20. This year was a crossroads for me. The 2016-17 school year will bring dramatic changes to my career and school family. I’ve never been more ready for the sunrise that I’ll witness in September 2016. Here’s to writing the next chapter.
