sorry about the typos!!!!!... but i have a zillion other things to do tonight!
Tomorrow is the annivesrary of Katrina, and in light of this, I will attempt to be brief. Things down here are moving so slowly, and with so little disregard for the citizens and survivors, it is a wonder someone hasn't blown something up.
So, just to keep everyone posted, I start school in one week. I will be spending my happy August 29 birthday in Literacy Instruction seminars from 8-4, and then I have grad school from 5-10.
After a long, stressful wait, I have been assigned to a school without a building: Landry HS, In its day, it was a great school, but the building is a total mess. In fact, despite my principal's promises that it will be under construction soon, there are rumors that it will be bulldozed thsi weekend. It has been condemned since FEMA and the National Guard left it, and it was squatted for a time.
We have been given 4 rooms at the end of a hallway in an elementary school. Despite community pressure to open it, only 18 students are currently enrolled - fortunately it is only going to be a 9th grade center until it gets off the ground. Despite the enrollment, there are 2 Englia h teacher assigned to the schoo, and it is unclear to me whenther I will be co-teaching, or even if I have a classroom.
Things are an absolute MESS down here right now, and very
little is getting done by the powers that be. We have a new
superintendant, and a whole new system, but when it comes down to it...
...most of the people making the decisions have lost sight of WHO the
decisions are being made about: the battered, emotionally scarred,
abused, poorly educated youth of New Orleans.
For example, instead of being an English teacher this year, I am teaching Read 180, a remedial
literacy program because 85% of 9th graders in NOLA are reading at a
6th grade level... or below... and lacking basic decoding skills and
vocabulary.
Great! It's a neat program! They will really succeed with it, I think!
Of course, I received no training in how to use it... I was scheduled to be in another mandatory meeting on the same day.
But.......
they still have to take the REGULAR ENGLISH I test to get out of
the 9th grade! And, because it is a state exam, I don't have access
to the test beforehand.
So basicaly, I have to tell my students....
"Wow! I am so proud of you this year! You have worked so hard and learned so
much! You have exceeded my wildest expectations and I care for you
all so much!
Now, take this test that you will fail totally because I
didn't prepare you for it, and don't let that affect your self-esteem
or your sense of helplessness about your position and situation in the
world."
I am FURIOUS about so many things here, I really want to quit beforeI
have even started. I also know though that the great things come out
of strife, and that the students are what is really important.
This is just a brush on the surface of what has been challenging down here, and in only one aspect. And I don't want to sound super-negative becasue I know when I get into school, things will be different.
So, if you have a moment, whistle a little chant/prayer/song for New Orelans, and the students of New Orleans. They need it... and so do their teachers!
angele [email] said at 8:08 PM 08-28-2007: Kaycee!!! Happy birthday tomorrow. Will you be at Cohen? I have to go to Sarah Reed.
Right on about all the foolishness. You are at the brunt of what I call "older kids??? WTF!!" The new pedagogy and all the dollars that follow it say that early intervention is where it's at. So the elementary school students have gorgeously planned curriculums and facilities. Everybody in elementary ed at the RSD is getting a hefty dose of training in RTI, the new buzz acronym that means response to intervention. It basically means giving the kids interventions when they start struggling instead of waiting around for the lengthy IEP process...
When it comes to preparing for the older kids, well... They just sorta get stamped as hopeless because the literature is just so dismal - all those damningly low success rates of remediating HS students who have been left behind. That's not to say it's impossible. I just read a book called "It's Being Done" about some schools that have beaten the odds. It's written by Karin Chenowith and you should check it out.
Of course none of this explanation could possibly assuage your righteous frustration and outrage. Keep that outrage and don't lose your heart amidst the unsavory, disappointing bullshit that we've had to endure. Keep your voice on here to expose the ridiculousness. It's a crime what they've failed to do for these kids and it's not fair that they've given you an impossible job. BUT you WILL learn so much in your experience that will help you to help these kids in a way they desparately need.
jennyjams said at 3:38 AM 08-29-2007: heyhey! you'll be close to us (well, actually, if you ever go to the rsd main office on poland, then you are really really close to us). do you know if there will be young audiences programming there? if not, you should plant the seed so we can ride bikes to work. welcome to the neighborhood!
angele [email] said at 6:00 PM 08-30-2007: Yay Jenny! My principal is all about bringing enrichment programs to the kids. If you have any ideas of something, we could write a grant to the Louisiana Endowment for the Arts (where my friend works) and we could make it happen... My school is in Central City.
On Poland, administration and chaos happens. There is no space for children and fun things.
I really need to organize something so that I can say hi to everyone.
ed [email] said at 8:40 PM 08-28-2007:
Now, take this test that you will fail totally because I
didn't prepare you for it, and don't let that affect your self-esteem
or your sense of helplessness about your position and situation in the
world."
This really enrages me, because I am all about building up the kids, and letting them know that I believe in them. In your place, I would probably implode from anger.
I will pray, whether or or not anyone else believes it will help, that your efforts will inspire the students' efforts, and that the wildest expectations of the State and the "system" are not only met, but exceeded in an amazing fashion.
katie [email] said at 12:01 AM 08-29-2007: Um ... except that if a gale force wind accompanied by heavy rain hits Oakland, the whole place won't be underwater. Except Oakland hasn't been appropriated around 2 billion dollars to fix things, 2 billion dollars which has mysteriously gone missing or has not been used the way it was supposed to be used. I could go on. It's a sensitive comaprison, Jake, and I'm sure you're perceptive enough to realize it. Your school district may be for shit, but it just don't compare, and I think you know it.
Pray, indeed, Kaycee. I'm glad to read your update, and I'm really proud of you for being down there and trying to do something.
jake [email] said at 6:07 PM 08-29-2007: Sorry, I didn't say that well. I really just meant the on-the-ground situation for Kaycee as a first year teaching intern sounded similar to what I've heard from teaching interns in Oakland.
The full nightmare of what's happening across the New Orleans schools, and the city as a whole, is beyond anything I've got a reference or parallel or analogy for.
brandon [email] said at 10:30 PM 08-29-2007: That's pretty bleak, considering, you know, the holocaust.
It is a kind of holocaust, though. A holocaust of the spirit. A holocaust of the mind. A holocaust of hope, a holocaust of dreams. A watery holocaust in slow motion. Like being slowly gased to death. Time, and bleak circumstances, and heartless politicians, they're like Goebbels slowly extricating all the valuable gold teeth - all the mystery of youth - all the palmed jewelry - shaving the heads of their future, until there's nothing left to march to but the waiting flame of despair, nothing left to look forward to but the dustbin-gathered ashes of their foregone, forgotten futures.
jennyjams said at 3:27 AM 08-29-2007: lb landry is in algiers, right? which elementary school are they putting you in? I did a residency, and kyle (who's birthday is also today, the 29th) teaches afterschool at martin behrman elementary. if they put you there, there is plenty of space and the building is awesome, but it's an algiers charter school, so i dunno...
but, that facility seems to get used for lots of different things these days (so i hope that's where they'll put you).
i taught art to k-8th last year at an orleans parish school, and their facilities (and curriculums as far as I could ascertain) were a total joke. they separated huge expanses with short office partitions to create "rooms" and these were constantly falling on our kids. there were never enough chairs to go around, and this room would steal them from that one and so forth. windows were broken and stuck open and so it would be freezing or super hot or even puddly wet in my room. i could go on.
so, good luck. you are about to embark on an unbelievably stressful, emotional, and challenging year (for you and your students). if ever someone wants to test the breaking point of the human heart, they should work in new orleans schools. the kids are so sweet and insane and hurt and needy and out of control (and beware you don't wind up strangling a parent). you've got guts. We're rooting for you.
It's hard to believe two years ago tonight we were up all night glued to the tv, wondering from hundreds of miles away what our artwork looked like underwater, and if we still even had a house. talk about a bad birthday. we are the lucky ones, but there's still so much to do.
what doesn't kill us... right?
