I'm not going to finish the curriculum...#updated

amother

Amber

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 4:18 am

I am freaking out.

I am a first year teacher and I'm not going to finish the math curriculum before state standardized testing next month.

I feel like I've done such a disservice to my students and while I never would apologize outright to them, I feel like I've truly betrayed them.

I'm talking middle school level math, stuff that they should know and will actually use for the rest of their lives. A good third of my class came in this year still counting on their fingers and being allowed a multiplication chart to refer to on tests. But the rest of the class? I could have actually covered ground with them, and I'm so disappointed in myself. I don't want to look next year's teacher in the eye and tell her the students are still having trouble with rounding.

I let my students down in science too... my school has no curriculum or textbook and I had to make it up as I went, and the students fought me tooth and nail because they felt everything was "too hard to comprehend" (ah, only when they kvetch do they bring out the vocabulary words...).

I'm just so bummed right now. The fire's gone out.

hannah22

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 5:19 am

If they don't supply a curriculum, then how can you finish it? Most teachers work within the structure of the curriculum for that academic year. Also if you don't have a text book to follow along with your students every week, then you are basically having to take things out of the air and find your own materials which cannot always be 100 percent related to the exam because they are not written by the exam board. I like the idea of running a few extra classes for those who want to come along. Honestly we had this in maths at my school just before the exam, we were cramming stuff in and this was a school that went very much by the curriculum and cared about results. So don't feel bad with yourself. You did an amazing job with extremely few provisions and help. Being a teacher requires a lot of support in terms of resources. Relax, don't panic, you're a great teacher and I am sure your students will do just fine

animeme

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 6:47 am

OK. Couple of things.

First, perspective. My older kids are constantly complaining that their classes don't cover enough ground. This happens. It happened not because you were lazy or irresponsible but because of the known problem of being able to serve a wide range of students in one class.

Second, tachlis. Do these standardized tests matter to the students themselves? Not to the schools for their assessment, etc, but to the students? If their scores will affect them, then if possible, offer some extra classes as mentioned above. Label the situation without blame. "As is often the case, we won't quite make it to the end of the book. Anyone who would like to learn more..."

Another possibility, and something to keep in mind for next year. Enrichment. Can be done two ways that I know of. A) When students finish classwork, they can take an enrichment sheet from an envelope and work on it. You can give extra credit. The sheets can be a higher level of what you teach,but can also be from units from later in the book. They should explain the concept and then offer practice. B) Track the class within the class, one room school house style. Segment A gets taught their lesson while B works on a new worksheet or book section. While segment A does classwork, you move to B and discuss their concepts, etc. If your school has resource, you can use that to track as well- have them take out the most bottom level, or help out in the class itself.

No matter what, first year, you seem to have done an amazing job with a challenging situation.

acccdac

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 10:43 am

If it makes you feel better I finish the curriculum but I dont feel like I've done a service to my students.

For the past 3 years, I have been trying to get the school to NOT finish the math curriculum in tracked classes. We dont have state testing (we do standardize but its not mandated by the state and its not like regents where your passage to the next grade is based on the test). I feel when students get a 1/2 or 3/4 of a curriculum each year they go from grade to grade with holes. Even if the curriculum is finished but gone through too quickly they have holes.

I think we need to be making the decisions based on what is best for the students and not for the tests or states.

morah

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 11:18 am

OP: Don't worry too much. I'm at this a few years, and I don't always finish with every class. Especially weaker classes, where you have to spend more time shoring up the fundamentals- at the end of the day, better they are solid on what they do know than to cover everything and be shaky on most of it. I also remember as a student, we didn't always get as far as we were supposed to. I took AP US History in 11th grade, and we were supposed to learn up through the Clinton administration (Bush the son was in office at the time). I believe a week before the test we were in the early years of the Cold War, like not even up to Vietnam. I took two days off from school before the exam to teach myself 35 years of history. I got a 5 (the highest), so it worked out. And this was with an experienced teacher, who knew what he was doing. It happens, especially if you have a lot of snow days or the assemblies always seem to hit your teaching period. Don't feel ashamed. Do see what you can do to move faster next year, but don't worry too much about not finishing, especially given the factors you cited.

vicki

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 11:48 am

I don't wish to make amother feel worse than she does, what's done is done. Or almost done. But...

As a student I would have been very upset to know, or worse to not know ahead of time, that my class was not going to be prepared for a standardized exam.
I count on the teacher to either prepare us or let the kids that could plow ahead know about this problem in enough time to catch up independently.
If this is a regent then it matters.
If it is an AP it could matter. Plus time, effort and money(?) going into this class and registration for the exam.

I remember my high school was having trouble hiring and keeping a chemistry teacher and we were expected to take the regent at the end of the year. We must have had 5 teachers come and go and our class was not particularly difficult. It was the top track. We were not at all aware of being behind. We had jumped around a bit in the text book and you never know what is important and what is not or what can be covered quickly and what cannot. We trusted the school to take care of these things.
One girl seemed to get our situation and tried to read ahead and teach us the material. What a disaster (not the girl, she really tried but the situation).

I feel that you should definitely tell the principal so they can help the students that can still benefit from intense classes until the test. Of course explain the problem in full so that you aren't blamed for the class's pace and learn for next year what your needs will be in order to help the bulk of the kids succeed.
I hope it still works out for you and the class.

Fox

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 12:04 pm

OP, where is the principal or supervising teacher in all of this?

If the answer is that you were given an outline, a book, and a wish for hatzlacha (which seems to be the case in Science), then the only people who should be ashamed are the leaders of your school.

First year teachers, no matter their educational attainment or other qualifications, are not equipped to develop curricula, remediate past deficiencies, provide individuated instruction, do ongoing assessment, and, oh yes, prepare kids for standardized tests.

Ideally, you would have been working under daily or at least semi-weekly supervision and review of your lesson plans, classroom skills, and outcomes. Your principal or supervising teacher should know *exactly* where you are in the curriculum and why.

At this point in the game, you need to resist the temptation to borrow trouble. Maintain a calm, professional attitude. Schedule a meeting with your principal and matter-of-factly present what your students knew at the beginning of the year; what they know now; and your concerns for their performance on standardized tests. Document everything with classroom test and assignment scores.

Ask to see their previous standardized test scores. Were they at grade level when last tested? What was done in terms of remediation? If they answer is "nothing," then this is a systemic problem, not the failing of an individual teacher.

When preparing a report for next year's teacher, focus on what was accomplished along with specific suggestions for what skills are needed to bring the students up to grade level in all subjects.

Rome was not built in a day, and the details in your description sound to me like the land hasn't even been cleared.

amother

Amber

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 12:31 pm

OP (Amber) here.

These are 5th graders, not high schoolers. If this were a Regents thing (I'm not from NY, so I'm not super familiar with them), high schoolers would care enough to go to additional classes.

I'm been in touch with numerous parents over the year, and some students are getting help from Title 1 during school or going to tutors after school. But some kids (and parents) just don't care.

I don't know how badly they have on the state tests in order to be forced to stay back a grade, but judging from the students I got this year, I think the entire grade gets shuffled forward no matter their deficiencies.

I focused on fundamentals all year -- addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. My best students were going out of their minds because it was 3rd and 4th grade material. But the rest of the class? Like I said, they're counting on their fingers and don't know their times tables and some of them have diagnosed reading comprehension issues and solve word problems by random guess, and act as if it's MY fault.

I think the only truly new concepts they learned so far are prime numbers and how to multiply/divide decimals. I didn't do a lick of geometry or the beginnings of algebra (like Q. "If Lily has n cookies and Jack has three times more, how would you express how many cookies Jack has?" A. 3n), which means those sections on the state test will probably be done by guesswork.

The principal has been in touch with me, but says it's a systemic problem and I got one of the most difficult grades in the CITY due to the issues they came in with.

But it's not fair to the regular students that they're in a class with such weak classmates and I've really been working myself to the bone on differentiating/having 3 simultaneous curricula for the different levels within the class.

seeker

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 3:45 pm

I haven't read all the responses, but just wanted to let you know that you're not alone and should probably not be beating yourself up about it. If you were still up to January's curriculum, then you probably should have cried for help a long time ago. But otherwise, I have seen many teachers scrambling, trying to triage which are the most important things to stuff in because they won't hit everything, and certainly not done before state testing which around here is a good month or more before the school year ends.

It's also so hard when many kids are very low, you're feeling like you let down the ones who could have done better but what were you supposed to do, leave them in the dirt? A common dilemma, there is no perfect answer, but even the best answers rarely have the whole class covering the whole curriculum. Wondering what kind of support you had from the school to address that situation.

amother

Linen

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 3:55 pm

OP, I'm happy you got generally positive responses here, but as a parent can I please beg of you to please use this experience to do better next year.
Some kids do really well no matter their teacher, and some kids do poorly no matter their teacher. I have one of each.
But I also have one whose performance is directly correlated to the quality of her teacher that particular year in that particular subject. Were she to have been in your class this year, she would be terribly behind, and she lacks the motivation to overcome it on her own, or to accept outside help.
I would be very disappointed that I did not receive what I paid for.
What's done is done, and I do appreciate that you're not complacent about this, but please find a mentor to give you strategies to prevent this from happening next year.

Fox

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 4:55 pm

amother wrote:

Amother, this is not a case of a mistake by a teacher, and I think you are wrong to try to turn this into *her* problem.

This is a case of significant malfeasance and lack of support on the part of the school's administration, and I do not use the word "malfeasance" lightly.

Here is the minimum administrators should be doing:

1. Determining curriculum in conjunction with faculty members.

2. Meeting weekly with experienced teachers and daily or at least semi-weekly with less-experienced teachers to review curriculum issues as well as classroom management, etc.

3. Assigning mentors to less-experienced teachers.

4. Observing less-experienced teachers regularly (weekly or more often).

Unless the administrators are consistently doing these things, shifting the actual or moral blame to teachers -- especially inexperienced teachers -- is unjust and cowardly.

Too frequently, parents don't analyze where the breakdown occurs, and the same awful administrators who don't do their jobs the rest of the time are only too happy to shift blame onto individual teachers. And then, of course, no one can understand why talented teachers burn out and leave the field.

If a teacher performs poorly, there is almost always a poor administrator behind the scenes.

amother

Linen

Mon, Apr 20 2015, 5:44 pm

Fox wrote:

I'm not a teacher, and certainly not an educational expert, but I am a VERY experienced mommy. Over the years, between boys and girls, preschool, elementary and high schools, I've been in a lot of schools.

Though I've seen average teachers working for stellar administrations, and superb teachers working for incompetent administrations, by and large, I see what you're saying. The culture of excellence or otherwise starts at the top, and trickles down to the classroom.

Though that may explain OP's predicament, I do not believe it excuses it, and certainly doesn't allow her to repeat the situation next year. Taking your post at face value, OP has no choice but to get another job. That may well be her best option, but if she stays where she is, she needs to find a way to prevent this from happening again. As I said in my post, maybe she could find a mentor, or a more experienced teacher to advise her. Maybe there are forums for newbie middle school math/science teachers that she could frequent.

This is how we improve.

And, OP, I forgot to say in my first post, don't be ashamed. Shame is not a constructive emotion. Use your frustration to learn and to grow and to do better next time.