Civics EOC

This year, I was finally given a Civics EOC class to teach. There are only two subjects in middle school that have an EOC (End of Course exam); Algebra I and Civics. These EOC's are a remnant of a time several years ago when the state decided to cut out teacher raises, and instead pay only teachers who showed that their students could perform well in subject tests. Algebra and Civics were the pilot subjects for this, and even though the other subject tests never materialized, the money that was once used for raises had disappeared as well.

I have a person from the district assigned to me who shows up every couple of weeks to perform model lessons, suggest strategies and resources, and monitor the performance of my students. When we completed the second district mandated online mini-assessment of the year, the scores of my students were atrocious, lower than the school and district average by a longshot.

Teaching Civics effectively to the test is something that will take years to master. I am learning little by little as I go. For example, when I started the year, I didn't know which online resources to use, or which were the best, or what they provided, and there are so many, I didn't have time to go through them all. (I literally found out I was teaching Civics on the first day of actual school, when the 7th graders walked into my classroom during first period, where I had had my syllabus for the 6th grade US history class already prepared to be passed out, and had to wing it.)

Also, the Civics textbook that we adopted several years ago before the concept of the EOC exam came out does not align with our curriculum at all. There are many superfluous chapters. They relevant ones are completely out of order. There is some information that is completely lacking. There was a second book that they began using to teach the subject a few years after that, but my school did not have a class set for me. The teacher next door, the only other teacher at my school that teaches the subject, begrudgingly gave me a copy of one from her class set, so that I could at least make copies from it.

There is a list of about 30 benchmarks that the students are expected to master. I had been planning my lessons according to these benchmarks, but I did not share the benchmarks with the students. I realize now that that was a mistake. They should be aware of the specific goals are before we start the lesson. I also struggled to find a way to assess their learning in such a way that models the type of questions that they will have on their EOC. The assessments that come with our textbook are of no benefit. The test questions I come up with do not match the complexity level of the EOC exam. So, I found that even after a lesson, retention level seems to be very low.

While teaching this civics class, I am also teaching a new World History class that I have to make up lessons, powerpoints, worksheets, activities, and tests all from scratch. Although I do see myself eventually perfecting the way I can teach this civics class to maximize student learning and achievement, it is something that will not happen this year, and will take time.

However, I do feel the need to point out that at the end of the day, students are responsible for their own learning. As a teacher, I prepare the lessons, I show them where to read and what resources they can use. I go over the material, give them activities that reinforce what they learn. Test them, and help show them where they are deficient in. But learning is something that every student must do for themselves. They have to actually read the materials. They have to actually do the work, and do it for mastery. They have to study and think about what they have learned.

If my students do not perform well on a district exam, that I know in my heart is designed to be well above their level, but I did everything I could to prepare them, then I don't feel bad. I have been a student before, and good or bad teacher, good or bad lesson, I always learned in my class, because I took it upon myself to do so.

Stagnation in teacher pay

I live in one of those states where the governor decided to get really involved of the lives of teachers and attempt to integrate performance pay. The old pay scale was being done away with, and the new system would be phased in little by little. The way it would work was that in small increments, every single subject in school, including electives, would have an End-of-Course (EOC) exam attached to it, created by an independently contracted party, and how the students perform on said exam would influence the salary of the teacher, and eventually the continued employment of the teacher as well. But, you would be competing with other teachers, because there would only be so much money to go around. In practice, and handful of teachers would get most of the money, and the majority of teachers would never see any additional money to their base salary. The system would not take into account the level of the student (regular, advanced, gifted, learning disability) or any other factors.

Needless to say, this system failed. Most of the EOC's were cancelled, and the ones that are currently in place are questionable at best. Teachers no longer receive any bonuses, although individual schools, at least as of the writing of this piece, still possibly receive money for maintaining a high grade based on student performance on standardized tests. The problem is, that the pay scale which was previously in place was not brought back, and that has left teachers of my generation in a limbo in which their salaries can never increase.

Base salary for a starting teacher today is $40,500. But, there is currently no steps to increase that salary any further. In theory, if you started teaching today, you could end you last year of teaching thirty years from now making the exact same salary as you started with. There are extra things you can do, like taking a sixth period supplement, or getting a specialist degree, or coaching a sports team, that might make you some additional money, but the base salary doesn't change.

There are currently teachers from the old system of steps that are still active that are making double that base salary. I know this because I have lunch with one of them; a science teacher that has about twenty eight years in the system. He is at the highest salary step of the old system, plus has many of the additional benefits that I mentioned already, and makes gross pay of $87,000 a year. New teachers will never see this kind on money. Currently teaching in Miami Dade County, if you started within the last six years or so, you are stuck at a salary that will never increase.

I have ten years teaching experience. When I started, the step system was still in place. I received the first few steps, bringing my salary to about $42,000 a year. But I have not seen any increases in several years, nor are there any plans for any increases. So in essence, I go to work, teach my classes, attend meetings, attend workshops, make lesson plans, and grade papers, all exactly the same as some of my colleagues, but because they were around in the old system, some of them are making double my salary, whereas I can never hope to see more that $42,000 a year.

Opening up my Eyes

I have been a teacher going on ten years now, and I have had many students go through my classroom. I have taught different grade levels and students of varying abilities. I have had some very rough classrooms full of students who have made me want to walk out of the building and never return, and I have had many classrooms full of intelligent and very talkative students.

This year however I currently have a schedule that has truly opened up my eyes to the huge amount of difference between a class of advanced students and a class of regular students. This year I am teaching eighth grade, and for the first time, I have more advanced classes that I do regular classes; three advanced and two regular. Also, last time I taught eighth grade full time which was four years ago, all the classes were labeled advanced but the school had a policy of simply mixing students of all levels together and calling it advanced. This year however, since we have begun actually separating regular students from truly advanced students three years ago, that means that my advanced classes are composed of students who have been put through the strainer at least three times; from fifth to sixth grade, from sixth to seventh, and then again from seventh to eighth grade. That means that any regular students who made it through the cracks the first couple of times have had time to be weeded out by now. It also means that the regular classes have been completely denuded of any talent they may have had.

This year, I am revamping that way I teach to more closely adhere to the pacing guide and to better prepare my students for the upcoming EOC (End of Course exam) that will be administered sometime in my by the district. But even though I teach both regular and advanced classes, I am teaching both in much the same way with only a few exceptions. For example, the advanced classes have a few extra assignments that my regular students will not received.

Even so, many of the classroom activities are identical, and this is where I can really see the difference between advanced students and regular students. First let me say, that I feel so happy and blessed to finally be teaching a population of students that care, that understand, that have desire and willingness to learn, and where I can finally just teach without having to hear constant excuses for not completing work and having to deal with one behavior problem after the other.

One sample lesson I have given so far this year involved learning about early Native American cultures. I had in a previous lesson explained the arrival of the first inhabitants, how they eventually learned how to grow their own food and settle down in communities, and how this led to the development of different cultures in the Americas. Next day, I open up with a review of the previous days lesson with verbal responses from teacher questions. Next, I have a powerpoint presentation which introduces the Olmec, the Aztec, the Maya, and the Inca. Next, I have the students open to the page in the book where it discusses these civilizations, and I pass out a worksheet that I specifically made to go along with their reading. I ask them to read it on their own, and to complete the assignment as they are reading.

In my advanced classes, this runs as smooth as silk. The students answer all my questions by raising their hands. Then they quietly listen to everything as I go over the powerpoint. They immediately open their books, and then begin their work. They finish on average in twenty minutes from when they began, and independently turn their papers into the inbox where all completed work goes. Then those that finish early quietly begin working on the vocabulary words which I have listed on the board for that purpose.

In my regular classes, the exact same lesson always falls flat, no matter what it is. I walk into class, and instead of being prepared to learn, many of the students are out of their assigned seats or in completely different seats. I have to ask them to return  to their proper chairs. The students are loud, and I have to yell over them to let them know that I wish for them to take out their books. When I attempt to review the previous days work, many of the students yell out without raising their hands, and many of them are giggling and turned around. They mess with each other and rat on each other. While presenting the powerpoint, I have to stop myself several times to remind the students of my classroom rule which states that when the teacher is talking, they must be quiet. It takes twice as long to go over the same information. When the students finally receive the worksheet, many of them keep their books closed. Many of them won't start the assignment for several minutes. Many of them will claim they "don't get it" and when you explain to them that they must read to find the answer, you get frantic, incredulous looks, as if you asked them to do something illegal. "But that's too much to read" or "I don't read boring stuff." Their refusal to read any of the textbook, and their desire to find the answer either through a) skimming, b) copying their neighbor or c) you telling them the exact sentence in the book they should write is the most significant difference in their inability to understand or retain any of the information you teach them. And, it's not something that started in my class. The not reading is a habit they picked up in elementary school, they chose to go down that dark road, and now they are pretty much stuck there because by the time they reach eighth grade it's almost impossible to teach them any other way to do it.

I have been dealing with these type of children for a long time. For a long time, I thought I was the problem. I was beginning to question myself and my teaching ability. But this year, I have been lucky enough to finally have the right set of students, and I can see the way a classroom was meant to run. In the past, when my regular students performed poorly, my colleagues, counselors, administrators, and society all wanted to blame me and what I failed to do. But each person and each student is in charge of their own destiny. If a student fails my class, but I did everything I could as a teacher to make it possible for them to succeed, then it was that students choice to fail, and I as a teacher should not be blamed or judged or have my job threatened over it.

Social Experiment

A few weeks ago, I was attending a cub scout meeting with my son. I saw that the pack leader had designed a fun activity for the kids to do. Cub scouts are elementary school kids, so the age range is 6-11. The pack leader had brought in some small brown paper bags and the kids were supposed to make puppets out of them using crayons. The scouts had a good time, and after a few minutes, my son ran up to me and showed me his completed puppet. But then, the leader surprised me by telling the scouts that now that their puppets were done, they were going to use them to create a public service announcement about the cub scouts. He explained what a public service announcement was, then separated them into groups of three, and said they had ten minutes to come up with the commercial. Then, they would take turns acting it out for the parents.

I have to admit, I was really skeptical. I had little faith that even after an explanation, such young children could really grasp what a public service announcement really was. I did not think these kids would be able to come up with anything, especially working completely independently, especially the younger ones, of which there are many in the pack. I observed the groups talking amongst themselves. To an adult, their giggles and awkward sentences barely seems like communication. I was very curious what these groups would present when time was up.

To my astonishment, each group of kids got up there, and in ten minutes, came up with mini commercials advertising the cub scouts. Some of them had their ads sponsored by taco bell. Many of them mentioned all the cool activities that could be done when you join boyscouts. Many ended their commercials with the call to "join today!" I was truly impressed that these young kids were able to create coherent commercials advertising the boy scouts all on their own in ten minutes.

A few weeks later, I was preparing a lesson on technological innovations of eighteenth century America for my eighth grade class. We read about advances in transportation and communication technologies, such as railroads, steamboats, and the telegraph. We also read about new tools in agriculture that allowed for farmers to claim formerly untenable land in the grasslands of central United States, tools such as the steel plow and the mechanical thresher. I then thought it would be neat to recreate the activity that the boy scouts had done, but instead relate it to the lesson we had just learned. I told the students to pick one of the innovations or inventions that they learned about in the lesson, then put them into groups of three, and asked them to create an advertisement for it. I gave them fifteen minutes.

Let me say that I have seen students in the past come up with some very creative things when given the opportunity. But, this particular class of eighth graders that I have is a very low level class. I put them in groups and asked them to tell me which innovation they chose (mostly to force them to pick one right away and thus avoid spending too much time trying to decide). Then, I walked around the room to observe the groups as they worked.

Mostly, I was very disappointed. Many of the students were not even discussing any type of plan as to what they would do when it was their turn. Many students simply created a dry list of facts pulled straight out of the book. When it was finally time for the groups to present, only four out of seven groups had put anything together at all, and most were dry, unexciting, and demonstrated a complete lack of creativity. This was completely disappointing to me, because I felt that the topic had so much potential for amazing skits to be created. If you chose railroads you could simulate customers riding in a train car, and talking about the scenery, or making fun of stagecoaches. If you chose steamboats, you could have addressed the live shows that were held on most of the liners for entertainment. They could have talked about the steel plow and how much easier it made work. The activity was such an abysmal failure, that it only served to sap my morale and enthusiasm as a teacher.

Why can a group of young elementary age boy scouts do such a good job of creating advertisements, while a group of 13-14 year old eighth graders completely fail at it? I really don't know how to answer  that question, but I'd like to think that it's just because my son and his pack are all geniuses!

Data Driven Instruction

The new buzz word in education is “data driven instruction”, but, does this really work? The concept behind data driven instruction is simple. You teach a topic over the course of several days. You give the students a test based on the topic you just taught. Each test question is tied to a specific benchmark or standard from the topic you covered. When you get the results of the test (Of course which you could only get using the complicated software/scanner program that the county paid millions of dollars for) you can see exactly which benchmarks each individual student did well on, and which they did poorly on. You can even get averages for the whole class. So, if for example 80% of the class did well on a certain benchmark, you can move on and say that the students for the most part got it. However, if the reverse is true and only 20% of the students did well on a specific benchmark, you know that that particular benchmark has to be retaught or reviewed.

One of the problems with data driven instruction is that there has never been any kind of statistic showing that this method of teaching improves scores or makes any significant difference in student achievement. I have an acquaintance who teaches AP physics at the high school level, and she uses a teaching technique that was developed specifically for that class known as modeling. The idea behind it is that instead of the teacher lecturing physics concepts to the students, the students do hands on experiments and develop results themselves that help them create an understanding of the concepts behind the experiments they just did. This teacher periodically collects data about student learning, and sends it to the university which then compares it to data from classrooms with a more traditional learning environment. This team at the university is trying to ascertain whether or not the modeling technique actually makes a difference. After their several year study is over, they will have concrete numbers to know whether or not it actually is a superior teaching method. By contrast, we are being forced down this path of data driven instruction across the board without anybody having done any studies on it.

A second problem with data driven instruction is that there are several different types of questions that can be posed for every benchmark being tested. Assume that a student gets a question wrong on the test. Is this really because they don’t understand that benchmark? Or, could it be that they just don’t know the answer to that particular question, but if you were to ask them five other questions pertaining to that benchmark they would get all of them right? The data also doesn’t take into account student guessing. In order to get the data using this particular computer program that the district demands we use, all the tests have to be multiple choice. What if on a fifty question test, the students guessed on ten of the questions and got lucky, getting eight out of those ten correct? The data will tell us that the student is actually doing better than what they really are.

Also we have to take into account that there is a certain amount of material that has to be covered in a year. Assume you teach a class of low performing students who traditionally fail their tests. Are you going to halt your progress and re-teach a whole section because most of your students failed it? This would only make sense if you were teaching a subject, like a foreign language or like math, in which each new lesson builds upon the knowledge of the old. Otherwise, a teacher simply does not have the time to re-teach every lesson the students do poorly on. The most we can do is go over the test so that the students are aware of the questions they missed and become familiar with our testing format, and then move on. Otherwise by the end of the year we would not have gotten very far at all, and it’s a lot worse to end a course where students have gained mastery over 25% of the material but have not been exposed to the other 75% than it is to have covered 100% of the material, even if students failed a few tests here and there. At least they were exposed to the information, and next time they see it (because for most courses they certainly will see it again) they will have a rudimentary understanding of the information or time period.

Another interesting point; the other day I looked up the standardized test course of a particular class of students out of curiosity, because the administration seems to believe it is of such importance. I looked it up and saw that in that particular class I had most of my students at level 1 or 2, but I did have a few level 3’s and two level 4’s. What I found was that the two students that were of the highest level were actually the two worst students in the class. One student has a 0.0 GPA as of my checking, while the other student is of the type that can’t shut up long enough to learn anything and is constantly distracting and interrupting the lesson. Meanwhile, the brightest student I have in my class, a little boy who is actually been promoted a grade above where his age says he should be, was one of my level ones. This level 1 student answers my questions in class in such a way that shows he has a deep understanding of the material and thinks about it critically. The bottom line is that students should not be judged by their standardized test scores, because they do not define the student. Like a colleague of mine recently told me, “I was not a good test taker when I was in school; I couldn’t pass the SAT’s if my life depended on it! But today I have two Phd’s.”

Ideal Evaluation System

An ideal evaluation system would involve only things that teachers have direct control over. Also, they should be based on something that the teacher can concretely demonstrate by actions they take or direct evidence that they can show. Here is an example of what I would consider a good evaluation system that could be used to replace the current teacher evaluation system.

1) Knowledge of Instructor

The teacher who sits in the front of the classroom should be well versed in the subject matter they are teaching. Under this standard, a teacher will have to demonstrate what they have done in the past year to increase their knowledge of their subject. Possible things they could have done are taken a course at a college; taken a graduate level course online, read a series of books on their subject, attended a conference at a university where the subject the speaker was broaching is related to their topic, had special conferences with other professionals for the specific purpose of discussing their subject matter. For each one of these possible things, there would be a form to fill out where the teacher could demonstrate that they actually did these things. Their score on this category will be an objective number, based on a predetermined number of points given for each activity the teacher undertook to improve their knowledge

2. Teaching Methods

It has been demonstrated that there are different types of learners in a classroom. Some learners are aesthetic, some learners are visual learners, some learners do best when they hear the material verbalized, etc. In this standard, a teacher will have to demonstrate how many different methods they utilize in their classrooms to try to reach the students. As before, a teacher will fill out a form delineating the different forms of instruction used, and a concrete objective score will be determined based on a point system.

3. Parent Contact

Part of a teacher’s job is to keep parents informed of the progress of their child, and of any type of disciplinary action that was taken against a child in a classroom. For this standard, a teacher will have to show that for every child that ended a grading period with a “D” or “F” in their class, there was a parent contact attempted. They will do this by providing a list of students which had failing grades, and a list of phone numbers that they called, together with a date and time that each phone call was made. If the list matches the phone calls, they get maximum points. If there are discrepancies, the teacher loses points based on how many discrepancies there are.

4. Learning Environment

It is important that students have a safe and stimulating environment in which to learn. Under this standard, a teacher must show that their classroom has 1) Rules posted for all to see, 2) A bulletin board for samples of student work, 3) a board dedicated to learning objectives and homework that is up for students to see everyday, 4) A predetermined number of additional posters, maps, quotes, etc. 5) Enough desks to sit every student comfortably. We can see that there is nothing arbitrary about this standard, there is a specific number of things that a teacher must have, and they either have it or they don’t. Points would be deducted for anything missing from the checklist.

5. Classroom Management

This one is a bit tricky. Classroom management means being able to limit the amount of disruptions to learning in a classroom. This means keeping the students engaged and on task as much as possible, and avoiding altercations, horseplay, throwing, yelling, and other such behaviors in a classroom. As such, it is more difficult to find an objective way of measuring this. One way to do it is to see how many administrative referrals a teacher has produced in a year. If they were able to keep peace in their classroom without having to send a student out all year, then theoretically they have better classroom management. However, that policy seems to punish teachers who unfortunately in the luck of the draw that is scheduling, end up with the most disruptive students. Perhaps a better way to gauge classroom management is that there is a disciplinary plan in place that the students are aware of and that the teacher enforces. To prove proficiency, a teacher will have to show that during the times that there was disruptive students, those students were given verbal warnings, had their chair moved, had their parents contacted, had seen the counselor, and were eventually referred to the administrator. In other words, all steps in the disciplinary plan were followed.

6. Lesson Planning

Preparing for the days lesson is very important for a professional. A professional should never enter a classroom without a pre-made lesson that they are working from. The lesson planning standard supposed that teachers have lesson plans covering every day of the  school year, and that those lesson plans include 1) date, 2) activities planned, 3) learning objectives, 4) home learning assignments, and 5) types of assessment. If the teacher has all of these things included in their daily lesson plans, they get the maximum number of points. Points would be deducted for incomplete or missing lesson plans.

7. Commitment to the job

This would be the easiest standard to get points for. Simply, the teacher must come to work every day. Teachers get an average of 10 leave days allotted to them every school year. Some of these days are sick days and others are personal days. Under this standard, you will lose points for every day missed of work that doesn’t provide documentation of actual sickness. This is to curb teachers taking days off because they were tired, or because they wanted to start vacation early, or because they did not want to participate in field day, etc.

As you can see, none of these evaluation standards are based on the whims of any administrator, or an varying interpretations of the exact wording of the standard. All of these are based on an objective number that the professional has direct control over whether or not they can actually achieve the highest score.

My Philosophy vs. Modern Educational Philosophy

My Philosophy

I have always had a simple philosophy in teaching history. First, let me explain that I have loved history ever since I was a kid. When I was in elementary school and the teacher would take us to the library once a week, I would check out books about the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and read about people like Richard the Lion-Hearted, Joan of Arc, and Hernan Cortes. In fifth grade, if we completed our work early, we were allowed to sit on the bean bag by the class book shelf and read whatever we liked. I remember I used to read books about evil sorcerers and dragons; and I read about the Trojan War for the first time. I remember being obsessed with the drawing of the horse being pulled inside the city. When I got to high school, I took every history class they had to offer, from AP European History to Art History. In college, I earned a double major in history and classical civilizations. Over the years, I have built up an extensive personal library of history books that takes up more than three book cases. When I chose to get a graduate degree, I earned my degree in history with an emphasis on the ancient world. History has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember.

This personal experience of mine has shaped my philosophy of teaching. For me, this is how I would approach teaching a new subject. The first step is to learn as much as you can about the topic. You need to read a multitude of books, do as much research as you can, watch documentaries, and read various textbooks as well. This you do to establish a narrative of the time period and to become very familiar with the key events and people. Next, you must decide which are the most important aspects to that topic, the kinds of things that if you were to be teaching about it, shouldn’t be left out. For ancient Egypt for example, the 18^th dynasty of rulers is one of the most important, and one should not study Egypt without at least mentioning Akhenaten, Rameses, and Tut. Then you have to take all of that information and figure out how to present it in a concise manner in such as way that students will be able to understand it. After that, you come up with fun activities, projects, and worksheets related to the topic. Often, there are source materials at any educational bookstore, and even online, that can help you, but I also like to come up with my own stuff. You also have a textbook, which can be used as a supplement to the materials you create or select from various sources. I say this about the textbook because often teachers are forced to work with textbooks that are poorly written, poorly structured, or have large gaps of information. The textbooks can be used by the students to have an alternate source of information from what you are presenting to them. This is the entire teaching process, coupled with review and assessment to make sure the students are learning.

Modern Educational Philosophy

Modern educational philosophy approaches this in a very different way. First, it seems that the qualifications of the teacher are not very important. That is why often in our schools you have the football coach or the cheerleading coach teaching the history. Also, we find that you do not even have to have a degree in history to be hired. You can major in psychology, political science (just naming a few that are common) or anything really, as long as you pass the social studies qualification exam. There are two versions of this, the 6^th – 12^th grade version, and the watered down middle school version. (I have the former). Who teaches is not important, because the way the books are written nowadays, you don’t even have to know anything. You open the teacher’s guide, and voila, pre made lessons, from videos to worksheets and questions; even word for word exactly what they want you to say. Also, the material is not important either. As a society we have decided that history is not important. For example, everything that happened in the history of the world from the beginning of civilization to the beginning of the modern era (A.D. 1500) is taught only once in a student’s entire educational career, and it is taught in the sixth grade. Does anyone remember anything they learned in the sixth grade when they are adults? Chances are you forget everything you were taught in the sixth grade the summer before you begin seventh grade, because when you are twelve, you don’t give a damn about Sumerians or Romans.

I digress. The material is not important either based on the standards we are asked to use to teach social studies. More than half of the standards we are teaching by in the social studies department are Language Arts standards! We are using their standards and our evaluation scores are based on the student’s performance on their reading tests! In the modern philosophy of education concerning history, none of the information is as important as skills you gain. You need to be able to read a map. You need to be able to write an essay. I agree students learning skills, but they also have to have a knowledge base from which to practice those skills. What good is reading a map if they can’t tell Iraq from Argentina? What good is knowing how to write an essay if they have no facts to back up their arguments?

In Conclusion

Education is not McDonalds. It doesn’t have to be the same everywhere. By regulating what we teach and how we teach it, we are only stifling good teachers.