Sara Ruddock-Harris's blog

My MTC Experience

I don’t know what to say about my MTC experience that I can fit into a blog post .Yet, given such a task that is what I have set out to do. How can I synthesize this two-year world-wind experience into a 1200 words? I have changed professionally, socially, emotionally, etc. I am just different! I’m not the same woman I was during the first road trip from Amherst, to Brooklyn, to Oxford with Martin DVDs stuffed through the windows of my car.

First Summer:

On that first journey over the Mason Dixon, my mind was fixed not on the daunting task of imparting knowledge to underserved, ill-prepared students, but rather on sheer fear of the American South. The only time I have ever used those two words, “American” and “South,” in a sentence they were always sandwiching other words like, “slave” and “Jim Crow.” Yet, here I was making this place my home for the next two year. Oxford played right into my fears; with the confederate flags emblazoned on everything from license plate holders, baseball caps, and tee shirts. The vestiges of the history I was taught to fear seemed to be everywhere. Little did I know that my place in Mississippi would be overwhelmingly black. I spend everyday in a school of roughly 1600 students with 5 interspersed white faces. More surprisingly, my refuges would be overwhelmingly white. I found a home in the ALL white Leland United Methodist Church. These church members made a place for me in a community I felt so distant from.

First Year:

My first year is mostly a blur. I wish I had done a better job of keeping a diary. One thing I do remember is the first time I closed the door in my own classroom. I can still feel the burn of 31 sets of eyes on the back of my neck and saying to myself, “here we go.” And it went. With firm grasp on the strict Mississippi Teacher Corp-style lesson plan, I set out everyday to engage my students and have fun in the classroom. And I was largely successful. My classes that first semester were to capacity: 31, 35, and 33. Yet, I had so much fun with that first batch of kids. Insert cheerleading to kill my joy. I had agreed to be the assistant coach of the cheerleading team to find an in into the community and do something outside of the classroom that related to my own interests. But within months the head cheerleading coach had been run from the team and there I was: new, foreign, small- bodied (as my mom puts out), and a touch nervous. Most of my first year drama came from cheerleading!! But some how, some way I gained their trust and fund raised my tail of and after $14000 dollar and many tear I finally felt like I belonged. Then, insert state testing to kill my joy.

Second Summer/ Year:

Revelation 1: Come in everyday ready to have a good day and once in a while you will surprise yourself by having one.

Revelation 2: No one can steal your joy unless you let them.

Revelation 3 (The most important): You are never more than four school days away from Friday. (Thank you, Jesus)

While things finally started to gel and set in my classroom, hell was breaking lose in the rest of the school building. With three principals in three years, you finally think you have hit rock bottom and are on the road to a rebound until some one opens the trap door and your realize that the basement has a cellar. Although this has not made my second year the cake walk I hoped it would be, it has finally cemented for me that the problem in my school is not the kids (well, at least not most of them), but unfathomable absence of leadership and competence and the overwhelming greed and selfishness among those entrusted with the most precious asset in the community, student’s education.

The following are excerpts from and reflections on diary entries over the last year.

In school today, I had to put Shawniqua out of my room. Shawniqua is a mother in the 10th grade. She lives in a home for girls, and I put her out of my room. She just would not shut up and do her work.

In the time since I wrote this diary entry, Shawniqua failed my Health Care Science class with a 13 in the last term. She still lives in the group home. I found out she had her baby in elementary school. However, now, she is the ONLY student in all of my Biology I sections with an A. When asked what made her make the change, she simply said, “I made a New Years resolution.” Shawniqa is undoubtedly one of my best students.

Cheerleading practice was awesome! So, I may or may not have gone off on them a little bit yesterday. But, boy did it pay off. Jyra stepped in for JaMiya, and is making it happen! That’s not all! We finally got the big stunt. I can’t believe it. We might actually make it to competition.

Not only did we go to competition we came in fourth in the state from ninth place the last time my girls went in 2009. The team that forced my mom to endure countless teary phone calls in my first year has finally become a source of great joy and pleasant memories. I am only tempted to stay a third year to see my senior-heavy team hopefully win state and graduate.

Thankfully, I made it to thanksgiving. Thank God. Today was the last day of school before the break. It was a very quiet day and I finished all of my grading. No grading for thanksgiving. I am going to relax, but also be productive. I need to work on my MTC projects and study for the MCAT. Yet, I refuse not to relax. I am going to read these books I’ve started and put down. I am going to call my friends. I’m going to go out and sit down and be around people.

While I am not sure I accomplished all or anything of things I set out to do on this break, it speaks to the isolation of this experience. So much about what made these two years so challenging was the fact the experience is so all consuming. Many of times I felt like all I do is schoolwork and if something goes badly in the schoolhouse my day and maybe even my week is toast. Luckily, in my second year I have made a concerted effort with thanks of people close to my heart to stop making everything I do revolve around Greenville-Weston High School.

Lastly, from my portfolio on my professional growth:

When I started this journey two year ago sitting in my college dorm room at Amherst having decided to join MTC, my concerns were completely self-centered. Am I going to find my way? Am I really going to spend two years in Mississippi? But after letting the decision sink in and after the introductory meeting with my teacher corps cohort, it finally sunk in how daunting this undertaking would be. The prospect of being entrusted with someone else’ s education hit me like a ton of bricks. I started to feel the weight of this responsibility on my shoulders. Yet, I have never been a person to shy away from a challenge. So, with this responsibility, this privilege always at the forefront of my mind, I embarked on this journey and have learned many lessons along the way. My professional growth over the last two years has been accompanied but much personal growth. The lessoned learned in the classroom that have made me a better teacher have translated into many areas of my life making me a more critical thinker, responsible adult, social person. Three basic principles helped my growth.

Fearlessness: When I moved to Greenville, I knew it would be hard to gain entrance into the community. So, I wanted to find an in. Luckily, at the new teacher orientation, the athletic director asked for volunteers for the assistant coaching position for the varsity cheer team at the high school. I knew this was it. I had cheered and danced all through school; however, I feared the time commitment and was uncertain of my qualifications. But I took the leap. With in two months, the head coach quit and I was thrust into the role of head coach. It took a lot, a lot of patience and hard work, but two-year later my team is ranked number 4 in the state and last summer we raised $14,000. Working with these girls I have learned more about being a leader and role model than ever before. I gained the trust of the girls and their parents, became a disciplinarian, and built a team. They helped bring me out of my shell and offered me an avenue into the community. This initial success as a coach, translated into more confidence and self-assuredness in and out of the classroom.

Flexibility: I left my first summer in MTC with some practical skills that I knew I could use in the classroom, but when I transitioned to my own classroom I continued to fall on the crutch of direct instruction. Direction instruction is predictable and guaranteed less behavior flare-ups and conveyance of all the material. Yet, direct instruction created distance between the students and the material because they had no opportunity for interaction or discovery. And rest assured that the students continued to remind me that direct instruction was insufficient as they slept in my classroom. So, I became flexible. I found a system of forms and sheets that made me feel comfortable and in control while allowing my students to find their own way through the material using what resources we had available. This challenge to move away from direct instruction forced me to imagine myself as one of my students and predict how they would respond to a question or reason through an assignment. This thought experiment helped me as a thinker and as a student because truly learning how to teach (not just give notes) taught me how I learn.

Self-Assuredness: I started my first semester at Greenville-Weston High School conflicted. I just spent the whole summer learning how to impersonate a teacher, but I didn’t feel like a teacher, yet. So, I just continued with the impersonation. I was wearing the clothes I thought were appropriate, I was trying to discipline the way I thought a teacher was supposed to. But doing all of this, I was wrapped up in gaining my students respect by conforming to what I perceived to be the role of a teacher. I didn’t feel like myself. So, I started over. I started dressing they I wanted to dress, adventurously; acting the way I wanted to act, like a goof; and it worked for me. My authority was not questioned not because of how I dressed but because my students know that I know my material.

Letter to the Incoming First Years

Dear Incoming First Years,

I don’t know how much I can offer in the way of advice for the classroom except that every classroom is different and don’t take anybody’s advice as gospel. However, I do have some advice for your time in Mississippi. As a foreigner, a true alien to everything that is Mississippi and the Deep South as a whole—I didn’t know Arkansas was on the Mississippi River until I moved 20 minutes away from the Arkansas-Mississippi Bridge across the Mississippi River—I advise all other foreigners to soak up as much Mississippi as possible. You might be thinking why, who would want to do that. But along with the devastating financial poverty that ravishes this landscape there is a wealth of cultural and adventurous opportunities. Aside from the general awesomeness of the food at Blue Levee in Rosedale, Mississippi across from the Piggly Wiggly and the treasure that is crawfish from Grandma’s Best in Greenville, MS past the GHEC and the incomplete “new” highway 82 overpass, the experiences of your students: their vernacular, their names, their jokes, their struggles are worth all of the tribulations you will encounter in your experience.

I urge you incoming first years to truly take advantage of your cohort. This can be a lonely, trying two years if your whole experience is going from home to school and back to the house over and over again. Force and challenge each other to get out and get to know the community around you. Find your niche. Start a tradition, like the Delta potluck we inherited from our MTC predecessors.

Now, I can’t leave this letter without a little something-something about the classroom. Be yourself! Don’t try to be the classroom witch because people told you not to smile before Christmas. Don’t be strict with yourself! If copy assignments don’t work for you, don’t use them. You are the boss! You can change whatever you want at whatever time you want because the first rule is that you are in charge and your classroom is your domain. Don’t sweat what you have no control over! You are in charge of your classroom and that is it. You can’t control your administration or front office; you can only control your domain.

Sincerely,

SRH

Reflections on my blogs

 

Reading my past blogs was comical trip down memory lane. At first, I was leery about reading them because of general self-consciousness about the quality of my own writing. However, that sentiment quickly moved to the back burner as I read on. Not that my blogs have awesome literary quality (the quality of my writing has definitely plummeted markedly my first blogs to now), but the sheer content of them seem so alien to me now. Reading over my first blog about my angst about racism in the south—ha—I never see white people. I’m obviously exaggerating. But, I can go days without seeing anybody white (aside from the TFAs at my school). The issue of race is always in the back of my head when I see white people in Walmart or passing me in their pick-ups on the highway, but it is definitely not an everyday concern of mine as it was when I saw my first confederate flag on the Ole Miss campus.

I also had to laugh at myself when I read my blog on the reluctant disciplinarian. I could not have known then how ridiculous some of my discipline issues would be. I remember writing that blog and being concerned about students talking out of turn or trying to get up out of their seats during the lesson, which does happen. But I could never have imagined the wild world of “janking” or the students trying to paint their nails in my classroom or the girl trying to take out her weave in my room or the incessant PA system announcements all day or the police in riot gear or the parents telling their students to climb out of my window to get out of the building. The list on unexpected discipline issues inside my classroom go on and on, but I would have never thought how much of an influence the hallways make in classroom discipline. Hallway discipline is paramount to good classroom discipline. Students cutting class and running up and down the halls doing whatever they please obviously stops the students in the hallways from learning and impedes the students in the classroom from learning because of the distraction level.

All in all, taking the trip down memory lane through my blogs shows have far I have come, from wet-behind-the-ears novice to jaded pseudo-novice.   

New Approaches to Classroom Management

I have tested a lot of methods in trying to establish and maintain classroom management. While I still struggle, I have come to realize that you cannot have a fixed plan. My classroom management differs between age groups (juniors and senior can handle far more liberties than sophomores), blocks (the class that I take to lunch always require a special degree of patience), and by day. I now know that first two categories have particular importance.

     Different age groups respond differently to classroom management tools. I prefer an easy, breezy, comical classroom environment, but not all students can handle it. Juniors and seniors are for the most part already easier to work with because of a marked increase in maturity level between sophomore and junior year. Most infractions are adequately handled with a firm, attention-grabbing warning. But, sophomores (oh, sophomores), require a special handle on all classroom management tools to maintain order. In terms of rewards, my tenth graders go crazy for tickets! In my first year, students could use tickets to buy certain treats and supplies. But, that created the problem of when they could buy things. So, in my second year thanks to the advice of Ms. K, I started the raffle system. On Friday after instruction, time was set aside for the exhilarating prospect of winning all kinds of treats in the raffle. But what if the class was poorly behaved all day? This semester, I added the rule that raffle is contingent upon a weeks worth of responsible, appropriate behavior. On the issue of consequences, I have grudgingly learned how to establish and maintain a strict consequence ladder with this group: warning--> behavior reflection --> detention --> parent phone call--> referral. However, no consequence ladder is effective without administrative support.

    Time of day is a huge deal. On the block schedule, each class is supposed to be exactly 98 minutes, but in reality 1st block is 108 minutes, second block is 98 minutes, 3rd block (the lunch block) is 125 minutes, and fourth block (my planning block) is 125 minutes. Third block is the trickiest. Not only is it long, but, at GWHS, during third block I have to march my class of 30 plus to lunch, sit there with them, and march them back to the classroom. Unfortunately, this year, I have last lunch. This means that my class does not go to lunch until the last shift; they hear every class pass us on the way to lunch as they sit there hungry, waiting. Also, third block because it is the lunch block has the added feature of having the best attendance. All the students, who have no intention of learning and would normally cut class, come to third block because they want to get lunch. Therefore, I have cling firmly to my rules, rewards, and consequences with this unruly bunch.

Why to or not to join MTC?

There are many reason to and not to join the Mississippi Teacher Corps program. With a desire to bring some positivity to my blog, I will start with the reasons to join MTC. The first two reasons are obvious: MacBook (awesome) and FREE Masters (heavy emphasis on free). The next few reasons; personal growth, adventure, and student achievement; require more detail.
Coming straight out of an undergraduate institution, moving more than a thousand miles from home, and plunging head first into one of the hardest experiences possible, the Mississippi Teacher Corps experience offers an immense opportunity to grow personally. Besides the obvious reasons of being far away from home in a completely different setting from anything I have experienced before, teaching has taught me a lot about myself. One, I have learned how to learn. Teaching has made me a far better student and a more critical thinker because it forced me to read and manipulate material so that I convey it to the best, and the most disinterested, and the intellectually challenged students. Two, I have learned the importance of leadership, and how a leaders actions can shatter the morale and, therefore, the effectiveness of their subordinates.
Adventure. Moving to rural Mississippi has definitely been an adventure. I have had a wealth of new experiences since moving to Mississippi. So far, I have:
• Shot a shotgun
• Learned the difference between a rifle and a shotgun
• Been to the Sprint Cup at Talladega
• Camped out at Talladega
• Experienced professional bull riding
• Visited the Mid South Fair
• Crossed the Mississippi River
• Drank brown water
• Heard a tornado siren
• Eaten crawfish
• Enjoyed a monster truck rally
• Seen high school football
• Set foot in the following states:
o Mississippi
o Arkansas
o Alabama
o Tennessee
o Louisiana
o Missouri
The list still goes on.
Being a parent of my students’ lives has been an invaluable experience. Especially in my capacity as the cheerleading sponsor, my cheerleaders have become a part of my life. I spend more time with them than I do at home. While I love this aspect of my job, it is also part of why it is so challenging. When my students or my cheerleaders misbehave, the common adage I hear is “don’t take it personally.” But it is so personal. I devote so much time and preparation in my classroom and with my cheerleaders that when they have their days, which all teenagers do, it hurts!
Now, that all the positives are out of the way. The number one reason I can offer for not joining MTC is if you are placed in Greenville, point blank. If I had to do it all over, I would insist that my placement be changed because my building and administration and my central office administration could lead their way out of a paper bag. They make the school building so miserable that everyday I have to ask myself how am I going to through today. The steal the joy from my day, but cannot break the spirit of discord among the students who choose to come a fight, smoke, and steal on campus everyday. Every morning the anxiety well up and does not dissipate until the bell rings for the students to go home.

Good Portfolios

After looking at a few portfolios from the class of 2008 and 2007, it is evident to me, at least, that good potfolios have one thing in common, a theme. Blogs that appeared to be less successful took the cru de ta approach. Yes,  subjects we arranged prettily, but they didn't have the seemlessness of a good bowl of jumbalaya. In these portfolios, the writers seemed to be jumping from one subject to another along their webpage. The entire work did not seem to have an overarching theme, visually or content wise. Jennifer Nelson's artful portfolio is a prime example of the perfect better, jambalaya-style approach.

From the begining of her portfolio you know what ties all the pages together, her sociological outlook on herself, personally and professionally. This themes connected all the pages from her biography and resume to her discussion of classroom management and personal evaluation. While I do not have the appropriate knowledge base to maybe understand all the sociological points she was trying to convey about her experience in Jackson, I could appreciate that she was looking at the entirety of her MTC experience from this vantage point.

While the sociological theme of her work united the portfolio, visually all the pages of her portfolio seem to go together. The scraph book look of the webpage connected them all together. Similarly, Austin Walker's portfolio shared this feeling of visual seemlessness. While he does stray away from his classical theme, the visual on the page continue to remind you of the initial theme.

Thinking about quitting

The commonalities between both the MTC and TFA experiences that might lead to quitting by in large have very little to do with either program, but rather the ongoing terrible experiences that each type of teacher must endure while in their placement school. In her article, Sarah explains her trying experiences with TFA with particular attention to the faults of the program. Largely, her crticisms of TFA do not overlap with the MTC expereince. Our application process was not half as demoralizing, summer school was not THAT bad, we were paid for our time during the first summer, we did not have to buy elaborate school supplies during the summer, we were all guaranteed a job, and the graduate school classes are pragmatic. But don't get me wrong. I have spent many tearful nights wondering, why in the hell am I in Mississippi putting myself through this constant punishment, but that is not directly related to MTC. Yes, I wish I had all my Saturdays to myself, but the Masters is FREE. The only issue that has caused me to consider quitting that is any way related to the program is just a lack of information. I wish I knew how hard and how trying everyday was going to be. Yes, I called current members of the program before I applied, but I wish I could have spoken to someone with my placement before I officially committed to the program. Being In the Greenville Public School District is a matter of wills very single day. My administration in the building and at the central office in incompetent, ineffective, illogical, ignorant, illinformed, and worst of all inconsiderate. The school motto is excellence for all, but it's more like excellent pay for some and frustrastion for everyone else. When people aren't smiling in your face like retreating chimpanzees making empty promises about what they can do and what they will do, they are chastizing you like a petulent child because they cannot deliver. I am so tired of the blind and dumb leading the tired and overworked I want to call the state department myself and beg them to take us over. What can MTC do about this dilemma? Not much. But, I would suggest that they do make a cutoff point, that past which they will not place one of their teachers in a God awful school. While we are here for the best interest of the students (I love my kids), sometimes the situation is so bad that it is not worth the happiness and joy of the participants.Thankfully, everyday when I come to my classrrom and close the door, I am in charge. My kids and I have a generally have great exchanges of instruction and humor.

First Day of School

Everything about the first day of school the second time around seems better than it was the first time around. The first day of school this year still brought butterflies to my stomach and a certain degree of anxiety, but nothing compares to the sheer terror I felt last year. This year, I had confidence! Confidence that I know what I am doing, confidence in my authority inside and outside of the classroom, confidence that I am not a complete outsider, and confidence that things will inevitably go wrong and that I can recover. I lacked all of this last year.

First, at the very beginning of last school year, I was not quite sure summer school had hit all the marks in making an ineffective teacher out of me. I felt very much like a newbie, feeling my way around in unfamiliar territory. Even if I had felt completely confident leaving summer school, nothing can quite compare to the reality of a real life, ill-functioning, failing school district. I didn't know simple things last year like how to write a referral, where to make copies, who to ask for what and when, how the telephone in my room worked. As a second year teacher, I know the answer to these basic question and they have left me in much better stead to tackle the actual work at hand, teaching.

Secondly, I no longer have to give myself the morning push and pep talk to force myself to imagine myself as an authority figure. I remember last year the first time I closed my classroom door and it was just me and 60+ eyes staring back. In that moment, a startling feeling of PANIC ran through my entire body! This year, that did not happened. I closed that door and I was the mistress of my fortress. No, I still don't look 40 and intimidating, but I can see in the student's responses to me that I now radiate a quiet confidence that they respect. I think I have finally mastered the Mom aura and stare (You know. That look your mom gives that makes you drop whatever your touching in a store and walk quietly to her side). Even in the hallways, students recognize me as teacher; not necessarily because they know my face but because they recognize my authoritative posturing.

Thirdly, I am utterly thankful that people in the building know my name! It feels so good for students and teachers both to recognize me in the hallway and call to me. I feel like I'm a valued part of the school community, now. It changed the whole dynamic. Nobody is giving me the side-eye wondering what I am about. Especially in a small tight knit community like there is in Greenville, coming into the fold makes all the difference.

Lastly, I have finally let go of collegiate angst over unpredictable situations and incompetence. I'm always the last to know about something someone is willing to stake my job on and I have just come to terms with it. As we all know, if the system were not broken, none of us would have a job. 

Success Story

In spite of my general unhappiness in the beginning and towards the end of the school year, I had several success stories somewhere in the middle. One, not killing the first kid that called me lazy. Two, not grabbing my pursue and exiting the building after the 39th million staff meeting. Third, making it to the end of the state testing calendar. However, my biggest success story would have to be working with a few of my cheerleaders on scholarship and summer program applications.

While I am particularly focused on their successes now, as we are in the midst of cheer camp, working with them all school year brightened my horizons. Don't get me wrong we went through our trials and tribulations after they ran off their second cheer leading coach and I was thrust into the position of head coach in the beginning of the school year, but it all seemed to work out. We learned to work with each other and understand each others expectations, especially once I got sea legs under me with the whole "being a grown up/ authority" thing. My captain's asking to help her with college applications highlights the level of trust we eventually developed.

She gave me so much mouth at first and then she asked me to help with her college applications and scholarship applications, and I realized we had come over the top of the hill. Now, I wasn't just some transient two-year teacher. We worked on her essays and she received SIX scholarships for college. After she told of her success more and more of them started asking for help; that was undoubtedly the best part. One of my best cheerleaders eventually came for some tips and with a few planning periods working together she received two scholarships and acceptance to a prestigious summer leadership training program; she is only a junior. Helping them through out the school year and watching their success finally made me feel like my efforts were not futile.

Teaching Skills Worth Learning

Well...I'm already the bomb. Period.

Just kidding, there are definitely a few skills I wish I could acquire.
Delegating- I wish I could force people to carry their weight. I'm the best team player for everyone except me. I seem to be devoting so much time and energy, while others just comment on my dedication. I think I need to acquire a better understanding for workplace relationships, but that's just a part of growing up. I know I didn't come to the school to make friends, but I also didn't come there to make enemies. So, I need to find the middle grounds between being everybody's best friends, while making sure everyone pulls there weight.

Rules-While I know I will never be the strict disciplinarian like some of my coworkers, I realize that with my younger students I rely more on rules. I just need rules that work for me. I can't do the typical teacher rules. Never get up, always raise your hand sound to me like never have fun, never learn, never be merry, hate Ms. Ruddock-Harris. So, I know I could use more rules and I know other people's rules won't work, so now I need to find rules that work for ME.

Don't take everything so personally-I tend to wear my heart on my sleeve. While my level of sensitivity it never in question because its minimal, teaching is a sensitive issue. When I devote as much time and energy in to something as I've done with teaching, it becomes personal. I'm already not the best receiver of criticism, constructive or otherwise. So, when I've poured myself into something and somebody decides to share their two cents, especially my students, it burns. I realize this isn't my best character trait. I've learned to take a step back, but I could do with another.