The Learning Curve
Internal Motivation is Like North Dakota
Last semester, I was thrown into a teaching position wherein I had 150 students to tend to--and that experience was more an exercise in control than in instruction or teaching. This semester as explained in my last entry caps my student load at 50 students (I have 37--6-10 students per sixty-minute period). My students...
Title I funding was used to bring me back (me in all my un-tenured glory) as a literacy intervention teacher. I have a class size cap of 10 students and the freedom to build this course from the ground up.
First assignment: I had students watch this video clip:
A video on how to teach a dog to roll over using operant conditioning. Students were utterly confused, wondering what sort of class they were put in, and I had them just where I wanted them. I asked them to then describe what happened in the video. I...
This same day, a student handed me a card in which she wrote, "Thanks for giving me the freedom to speak my mind."
The next day, two students threw me a little farewell party to end the semester--two students who hated my class a month ago.
The last day of class, a student thanked God he never had to have me again. "Now I can FINALLY get an 'A'!"
A semester of mixed reviews.
As part of their final project, my students had to identify a community problem and design an intervention to combat said problem. A majority of the students rose to the occasion and shined brilliantly. Others refused to abandon their failing streak. What was reassuring to me is that most of the...
Our man, Freire, is calling us out--PUT YO' MONEY WHERE YO' MOUTH IS! Words without reflection are pointless. Words without action are likewise pointless. It is only when we balance our words with reflection and action that we can call ourselves thinkers and transformers. (Sigh. Where are the Freires of the world? 'Cause I'm single and ready to mingle! If you're there--mouths silently--call me.)
All kidding aside, this is exactly what I have moved to implement in my classroom--a movement from thoughts and words to action through the implementation of a community-school interaction project for my ninth graders (for a...
We developed this model for educational reform while I was out of the classroom for a year and Khadigah had just graduated from undergrad with her newly minted teacher's certificate. For a nine minute synopsis of our model, watch our video:
This video summarizes my vision for my return to the classroom. My past posts speak to my attempt to implement and stay true to this model--and my successive failure to...
If you've read my previous entries, I hope it was clear that I had a vision for my classroom and I was going to strive to make this vision a reality. The path had been set and the last time we communicated, I believed that I needed to condition my students to be unconditionable. I quoted Audre Lorde and questioned her belief that we could not use the master's tools to dismantle the master's home.
So several weeks later and after lots of reflecting, I'm totally retracting my statements. As adamant as I was that my students needed to be conditioned through the use of grades and external rewards, I now say with the same conviction, that this is pointless and will yield temporary high...
"Stop doing that and apologize."
"What? She doesn't care."
"She's not going to tell you she cares, but I do. Treat her like you'd treat your sisters."
"I don't have sisters."
"Treat her the way you'd treat your...
Critical pedagogy was my tool of choice: an educational philosophy accredited to the late Paolo Freire, which reconstructed the educational experience into one that liberated both student and teacher instead of...
"Hey! Where's your pass?"
"Where are you going? Get to class!"
"Who let you in this copy room?"
"Get to the back of the line!"
All of these are greetings given to me by adults in the building who mistook me for a student. No smiles. No hellos. Just a growing list...
Posted on Mar 17, 2010 - 09:01 PM by Ammerah Saidi
Paul, one of my friends in high school, proclaimed that North Dakota didn't exist. He'd ask, "Have you ever met anyone from North Dakota? What's ever come out of North Dakota? We've read about it--but have you ever been there?" I've never really stopped wondering about North Dakota being a conspiracy to validate South Dakota's existence, but Paul's words have been louder than ever in my head since I've taken on my new teaching job as a literacy intervention teacher.Last semester, I was thrown into a teaching position wherein I had 150 students to tend to--and that experience was more an exercise in control than in instruction or teaching. This semester as explained in my last entry caps my student load at 50 students (I have 37--6-10 students per sixty-minute period). My students...
Read More... 5 Comments
Re-hired and It Feels So GoodPosted on Feb 21, 2010 - 10:16 PM by Ammerah Saidi
On January 29th, I received my official letter of termination. Our district has lost more than a million dollars in funding and any new teachers were immediately cut. On February 1st, I received my official letter of re-assignment. This story has a happy beginning.Title I funding was used to bring me back (me in all my un-tenured glory) as a literacy intervention teacher. I have a class size cap of 10 students and the freedom to build this course from the ground up.
First assignment: I had students watch this video clip:
A video on how to teach a dog to roll over using operant conditioning. Students were utterly confused, wondering what sort of class they were put in, and I had them just where I wanted them. I asked them to then describe what happened in the video. I...
Read More... 0 Comments
Freire’s “True Word” Conclusion—Or Beginning…Posted on Jan 31, 2010 - 08:46 PM by Ammerah Saidi
"You're the worst teacher ever!" The last words of a ninth grader I had kicked out during final presentations.This same day, a student handed me a card in which she wrote, "Thanks for giving me the freedom to speak my mind."
The next day, two students threw me a little farewell party to end the semester--two students who hated my class a month ago.
The last day of class, a student thanked God he never had to have me again. "Now I can FINALLY get an 'A'!"
A semester of mixed reviews.
As part of their final project, my students had to identify a community problem and design an intervention to combat said problem. A majority of the students rose to the occasion and shined brilliantly. Others refused to abandon their failing streak. What was reassuring to me is that most of the...
Read More... 0 Comments
Working for Freire’s “True Word”Posted on Jan 18, 2010 - 06:26 PM by Ammerah Saidi
Paolo Freire writes, "Human existence cannot be silent nor can it be nourished by false words, but only by true words, with which men and women transform the world."Our man, Freire, is calling us out--PUT YO' MONEY WHERE YO' MOUTH IS! Words without reflection are pointless. Words without action are likewise pointless. It is only when we balance our words with reflection and action that we can call ourselves thinkers and transformers. (Sigh. Where are the Freires of the world? 'Cause I'm single and ready to mingle! If you're there--mouths silently--call me.)
All kidding aside, this is exactly what I have moved to implement in my classroom--a movement from thoughts and words to action through the implementation of a community-school interaction project for my ninth graders (for a...
Read More... 2 Comments
The Plans of Mice and MenPosted on Jan 11, 2010 - 08:04 PM by Ammerah Saidi
My friend and partner, Khadigah Alasry, in the fight to make education real again, developed a vision for a model of reform last year. We started presenting this model within the U.S. and over the internet. We've been invited to present in Dublin, the Cayman Islands, Hawaii, Dubai, Paris, and other places but due to our lack of funds and now time, we have had to kindly decline.We developed this model for educational reform while I was out of the classroom for a year and Khadigah had just graduated from undergrad with her newly minted teacher's certificate. For a nine minute synopsis of our model, watch our video:
This video summarizes my vision for my return to the classroom. My past posts speak to my attempt to implement and stay true to this model--and my successive failure to...
Read More... 5 Comments
Don’t Call it a ComebackPosted on Dec 21, 2009 - 10:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi
I've been gone a while--I know. But such is the nature of democratic education. Let me explain.If you've read my previous entries, I hope it was clear that I had a vision for my classroom and I was going to strive to make this vision a reality. The path had been set and the last time we communicated, I believed that I needed to condition my students to be unconditionable. I quoted Audre Lorde and questioned her belief that we could not use the master's tools to dismantle the master's home.
So several weeks later and after lots of reflecting, I'm totally retracting my statements. As adamant as I was that my students needed to be conditioned through the use of grades and external rewards, I now say with the same conviction, that this is pointless and will yield temporary high...
Read More... 2 Comments
Skinner Box to FreedomPosted on Nov 17, 2009 - 08:44 PM by Ammerah Saidi
So, there I stood. In front of my thirty 9th graders, hour after hour, watching them write letters to each other, put their gum under their desks, talk to their neighbors while the assigned worksheet on the parts of speech I just spent the night before diligently creating fell silently to the floor. Think I am being melodramatic? I wish! In one class, I laughed to myself for a solid thirty seconds (a long time in high school time), after I spent three minutes going back and forth with a student as to why throwing wads of paper at a girl he did not like was unacceptable."Stop doing that and apologize."
"What? She doesn't care."
"She's not going to tell you she cares, but I do. Treat her like you'd treat your sisters."
"I don't have sisters."
"Treat her the way you'd treat your...
Read More... 2 Comments
Using the Master’s ToolsPosted on Nov 01, 2009 - 06:47 PM by Ammerah Saidi
My first week into teaching after my year in graduate school, I was filled with grand ideas and ideals as to what I would do in my classroom to help my students liberate themselves from the intellectual shackles of US public education. I entered my classroom and my school with the belief that my students and I would revolutionize the educational experience in Detroit forever--no hyperbole intended. This is how deeply I believed in my students and their potential to be positive change agents in a world which deemed them failures or equally insulting, average at best.Critical pedagogy was my tool of choice: an educational philosophy accredited to the late Paolo Freire, which reconstructed the educational experience into one that liberated both student and teacher instead of...
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Prisoners or Students?Posted on Oct 20, 2009 - 01:14 AM by Ammerah Saidi
I'm 5'2" and about 105 lbs. I'm small--so walking through the hallways of the new school in which I just got a teaching position, I get mistaken all the time as a student, by students and teachers alike. This gives my students the impression that I'm a pushover, and staff the idea that I won't last in this school past a couple of months. But what my misleading physique grants me is a world into the daily feelings of my students inside a building they will spend four of their formative years in--if they make it through four."Hey! Where's your pass?"
"Where are you going? Get to class!"
"Who let you in this copy room?"
"Get to the back of the line!"
All of these are greetings given to me by adults in the building who mistook me for a student. No smiles. No hellos. Just a growing list...
Read More... 1 Comments