Ben Guest’s Blog

B'More's Finest...

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 16:30:07 -0800

Looks like the C's are going to pick-up Sam Cassell, native of Baltimore, MD. Good addition to the team...

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Old School Disco

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:21:04 -0800

Disco

"Old School Disco" with a basketball court on one side. Photo was taken in 2003, outside of Belzoni, MS.

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Money, MS

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 19:31:27 -0800

Bryant's Store in Money, MS

This is all that remains of Bryant's Store in Money, MS. Fourteen-year-old African-American Emmett Till was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered, for saying "Bye, baby" to Carolyn Bryant as he left this store in 1955. Bryant, a white woman whose husband, Roy, owned the store, resides, to this day, in Greenville, MS. After his acquittal Roy boasted publicly, and in print, about killing Till.

This photo was taken in June of 2007.

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Memorial Hill

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 15:46:38 -0800

Memorial Hill

Here is another photo of the Fairest College of Them All, Memorial Hill, taken in the spring of 2007.

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Drew House

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 17:31:37 -0800

Drew House

I lived in Drew House sophomore year at Amherst College. I took this photo in the spring of 2007.

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Outside Issues

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 17:24:29 -0800

Posts on attrition here and here. Posts on low pay, classroom management, intensity, and administration.

Outside issues, as a reason for leaving the teaching profession, can include anything from having to take care of an ill family member to moving to another country. These are self-explanatory and I don't have much to add except for one factor: significant others.

Over the past four years (and 100 or so participants) I would estimate that we have had ten first-year participants who have moved to Mississippi with a significant other. This can sometimes pose problems for the couple. Let's look at it from the perspective of the significant other who is not in the program and not teaching. Having a husband or wife (or girlfriend or boyfriend) in the Teacher Corps can be difficult for several reasons:

1) You are no longer the most important person in the world. Well, you are, but your spouse (I'll be using "spouse" and "significant other" interchangeably) no longer has any time for you. As I've written previously, being in the Teacher Corps is an all-encompassing experience. There is so much required of a first-year teacher that he or she has little time to do anything outside of school-related issues.

2) You don't understand what your spouse is going through. Your significant other is going through a myriad of emotions and experiences, all away from you. There are a lot of highs and lows and you don't get to experience any of them, except through your spouse. They are your spouse's experiences, not your own.

3) You can't help. You've never done what your spouse is doing, teaching 120 kids in a critical-needs school, so there is not a lot of advice you can give. You feel helpless. When you try to offer advice, your spouse dismisses it because, "You don't understand."

4) You are in the Delta. You don't know anybody. There is nothing to do. You can't find a job. You want to move back home.

5) Your partner is miserable. You want your partner to be happy. If teaching is making him or her miserable, then he or she should stop teaching.

Any combination of these can be tough on a relationship. All of them together can be toxic. Usually either the relationship or the career in teaching will falter. Do those of you who are married, or have a significant other living with you, have any thoughts/experiences to add?

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Oscar Redux

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 20:57:06 -0800

Batted six for eight on the Oscar picks...

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Links of the Week

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Sun, 24 Feb 2008 11:42:26 -0800

Give Kucinich his due.

Intense, well-written account of the soldiers of Battle Company, waging a losing fight with insurgents in Afghanistan. And with the pressures of five and six tours in combat:

As Giunta said, “The richest, most-trained army got beat by dudes in manjammies and A.K.’s.” His voice cracked. He was not just hurting, he was in a rage. And there was nothing for him to do with it but hold back his tears, and bark — at the Afghans for betraying them, at the Army for betraying them. He didn’t run to the front because he was a hero. He ran up to get to Brennan, his friend. “But they” — he meant the military — “just keep asking for more from us.” His contract would be up in 18 days but he had been stop-lossed and couldn’t go home. Brennan himself was supposed to have gotten out in September. He’d been planning to go back to Wisconsin where his dad lived, play his guitar and become a cop.

Wonderful defense of the McCain/Iseman, and of good journalism.

Interview with David Simon, creator of The Wire.

Find the annual salary of any Mississippi superintendent.

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Administration

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 12:39:18 -0800

Posts on attrition here and here. And here are the posts on low pay, classroom management, and intensity.

After "burnout," dealing with difficult/disorganized/unsupportive administration is the factor most often cited by our teachers as to why they are leave the profession. It makes sense that administration at "critical-needs" schools is not particularly good. Just as there is a teacher shortage there is also an administrator shortage. Being a school principal is an even more difficult job than being a teacher. A school principal is responsible for everything from the school buses to the cafeteria to the administrative/support staff. And they handle the serious discipline issues. And curriculum. And making sure everyone is safe. And any sporting event or meeting after school. And dealing with teachers of varying ability and commitment, parents, school board members, and the superintendent. It is a thankless job for which the pay is only slightly more than a veteran teacher. So, there is not a lot of incentive to become an administrator. Furthermore, in dysfunctional school districts, those tapped to become administrators are generally people who have navigated school board politics in such a manner as to accumulate the fewest enemies and not necessarily the best person for the job.

So, what does this mean for our teachers? Principals who say, "Discipline is your responsibility. Don't send any students to the office." Bell schedules that change haphazardly (or that don't exist at all). Random assemblies. General disorganization and lack of institutional control (to be fair, some of our teachers are not doing the best they can. Some of our teachers struggle with classroom management. Some of our teachers can be arrogant and look down on their administrators). I've toyed with the idea of making summer school less organized (random assemblies/bell-ringing, etc.) just to prepare our teachers for the fun to come. And the advice I give the first-year teachers for how to deal with difficult administrators is the same advice I was given: Don't mud-wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it (I believe this was originally stated by Plato).

How do we solve this? The same way you solve the teacher shortage. Pay people significantly more money. Raise the incentives to become an administrator and you will get a higher quality of administrator. It's not rocket science.
To do this taxes would have to be raised. Unfortunately, while every public opinion poll given since the dawn of man shows that people strongly support raising teacher and principal pay, no politician would dream of running on the platform of raising taxes...

Cheating Redux

nobody@vox.com(Ben Guest) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 15:34:56 -0800

Steven Levitt, of Freakonomics fame, has a Q and A with the readers of his blog. Here is one part:

Q: The “cheating teacher” analysis in Freakonomics was an elegant piece of work. Has it been used outside the original sample space, and applied to the nationwide testing effort?

A: A non-academic friend and I once had the idea of taking my cheating detection tools and turning them into a business to help school districts across the country. It turns out, however, that school districts don’t really want to catch cheaters. Cheating detection makes the districts’ test scores go down, and leads to problems with teachers’ unions. As such, no one wanted to buy our services. It made me realize how lucky I was that Arne Duncan was the head of the Chicago Public Schools. His view, when I first showed him the work, was that cheating was hurting the students, and all he cared about was helping the children in his care.

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