Inservice Meeting Thoughts

The following was my internal dialogue during a teacher inservice on January 31, 2011. I had my laptop with me and just kept track of my thoughts throughout the day...

If we don’t expect teachers to be on time for an inservice, how can we expect students to be on time for class, or to get working immediately when they are given instructions. It is obvious that that is not an expectation in the culture, whether it’s the school culture or the village culture. Teachers should not be ignored when they wander in late, nor should students. Teachers, mainly the Yupik teachers, regularly walk in 15-30 minutes late for inservice trainings.

If the clock becomes that insignificant, then how can we expect the students to magically understand its importance during timed, standardized tests?

90% of our students are low-level learners. The state anticipates that that number will be 15% in any given school.

This is definitely a clash of cultures. The discussion is that we need to be gathering meaningful data on our students learning, but the question was raised about how do we do that when 40% of the students contribute nothing to the classroom. Parents do not value education. Therefore, students treat it as a joke and just show up in the classroom because the law states that their warm body has to be there. They think we have nothing of value to offer. Our principal says that we can’t be overwhelmed by that. We have to take what little improvement we can get.

The principal also says that we are going to have “Positive Behavior Training” that we are going to implement in late April. How does that help? A month before school is out? What a joke.

The topic of the inservice is now bullying. Bullying has been identified by the students as the number one problem with the school climate. That includes the way Sarah has been treated – pacifistic bullying – not including her, excluding her, not sitting at her art table. The Yupik teachers are saying that bullying starts “out there.” I think they are taking offense that it may start in the home. The white teachers are now addressing that. Things could get interesting. Obviously, drinking and abuse is a major problem in this village – is that not a form of bullying? The kids bring those attitudes to school, for sure.

The assistant principal just did an activity with the staff, prefacing it by telling us how negative the staff is all the time. We were each given three candies – one to keep and two to give to people who we see as positive influences in the school. I felt bad for those folks who didn’t get any candy. It was not a very positive activity – made the negative people feel even worse.

We are spending hours and hours talking about how to improve instruction, reteaching, intervention, and assessments. However, the problem is in behavior and cultural norms and expectations, not teaching methods. It’s like they’re scared to address the real issue. It’s more comfortable to stay in a data fog than to talk about the reality that formal education is not valued in this culture, and will likely never be. The educational gurus don’t want to change the culture, but they want to put public schools in the villages and assess them the same way as schools in Anchorage. It’s like dropping an ice cube in to a boiling pot of water. The pot of water is the village and the ice cube is public education. We’re melting and nothing is going to stop that. But, the powers that be are determined that an ice cube can survive in this pot of water without turning the fire down (aka changing the culture). Impossible. So, the educational system keeps analyzing the melting process, trying to come up with a new chemical composition for the ice cube to keep it from melting.

So, we continue to bury our heads in the data and try to analyze our way to fixing a problem that is cultural at its core and can’t be data driven.

A huge shift needs to occur. This school should have 90% certified Yupik teachers pushing this community of learners to succeed. Having a bunch of Gussak teachers come in and try to place their values on an already divisive community just doesn’t work. The emphasis should be on getting Yupik teachers. Maybe it is time for me to go back for my PhD in Indigenous Studies so I can help change things for the better.

So, now the middle school and high school teachers are having a discussion to decide which 7th and 8th grade students should get promoted. I’ve never heard of such a thing. Aren’t there black and white rules for this? They are doing the same for 9-11th graders, ignoring the whole Carnegie unit concept. This just boggles my mind.

The principal is trying to cheer up the teachers by saying that in 10 years, 85% of our students will be on grade level (15% of them on grade level today). How does he know that? That’s ridiculous. It didn’t happen in the past 10 years. Without a drastic change, there is just no way that kind of a change will happen in the next 10 years.

They’re talking about retaining 7th graders purely based on behavior – that they don’t put forth any effort and are already acquiring a criminal record, so they should be retained in the 7th grade. What?! So, the answer is to put them with kids who are even more immature?

I feel like such an outsider. I think differently than these people. I live differently. I was obviously raised differently. So many of the discussions make me feel like I'm in the twilight zone. Were these white teachers never in mainstream civilization? Did this place really change them so much that now they promote kids from grade to grade based on their personal opinions rather than cold, hard facts? I find myself getting quiet in these meetings. I just retreat within myself to what little sanity still lies there. I must guard it. I just want to go home to the quiet of my house, talk with Sarah about it. She has become my compass. My conversations with her are the only ones that make sense any more.