These Twenty Things
I get to wake up without an alarm clock going off for the next 14 days. I will eat leftover grilled ribeye steak for breakfast and Cheerios for lunch. I will drink IPA for dinner and go to my mailbox in my pajamas. I will take a luxurious bath.
As we wrap up 2016, I’d like to humbly share these 20 things that I have done — or will/want to do — and suggest that you too may want to do some of these things as a human and as a teacher.
Find a reason to make caramelized onions. You can add it to your favorite pasta sauce or mashed potatoes.
Call a parent to let her know how much you appreciate having her kid in your class. Maybe the kid is struggling in your class, but nonetheless, he is kind and laughs at all your jokes.
Listen to country music to realize that your pain ain’t so bad after all — not the country from Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw or any of them pretty boys — I mean outlaw country music from David Allan Coe and Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson.
Lie to your students that they were always on your mind during winter break, then let them hear Willie Nelson’s Always on My Mind.
Watch La Maison en Petits Cubes by Kunio Katō. It won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 2008.
Make hot chocolate for each kid in your favorite class. Seriously. (Point out to your non-favorite classes that they’d done a poor job in sucking up to you, hence going forward, they ought to try harder.)
Stop consuming products with the label “lite” on it. Sure, it might mean 1/3 fewer calories and 1/2 less fat, but did you know it also means 1/10 of the taste?!
Ask your students, “Did you know that diarrhea is genetic?” Let them ponder that for a few seconds, then say, “Yeah, it runs in your jeans.”
Buy the latest book from #MTBoS: Tracy, Christopher, Mike, John and Matt, Edmund, Malke. (I’m sure I’m missing some people. Please help me out.)
Treat the entire 180 days of school as flu season, spray bleach on everything in your classroom. Avoid the students’ eyeballs.
Finish reading The Sound of Gravel. (For God’s sake, make time to read a non-nerdy book!)
Lie — yes, again! — to your students that you’d graded all their papers over winter break. Then know that you’re fucked and must skip dinner [and life] to grade papers like a squirrel on crack that evening.
Make something from scratch that you’ve never made before, like a baguette. If it comes out looking and tasting like shit, toss it immediately and buy frozen. (Ashli‘s number will be on speed dial as I attempt this.)
Remind students that kindness trumps everything you do in your classroom.
Be kind to yourself. Buy that item you didn’t get for Christmas from your favorite person who is now no longer your favorite. If you sleep next to this person, scream, “I hate you!” in the middle of the night like you are dreaming, except you aren’t.
Connect with your students. Stand up for them. Speak up for them. Difficult decisions aren’t so difficult when we all put children first.
Go to church, go to counseling, go to a friend. Reach out to someone because talking about stuff helps. Writing stuff down helps too. But it’s best to meet up with that person because a good hug is worth the drive.
You are part of a team. Find the rest of your team and collaborate and share strategies and seek solutions. Leave the whiners and downers in the teachers’ lounge.
Let’s not make a list of New Year’s resolutions. It’s like the goddamn pacing guide, sets us up for failure every time. Just repeat #15 above — minus the psycho screaming part, do that just once. Okay, twice. Definitely not more than three times.
Critique the effectiveness of your lesson, not by what answers students give, but by what questions they ask.
Happy Thanksgiving!
On Sunday, I wrote a longer-than-usual email to my siblings about my intentions to begin gathering facts and etching memories for a bucket-list item of writing a book. I told them it could take anywhere between 3 to 10 years, meaning I have no clue.
I have three reasons to write this book: Nicolai, Gabriel, Sabrina.
My sister, Kimzie, replied:
I never forget how I got here, but being reminded of how I survived makes me eternally grateful for my children.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
7 Deadly Sins of Teaching [Maths]
‘Tis the eve of FDOS (first day of school, duh), and I’m no longer nervous or anxious. I’m washing these laptop covers for my homeroom students only because that’s what some of my colleagues did with their kids’ covers. I will not let a kid taunt me on FDOS with, “How come Mrs. So and So gave her students clean covers?” Oh yeah? Well, did you ask if she’d adopt you for the next 180 days?
I committed all 7 sins at one time or another, but there’s no shame involved — says a recovering Catholic — instead, it is a reflection of sorts.
Giving extra credit. I don’t care where you teach, how old your students are, what your zodiac sign is, you’re going to have at least one kid who’ll ask for extra-credit “work” at the eleventh hour of the grading period. Don’t do it. Say no and walk away because the tears might come streaming down his/her face and you have to ration the use of Kleenex. And you should be ashamed of yourself for giving students extra-credit points for bringing in copy papers, sticky notes, dry-erase markers, tissue boxes, doughnuts. Yes, you should send me some.
Giving timed multiplication drills. Maybe there’s a well-documented success story behind this madness that I’m not aware of, but to me, it perpetuates the myth of faster-is-smarter. This practice raises self-doubt and affirms the why-should-I-even-bother mindset.
Giving out the equation. That’s like giving away life’s secrets to someone who flies to Paris to have lunch. Meaning, they don’t need it, nor did they ask for it. Your students’ conversations, their conjectures, their models — are all at the heart of a math class. To give away the equation is to passively (and aggressively!) dismiss our students’ abilities to think for themselves. It’s okay to eventually give them the equation in due time, just don’t start with the equation. Imagine if I just gave my students the equations for slope and area of a circle.
Teaching from one source. No one source is that good. The creators of that source would be fools to not concede that point. It’s like eating out at the same restaurant or boasting that you can make chicken 50 different ways. No you can’t, and nobody cares. Let one or two sources be your structural outline, your mainstay, then supplement it with your favorite lessons or other teachers’ favorite lessons. Remember, any well-crafted lesson outside of the textbook that you can bring in is your gift to your students. Tell them that. And with our prolific #MTBoS, you cannot afford not to supplement.
Talking, talking, you’re still talking. I pretty much end every workshop with this reminder: The more you talk, the less your kids learn. I plan each lesson using this as my go-to guiding principle. Math is a highly social endeavor, so for the love of Ramanujan and Lovelace, please stop talking so much so your kids may talk! Every question you pose is an opportunity for your kiddos to ponder [quietly by oneself first] and share their thoughts with peers. Every question! If you fret that your kids don’t talk in class, then I wonder about two things, 1) Do students feel safe enough to talk in your class? and 2) Is the question you’re asking interesting/worthwhile/challenging to even bother? (I must have asked hundreds of lame, boring, worthless questions, but I’m not giving up. I practice and get better.)
Keeping up with the Joneses. That colleague whose hair and complexion are always perfect is just not as funny as you are. That teacher whose students all adore her probably owns a cat that wants to kill her. And that “amazing” teacher whom everyone talks about probably sucks at everything else in life! And he might be a compulsive hoarder of all things creepy! So, don’t mind them. We’re not here to compete with one another. We’re here to make mathematics rock for our kids. There is one you and 24 hours in a day. Make time for yourself, make time for your family. We all have shitty days that rob us of our wits and sensibilities, but recognizing that and committing to having a better day tomorrow are worthy endeavors. Our students need us more than they care to admit.
Being an asshole. I already stated from the beginning that I’m guilty. No one wants to learn from someone who’s mean and angry and bossy. When we try to establish authority in the classroom, we may inadvertently end up being perceived as this person. The meaner we get, the less students want to have anything to do with us, so the angrier we get. It’s a vicious cycle, and everyone is losing. We’re the adult in the room, charged with a magnificent duty to establish a learning culture, which will not happen if we don’t behave like an adult. Children are said to be resilient, but they are also impressionable, and their impressionable minds are vulnerable — vulnerable to criticism, to shame, to false praises.
Let’s pray for more patience, more kindness, more badass. Here’s to us — and to a great school year!
Growth vs. Proficiency
I usually take copious notes when attending conferences. It’s more of a self-discipline gesture to make me sit up straight and pay attention. I even try to sit in the front row. (The only time this backfired was in Psychology 101 when the professor had to talk about herpes and I was sporting a gargantuan one of the simplex 1 type on my upper lip. Not cool.)
I’m sharing the following notes from last year’s SDB Conference because we passionately voiced and argued — and confirmed and challenged — one another’s thinking and teaching practice.
Before discussing the topic of “growth vs. proficiency” within our small groups, we were asked to answer these two questions individually:
What is the difference between growth and proficiency?
How can we measure both accurately?
I wrote:
Growth is individual progress, whereas proficiency is achieving some set of standards. One can grow but not achieve proficiency.
Not sure. Can we ever measure these two things accurately?
Then the conversations began, and I jotted down some stuff:
Growth is more social, proficiency is more academic.
Both must be motivated.
Both cannot be fostered if the classroom culture and teacher mindset are not in sync.
Both must address how a kid learns best.
A young child appreciates nature, but knowing the golden ratio is cool and requires knowing division.
No one is born proficient, without growth, there’s no proficiency.
We need to let growth and proficiency be time independent.
It’s wrong that a kid can’t get a high school diploma when she’s a brilliant artist and can’t do algebra 1.
We need to teach kids to reach their own goals instead of ours.
To achieve proficiency, we should have standards, and we should agree on them.
Types of tests should not be designed for the ease of testing.
Proficiency: report card for the school, reputation of the institution, snapshot at that time. Growth: distance traveled over time, point A to point B can be a dramatic growth.
Story archived on NPR: A teacher brought up a low group of kids to meet standards and was awarded, but she was penalized when she had a high group of kids and they didn’t see growth.
Students think they are what their grade is.
When you measure proficiency, you can see growth over time.
Proficiency ≠ Excellence
Setting the bar is not a teacher thing, it’s an admin thing — if you don’t make proficiency, you go to PI, and PI is hell.
We teach to a bell curve, and we teachers are a bell curve. One size does not fit all.
Growth is more individual, many different aspects of that kid, such as attitude, mindset, social behavior. Proficiency is more measurable, toward a whole group, show mastery, attach a number to this measure.
Suggestions: students track their own progress, journaling, blogging; teacher is transparent in their expectations.
Some questions:
What about teacher proficiency?
Can we combine growth and proficiency? Can they be quantified?
Growth is effort, how do you measure that?
How do we strike a balance between growth and proficiency?
How do get politicians out of this process?
Who decides what proficiency means? Do students have a voice in this? (Teachers grade differently.)
How can we communicate with everyone else to put equal weight between growth and proficiency? (We’re on a constant treadmill to keep up with the changes.)
Portfolios are good, but how do you implement and grade them?
Project-based learning has pros and cons, how do you give a grade for that?
Are students learning social interactions, problem solving, communication, collaboration?
Two thoughts precipitated from this discussion for me, then and now. It might be that our schools are set up to measure proficiency, but they misinterpret those scores as measures of growth. And however we choose to define growth vs. proficiency, how do we ensure equal access to promote growth and proficiency? Professor William Tate, earlier in April at NCTM Annual Meeting, gave the Iris M. Carl Equity Address, he said, “The greatest threat to math instruction is the empty seat problem.”
Catching Up
According to my online Social Security account, my earnings record shows:
24 years of full-time teaching
2 years of half-time teaching
1 year of subbing
It also shows this not-so-fun fact:
And this, which I find morosely funny:
Had I known ahead of time how depressing these numbers would be, I would have become a farmer instead. Grow cannabis or something.
Anyway. It’s been a busy summer. I attended my first TODOS Conference in Scottsdale, AZ. I facilitated for NCTM’s Deep Dive for three 2-hour sessions on Ratios and Proportional Reasoning. Then I presented for CUE in Brentwood, CA, on Computational Thinking.
Thankfully I managed to squeeze out some time for a week-long camping trip at Shaver Lake and a trip to Oregon for my niece’s wedding.
I have three big commitments for the remainder of the year:
BCAMT in Vancouver (BC) in October
NCTM’s Innov8 in St. Louis in November
CMC-North in Asilomar in December
We have a new principal this year, and I have a new math colleague (she and I make up the math department). My teaching assignment this coming year remains pretty much the same — 6th and 8th grade maths — except I’ll also teach an elective period of computational thinking (problem-solving) to 6th graders. What’s new is our block schedule which I have mixed feelings about as I’m not familiar with it. Kinda nice not having to see the brats every day though. :p
In summary, I need to work until I’m 104 just to afford rent on a two-bedroom in drought-stricken southern California. But hey, where else are you going to get summer-like weather year-round?
Jewish Mother
I had some friends over for dinner a few evenings ago. I made pho, but 2/3 of my guests had never had pho before, so I made another soup to make sure no one went home hungry. (We would later have pound cake and four different flavors of Ben & Jerry’s for dessert.)
As I got up from the table to get more food for my friend Rob, he said, “You’re like a Jewish mother.”
I smiled, it was not the first time I’d been paid that compliment. I love to cook only because I love to feed people. Originally this blog was meant as a food blog, my first post on fawnnguyen.com was about our Thanksgiving dinner in 2011.
Cooking and eating — acts that would save me from my miserable childhood.
The shame of being poor was all too obvious. My own body betrayed me, how would you hide your bones from threadbare clothing, how would you tell your tummy to stop growling. How would you hide your hunger.
My parents worked very hard to make sure there was food on the table — make that the floor, we ate sitting cross-legged on the floor — but there was never enough food. I had feelings of resentment toward my parents for having so many damn kids that they couldn’t fully feed. Thank God my younger brother died at birth or else there’d be eight children to feed.
My childhood memories, if I were brave enough to revisit them, would revolve around being hungry and craving for this food and that food. I now wonder if my siblings have the same memories. If they don’t, then they are big fat hairy liars. Or they were the culprits of my childhood hunger as they ate all my food.
I remember the two young boys’ faces and bodies as if I just saw them yesterday. My childhood self observed their plump faces, their bodies filled out their school uniforms, their suspenders stretched taut against their bellies. They were not hungry, they were fat, they were happy, their grandma beamed with pride.
I wanted to be like them. Fat and full of food. They knew no shame because their bones were not showing, their bellies did not grumble while doing school work. Of course they went to bed full.
Then I came to America. My 6th grade classmates called me chicken legs. I ate and ate until no one called me chicken legs any more. This is my freezer right now, not because I like ice cream all that much, I have them just in case you come to visit.
Making a Difference
Why it’s so hard for me to leave the classroom. I’m making a difference here and now.
Half Century Plus One
I remember reading Shireen’s wonderful post last year when she turned 50 and thought, We’re the same age, and I want to celebrate turning 50 too! Well, I missed my chance to write something last year, but it’s never too late, so I’m stealing Shireen’s prompt “50 things I’ve learned about teaching” and broadening it to “51 thing I’ve learned about teaching and growing” because I turned 51 last month.
De-clutter. When Megan and her hubs visited me in my 2-bedroom apartment in February, she looked around and asked, "Where's all your stuff?"
Smile and say hello to strangers.
Tell students how awesome you are.
Buy fresh flowers for yourself. I get whatever is on sale at the market, like right now I have two bunches of gladioli for $1.99 each.
When a kid is rude or mean, stop everything and point that out. Then you can add, “I care about you and everyone in this room, and I need you to be kind.”
You don’t have to continue with a bad lesson.
Share with your students your hobbies and maybe your adulthood fear.
Commit to listening to someone without interrupting and judging.
Call a parent to tell him how much you appreciate having his child in your class.
Add butter to your cooking. To sauté anything, I heat up equal amounts of olive oil and butter, add a ton of garlic (and/or shallots) and cook until fragrant, then add your food and toss everything up. Season with just salt and fresh ground pepper.
Plant some fresh herbs and eat them! I’m always growing rosemary, basil, and mint.
Tell people you love that you love them. Say it all the time, even when you’re slightly mad at them.
Catch students being good. Go overboard with praising them.
Ask students to pick up any trash around them, and model this.
Tell students how much you respect and appreciate a colleague.
Splurge on something for yourself. I have a set of high thread-count sheets.
Always leave a place neater and cleaner than how you’d found it.
Get to know all the dogs in the neighborhood.
Avoid all mean people. Because mean people suck.
There’s probably a reason why certain people are mean.
Be the first to say sorry, especially to your family and students.
Let the person you love have the last word.
Find humor in self-deprecation.
Find strength in self-love.
Remember that fibbing is lying.
Show gratitude daily. Remind yourself of all the things you do have.
Tackle a challenging math problem. Make this a regular thing.
Tell that one person to fuck off because he/she had hurt you for the umpteenth time. Then walk away and stay away.
Laugh out loud with your students. Be funny. Have fun.
Create a classroom environment that your younger student self would want to be in.
Reach out to your colleagues for guidance. Reciprocate generously.
Try to keep your classroom tidy and clean. Sanitize all surfaces!
Always put children first. Feed them first. Take care of their needs first. (Your students are these children.)
Sing loudly in your car when driving alone.
Most of the time, it’s not about you. Be okay with that.
When people need to vent about their family member, they really don’t want you to agree with them.
Always be on time. Update your ETA if you’re running behind.
Don’t underestimate students’ abilities. Don’t overestimate their sensitivities.
It’s likely that whatever topic you’re teaching is not the student’s top priority right now. It’s only school. It’s not for everyone. It’s not you.
Have more last-minute picnics.
Only your opinion matters when it comes to how that outfit looks on you.
Go hiking more. Rachel does it best.
Make time for your friends. Sam does it best.
Deliver a plate of homemade food to your next-door neighbor. Make it pretty and include the recipe or list of ingredients. (Not cool should they die eating your food.)
Eat a new food. Thai? Moroccan? Persian? I think it’s the only way to truly know its people.
Give less homework or give none at all. (I’m working on this.) Encourage children, big or small, to play outside.
“Feelings are boring. Kisses are awesome.” David has this t-shirt.
Ask for help. And be willing to help because it was probably not easy for the person to ask for your help.
“Forgive but never forget.” Like the tattoo on my daughter’s arm.
Be the teacher you’d want your own child to have. Teach hard. Teach true.
Consider stabbing yourself with a sharp pencil before committing to writing a list of 51 anything.
They Save Me
Like all mornings, the alarm on my cell phone pays no attention to my slumber and goes off anyway. I’ve changed the default ringtone of Radar to Ripples — it’s still annoying and elicits the same expletive from me.
Another Monday. Just three more Mondays.
Like going to the gym, the hardest part is getting there. Once I arrive at school, my mood is buoyant from the exchanges of greetings and smiles with the students.
I’m finishing up my 26th year in the classroom. Yet no two moments have been the same. Each kid unique, each class different, each interaction idiosyncratic. The kids are all lovely. They are all crazy. They ask great questions. They ask dumb questions. They know a lot more than we think. They know nothing. They are very kind. They are rude. They say funny things. They tell the worst jokes.
The briefest exchanges let me know that I’m in a good place.
Sometime during 2nd period:
At the start of 5th period:
Me: Please draw a rectangle, any size is fine.
J: You want us to do that now?
Me: No. Two hours from now.
K: Hehe. I love your sarcasm, Ms. Win.
It’s been a rough year in my personal life. But I get to escape from it through these light moments with my students. They make me laugh. They make me fart. They save me from myself.
Baklava and Euler
Some 20 years ago. Two colleagues were talking in the hallway outside my classroom when I approached. Guess they were talking about food. He turned to me and said, “I bet Fawn doesn’t know what a baklava is.” I said, “I do know,” and walked away.
What I really wanted to say: Hey asshole. Why did you assume that I didn’t know what a baklava was? You could have just asked me if I knew.
Some 5 years ago. A math professor was visiting our math project because he was one of the regional directors (or in some similar capacity) overseeing the project. At the end of the workshop, he decided to tell me about dead mathematicians, scribbled their names on the whiteboard, and then he pointed to Euler’s name and said, “His name is not pronounced like what you might think.” I said, “I say oiler, how do you say it?”
What I really wanted to say: Hey asshole. Why did you assume that I didn’t know how to say Euler’s name? You could have just asked me if I knew.
I shared two instances, sadly I have many more.
I hadn’t heard of “mansplaining” until just a few years ago.
These various encounters were always unfortunate, and I’d walked away from each one without saying what I really wanted to say. I was probably thinking, I don’t have time for the likes of you. And my anger dissolved into boredom, almost as if I’d accepted it as part of life — an element in the period table, in the inert column.
But that might be a lie because I’m reactive to it — even for the briefest moment — by being made to feel small and vulnerable, intellectually inferior and naive, dismissed and categorized.
I shall speak up next time.
A to Z
I’m just following Annie’s lead.
Here goes — just whatever word comes to my mind starting with that letter and how I might use it in a sentence.
A — Attorney. I should have been an attorney so I may charge my unfortunate client in increments of 1/20 hour.
B — Buttercloud. At Buttercloud Bakery & Cafe, you can order french toast made from buttermilk biscuits, like they do in heaven.
C — Cow. I have a memory of a cow.
D — Dick. Stop acting like a dick. Don’t be a dick. You’re a dick. (Why does dick get all the bum rap.)
E — Everett. Dear Everett, You left this world too soon, but I will forever see your big smile.
F — Family. I can’t stand services that claim “We treat you like family here.” No you don’t, because if you did, you wouldn’t charge us.
G — God. Are you there God? It’s me, Fawn, not Margaret. Screw her, I need You to work on me.
H — Happy. Be happy, anything less hinges on self-hate.
I — Ice cream. My kid ate all the ice cream, like all 12 bars and 8 pints, I shit you not.
J — Japan. This same kid is going to Japan for who-knows-how-long. I’ll wait until he leaves to restock the freezer.
K — Kaplinsky. I love Robert Kaplinsky more than I love kale, and I really like kale.
L — Lemons. Yes, freshly squeezed lemons, not limes, and lots of freshly squeezed oranges (or juice from a carton that’s NOT from concentrate), together with a shot of tequila = yum.
M — Matt. Matt Vaudrey just sent me a few texts today that brought a big smile to my face and his words felt like a warm hug. Thank you, Matt.
N — Nevaeh. I have a student named Nevaeh, and it’s only recently that I learned it’s “heaven” spelled backwards.
O — Open House! Yes, tonight is Open House, but I have no student work on display at all. Nada. That’s because we do almost everything in Google Classroom and on whiteboards, and whiteboards get wiped! I had my students write various PS [problem-solving] problems on large white boards for parents/guests to work on. Then on the big TV, I have slides on loop showing the kids’ work on Desmos, visual patterns, and other fun stuff.
P — Pride. Sometimes pride may be mistaken for arrogance. Your pride should elevate others around you, whereas your arrogance aims to diminish them.
Q — CUE. I had a great time presenting at the first ever CUE Rock Star MATH camp last weekend in Los Gatos. (What? Qantas??)
R — Rosemary. After you grill a steak, finish it off in a hot pan with butter and sprigs of rosemary.
S — Sorry. [6/2/16: I took out what I originally wrote here. Anyway. Never be sorry for being you, for existing, for trying to do your best with what you have.]
T — Teachers. Teachers are my heroes, the same way that kids are my heroes.
U — Uterus. My, what a lovely uterus you have.
V — Vagina. Victory. Vegan. Megan sent me vegan jerky, and it tasted like shit.
W — Weed. Weed is that green crumbly leafy stuff that you can snort. Or am I thinking of dandelion.
X — Xtra. If you allow students to turn in Xtra credit, then I don’t think we can be friends.
Y – You. Annie would say, You do you.
Z — Zits. I shouldn’t be getting zits at age 51.
An Update
It’s been a while. Thought I should post an update.
I moved out to an apartment back in October, four days after breaking my foot. I planned the former, and the gods of stairs planned the latter. The foot is much better, but I’m walking with a discernibly cautious gait. I have two colleagues who broke the same [fifth metatarsal] bone; they healed completely after four weeks, and I’m still limping after four months.
My son — who just turned 21 — moved in with me. He has a part-time job and is my biggest cheerleader. Even when I’m attempting pull-ups, he cheers me on, You’re a champion, Ma! One more for Jesus!
I’m really happy. No, not 24/7 happy — these folks, if they exist, need to be punched in the face. I’m happy to still be in the classroom teaching mostly adorable middle school students. I’m happy that I’m healthy, eating and sleeping well.
I continue to present at workshops, always grateful for the opportunities to engage with and learn from other math educators. My schedule looks a bit crazy, starting with NCTM in April, but I’m excited to contribute a little bit and gain a lot at these conferences.
Around Christmas time I entertained leaving the classroom for a math coach position, but then I thought better of it. Maybe the same opportunity will come up again in the fall, I’ll worry about it then. As I write this, I’m thinking there ought to be at least 112 damn good reasons for me to leave the classroom because that’s how many students I have. God knows how much I love these kids.
Last weekend I got to play host to Megan Schmidt and her husband Scott. What a gorgeous couple, even if one of them is a Nebraskan.
Here’s hoping I’ll catch y’all soon at a nearby conference.