On Calculators and the Education Gap

Sometimes it's the little things that let you know just how big the problem is. For me, it's calculators.

This week in my algebra 1 class I've been teaching sequences and exponential functions. In non-math speak, that means we've been talking about calculating things that require multiplying a number by itself over and over and over again. In the real world, exponential functions are all around us. They allow us to calculate interest on financial investments and depreciation on cars as well as growth rates for elephant populations. In many ways, the financial and biological worlds operate in exponentials. They're a foundational skill of algebra and essential to how the world around us works. They're also pretty damn tedious to calculate on paper or with a four function calculator.

Unfortunately, paper and four function calculators are what my class has. Room 10 is currently in possession of exactly five calculators purchased from Walmart for 50 cents each, which I can borrow from the office on days when other teachers haven't gotten there first. These calculators add, subtract, multiply, and divide and when the battery runs out we just throw them away; a new battery costs more than a new calculator. Four functions can get you pretty far, but these calculators fall a bit short when you're asking students to calculate 1.1^8. When you have to type 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 x 1.1 = into a calculator, it takes a lot of time and leaves a lot of room for human error. So for the most part, my co-teacher and I are limited to giving our students pretty simple problems. On days we don't have calculators, it often means not using decimals in examples or practice problems. Even on the days we do have calculators, it might mean calculating the value of a bank account in the 5th year of receiving interest instead of the 16th year.

In contrast to my students and their 50 cent calculators, I got my first scientific calculator in the 9th grade. It had an exponent function and all of the trig functions and could convert between degrees and radians. It cost about $30 and it was an expectation that all students have their own calculator for school. By 10th grade, we were required to upgrade to an $80 graphing calculator. And, honestly, I never thought anything of it. Every day I learned how to do  new things on my calculator and took it home at night to use for my homework. By the time my ACT, SAT, and AP tests rolled around, I was a master of my TI-83 and could fly through problems requiring complex arithmetic calculations.

Students in the Delta don't have that luxury. It would be ludicrous to expect parents in some of the poorest counties in the nation to provide a $30 calculator one year and an $80 one the next. Instead, most schools have a class set. It might not include enough calculators for every student to use one during class and some might be broken and almost certainly students will not be able to take these calculators home to use for homework at night. Some schools let students borrow these calculators for college admissions tests and some do not. On a day to day basis, not having a calculator might not seem like that big of a deal, but when you are taking your ACT on a Saturday morning with a calculator you've barely ever practiced with next to a kid from the private school down the road who is keying in numbers to his familiar, personal calculator, suddenly that calculator becomes a much bigger deal.

Maybe in the state with the lowest educational attainment in the country, the highest infant mortality rate, and the lowest educational attainment, calculators aren't really the problem. Maybe standing in poorest state in the Union and worrying about calculators is just me missing the forest for the trees. But perhaps not.

You see, for me, calculators, more than any one thing, have come to represent the gaping space between the educational opportunities I received and the educational opportunities my students will receive. They represent the little everyday challenges that distract you from the bigger ones, the molehills that make you forget the mountain. If poverty means not worrying about who to vote for because you're too worried about where dinner is coming from, then educational inequity means not worrying about how you'll pay for college because you're too worried about taking the ACT without a calculator.

I wish I could tell you that I've found a clever workaround for this problem in my classroom, but I haven't. I just write examples that don't look like the ones that show up on tests and count on my students, who can multiply 81 by 3 in their heads way faster than I can. At the end of the day, my students are the people who will face the biggest challenges from both a lack of calculators and a lack of educational opportunities, but I'm convinced that those students will also be exactly the people who figure out how to fix those problems for the students that come after them. I can't wait to see them do it.

What I Know Now

This has been the hardest week of my life, bar none. I'm covered in bug bites, I'm exhausted, and I'm facing challenges I've never faced before in my life, challenges that, frankly, I'm completely unprepared for. Every day I fail at something in a new and creative way. Yet everyday I come back for more.

At some point, I've had to ask myself why I keep coming back. Actually, it hasn't been at some point. It's been at every point. Every single day I have to reassess what I'm here for and ask myself if I knew then what I know now, would I still have decided to come down here in the first place?

The answer is an unequivocal yes and in actual fact it doesn't have anything to do with what I know now. It has everything to do with who I know now. 

Because now I have students. 

Every day my students challenge me to do better. Every day they ask me questions I'm not prepared for. Every day they test me. Every day they impress me.

So I keep coming back not because I now know how to write a lesson plan. Not because I now know how to write a scaffolded assessment. And not even because I now know the literacy rates in the Mississippi are the lowest in the country. 

I keep coming back because now I know them. I know the student who wouldn't speak at a more than a whisper on Monday and was my most active class participant by Friday. I know the student who wants to design video games but can't read anywhere near grade level. I know the student who is taking Algebra I for the fourth time entering his senior year. I know the students who understand and explain everything almost perfectly out loud and who then get 25% and 30% on their daily assessments. I know the students (all of them, every single one) who want nothing more than to succeed, who haven't been given the tools to know how.

And when I think of them, I wonder how anyone could turn away. I wonder why so many people already have. I certainly can't. Not when I know them. Not when I know who I know now.

...

Weekly Gratitude: I have the most wonderful lesson planning team in the state of Mississippi, probably the country. The four of us spend almost every waking minute together, but we don't hate each other yet. In fact, we really like each other and we have a surprising amount of fun planning lessons and working our butts off every night. To them, I just want to say thank you and I couldn't do it without you!

Challenge: Often during my lessons students are en pointe verbally and can clearly demonstrate that they're understanding the material, but when it comes to written work, their intelligence and understanding just isn't showing up. It weighs on my mind all the time.

Quote of the Week: "Everybody's a genius, but if you judge a fish by it's ability to climb a tree, it will live it's whole life believing it is stupid." -Albert Einstein

Jamming To: "Shenandoah" by Goldmund (Folk music is great for studying and working!)

Mississippi Fun Fact: Mississippi was the first state to allow a woman to deliver mail. Mamie Thomas started her route in 1914.

Twas The Night Before Summer School

Please enjoy this attempt at poetry:

Twas' the night before summer school, when all through the dorm
Not a corp member was stirring, not even to discuss a class norm;
The lesson plans were tucked in binders with care,
In hopes that students would soon be there.

The new teachers were nestled all snug in their beds,
While vision statements danced in their heads;
The corp members in their caps,
Had just settled down for all too short naps.

When out on the quad their arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew in a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,
A crowd of staff members who with enthusiasm did cheer,

"Now, Eastern North Carolina! Now Arkansas! Now Appalachia!
On Mississippi! On South Louisiana! On Louisiana Delta!
To math and English and science, To the students big and small,
Now teach away! teach away! teach away all!"

They sprang to the buses, to their teams they gave a whistle,
And away they all shot, away like a missile.
But I heard them exclaim, ere they drove out of sight,
"Happy first day of school to all, and to all a good night!"


>>>

Weekly Gratitude: I'm super grateful to have an awesome CMA (corps member advisor) who always answers our questions, brings us candy, and believes in us!

Challenge: I reassess my conception of exhaustion every single day. And I'm sure it will only get harder from here.

Quote of the Week: "A ship is safe in harbor, but that is not what ships are for." -William G.T. Shedd

Jamming To: "Once I've Done It" by April Geesbreght

Mississippi Fun Fact: Barq's Root Beer was invented in Mississippi in 1898.

What's to Come

Induction is done and Institute starts tomorrow. For my followers who are less familiar with TFA, let me translate: Induction was a three day program in Mississippi for Mississippi corps members involving discussions of educational issues unique to Mississippi, culturally relevant teaching, and identity. This week starts five weeks of something called Institute and that's a little more complicated.

Institute is a five week training program that involves teaching for part of the day and learning for the rest of the day. The Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana Delta, North Carolina, and Appalachia regions have come together in Cleveland, MS at Delta State University for this purpose.

Every morning we load up a bunch of school buses and head out to local schools to teach summer school. After the kids go home in the afternoon, we continue to have meetings and various development sessions before returning to Delta State for the evening where we sometimes have more sessions and sometimes have time to relax, plan lessons, and (maybe occasionally) sleep.

Our five weeks at Institute is critical to both getting certified and getting a little bit more comfortable at the front of a classroom. I have to say that I, for one, am psyched! I'm so excited to get started tomorrow. This week we'll mostly be doing professional development and training and we should start teaching next week, but we will at least be in our schools for our meetings this week.

If you haven't guessed yet, the coming five weeks are going to be really crazy, hectic even. I'll try to keep everyone up to date on what's going on, but for weeks when I can't write a lot because I have four lesson plans due or I have to go house hunting or whatever else might come up, I've devised a system. Every week I'll check in with something I'm grateful for that week, something that's been a challenge, a quote that's been helpful that week, a song that I'm listening to that week, and a Mississippi fun fact.

With that said, let's get started!

Weekly Gratitude: I'm so grateful for the Cleveland community! They've been so welcoming and have shown us the true meaning of Southern hospitality.

Challenge: I'm tired already! For an introvert, a week of meeting new people constantly can be pretty exhausting and it's been a little bit challenging to remind myself to find time to myself in the midst of the chaos.

Quote of the Week: "What's comin' will come and we'll meet it when it does." -Hagrid

Jamming To: "I Bet My Life" by Imagine Dragons

Mississippi Fun Fact: The only official Grammy Museum outside of LA is being built right here in Cleveland and it's set to open in November. Mississippi really is the home of "American music"!

Induction Update

I'm finally settled in at Delta State and I have a little time to catalog my thoughts. I moved in on Friday and over the last few days have been traveling the state and getting to know both Mississippi and a small group of my fellow corp members on a trip called the Justice Journey. Justice Journey was a remarkable and rewarding experience and has energized me to get through the next six weeks.

Today has been busy, too, with other Mississippi corp members moving into the dorms and the start of Induction and a lot of things are running through my mind. Induction is a three day program before Institute where we come together as a regional corps to learn about Mississippi and the unique history of education in the state. Following Induction we have a multi-regional Institute that lasts for five weeks. During this time I will be student teaching in the morning and attending educational sessions in the afternoons and evenings. I have been promised over and over again that I won't know what tired really feels like until Institute.

In all honesty, I'm feeling a lot of things right now. I'm exhausted from a day of running around and helping another corp member move in. I'm nervous about the six weeks ahead of me and the two years that will come after that. I'm excited to meet new people and make new friends. I'm relieved to be settled in. But above all I'm eager. I'm eager to get to work.

The work TFA is doing in Mississippi is important, but it is also demanding, challenging. With that in mind, I may not ever really be ready to get started, but I am no longer content to simply sit and wait. After all, if not me, who? If not now, when?

The Other Eight Billion

When I was in middle school and high school, I was a big fan of "The Princess Diaries", both Meg Cabot's YA series and the Disney movie starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews. In the movie Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) discovers that she is, in fact, not just a normal teenager struggling with normal teenager issues, but also the princess of a small European nation called Genovia. Under the tutelage of the queen aka her grandma aka Julie Andrews, Mia learns to be a princess and is eventually forced to decide whether or she really wants the gig at all. The movie's climax involves a downpour, a chauffeur coming to the rescue, and a sopping wet princess giving one of my favorite movie speeches.

In Mia's speech to a ballroom full of dignitaries, low-level royalty, and her closest friends and family, she frankly discusses the amount of time she spends thinking about herself before coming to the conclusion that now she must instead think of others and take the opportunity to make a difference. It's that speech that's on my mind tonight.

The last three weeks have been rough for me. I'm stuck in between two worlds, the one I'm leaving and the one I'm headed for, and everyday I've felt both of those worlds pulling at me. It's been a constant roller coaster of emotions: I'm scared to move to Mississippi. I'm sad to leave my dogs. I'm anxious to get to work. I'm nervous about teaching. 

Of course, it's fair to be feeling all of these things, but when I think about me too much, I tend to freak out. When I think about what I'm about to give up or the things I'm saying good-bye to or the roads I'm not taking, I feel scared and wonder if I can do this. But when I can step back and remind myself that this isn't about me, then I feel empowered. When I think of the people I am serving and the cause I am working for, then I know I can do this, I know I must do this.

So as I leave tomorrow morning, I hope I can remember one particular line from Princess Mia's speech: "If I cared about the other seven billion [people] out there instead of just me, that's probably a much better use of my time."

It's simple and it may be cliche, but it's also true. We are not alone in this endeavor of carving out a life on planet Earth, and if every one of us spent a little more time thinking about the other few billion people out there, we might find that both our lives and our world got better. I may not be able to think of all of the other eight billion people now sharing the Earth with me every day of my life, but I hope on the tough days over the next two years I will be able to remember to at least think of the 20 people sitting in front of me and waiting to learn some algebra. 

To the Protestors in Baltimore and To My Future Students

I come to you as a white woman, a person who has never lost a friend to violence, who has never been profiled based on the color of my skin, a person who has never been afraid of those people who have sworn to serve and protect me.

I come to you as a person who has been taught her whole life to stand up for what she believes, a person who has so often been encouraged to speak out, but a person who is unsure how to do that in this moment.

I come to you conflicted, wondering whether it is my place to say anything at all on what is happening in Baltimore, wondering if I cannot serve you better by simply being quiet and listening.

I come to you so confused about what to say and how to say it, but I also come to you as a person who feels that she must say something, a person who must acknowledge that now is the time for justice and a person who desperately wants to help bring it about.

What I have to say to you, the protestors in Baltimore and in Ferguson and in New York and across the world, and what I have to say to you, my future students, is this:

I am on your side.

I am here and I am listening. I know that my voice is not the one that most needs to be heard in this conversation. I have questioned whether it needs to be heard at all. Surely, a conversation needs to take place, but I know my role in that conversation must first and foremost be to listen to those who have been most affected by pervasive injustice, to those who have lived with it every day of their lives.

Know that I welcome your advice on how to be a better ally. I know I will mess up and that I already have many times, but if there is something I can do better, please tell me. I am listening.

I am listening to you and I am ready to act when you ask me to. I will step back, lower my voice, and listen to your stories and your words. I will stand by you in the protests line. If you tell me there is no seat at the table for me for a particular discussion, I will honor that. When you do invite me to the table, I will come humbly and respectfully and with an open heart.

Until you ask me to speak again, this is the last time I will speak on this subject because I believe so fully that now is a time for me to listen.

To you, my students, I will listen.