Joffrey was one of my first students to take a job out of state.  In his case, and his future wife, Meredith West Craven, the school district was the Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District on the west side of Houston, Texas. Cy-Fair is a very diverse district with over 107 nationalities represented by countries’ flags in the atrium/lunch area in Cypress Ridge High School.  In 2008 the school was the new educational home for refugees from the New Orleans’ Katrina Hurricane disaster.  All totaled there were about 3100 students at Cy-Ridge High School.

When Joffrey was hired, he was offered his pick of courses to teach and when I visited him for the day in early January, he was teaching Sociology, Psychology and Advanced Placement Psychology. He told me that he ran his regular Psych class very similar to his A.P. class, so, in essence, he had two preparations.  His classroom desks were arranged in pods of four desks, designed for group work.

Joffrey told me he arrived at school about 6:45 every morning.  The school day started at 7:30 so the extra 45 minutes gave him prep time/copy time.  He explained that getting copies was a difficult process during the school day. He also beat the unbelievably congested Houston area traffic by getting to school before rush hour really developed.

Joffrey’s First Period Class was Sociology.  The students were assigned a research project that involved finding information about major contributors to the study of sociology and then creating a poster that displayed their research.  Joffrey had a rubric for his students to follow and they were to use both print and online sources for their research.  Joffrey divided his class into 8 groups with two laptops for the mobile laptop cart per group.  Joffrey’s instructions were clear, as were his warning that everyone had to contribute.  The students got right to work with no problem.  This was early in the new semester and it was obvious that the students understood the rules under which Joffrey operated.  Joffrey gave several time limit warnings throughout the class to keep the students focused on their work, but the class really did well in working up to the bell without too much encouragement.

Before class started Joffrey gave me a brief tour around the hallway where most of the Social Studies teachers were located. In the process he pointed out discrete etchings on door and window frames that he said were gang signs. On his classroom door frame someone had scrawled CK for Cripkillers”.  I was completely surprised based on my arrival at the school parking lot. The building looked new and either looked like an over-sized country club or an office building.  No spray-painted graffiti or evidence of a slum-like neighborhood.

Back to the lesson.  Joffrey did a great job moving around the classroom, asking the students questions about their work and prompting engagement.  He never gave out answers for their research but rather asked the types of questions that helped the students along in their search for information.  The class was engaged and Joffrey appeared to have a good working relationship with his students.  I found out a little about Joffrey’s reputation when I entered the building. An assistant principal said Joffrey had made a name for himself in the last few weeks due to a fund-raiser.  Students put coins in a jars with different teachers’ faces on them.  The teacher with the jar with the most money would get the reward of kissing a live pig.  Joffrey won and was an immediate hit with the students.

I noticed compass ordinals on the classroom walls and since he did not teach geography, I asked Joffrey what was up with North, South, East and West.  He replied that the Social Studies had a group objective and that was the students needed to be reminded of compass directions.

Later in the day I asked Joffrey about the teacher evaluation process.  He was only in his second semester but he said he had several informal walk-throughs and would probably have a formal observation before too long in this semester. The administration gave him time to get his feet on the ground without stressing a new teacher, adjusting to a new school, in a new state with a different culture.

Second Period was once again Sociology.  This period started with two pledges.  The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag, repeated many times in the classrooms I visited in other states as well as Michigan, and the Texas Pledge^[1]. This pledge was new to me.  I did not encounter in any state in which I taught or visited a pledge or oath to the state.  I did remember that Texas was its own republic for a few years, but I assumed that since it had been a member of the United States for quite some time showing fealty to a state was a little outdated.  Of course, I was a Yankee from New York, despite my years of teaching in Kansas, and even though my wife had relatives living in Texas I knew very little about how the schools and the state operated.

This class followed the same lesson plan with same student engagement and Joffrey circulating around the room, using questions to prompt student work.  The lesson went smoothly and reinforced my thoughts from the First Period class that Joffrey had established great classroom management skills and a good relationship with his students.

Third Period was Joffrey’s prep period and he decided to take me for a tour of the building.  He admitted that he rarely has the time to see the entire building.  The cafeteria area featured multiple food stations. I met the high school football coach whose only job was coaching football.  The football team had been featured on ESPN and the stadium in which the team played had seating for 30,000. Welcome to high school football in Texas!

Joffrey’s Fourth Period was Advanced Placement Psychology.  He started the class by having the students pronounce sentences.  He did not tell the students that he had the two sides of the classroom follow different instructions for the activity.  The lesson focused on memory and how people remember things.  He then asked the students how they remembered things.  The answers included repetition, breaking information into discrete pieces of knowledge and analyzing the first and last words of sentences.

Joffrey moved on to a slide show that focused on memory. With each effect he provided multiple examples. The class was learning while having fun with the information and the methods Joffrey was using to teach the lesson.  Later, Joffrey commented that he used multiple means of assessment to evaluate his students’ progress. The class was definitely engaged as Joffrey used multiple activities to keep the students interested and learning.

After the class went to lunch there was a half hour advisory period where students could go to different teachers for tutoring and make-up work if they had a pass.  We had the same system in my high school in Kansas twice a week after we went to a block schedule format.  The advisory period was a great way to spend one-on-one time with students, especially those students who had been absent, had after school practice or after school jobs.

Fifth Period was a regular Psychology class.  The lesson initiated with Joffrey displaying 20 images on the screen.  Half of the class was instructed to focus on pronunciation of the text on the slides and the other half was told to focus on the images on the slides.  The students were very subdued while concentrating on the words and images.  Joffrey had created and designed this lesson himself in his first semester.  He was promoting critical thinking through this process, something he thought the school, as a whole, did not do a good job in doing.  In too many cases he thought teachers were spoon-feeding information to the students.  Due to comments from Joffrey and Meredith it was obvious that many of the teachers, especially those teaching courses involved with the state standardized tests, were so concerned about their students’ results that they were doing ‘test prep’ in their classes.  Joffrey thought these teachers were missing an opportunity to develop their students’ critical thinking skills.

All throughout the day Joffrey did a good job tying his lessons into his students’ life experiences so they had a ready reference to the new information and skills they were learning. At the same time, he had a good sense of humor that helped engage his students.

The last class of the day was a regular Psychology class.  Joffrey explained to me that he had his students take the course syllabus home to their parents for their signature so there was no question about classroom rules and course content. He did this in part because of poor parental involvement in parent-teacher conferences.  Only about 25% of the parents appeared at these conferences so he decided he needed to communicate with home in a different way.  He also said that teachers were supposed to make telephone contact with the parents but many times no one would answer.  The free/reduced lunch percentage at the school was 50%; not as bad as some urban schools, but not as low as many suburban schools.  Joffrey said there was poverty in the district, but the building was only 6 years old and the district had a good amount of technology and other resources.  He also told me that the first day of school he called off the roll and the first dozen students came from a dozen different countries of origin, none of which was the United States.

This class was as well-behaved and attentive as Joffrey’s other classes but he told me later that he had the most instances of inappropriate language and behavior with this group of students.  It might have been that my visit, as a college professor and one of Joffrey’s former teachers, had some kind of impact.  He did say that there had been some violence in the school, but there was none evident the day I visited.  Joffrey did an informal survey of all his senior students as to their plans for college.  Only 2 of them had plans to go on for further education at the college level.  Joffrey thought that part of the problem was a possible disconnect between the counseling department and the students.  By this comment I thought he meant that the counselors thought these students might not be college material so they did not pursue that life course with the students. I did speak with several of the students about college throughout the day and several of them about attending college, but none of them had started applying and this was January of their senior years, a bit late in the year to start the application process.

Overall, this class reacted to the lesson in about the same way the previous class did. Their life experiences they used as examples to relate to the lesson on memory had a wider spectrum, but they still managed to equate their lives with what Joffrey was teaching.

Interview, 2008

Content, 2008

Joffrey was a History major with a Psychology minor during his time at GVSU.  My question about his college preparation almost immediately turned to the lack of preparation by the alternative certification teachers in Texas.  One cause for the certification situation in Texas was the huge population growth in the Houston area.  There just were not enough teachers coming out of Texas universities and colleges for the number of openings.  The other factor was the economy itself. With so many job openings in many different occupations, many people were choosing not to enter the field of education.  The result was an alternative certification program which allowed people with almost no pedagogical nor content preparation into the classroom.  Joffrey related one case where a person with a basic undergrad degree was teaching and pursuing a Master’s degree in Education.  Joffrey thought that person’s content background was limited as well as that person’s education preparation.  Compared to alternative certification teachers, Joffrey was a “rock star”.  (My statement, not his.)

As to Joffrey’s preparation, he thought that nothing he experienced during his coursework at GVSU or the two placements in Grand Rapids’ area schools prepared him for Cy-Ridge.  He did have pregnant teens and teens in trouble with the law in some of his classrooms during student teaching, but Cy-Ridge was “times two”. Nothing prepared him for when a student said multiple times, “Go blank yourself!”  The system made it difficult to kick that student out of class permanently and few, if any, teachers wanted that kind of student in their classroom.  How do you make students want to learn?

Joffrey’s high school was extremely diverse and he thought it would have been helpful during his college years if he had an earlier exposure to some kind of diversity training class.  He took the class in the last year of college and, while the information was fresh in his mind, it might have been helpful to have some time to process what he learned by having the class earlier in his college experience.

Joffrey readily admitted that his early Education classes at GVSU were perhaps too easy and he really did not understand the amount of work involved in teaching until he took SST 310, the Social Studies methods class.  He said his early lessons were horrible and that was a wake-up call that more work was required on his part if he was to have positive impact on his future students.  Adding to his stress was the fact that the district allowed him a choice of what he taught when they hired him so Joffrey chose Psychology and Sociology, two subjects that he really wanted to teach.  The downside was that he was the only teacher teaching those courses so there was absolutely no support from other colleagues.  His first semester was very stressful, but now at the beginning of his second semester he was beginning to feel more comfortable with the content and how to engage his students in what they were learning.  In Joffrey’s words, “I loved every minute of it and hated every minute of it at the same time” (Craven, v.t., 2008, p.2).  He came in every morning at 6:15, left at 4:15 (school was out at around 2:30) and then worked at home for two to three hours every night just to keep up with grading and lesson preparation. “If you can keep kids interested and having fun, if it is more fun than their other teachers, it doesn’t have to be that fun, just more fun than their other teachers, they like your class better and they’re willing to do more.  I joke around with them a lot.  Getting to know them I think is the biggest thing.  They know my whole personal life.  They know everything about me.  They like me because they can relate to me” (Craven, v.t., 2008, p.2).

I commented to Joffrey that one of his advantages was that he was closer to his students’ age than the other teachers, but then he reminded me that he was a non-traditional student and there were actually four teachers in his wing of the school who were younger than he was. He thought the difference was that the other teachers took the old school approach…”sit down and shut up” and Joffrey made a point of relating to the students’ lives.

As for the content, between classes Joffrey took at Grand Rapids Community College, Western Michigan University and Grand Valley State, he felt fairly secure in the material but he was still working through the material chapter by chapter with his students.  He was very intentional in telling the students that he was just scratching the surface when it came to what they were learning in Psychology and Sociology and if they had further interest then they would find whole college courses dedicated to the material in each chapter of their high school textbooks.  I appreciated the fact that even though that statement exposed a little vulnerability in terms of Joffrey’s content background, he did not impose himself as the final source of knowledge on the matter.  I have found that many teachers, both rookies and veterans, are fearful of admitting that they do not know everything about the content they teach, like the students will not trust them or take them seriously if their teachers admit to the need of continuing education.  In my experience, teachers have to know that they need to continually learn and admitting that to their students makes the teacher a “student” as well and that becomes a relatable point for the students.  Joffrey also made a point of relating specific content to future occupations for his students.  He gave them a basic idea of what they needed to know if they wished to follow a particular career.  If students see the application of what they are learning it makes engagement in the material that much easier.  It answers that oft-asked student question, “Why do I have to learn this junk?”

As for pedagogical preparation, Joffrey wished he had more during his college career.  He cited two of his classes that provided creative ideas for teaching, but two classes out of a five-year program was not enough.  Along with many other teachers in this study, Joffrey did not feel like he gained much from the required literacy class.  He said many of the people in his class did not see the relation of elementary methods and materials to middle school and high school levels. On the other hand, there were some courses that Joffrey did not appreciate while he was taking, but now saw their usefulness once he had his own classroom.  He was using some of his notebooks from his college classes, as well as materials and ideas he gained from his cooperating teacher during student teaching at Forest Hills Central High School.

Joffrey was frustrated with the fact that many of his students wanted to be ‘spoon-fed’ the information.  “Tell me what I need to know for the test” is heard in classrooms all over the country, not matter what the socio-economic circumstances.  As much as he promoted the idea of critical thinking, he admitted that while he was a student, he was not always receptive to a professor who would push him to critically analyze his writing. Now, in his own classroom, he was in the same position as his college professor.  He wanted his students to think about their writing and be able to go beyond a five-paragraph essay. As it was, they were barely able to construct just those five paragraphs.  He said that some of the teachers in his school set the rubrics so tight in their writing assignments that writing became just a matter of using the teacher’s thesis and the teacher-provided facts.  Too often when Joffrey pushed his students to be more creative and do their own work they just gave up.  They had been trained to let their teachers do the gut work.  He did say that even though his students struggled with thinking on their own, if they were given enough support and reassurance in the process, they could be successful.

Next I asked how much content he learned his first semester as a teacher, versus what he learned as a college student, especially in his minor, Psychology.  Half-jokingly he said he learned more in his first semester than he did in all of his college experience.  Then he recanted and said he was just re-learning what he learned before he started teaching.

Strategies and Methods, 2008

I also asked him what new teaching methods and strategies he had learned since leaving Grand Valley State.  During his time at the university the students had almost no exposure to “smartboards” and now he used that tool in multiple ways in his lessons as a way to get his students more actively involved and out of their seats.  Joffrey also made a point of involving more of his students’ own life experiences in his classes than he did before coming to the Houston area.  He thought the textbooks for his classes were from a “white man’s perspective” and had very little relation to the shared life experiences of his African-American and Latino students.

In the endeavor to relate to his students he tried to use their “ghetto” language.  Of course, there is a danger that a teacher who attempts using street language will not use it in the correct context, but Joffrey seemed to be careful in knowing the meaning of the phrases and using them effectively in relating to his students. “Communication the key with any relationship.  If you don’t communicate well, then the relationship is the pits.”  Other teachers were amazed that he tried to learn every kid’s name by the second day of class.  He tried to know them all.  He wanted the kids to think, but at a basic level he wanted them to partake [attend? engage?] because if the students did that, then they were thinking.  They were going to learn even when they didn’t want to learn (Craven, v.t., 2008, p.5).

Joffrey’s class schedule was 55 to 60 minutes, every class, every day.  He said he preferred that schedule over a block schedule where a teacher only met with students every other day.  He thought the daily contact helped him know his students better. One of his complaints about the structure of the overall school curriculum was the fact that the students did not see the interrelation between their classes.  Each class dealt with its own discrete information, whereas life dictated a mixing of knowledge for solutions to problems.  He thought that a block schedule, with more time for each class each day and less classes per day might lead to more understanding of what the students were learning.  Using a student-centered approach, where Joffrey did just a modicum of direct, passive instruction and much more student-active work lent itself to longer class periods.

Joffrey said he learned something new every day about the culture of the school. He made some missteps in relating to some of his students, but he worked hard to clear up any misunderstandings.  When asked if he might prefer to teach in a school with a higher socio-economic background, such as where he did his student-teaching, he was quick to say he had more fun teaching in a school with a tougher reputation. He also remarked that part of that tough perception was an outside view and that Cy-Ridge was not as dangerous as the general public thought it was.  Joffrey said there were more fights in the upper middle-class school where he student-taught near Grand Rapids than there had been at Cy-Ridge thus far in the school year. He said that while some of students look and, may actually be gang members, they were still intelligent.  Added to that fact was the great diversity in the school with 107 nationalities represented.  Joffrey said that the students learn about their different cultures in a positive way.  He said he had both Muslims and ‘fanatical’ Christians but they do not “want a piece of each other”. He tried to learn more about their religions and cultures, including gang culture, and his students seemed willing to share some information about their lives.  All of that diversity helped make Joffrey a better teacher.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2008

Joffrey’s pearls came out in rapid-fire fashion.  “Know your kids”, “relate with the kids”, “Don’t think you know everything”, “Be prepared”.  He said the students quickly realized if you were not prepared for class and if you showed you did not care, neither would they.  He said to be prepared for anything and let the students critique what you do.  Joffrey remarked that his students knew they learned differently and in his first semester he had two different lesson plans for the same course just because of differences in the way those two classes learned.  His first semester was so busy that he only took one weekday off the whole semester, but he also cautioned that it was important to have someone in your life that you could rely on.  In his case it was his wife, Meredith, and another former GVSU student who lived only 20 minutes away.  He did not just talk school with either of them. Yes, school conversation was a part of the mix, but then he consciously shifted talk to life in general.  Balance in life is important and your job should not be the only focus.  Joffrey made it a point to go to school events. It was another way for him to relate to his students.  He said that the pig-kissing charity event helped increase his class sizes from the first semester to the second.  He cautioned future teachers to use their time wisely.  Have paper copies made a few days ahead of time and take notes about how lessons succeed or fail right after they happen so you know what was positive and what failed. He did not get hung up on the format of his lesson plans, but he did plan and had his own system that he followed.  He also warned future teachers to teach to the bell.  Downtime in a class creates classroom management problems.

2015

When I returned to Joffrey’s classroom in the Fall of 2015 his teaching load had not changed and neither had his classroom.  His school and his classes were still very diverse, with many different nationalities represented each hour. Joffrey had definitely settled into his job and, while he appeared relaxed in his classes, he did admit to one of his Psych classes that he had anxiety disorder.  He did not appear anxious to me.  However, during the day, he related to me that he has isolated himself from all but one of his colleagues due to their negative opinions about their careers, the school and the students.  He did not want those attitudes pervading his own thoughts about his teaching career.  That said, Joffrey still displayed a humorous sarcasm when talking to his classes and more than a few asides, keeping the environment of the classroom positive.

The beginning of his class he introduced or refreshed the idea of a writing rubric; “TEXAS”: Topic, Evidence, Examples, Analysis, So What”.  He said he picked up that idea from one of his GVSU professor’s wives. Joffrey was following his mantra from my earlier visit: “You should learn every day and never think you know it all.”

Like many newer teachers, Joffrey admitted that he had considered leaving teaching several times.  He did not say if that idea was due to financial concerns but he did say his health insurance was the worst plan he had ever encountered.  That was a common theme amongst my former students.  Their pay was not equal to supporting their family, especially if for some reason their spouse or partner left the workforce for any extended amount of time, their pension or other retirement plan was deteriorating because of state or local budget cutbacks or their health insurance plans now meant more personal funding or less coverage or both.  When compared with family, friends or other acquaintances, the teachers were not keeping up with the cost of living or private industry.

Joffrey was a little frustrated with a common occurrence in many school districts. The districts were transitioning to online textbooks. While this option was less expensive for the districts it did require the students to have Internet access at home if they were expected to complete homework.  Many of Joffrey’s students, for whatever reason, did not have Internet at home and thus could not do out of class work.  He was also concerned that he had to “spoon feed” information to his students to a greater extent than when he started at Cy-Ridge.

Multiple teaching strategies and multiple means of evaluating his students’ progress was still a feature of his teaching. He admitted that it was still a challenge differentiating instruction for all the various learning abilities of his students.  There were multiple students reading several grades below grade level. Despite the detail and rigor of Joffrey’s curriculum his classes still averaged in the 20s, his students were engaged and participated in class discussions.  Joffrey cared about his responsibility to them and it was obvious he had earned their respect, while developing his reputation at Cy-Ridge High School.

Interview, 2015

Defining Success

Right away Joffrey said that success was hard to define.  Was it just the grades his students received in their regular classes and the A.P. classes or was it when the student, who he thought would be dead in two years due to gang activity, straightened his life out and now was a firemen?  Joffrey thought the latter was better measure of his success in the classroom. When his students succeeded in life then he succeeded in the classroom.  He related another case of one of his female students, a gang member, who was attempting to leave her gang when I visited in 2008.  Joffrey said that leaving a gang was a difficult thing to do and at that time he was reaching out to as many resources as possible in assisting this student.  She did get out of gang, had since married and started a family.  Both she and her husband had jobs and Joffrey was still in contact with her.

As for GVSU’s impact on Joffrey’s career, he said that he was prepared for classroom management, created solid curriculum and was knowledgeable in terms of content. He related that the high school principal was so impressed with his ability and the other GVSU students who taught at Cy-Ridge that she wanted to create a “pipeline” to her school.  At the time of my visit in 2015 there were at least 24 GVSU students teaching in the schools in the area.

Joffrey’s main point about success was the ability to create positive relationships with students.  He said each teacher needs to find a way that matches their personality and teaching style. For example, Joffrey uses joking sarcasm and he suggested that model might not work for everyone.  I had no doubt that his ability in creating those relationships was more based on Joffrey’s personality and sense of responsibility toward his students versus his college preparation.

Challenges, 2015

Politics.  Joffrey was not the only teacher who commented on this challenge for teachers.  One of the subjects in this study even suggested that educational politics should be part of GVSU’s teacher preparation program.  Joffrey did not go that far.  He did suggest that curriculum that focused on problem-solving and conflict resolution would help beginning teachers come to grips with the politics of school.  Joffrey also stressed the word “professionalism”.  If you sign a contract, then you are responsible to fulfill its terms.  If you do not like the conditions under which you teach, then it would be better to leave and find another job, rather than to stay and complain.  He used the words “infighting” and “bickering” (Craven, v.t., 2015, p.3). He also said there was more than enough negativity amongst the teachers at his school over challenges with class size and poor student attitudes towards learning.  Many of the students who attended Cy-Ridge quit on their education and dropped out and that fact was discouraging and frustrating to the teachers there. He estimated that 40% of the incoming freshmen class would not make it to graduation.  He admitted that that statistic was difficult to track because the student population was so fluid.  The phrase the students raised in conversation was “Where did you stay at?” versus “Where do you live?” because the students were constantly moving.  This fact was definitely a feature of Grand Rapids Public Schools, where many GVSU teacher candidates have at least one student teacher placement, and probably a feature of many urban area school districts across the United States.

Dealing With Stress, 2015

As with all my interviews with these teachers, I started out the question on how they dealt with stress by emphasizing that I wanted to hear about “non-destructive” methods they used to handle the challenges of their careers. Totally in line with Joffrey’s personality he replied with the question, “Is drinking destructive?”  His first real answer was that he tried to leave work at work.  He knew teachers would have to bring papers home to grade and plan lessons, but he focused on the emotional stress.  He did not want his work life to intrude upon life with his family.  Since Meredith taught as well, their children, at that time in 2015, were spending 8 to 10 hours a day in daycare so he could only be with them about 3 to 4 hours a day.  He emphasized that teachers should make the most of prep time at school so they would not have to take as much work home with them.  He said some of his burden was removed by reaching out for help, both personally and online, to other teachers and other resources that his school might not be able to provide.

I next asked him if he had a circle of friends outside of school.  It was good not to feel like you had to talk “shop” with friends, like you might do if all your friends came from the same occupation.  While he did socialize with the many GVSU grads who were teaching in his area, Joffrey and Meredith were somewhat older than those grads fresh out of college and they had children versus the many grads were just starting relationships or were newlyweds.

Joffrey was a soccer coach so I asked him if athletics was a stress reducer.  Even with the stress of coaching and the time that coaching a sport involved, he said it was something he enjoyed and enjoyment certainly counts as stress reduction.  It was a detachment from the daily stress of teaching.

Motivation, 2015

Joffrey had already mentioned that he had considered leaving teaching. So, what stopped him?  When he was talking about the former female gang member who had straightened her life out, I saw in his face the reason he stayed.  He was on a mission. He told me that he knew he had a little easier every day than some teachers because he taught an AP class that was filled with motivated students who could almost teach themselves.  I knew he was still working hard to provide a great learning experience for the AP students, but AP classes also have a very prescribed curriculum that takes some of the onus out of lesson preparation. In his other classes, Joffrey looked for the moments where students suddenly gain an understanding of what he was trying to teach them. Those moments kept him positive, while at the same time Joffrey tried to keep away from negative situations and thoughts. Problem-solving was another motivating factor in his teaching life.  If a student was acting out, what was the root cause of that behavior?  If Joffrey could isolate that factor, then the chance for a change in attitude was brighter and rewarding for him.  He also constantly reflected on his teaching.  How could he improve what he did? What did he need to do to grow in his occupation, even though he taught basically the same curriculum for 8 years?

Strategies and Methods, 2015

Joffrey said he always has been tech savvy so not much had changed in how he used technology, except for the fact that most of his students did not have good access to technology outside of school.  The district only bought a classroom set of textbooks and the students were supposed to use an online textbook, but without tech at home that was just not possible for many of his students.  The result for Joffrey was that he had to spoon feed the material to the students. Without the students’ ability to find the information online, Joffrey had to give it to them.  He did not lower his expectations for student work, but he did have to do more background work in building up his students’ confidence with being able to meet his expectations rather than just giving up when the work became challenging.  After 8 years Joffrey had a better understanding of the community and his students; how far he could push them before they quit and what he could do to help them meet the challenges of school and life.

Evaluation, 2015

Joffrey was evaluated three times a year by his administrators, but he thought those evaluations were a joke, to put it bluntly. Their 10 minute drop-ins were not a sufficient amount of time to really understand what was going on with his teaching. There was very little constructive criticism.  When Joffrey started teaching at Cy-Ridge, the administrators were using a paper checklist, similar to what was used when I first taught in Kansas, but now they had gone to an online tool.  Joffrey did not take the evaluations seriously.  He thought the administrators just viewed the process as paperwork.  Joffrey’s real form of evaluation came from his students.  After every unit or chapter, he asked for student feedback on his teaching.  He looked at test scores.  If the majority of his students faired poorly, part of the reason must be his fault.  He analyzed the test results and re-taught the material if he saw a way to improve what he taught.

They are the only ones I care about (student evaluations).  They, at least, are going to be brutally honest.  I tell them, “If you want to tell me that I am the worst freaking teacher in the world, say it. But give me a reason why I am the worst teacher in the world.  I don’t care what you call me.  I’m not asking you to put your name on it. All I am asking for is for an explanation, so I’m not going to hold anything against you.  It’s not me. I’ve already got my education. I’m getting my paycheck no matter what. You are the ones that have much more to gain from this than I do”.  It’s their opinion that I care more about, I guess (Craven, v.t., 2015, p. 9).

Joffrey believed that most administrators were detached from the classroom and thus might only have a few areas where they would really like to provide any real feedback, but most of those things were actions that good teachers did every day, without an administrator telling them they had to do it.

Mentoring, 2015

Joffrey’s school did not provide mentors for new teachers.  He received some help from the teachers who were there when he arrived.  One teacher opened his filing cabinets and told Joffrey to take whatever he saw that was useful, but Joffrey said that some of those same teachers were gone now, in part, because they were not good teachers.  He gained the most help from meeting other teachers in his district through district meetings.  That said, there was no mentoring program and any help that Joffrey received was due to him reaching out to the other teachers in the district.  He did correct himself at one point and remembered that he was assigned two mentors, but neither one of them ever came to his classroom and he never met with them during his first year. I neglected to ask if these mentors were paid for their lack of mentoring. Joffrey did say the mentoring program had improved since his arrival, but that sometimes the mentors were not even teaching the same subject area or even in the same department.  Joffrey was the only teacher in this study that relayed that information.  Helping someone become familiar with the district or building culture and methods of operation is certainly helpful. Most help would come from a person who was at least in your department, if not teaching the subject matter.  Along that line Joffrey’s biggest concern when he started teaching was how to teach the curriculum. What was he mandated to teach? What was the accepted sequence in which the material should be presented?  Joffrey was assigned to mentor another GVSU grad when he came to Cy-Ridge and that person was in Joffrey’s department, but he did not teach the same subjects.  Joffrey did say that that person was helped by another person in their department who did teach the same curriculum so there was an occasion where teachers were helping teachers in the same building.  What Joffrey could offer his fellow GVSU grad was his knowledge of the community and how the school worked, for instance the grading software, how to take attendance and other school policies. Those items of interest were among the areas where Joffrey received basically no assistance when he arrived in Houston. Joffrey cautioned future teachers to find out if there was a mentoring program in their school and what that program really constituted.

Continuing Education, 2015

Joffrey was not able to pursue a graduate degree at this point in his career, mostly because he had dedicated his free time to his family.  He had not decided what kind of degree he would pursue, if and when that happened. He considered a Master’s degree in Education or perhaps a degree in History or Psychology.  He had no interest in an Administrative degree.  His wife, Meredith, did pursue a Master’s in Library Science.  He was investigating an online degree offered by Lamar University.

Joffrey taught his AP class before he was actually certified to teach the course.  He took a two-day seminar in his first semester and then the next summer he attended an AP Institute at Rice University that he thought was phenomenal.  He thought the resources provided in the Institute would be useful to any teacher, whether teaching an AP class or not.  I agreed. I attended an AP seminar at Rockhurst College when I was still teaching in Kansas and I thought the history resources provided there added additional depth to my resources and teaching in my regular History classes.

As for in-house professional development, Joffrey said that the Cy-Fair district was currently focused on differentiation and he described those meetings as boring.  He thought that good teachers already were committed to using different techniques to reach students along the educational spectrum.  The most hypocritical feature of that PD was the fact that the presenters did not model what they were attempting to teach.  Six hours of lecture was not differentiation.  He admitted that there had been several good in-house professional development meetings, but they were few and far between. The district tried to find teachers within the district to lead the PD sessions but Joffrey said this was plagued by the lack of highly skilled teachers or teachers who did not have focus on the content or planned poorly for the presentations.

Pearls of Wisdom, 2015

Joffrey’s first pearl was about the amount of time teaching required.  He still arrived at school at 6:30 in the morning and did not leave until after 4; no change from his first year of teaching.  He did leave early on some days due to child care issues, but he still endeavored to stay at school and try to get most of his school work completed there instead of bringing it home with him.  He did say that lesson preparation time had decreased in the last four or five years so it is more a matter refining past lessons than creating entirely new ones.

While Joffrey admitted that teaching was frustrating at times, it was still fun.  He enjoyed the opportunities for new experiences every day and being able to draw on experience when problems and frustrations did pop up.  Teaching in a high school was definitely different than a college atmosphere where most people who were there wanted to learn.  Teacher-assisting and student teaching did not really prepare him for the lack of motivation to learn in many students.

The comparison of salaries outside of teaching was another frustration point for Joffrey.  The Houston economy was a huge factor in drawing teachers to the area from Michigan.  Beginning teacher pay was thousands of dollars more than at home and there were far more job openings because so many people were headed into business careers rather than teaching. When some of Joffrey’s non-teaching friends were receiving yearly bonuses almost equal to his yearly salary, that really was bothersome.

Joffrey returned to a pearl from our first interview: school politics.  He recommended that new teachers identify the political environment of their schools and be aware of how to handle those situations.  He warned new teachers not to appear as arrogant or a know-it-all. That attitude would not create allies even if the new teachers really did have a better grasp of the material and skills for success than some of the older teachers who had stagnated in their careers. One example of a policy in which Joffrey did not approve was the fact that the school allowed students to turn in work whenever they wanted to, without penalty.  The policy was “no zeros in the gradebook”.  Joffrey thought that students needed to take responsibility for their actions, including handing in work on time.  Along with that policy was blaming teachers if the students were not getting their work completed.  In the administration’s view if the work was not being completed it was due to the teacher’s inability to properly motivate the students.  Several of the GVSU grads had started teaching in more “at-risk” schools in the Houston area, but had since transferred to the more affluent districts further west.  These districts had affluent, mostly white, populations, where there were plenty of motivated students who were being supported and prodded by their successful parents. In those districts, if the district cannot provide certain materials the parents just go out and buy it for their children. That just isn’t reality for the majority of Joffrey’s students.

Joffrey was concerned he came off as too negative in the interview. He still loved teaching and was not seeking to leave the challenging situation in his school.  He still felt his job was rewarding. He was helping students learn, both the material and how to succeed in life.  Joffrey is still in the same school and recently he became a foster parent for one of his students.