AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE TEACHER



AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE TEACHER

Mary Anne Rooney – 33 years of experience

St. Timothy School was the dream job for this aspiring teacher for two entirely different reasons. In the early 1970’s when I decided that I wanted to be a teacher, I knew that it would be in catholic school because that was my world view (aside from a year in public school kindergarten). St. Timothy School was considered to be on the cutting edge of education and the staff was so carefully culled from the available resources that you were considered to be an exceptional teacher if you were hired there. At the time, they offered Spanish and French classes for students beginning in fifth grade and the best math students were accelerated so that the eighth graders had completed the algebra curriculum that was the norm for high school freshmen. This was the beginning of the shift from religious to lay faculty so parishes were very careful to hire not only the best educators but those whose moral background was considered unimpeachable. My second reason was more practical – my grandmother was eighty-four in 1976 (when I graduated from Holy Family College after teaching for two years at St. Ambrose School) I could live with her and make sure that she was safe.

I started my teaching career in second grade and I fully expected to become a kindergarten teacher. Years of babysitting and summers of entertaining neighborhood children had been my experience. When I finally was hired at St. Timothy, (I had spent the 1976-77 school year in north Philadelphia at St. Bonaventure School) my grandmother had died and the only available job was a fifth grade Language Arts/Science opening. The principal assured me that prospective hires at this school had a better chance of moving into a preferred position if they were already on staff.

In September 1984 I did move from fifth grade. Rather than go to a primary classroom however, I had discovered a rapport with middle school students and so I have been teaching in eighth grade since then – twenty-three years. I have been a reading teacher, a religion teacher, the integrated language arts teacher, recently the math teacher, but in addition to all of these positions, I have also been the science teacher.

SALIENT ADVENTURES IN SCIENCE EDUCATION

Personal and School

Because I am the oldest person in this class, you need to understand that the first event that is relevant to my development as science student/teacher/researcher is the fact that science was not taught in grades K to 8 in Catholic schools in the 1960’s. I was aware of the “Cold War” because we had air raid sirens and drills and shelters, but I became aware of the “space race” because my father went to work for the Space Sciences division of General Electric – I pause here to say that it was my father who was most influential on many aspects of my education not just science. He is an extremely well-read man with a high school education who could not afford to go to college – he never allowed a lack of formal college education to inhibit what he wanted to learn.

I had the same nun in sixth and seventh grade and she may have taught science more than once, but the only lesson I remember was that she tried to explain jet propulsion – commuter air travel was still relegated to those who had money in those days.

I went to Catholic High School. In 1968, the trend for freshman was IPS – Introductory Physical Science – we would work on lab experiments every day: following procedures, recording data, and drawing conclusions about topics for which we had no content background, and minimal vocabulary. It drove me crazy because I was never sure that I knew what I thought I knew because I’m not sure my teacher knew either. In high school I much more interested in English and Social Studies. I had to take three years of science if I wanted to be accepted into college so I had IPS, biology (my worst grade in all of high school), and chemistry. My chemistry teacher was absolutely fabulous, so much so that I took physics as an elective because I enjoyed her class so much (my second event).

The third relevant event to my development as a science teacher was the fact that I was the science teacher when I arrived at St. Timothy School in 1977. In those days, there were five or six homerooms of each grade so they were departmentalized and nobody – nobody wanted to teach science so it was always given to the newest teacher in the grade. My difficulties with science teaching were the same as in IPS. I had a “SCISS Kit” with a small student handbook that introduced some experiences to explore. (Show size of the student book and teacher book). The teacher manual was smaller than the student book and it didn’t tell you what vocabulary or content to introduce; it told you what the students should be able to conclude from the experience but not how to achieve the correct results. And then, thank God, some wiser brain intervened and said if we haven’t prepared our elementary teachers to teach science, how could they teach it, so they purchased a textbook series for us. Each science teacher was teaching in isolation however and while many teachers focused on animals and plants or the human body because the teachers loved biology in high school, I was teaching force and motion and acids and bases because my college biology course was worse than my high school biology course and so now you can see why I’m really looking forward to next summer.

I now need to digress for a moment to explain the archdiocesan educational structure. The elementary teachers in the archdiocese like to say that we are a system that’s not a system. For instance, there is no standardized pay scale because each school is operated by the parish at the discretion of the pastor. We are not able to unionize for the same reason. On the other hand, if you want to say that you are an archdiocesan school, you must adhere to certain rules like guidelines for each subject and archdiocesan final assessments – of course that is if you want to or it works for your students.

I mention this because my fourth salient event comes into play in 1984. In the spring of that year, I was a fifth grade teacher who was suddenly given guidelines for science that were not covered by the textbook that my principal had purchased for my grade. Since she had also purchased new textbooks in grades four and six and that meant approximately 450 textbooks, she wasn’t going to be happy to be told that what we had would work. I am not one who sits back and complains in the faculty room or bad-mouths administrators so I did what I do too often – I volunteered to become a member of the Archdiocesan Elementary Science Committee. Does your district have someone whose fulltime job is curriculum development? In the archdiocese, the secondary committee members receive extra pay because it is part of their contract, but in elementary school we do it without compensation. You could say I’m committed to the students of my grade, my school and my district, or you could say I need to be committed, but membership on the committee has been the best thing that I have ever done for my science teaching. I am addicted to the NSTA publications that clarify the NSTS for primary, middle, and high schools – NSTA Pathways to the Science Standards. I have used them to encourage teachers in the district and in my own school. But mostly I can only accomplish what the given administrator will allow. I have attended the NSTA conferences over the last decade and I actually go to workshops and presentations from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm for three days. I come back so energized that I always have new ideas – one of the best was from an Arizona school district that chose to develop a fully hands-on, inquiry strategy for teaching science. They had developed a scientific method that I have used (with revisions) for the last seven years. The amount of thinking that students need to do in this format is so much greater than other formats that I have used.

When the MISEP program was first introduced, I was involved in the Penn-Merck cohort 10 and I was very excited but I couldn’t even think about applying because my principal wouldn’t even consider participating and if I didn’t have his support, I know that the DCI wouldn’t have signed off on it. We got a new principal in September 2005 who places a high priority in supporting teachers who wish to further their own education. In fact, she is working on a special presentation with administrators that she met at the summer conference. You need to know that I’m considered state certified because I was grandfathered into the system – as soon as I choose to teach in public school I will need to complete certification. About ten years ago, the archdiocese decided that all teachers hired after 1995 needed to have state certification unless they fell into my category. Essentially what they have done is condemned our schools to be the incubators for certified, highly-qualified teachers since our pay does not afford us the luxury of continuing to work for the current salary once we are certified – if we were able to afford to go to school to get the credits. Young teachers are coming to our schools to get their classroom experience while working on their masters and/or certification and then they are leaving to be paid what their education is worth. As I have mentioned, pastors may use their own discretion when it comes to the pay scale – no matter how bad you think your pay scale is – I can guarantee that I make less money than you. I made a conscious choice – I look at it like a third order religious: I don’t get the holiness points but I live the lifestyle.

I have been the chairperson of the committee since 2000 which mostly means more work and the Director of Curriculum and Instruction decided three years ago that all guidelines for all subjects must be revised so that there is a continuum. I am not a scientist or a science major or a curriculum major so I need resources. I have come to the conclusion that until all elementary and middle school science teachers receive enough science background they will be unhappy with the curriculum planned. My committee has not reinvented the wheel. We took the national science teaching standards and correlated them to the Pennsylvania State Science Standards. In the mid-90’s we had gone to “management guidelines” which said that if you purchased textbooks from Publisher A certain chapters in each grade level had to be taught. If you chose Publisher B you would teach certain other chapters. Of course the teachers didn’t like this any better than the guidelines that catapulted me onto the committee so now we’re back saying that you need to cover certain topics in a spiraling curriculum that assures that basic earth, physical, life science topics are covered in grades one through six. In grade seven, we have a year devoted to life science, and in grade eight, we have earth science. At one point, the DCI wanted a K-12 curriculum but the secondary teachers didn’t want to teach physical science in ninth grade and most of our eighth grade teachers are afraid of anything that remotely looks like physics.

In my preparation for this presentation, I was very aware of the recommendation to use classroom readings, inquiry topics, and classmates’ writings. As with both of my reflections posted for this class, I have difficulty knowing how to do this. Remember that my last education course was in 1976 so I am unfamiliar with this kind of research. I will tell you that one of the greatest aspects of MISEP to me has been the interaction with dedicated professionals from all different districts. I have so much respect for what you do – sometimes we (catholic schools) are accused of being able to toss the problem children out – not so true anymore – when we are scrambling for every tuition dollar we do keep many children that are disruptive and many children whose learning disabilities cannot be supported in our classrooms because there aren’t enough programs to meet their needs. I can tell you that being a member of the Science Committee has given me a chance to understand better the constraints that urban public schools are under – I hope that I can make it easier to understand how insulated parochial school teachers are.

Theresa reminded me that I have a copy of the book EDthoughts which is another book I have purchased through membership in NSTA. If you have never had the opportunity to participate in one of their conferences, I highly recommend it because I always come away so excited about being a science teacher.

And this brings me to the final salient experience which just happened on Wednesday. My principal, as I said has been more than supportive. When we decided to make a real effort to increase science education in our school, she allowed me to dictate that each class should be in the science room once a month at least. We must be observed three times a year so she insisted that all teachers who are responsible to teach science in their grade must be observed doing a science lesson. I have been making a calendar for the science room – I hesitate to call it a lab because there are some serious deficiencies in the facilities. When some of the teachers in the primary grades didn’t come to the lab in October, I had a meeting with all the teachers. I scheduled the first, second, and third grade teachers on November days when I had free periods so that I could help if they wanted me to. I helped them select activities that were supported by the curriculum for their grade. Some of the second grade and some of the third grade teachers were fine on their own – a couple asked me to be there with them. One second grade teacher had me present the lesson to her class, but she then presented it for another teacher. At the end of the day, I went into the science room when the last second grade teacher was there. I asked the kids what they had learned and they told me that they had learned that the sun shone more directly in the summer and that Mrs. Bonomo was not a scientist. Mrs. Bonomo turned to me and said, “Some of us just aren’t naturals at hands-on activities like you, Miss Rooney.” When I responded that I wasn’t a natural either that I just worked at it, she said that the kids had such a great experience that she would like the school to sponsor a “science day” so older kids could work with younger kids – within two minutes we had discussed doing chemistry based experiences in the science room, physical science experiences in the gym, non-fiction reading and writing in the library. I could not believe how excited she was and that just made me more excited myself.

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