A nice report from Leigh Anne in Los Angeles:
Hi Ben!
My, how time flies… Almost two years have passed since the summer conference in San Diego. Getting to know you and the others was so amazing?. Thank you for all your hard work. I had only a small hope for my district ever supporting teaching with CI. Now, it has started to happen. Ben, I know that I have been quiet over the past two years. However, I have had an epic year, and a cathartic past few days. I’d love to re-hash it….will you indulge me?
To start, you may remember that in 2008, I started teaching French to get away from the stifling nature of Spanish language assessments at Chino Hills High School, here in SoCal. In 2010, I added French IV-AP to four sections of French I. I had no French background, and had only just passed the state French test for teachers. It was rough, but I flew on my own power!
So, two years ago, when you and I first met at the San Diego IFLTA conference in 2013, I had just finished my one-and-only, great TPRS year, with French no less. It seems that after I added in jGR and Matava that year, both my students and I were giddy from all the positivity from that experience! Nevertheless, I discovered just before school let out for summer that I would not be transferred to my dream school, within my long-time district. I had planned on leaving my school in June of 2013, on a strong note…off to greener pastures…but it was not meant to be. I was so sad, but kept plugging away and believing in miracles.
Then, the school year 2013 – 2014 was one of my worst years ever. Not even TPRS could save that situation… I was thinking of changing districts and foregoing my precious district tenure just to get away from the instability of my employer of eleven years.
Out of the blue, in September of 2014, after school had already started, my non-TPRS friend at my dream school retired. Turns out, *I* had to replace her. Because of my district seniority and the way the position was flown, I slipped into my new classroom on blatant union technicalities. Thusly, I arrived at my desired destination. No matter how I got here, I love this new position. It was, for the first year, just French I and II. My less-than-welcoming colleague taught the upper levels.
Now get this — last Thursday, I was selected by the ‘always on/slightly off’ head principal to take over what was previously a two-person French program, for the following reason:
[from my less-than-welcoming colleague who is now exiting the French program]
“[her words] I don’t want to teach French… NOT because I don’t want to teach AP, but because of a fundamental, philosophical disagreement in teaching styles.”
She actually does quite a bit of CI, and has a background somewhat similar to mine. You have run into this before with others of us on your blog….we have colleagues who teach with similar intentions and styles, but won’t accept a permutation of what they do — they just want to control everyone. In fact, my situation is a clear-cut case of, ‘tomato’ // ‘tomahto.’ I have only taught three Matava stories this year, with tons of little personalized mini-stories to set them up, so how one would define my ‘teaching philosophy’ would be difficult to say. Of course, she has never, ever set foot in my classroom when I was teaching.
Nevertheless, my less-than-welcoming, former French-language colleague has, for once, made a wise choice. I am happy, and will make the transition graciously. Next fall, I have two level I, two level II, one level III, and one level IV-AP.
In my heart, I would love a real teaching partner, but if I have to do the whole program, I can.
And I will!
Last, and not least, all of the world language teachers in my district, including some awful women that used to try to denigrate my teaching style at my old school, were herded into a district library for TWO DAYS and forced to learn about CI from Svetlana Lazarova from Palm Springs High School. She is the best ‘CI apologist’ I’ve yet seen in my local area. I was cackling with glee when she said during her presentation, “Don’t like your book? Don’t adopt a new one — use CI to teach!
When she said, “Throw away the book! Throw away the tests!” I felt so gently avenged, and grateful for her nuanced approach to the audiences questions. My district actually chose a presenter who teaches like I do…what does it all mean, I wonder….?
To anyone reading who knows what I know, but has not had a ‘breakthrough’ yet, here’s some hope. Nice guys (CI people who base their curriculum in their students) do not always finish last!