too many choices...
(warning: this blog is intended more to clarrify my own thoughts about procedures than to provide interesting reading for you guys when you probably have something better to do. so if you aren't my mom, you can stop reading now. love you mom.)
we've gotten so much advice in the last two months, from professors, second years, ben, veteran teachers, books and articles, that no matter what one person may have said, you'll be sure that someone has said the opposite. exactly the opposite. which is fine, and which is why everyone makes sure to stress that what he or she is telling us is simply what worked for them (or if they are telling you something not to do, it's just what didn't work for them). Sometimes, it makes life very difficult, but I wouldn't choose to have missed out on any of the advice, because there are so many good ideas, even if I end up faced with too many choices.
For example, while trying to come up with my procedures, I've run aground when trying to determine what is going to be handed in, how it will be handed in, what will be graded and how it will be graded. I'm talking primarily about DoNow problems, classwork, and homework. Some people don't give homework. They teach english, and math is a whole different beast. I plan on assigning homework almost every night (I'll give them Friday's off). For me, it is an issue of high expectations. Everyone drills into you that high expectations are important, and so I expect students to do homework every night. It's unthinkable, to me, that a math teacher back home would not assign homework and so I'll assign homework here, for sure. but i really don't want to grade it all. and i'm lucky. because of the block setup, i'll only have at most 90 kids, more realistically 75 or 80; some people will have twice that.
but what am i going to do with the homework? when and how will i collect it, what assignments will i grade, how will i grade them (for completion, for accuracy? checks, ABC's, percents?)
My first thought was that I would have bins or folders, and when students entered the room, they'd just drop the homework in the bin for their class. Fine, but what do I do will all the homework? Just check for completion and hand it back? Grade one for accuracy?
Ms. Cornelius has a great system, in which she rolls a die at the end of the week, and whatever the die lands on, 1-4, that is the day's homework they have to turn in, and then she'll grade it. if it's a 5 she rolls again, and if it's a six, they get a freebie. That seems like a decent idea.
Ben doesn't give homework at all, but he has a great folder system. Even though I think we have very dfferent teaching styles, I think I could steal his folder. Wouldn't it be great if everyone got a folder at the begining of class that had any worksheets that they were going to do that day in it, and they put their homework from the night before in it before they left class. then, the next day, when they got their folders back, the homework would be in the back, with either a check for completion or a grade for accuracy, with the other homeworks. this folder could even, and should, include the DoNow problems, all on a seperate sheet of paper.
Hmm. Ms. Cornelius' system could have all my students waiting until Thursday night to do all the homework, which I don't want. I want a way to check so that my kids know I'll know whether they're keeping up or not. of course, i'll be able to tell in class, but they don't know that. The folder system, though, if I adapted it for homework, would give kids the chance to be working on their homework during class, while I was lecturing or while we were doing something else. If the folders were only the homework and the DoNow problems, then I could collect them after the DoNow problems were finished, but that might be really disruptive. And what about studying? I want students to be able to study from their homework. I could let them take the folders home... Thursday night to study for Friday quizzes and tests, but I don't want to send the message that you only study the night before a test, even though that's all i ever did.
Keep is Simple, Stupid.
If they actually do all their homework thursday night, fine. they'll have done it before the test/quiz. so after talking to a few other teachers in the hall (one of the only good things about living in the dorm, here's the idea. go back to the basic idea of binders, and keep the dice. don't give them any freebies. 1-4 will be monday - thursday, 5 will be the week's DoNows, and 6 will be roll again. Maybe a pair of sixes will be a freebie. that's 1/36, so probably it would happen once for one of my classes per nine weeks.
So now, my kids have binders. this was what I had been thinking about a few weeks ago. Binders. One section for notes. One section for DoNow problems. One section for homework. One section for tests/quizzes (those that I don't keep on file). One for handouts (good call dave). So, notes, handouts, DoNow, homework, quizzes. Five sections. Not unrealistic. This way, I'll only be grading, at most, 90 homework assignments per week. Should I check for completion of the rest of them? Someone suggested checking them during the quiz. Every week give them a grade for completion (20 points for each assignment completed) and a grade for accuracy, based on the one homework I take?
What about if a student is absent? This seems really tricky. But if everything is in their binders, they can get both the homework and the DoNow from someone else in the class. Handouts from me (maybe hang them on the wall under a sign (yesterday's handouts). This is fine if a student misses any day but a thursday or a friday. If Orangejello misses a Thurday, he won't have had a chance to figure out what he was supposed to do for Friday, so if a DoNow or Thursday's homework gets called, what does he do? And if he misses Friday? He has to make up the quiz or test before or after school, or during my planning period. Alright, sounds like a plan. If anyone actually reads this garbage, just stop and think of what you might have been able to accomplish during that time. You could have made your own classroom management plan.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Werner
When I was in high school, back at HV, I had heard a lot about the chemistry teacher. I heard he was mean, I heard he was hard, I heard he looked like an underweight Santa Claus and I also heard that if you did well in his chem class, then a college chem class would seem like a joke. He was Norwegian and wrote his name with an angstrom, but although Mr. Aase was not mean, his class was hard, and I learned so much that I never even bothered taking chemistry in college.
However, there is one thing of which I have no memory at all. That is whatever Mr. Aase wrote on the overhead projector. Because at 7:29, when he cut the lights and started in with the green marker on the transparencies, I slip back in my desk, crossed my arms, and continued whatever dreams had been cut short by the incessant beeping of my alarm that morning. Usually, in this twilight state, I had some very interesting dreams, sometimes even incorporating some of the concepts that were being taught to me while I was asleep, when six point O-two times ten to the twenty-third somehow invaded my swirling experiences of spaceships and forests. On those rare occasions, when the lights went off and my eyes stayed open, I'd work out the lineup that we should play that afternoon in Greylock, usually featuring a midfield triangle and overlapping wing-backs getting forward like Roberto Carlos, who in those days was actually a decent player.
So as a teacher, I've tried to learn from my own memories of being taught. I'll make my instructions as clear as possible and try to anticipate all possible scenarios, but I'll know that they won't be followed and I'll be ready for the ensuing chaos. I'll have high expectations for my students, and I will prepare them to go on and study the material at a higher level, or use it in whatever else they may study. But my experiences in chemistry, and every other class in which the lights have been dimmed, have led me to discount the overhead projector as a method of disseminating information; perhaps they should be marketed as a less addictive alternative to Ambien. Even in college, I had on excellent professor who used the lcd projector and taught with powerpoints - she'd go through 50 or more slides per class, and I, without fail, regardless of how awake I felt upon entering the class, and no matter what stategies I tried I tried to stay awake (sitting in the front row, taking copious notes, poking myself with a mechanical pencil) fell asleep in that class every day. I take that back - there was one day, the entire semester, during which I did not fall asleep in that class. So I decided I would make good use of my whiteboard, or chalkboard as the case may be.
Throughout my summer school experience, I have seen examples of the overhead projector being used very well. In Spanish class, we labeled a photo of the President's face - boca, orejas, nariz, cerdo, etc. We used it adding fractions and finding probabilities and defining plot. Among our group of seven, I was probably one of only two who did not use the overhead, yet despite the fact that I have never been more tired that I have been this summer, I never once fell asleep when the overhead was humming (that's another thing I hate about them, that tranquilizing noise). So I am starting to re-think my aversion to projection. I feel like I ought to have tried it out last week, at least once, so that I could get a feel for it before I try it in front of my class. Using an LCD projector, which I've heard will be available at Big Delta High, might be the best option.
I have a lot of memories from that class. In fact, the first thing I remember from high school, is sitting down in the second row, on the right in a windowless, cinderblock room on the first day of school, a sophomore in a class of unknown juniors, and just staring at the pattern of off-white cinderblocks and contemplating the philosophical significance of the construction materials that we reserve for our schools and penitentiaries.
I also remember the labs and his careful instructions. "Do not," he said "light the magnesium on fire. If you do, don't look at it; it can do permanent damage to your eyes. I'll come over and extinguish it for you." Five minutes later, the lab was illuminated with the bright white light of burning magnesium, the guilty student, like a roadside dear, was staring intently at the hopping sparks, as one of the several junior 007's of the class dove and rolled behind a lab desk to protect his own vision.
So when a test came back, we passed them, we turned around, whispered, showed the grades to those sitting near to us and passed notes to those across the room. We had what turned out to be the first, second, and third students in the junior class - one of whom was the bright soul who ignited the magnesium - and the top two students in my class, the only sophomores taking chemistry. Yet I don't believe anyone ever got a hundred on a test - quizzes, sure, but never on a test. He prepared us well enough, but there was always so much information that we'd be sure to botch something.However, there is one thing of which I have no memory at all. That is whatever Mr. Aase wrote on the overhead projector. Because at 7:29, when he cut the lights and started in with the green marker on the transparencies, I slip back in my desk, crossed my arms, and continued whatever dreams had been cut short by the incessant beeping of my alarm that morning. Usually, in this twilight state, I had some very interesting dreams, sometimes even incorporating some of the concepts that were being taught to me while I was asleep, when six point O-two times ten to the twenty-third somehow invaded my swirling experiences of spaceships and forests. On those rare occasions, when the lights went off and my eyes stayed open, I'd work out the lineup that we should play that afternoon in Greylock, usually featuring a midfield triangle and overlapping wing-backs getting forward like Roberto Carlos, who in those days was actually a decent player.
So as a teacher, I've tried to learn from my own memories of being taught. I'll make my instructions as clear as possible and try to anticipate all possible scenarios, but I'll know that they won't be followed and I'll be ready for the ensuing chaos. I'll have high expectations for my students, and I will prepare them to go on and study the material at a higher level, or use it in whatever else they may study. But my experiences in chemistry, and every other class in which the lights have been dimmed, have led me to discount the overhead projector as a method of disseminating information; perhaps they should be marketed as a less addictive alternative to Ambien. Even in college, I had on excellent professor who used the lcd projector and taught with powerpoints - she'd go through 50 or more slides per class, and I, without fail, regardless of how awake I felt upon entering the class, and no matter what stategies I tried I tried to stay awake (sitting in the front row, taking copious notes, poking myself with a mechanical pencil) fell asleep in that class every day. I take that back - there was one day, the entire semester, during which I did not fall asleep in that class. So I decided I would make good use of my whiteboard, or chalkboard as the case may be.
Throughout my summer school experience, I have seen examples of the overhead projector being used very well. In Spanish class, we labeled a photo of the President's face - boca, orejas, nariz, cerdo, etc. We used it adding fractions and finding probabilities and defining plot. Among our group of seven, I was probably one of only two who did not use the overhead, yet despite the fact that I have never been more tired that I have been this summer, I never once fell asleep when the overhead was humming (that's another thing I hate about them, that tranquilizing noise). So I am starting to re-think my aversion to projection. I feel like I ought to have tried it out last week, at least once, so that I could get a feel for it before I try it in front of my class. Using an LCD projector, which I've heard will be available at Big Delta High, might be the best option.
another out of body experience
Last night I watched tape of my second day of team teaching, when I taught circles, my second day of conic sections, to Ms. Cornelius' class. While it is always painful to listen to recordings of my own voice, there were plenty of points for improvement. This, I felt before watching it, was my best lesson of the week. I'm really glad I don't have to watch the other ones. Watching the little running clock in the corner was especially instructive. The DoNow problems took up much too much of my class time. I started my set at 14:08. It's no wonder, then, that I didn't have time for my closure, or that I looked a little awkward leaning against the desk after I had made my rounds two or three times through the desks. There were two problems, both dealing with parabolas, which we had covered the day before, and I wanted to make sure that they really understood the material, but it took forever. I think maybe a better option would be to have the DoNow problem relate to more basic skills that we will be using in the lesson that day - like I did distance formula questions the first day, and factoring before we did equations in non-standard form.
I need to give more clear instructions about expectations. The "students" had created double cones on Monday, to help them visualize how it needs to be dissected, but I need to have them put the cones under their desks, or somewhere, so that they aren't being twirled around in class, the same way Hunter, after giving out a wordsearch to those who finished his quiz early, told us all"Now, take your wordsearches and put them under your desk." Those are the kind of clear instructions I ought to adopt. I also need to work on my body language or posture, or something, so that I don't look like such a goofy dude up there. Maybe it's just that I was watching myself, and so of course looked goofy, but I tend to believe that I really look pretty goofy up there. I'll work on that.
I'm not very sure about my general formula of a lesson. This lesson, like all the other lessons I taught, all summer, has involved me lecturing a little, doing an example on the board, bringing students or a student to the board to do an example. But when one student is at the board doing an example, or anything really, it looks, on tape, like dead time for the rest of the class, even though I don't recall it feeling that way in person (except one time, when the student doing the work on the board didn't have a clue about what to do). Ms. Smith had a good idea relating to this problem, in which I check the students' work before I choose a student to go to the board. But what to do with the rest of them, I'm not really sure. Maybe assign to problems, have everyone working on them, and when walking through, snag a student who did the first one correctly or with an especially common, illustrative mistake and send him or her to the board to write the problem up there while everyone else finished the second, and then have the student explain his or her work to everyone (which should only take half as long once they've gotten everything written on the board), while the other students check the work on the board, and make sure it matches their answer and the steps they took.
Relating to this problem, I have only taught classes of 6-8 students, and so all my ideas about lesson plans and classroom management will be in need of severe tune-ups once I have kids in front of me, one of which is sick, two of which are sleeping, one who wants to answer every questions and a half dozen who won't ever answer. One thing summer school should do, although I forgot to write it on the evaluation, is force teachers who have less then 15 students to at least one lesson to a class with more than 20. Then, I'd know what it felt like, at least for forty minutes.
The example about Zidane and the headbutt worked well, in terms of holding the interest of the students. Unfortunately, I only had a minute for it. The funniest part of the lesson might have been my face, just before the tape cut out, when I heard Ms. Cornelius say "Ok, that's the bell." I was quite visibly shocked. I need to get a clock, because I look especially goofy when I am looking at my watch. A digital watch might help too, because, even though I am 22 and a graduate student, it still takes me a few seconds longer than it should to read an analog one. The timer that Ms. Cornelius lent me the next day worked especially well. I rushed my third lesson to try to cram in a lot of material and a closure, and looked at the timer on the desk every other minute, Ms. Cox remarked that even though I wasn't looking at the clock or my watch, it felt rushed. While the rushed part was certainly a valid criticism, the fact that she mentioned that I wasn't looking at a watch or clock meant the timer did its job very inconspicuously.
Despite all the problems that jumped out at me from the lesson, perhaps the most startling thing was that I actually looked like a teacher. I guess that is a good thing, since in 23 days I'll be in charge of 60 - 80 kids, for 94 minutes each, everyday. So I'm glad that I'm finally starting to look the part.
I need to give more clear instructions about expectations. The "students" had created double cones on Monday, to help them visualize how it needs to be dissected, but I need to have them put the cones under their desks, or somewhere, so that they aren't being twirled around in class, the same way Hunter, after giving out a wordsearch to those who finished his quiz early, told us all"Now, take your wordsearches and put them under your desk." Those are the kind of clear instructions I ought to adopt. I also need to work on my body language or posture, or something, so that I don't look like such a goofy dude up there. Maybe it's just that I was watching myself, and so of course looked goofy, but I tend to believe that I really look pretty goofy up there. I'll work on that.
I'm not very sure about my general formula of a lesson. This lesson, like all the other lessons I taught, all summer, has involved me lecturing a little, doing an example on the board, bringing students or a student to the board to do an example. But when one student is at the board doing an example, or anything really, it looks, on tape, like dead time for the rest of the class, even though I don't recall it feeling that way in person (except one time, when the student doing the work on the board didn't have a clue about what to do). Ms. Smith had a good idea relating to this problem, in which I check the students' work before I choose a student to go to the board. But what to do with the rest of them, I'm not really sure. Maybe assign to problems, have everyone working on them, and when walking through, snag a student who did the first one correctly or with an especially common, illustrative mistake and send him or her to the board to write the problem up there while everyone else finished the second, and then have the student explain his or her work to everyone (which should only take half as long once they've gotten everything written on the board), while the other students check the work on the board, and make sure it matches their answer and the steps they took.
Relating to this problem, I have only taught classes of 6-8 students, and so all my ideas about lesson plans and classroom management will be in need of severe tune-ups once I have kids in front of me, one of which is sick, two of which are sleeping, one who wants to answer every questions and a half dozen who won't ever answer. One thing summer school should do, although I forgot to write it on the evaluation, is force teachers who have less then 15 students to at least one lesson to a class with more than 20. Then, I'd know what it felt like, at least for forty minutes.
The example about Zidane and the headbutt worked well, in terms of holding the interest of the students. Unfortunately, I only had a minute for it. The funniest part of the lesson might have been my face, just before the tape cut out, when I heard Ms. Cornelius say "Ok, that's the bell." I was quite visibly shocked. I need to get a clock, because I look especially goofy when I am looking at my watch. A digital watch might help too, because, even though I am 22 and a graduate student, it still takes me a few seconds longer than it should to read an analog one. The timer that Ms. Cornelius lent me the next day worked especially well. I rushed my third lesson to try to cram in a lot of material and a closure, and looked at the timer on the desk every other minute, Ms. Cox remarked that even though I wasn't looking at the clock or my watch, it felt rushed. While the rushed part was certainly a valid criticism, the fact that she mentioned that I wasn't looking at a watch or clock meant the timer did its job very inconspicuously.
Despite all the problems that jumped out at me from the lesson, perhaps the most startling thing was that I actually looked like a teacher. I guess that is a good thing, since in 23 days I'll be in charge of 60 - 80 kids, for 94 minutes each, everyday. So I'm glad that I'm finally starting to look the part.
Monday, July 03, 2006
after the boys of summer are gone
So, summer school is over. How does that feel, one might ask. I still have yet to decide. It will be nice to get a little more sleep. As draining as TEAM may be, it’s not an hour away by school bus. I’ll miss the kids, for sure. I thought I would miss the dude the most - RK, who would always give me a hard time but understood what I was saying and could really help explain it to the other kids; WA, the class clown, who told me “there ain’t no mode” and who drew hearts around his own name on his quizzes and homework; and RR, who liked the crease in my pants. But I think I’ll miss the girls just as much.
Especially BM. When she stands next to me, she comes up about to my waist, her glasses are two big and she’s got a million freckles. Sometimes she struggled with the material, and had a very cute way of putting her head in her hands and saying “Mr (blank), I just don’t get it” or “Mr. (blank), this is hard.” But for me, the best parts of summer school came when she understood things, finally. It was much more rewarding than when RK did well, or WA, because she really understood it. One day, I gave the whole class a pop quiz since they were too loud outside. After I had graded them, I handed them back to everyone but BM, because she had earned a 100. I told her I couldn’t give her back her quiz. Her eyes filled with fear, and she said “What did I scored, Mr. (blank)?” I just told her she’d have to go look on the wall of fame, where I’d hung it. The way she walked back to her desk afterwards made my day.
She was a tough kid too, a really tough kid. She cried one day, during class, because she didn’t understand something. I knew she was crying, all the kids knew, but I hadn’t an idea what to do about it, so I changed my tone a little, didn’t call on her for a minute, until I was sure it was something she would understand. She answered me, and we kept on going, and she ended up understanding it in the end.
So, I’ll miss all the kids. I won’t miss the structure of the summer school, and the botched attempts at power sharing between four teachers in one classroom. At least I won’t have to deal with that when I have a classroom of my own. It’s a system that seems designed to cause conflict between teachers, even teachers who really like and respect each other, because it is really hard to avoid stepping on other people’s toes. I certainly stepped on some toes, and some of mine were stepped on, and it’s frustrating. I’m not sure how it could be done better next year, although I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Getting rid of the 2nd 2nd year in the class might help, because their role was pretty vague and undefined. The class would have run at least as smoothly without them, and they would have had a bit more of a summer break as well, which I’m sure they would have enjoyed. It was, however, nice to have them around for the summer, outside the classroom, because they all have a lot of experiences I can certainly learn from. But in the classroom, they were not necessary, and maybe detrimental.
The fact that so many of our kids (3 or 4 out of 8) failed was really depressing (see my thoughts about that in the second entry about assessment). That was really a downer.
Aside from summer school ending, I am really looking forward to TEAM. Not to writing 3 and 5 day lesson plans, but to learning how to teach math. I feel like I have some ideas about how to teach, but none really about how to teach math, especially high school math, since I’ve been working with 7th graders all summer. Plus, I’ve heard that the woman who teaches the class for math teachers is amazing and wonderful. So I can’t wait for that.
Especially BM. When she stands next to me, she comes up about to my waist, her glasses are two big and she’s got a million freckles. Sometimes she struggled with the material, and had a very cute way of putting her head in her hands and saying “Mr (blank), I just don’t get it” or “Mr. (blank), this is hard.” But for me, the best parts of summer school came when she understood things, finally. It was much more rewarding than when RK did well, or WA, because she really understood it. One day, I gave the whole class a pop quiz since they were too loud outside. After I had graded them, I handed them back to everyone but BM, because she had earned a 100. I told her I couldn’t give her back her quiz. Her eyes filled with fear, and she said “What did I scored, Mr. (blank)?” I just told her she’d have to go look on the wall of fame, where I’d hung it. The way she walked back to her desk afterwards made my day.
She was a tough kid too, a really tough kid. She cried one day, during class, because she didn’t understand something. I knew she was crying, all the kids knew, but I hadn’t an idea what to do about it, so I changed my tone a little, didn’t call on her for a minute, until I was sure it was something she would understand. She answered me, and we kept on going, and she ended up understanding it in the end.
So, I’ll miss all the kids. I won’t miss the structure of the summer school, and the botched attempts at power sharing between four teachers in one classroom. At least I won’t have to deal with that when I have a classroom of my own. It’s a system that seems designed to cause conflict between teachers, even teachers who really like and respect each other, because it is really hard to avoid stepping on other people’s toes. I certainly stepped on some toes, and some of mine were stepped on, and it’s frustrating. I’m not sure how it could be done better next year, although I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Getting rid of the 2nd 2nd year in the class might help, because their role was pretty vague and undefined. The class would have run at least as smoothly without them, and they would have had a bit more of a summer break as well, which I’m sure they would have enjoyed. It was, however, nice to have them around for the summer, outside the classroom, because they all have a lot of experiences I can certainly learn from. But in the classroom, they were not necessary, and maybe detrimental.
The fact that so many of our kids (3 or 4 out of 8) failed was really depressing (see my thoughts about that in the second entry about assessment). That was really a downer.
Aside from summer school ending, I am really looking forward to TEAM. Not to writing 3 and 5 day lesson plans, but to learning how to teach math. I feel like I have some ideas about how to teach, but none really about how to teach math, especially high school math, since I’ve been working with 7th graders all summer. Plus, I’ve heard that the woman who teaches the class for math teachers is amazing and wonderful. So I can’t wait for that.
Assessment part deux
So, I gave my third quiz the other day, and all but one of my students (RK) failed it. We had some forties, some fifties, and some sixties. No seventies. One 83, and no nineties. This quiz must have been too hard. Right? I’m still not sure. I still think, if they knew everything we covered, then they should have been able to pass this test. And not only passed it, but scored well. But they didn’t. Which means that either: 1. my view of math is skewed and my quizzes do not in fact measure mastery of the material or 2. they just didn’t know the material. And if they don’t know the material, whose fault is that? It must be mine, since every kid can learn. If they didn’t understand, then I wasn’t clear enough. If they didn’t pay attention, I was too boring. If they didn’t do their homework, well, that might be their fault, but maybe I gave them things that were too boring, or they didn’t do it because they didn’t understand it because I didn’t teach it well enough.
Part of the problem was that I didn’t sit in on all my co-teacher’s lessons. I was making LP’s in the library a couple of times, and so I wasn’t clear on exactly what she had taught, how far she had gotten, and how clear the kids were on the material. And for whatever reason, I know my lessons before this quiz were not my best. Partially, it was that we tried to do too much too fast. My most difficult task, aside from CM, will be trying to remember what it is like to struggle through and first learn these things that seem so automatic and intuitive to me now. So the quiz was bad. I decided to let them take it home Thursday night and fix things for extra points, thinking that they will at least learn something that way. I told them how important it was. Two out of eight kids brought it back the next day. They both passed it.
But one other student, RH, came in that morning and said she hadn’t corrected it, because she didn’t know how to do it, and her mom didn’t understand it either. I spent some time going over the quiz with the whole class. I had a whole period, since we had somehow messed up the schedule, and it was the last day of school, and so I sat down at one of the desks with them all and with one of the small white boards, and we went through the quiz. This was the best lesson I taught all summer. No plan, no thought. But I was sitting down with the kids, in their desks, at their level. Somehow, I was still unambiguously the teacher, somehow even more in charge then when I stood up at the front of the room and glowered. I started off just working with RH and BM, since they had been asking me about the quiz, and I didn’t think I was actually teaching that period. Once the bell rang and no one else stepped up, I decided I would just keep going, and by then everyone else had just gathered round, on their own accord. When we went through the Pythagorean Theorem problems, they really struggled with that. RH said “Can you just give me one to do up on the board?” I gave her one, and then everyone else was asking for one. I had all eight kids either up at the board or working at problems on small white boards; they were everywhere, asking for markers, calculators, erasers, asking me to check their answers, but mostly they were asking for more problems. I struggled to keep pace with them all, find markers that actually would write, and come up with new triangles for them to practice on. I was relaxed, I was nice, I was everything I wasn’t when I was videotaped, and it felt great. I only wish I had done it before I quizzed them and that I knew how to replicate that experience and extend it to a classroom of 25 or thirty. Since I’ll have 94 minute periods, I might be able to just sit down with groups of kids, while the others are all working on something, for 15 minutes or so. If I broke my class into three groups, then taking them for 15 minutes apiece would be pretty reasonable, and I would still have half the class to do whatever I wanted with them. The main question is what would I don with the other two groups while one was working. I’ll keep thinking about that.
The post-test was another amazing experience. The kids got the same test they took at the beginning of the year, and bombed it. No one passed it – maybe RK, but no one else. They all were hovering in the 40’s again, or lower, even despite the partial credit. I wondered why we had spent so much time on geometry and algebra when the kids still couldn’t round. Seriously, they lost the most points on rounding, and long division. That might have had to do with time – none of them finished, and my mentor teacher told me time was up, so I had to collect them, which was really hard for the kids.
About half of my class failed summer school (3 or 4 out of 8). Even the smart ones. When my mentor teacher told me the list, I repeated one of the names “WA? He’s so smart.” My mentor teacher shrugged and said he’s lazy. I guess he’s right. But we didn’t give our kids fair warning. Because the mentor teacher kept the grades, and the first years were the only ones teaching for the last two weeks, the communication that needed to be there wasn’t, and so I never sat down with one of those students and said “RH, it seems like you’re really having a hard time with some of this stuff. You’re really close to failing right now, and neither of us wants that. What can I do to help you do better in class.” And after we went through the normal, annoying things, like “you could make the tests easier” or “give less homework” we could have come to an agreement, and tried to work towards passing, when there was still a week left, even when there was still a day left before the big test. I know I’m going to have kids who fail, and I know I won’t be failing them, but that they will fail themselves, and I’ll be fine with that. But I feel like I failed these kids by not letting them know where they were and where they needed to be. Had I done that, had I just estimated their averages and sat down for ten minutes with each of them, just written a note, maybe one of those who failed might have passed and made into into 8th grade, on his own. Not because I gave him any gifts, but because he did what he needed to do. I don’t want to fail any of my kids, and I’ll always let them, and their parents know if they are ever in danger of failing. After the first two quizzes, in the fall, anyone below a 75 will get a call. I will have enough kids who fail themselves, and who have already had plenty of teachers and other people in their lives who fail them, that I do not want to be the one who fails them, no matter how many F’s I have to give out.
Part of the problem was that I didn’t sit in on all my co-teacher’s lessons. I was making LP’s in the library a couple of times, and so I wasn’t clear on exactly what she had taught, how far she had gotten, and how clear the kids were on the material. And for whatever reason, I know my lessons before this quiz were not my best. Partially, it was that we tried to do too much too fast. My most difficult task, aside from CM, will be trying to remember what it is like to struggle through and first learn these things that seem so automatic and intuitive to me now. So the quiz was bad. I decided to let them take it home Thursday night and fix things for extra points, thinking that they will at least learn something that way. I told them how important it was. Two out of eight kids brought it back the next day. They both passed it.
But one other student, RH, came in that morning and said she hadn’t corrected it, because she didn’t know how to do it, and her mom didn’t understand it either. I spent some time going over the quiz with the whole class. I had a whole period, since we had somehow messed up the schedule, and it was the last day of school, and so I sat down at one of the desks with them all and with one of the small white boards, and we went through the quiz. This was the best lesson I taught all summer. No plan, no thought. But I was sitting down with the kids, in their desks, at their level. Somehow, I was still unambiguously the teacher, somehow even more in charge then when I stood up at the front of the room and glowered. I started off just working with RH and BM, since they had been asking me about the quiz, and I didn’t think I was actually teaching that period. Once the bell rang and no one else stepped up, I decided I would just keep going, and by then everyone else had just gathered round, on their own accord. When we went through the Pythagorean Theorem problems, they really struggled with that. RH said “Can you just give me one to do up on the board?” I gave her one, and then everyone else was asking for one. I had all eight kids either up at the board or working at problems on small white boards; they were everywhere, asking for markers, calculators, erasers, asking me to check their answers, but mostly they were asking for more problems. I struggled to keep pace with them all, find markers that actually would write, and come up with new triangles for them to practice on. I was relaxed, I was nice, I was everything I wasn’t when I was videotaped, and it felt great. I only wish I had done it before I quizzed them and that I knew how to replicate that experience and extend it to a classroom of 25 or thirty. Since I’ll have 94 minute periods, I might be able to just sit down with groups of kids, while the others are all working on something, for 15 minutes or so. If I broke my class into three groups, then taking them for 15 minutes apiece would be pretty reasonable, and I would still have half the class to do whatever I wanted with them. The main question is what would I don with the other two groups while one was working. I’ll keep thinking about that.
The post-test was another amazing experience. The kids got the same test they took at the beginning of the year, and bombed it. No one passed it – maybe RK, but no one else. They all were hovering in the 40’s again, or lower, even despite the partial credit. I wondered why we had spent so much time on geometry and algebra when the kids still couldn’t round. Seriously, they lost the most points on rounding, and long division. That might have had to do with time – none of them finished, and my mentor teacher told me time was up, so I had to collect them, which was really hard for the kids.
About half of my class failed summer school (3 or 4 out of 8). Even the smart ones. When my mentor teacher told me the list, I repeated one of the names “WA? He’s so smart.” My mentor teacher shrugged and said he’s lazy. I guess he’s right. But we didn’t give our kids fair warning. Because the mentor teacher kept the grades, and the first years were the only ones teaching for the last two weeks, the communication that needed to be there wasn’t, and so I never sat down with one of those students and said “RH, it seems like you’re really having a hard time with some of this stuff. You’re really close to failing right now, and neither of us wants that. What can I do to help you do better in class.” And after we went through the normal, annoying things, like “you could make the tests easier” or “give less homework” we could have come to an agreement, and tried to work towards passing, when there was still a week left, even when there was still a day left before the big test. I know I’m going to have kids who fail, and I know I won’t be failing them, but that they will fail themselves, and I’ll be fine with that. But I feel like I failed these kids by not letting them know where they were and where they needed to be. Had I done that, had I just estimated their averages and sat down for ten minutes with each of them, just written a note, maybe one of those who failed might have passed and made into into 8th grade, on his own. Not because I gave him any gifts, but because he did what he needed to do. I don’t want to fail any of my kids, and I’ll always let them, and their parents know if they are ever in danger of failing. After the first two quizzes, in the fall, anyone below a 75 will get a call. I will have enough kids who fail themselves, and who have already had plenty of teachers and other people in their lives who fail them, that I do not want to be the one who fails them, no matter how many F’s I have to give out.
Adventures with Parents
So, summer school went out with a bang today. Here's a story about one of my students who's mom failed her on the very final day of summer school.
I was late to summer school, but SK was even later. She showed up on Monday of the second week, and where there had been seven, there were suddenly eight. I don't even know how she was allowed to start a week late, but her mother must have just talked her way through the bureaucracy. Or rather, beaten through it like a battering ram, as I would soon learn was more her style. SK is a very shy, somewhat bratty but very polite little girl, reluctant to go to the board or answer questions during class, but always she answers yessir, nosir, etc. She never gave me any discipline trouble, until thursday, when, right in front of me, she kicked another student. Detention. "but, but..." No, kicking another student is never appropriate in my classroom. That's more than a warning. I had already given a detention for a similar thing, when K2 was pushing another RH. She ended up serving detention on her birthday, which is unfortunate. But that sort of thing can't happen in a classroom. It's not only a huge distraction, but I need to send out the message that my classroom is safe. Anyway, I'm getting off track.
So, the day after I gave SK the detention, Friday, the last day of summer school, she comes in and hands me a piece of paper, says it's a note. I open it up, and it reads something like this.
I will come in this morning to discuss the detention slip with you.
signed,
the mom
She underlined discuss herself. Great. I already had called a parent, and had a very positive response (you'll see a change in his attitude tomorrow, that sort of thing). I knew this discussion was going to be different, maybe because I would be talking to a mom rather than a dad, but more because of the way the note was written, the fact that it did not have the detention slip attached, and just the way SK asks in class. I have a feeling her mom has come to her rescue before.
So, before the mom showed up, I went and spoke with Jaws, the MTC alum who runs the summer school, to ask him about what will happen if she doesn't go to detention today. He told me to not even make that part of the question, but since I knew the mom was going to try to have her not serve it, I wanted to make sure I had my "consequence behind the consequence" all laid out. Jaws told me if she doesn't go, we withhold her grade, a nicer way of saying we'll fail her. Makes sense, because there's really nothing else we could do, since it was the last day of school and all, but it really set me up to butt heads with the mom.
When she finally showed up, I tried to remember everything people have said about talking with a parent. Start positive, kill them with politeness, don't get angry (or at least don't let it show, etc). So I did. We went out into the hall, and I told her I was very glad that she had come in so that we could discuss the detention, basically pretending like I thought she just wanted to know about the situation so it could be avoided next time, even though I knew she really wanted to just give me a hard time about it and tell me that her daughter wasn't going. Which she did. She told me all about how the guy whom her daughter had kicked was grabbing her leg, and wouldn't let go, so she was well within her rights to kick him, blah blah blah, and she would be ok with it if the other guy was also going to be in detention, but no one should put his hands on her daughter, etc, etc. I listened, agreed, and then told her that I couldn't punish what I didn't see, and that I didn't see anything of the kind, and while I certainly don't think her daughter is lying, if I punished students solely based on the words of other students, that would be a precedent that would put me in an impossible position, as a teacher. She just wouldn't listen and told me that she was going to take her daughter home, and so I told her that if she does not serve her detention, the school policy is that she will not receive a grade for summer school.
Next, she wanted to see the principal, who happened to be walking right by at that very moment. I asked him to come over, and he backed me up, completely, which felt really good. The woman would not listen to him either, and she told him she would go to the school board, and took the daughter, who had been all smiles the whole morning, home with her. What a waste. SK would have served the detention, no problem, but her mom somehow couldn't stomach it. Later, when my mentor figured out the grades, I realized that she would have failed anyway. But besides failing the course, she learned all the wrong lessons about responsibility, and I'm sure the next time the situation will be just the same.
I was late to summer school, but SK was even later. She showed up on Monday of the second week, and where there had been seven, there were suddenly eight. I don't even know how she was allowed to start a week late, but her mother must have just talked her way through the bureaucracy. Or rather, beaten through it like a battering ram, as I would soon learn was more her style. SK is a very shy, somewhat bratty but very polite little girl, reluctant to go to the board or answer questions during class, but always she answers yessir, nosir, etc. She never gave me any discipline trouble, until thursday, when, right in front of me, she kicked another student. Detention. "but, but..." No, kicking another student is never appropriate in my classroom. That's more than a warning. I had already given a detention for a similar thing, when K2 was pushing another RH. She ended up serving detention on her birthday, which is unfortunate. But that sort of thing can't happen in a classroom. It's not only a huge distraction, but I need to send out the message that my classroom is safe. Anyway, I'm getting off track.
So, the day after I gave SK the detention, Friday, the last day of summer school, she comes in and hands me a piece of paper, says it's a note. I open it up, and it reads something like this.
I will come in this morning to discuss the detention slip with you.
signed,
the mom
She underlined discuss herself. Great. I already had called a parent, and had a very positive response (you'll see a change in his attitude tomorrow, that sort of thing). I knew this discussion was going to be different, maybe because I would be talking to a mom rather than a dad, but more because of the way the note was written, the fact that it did not have the detention slip attached, and just the way SK asks in class. I have a feeling her mom has come to her rescue before.
So, before the mom showed up, I went and spoke with Jaws, the MTC alum who runs the summer school, to ask him about what will happen if she doesn't go to detention today. He told me to not even make that part of the question, but since I knew the mom was going to try to have her not serve it, I wanted to make sure I had my "consequence behind the consequence" all laid out. Jaws told me if she doesn't go, we withhold her grade, a nicer way of saying we'll fail her. Makes sense, because there's really nothing else we could do, since it was the last day of school and all, but it really set me up to butt heads with the mom.
When she finally showed up, I tried to remember everything people have said about talking with a parent. Start positive, kill them with politeness, don't get angry (or at least don't let it show, etc). So I did. We went out into the hall, and I told her I was very glad that she had come in so that we could discuss the detention, basically pretending like I thought she just wanted to know about the situation so it could be avoided next time, even though I knew she really wanted to just give me a hard time about it and tell me that her daughter wasn't going. Which she did. She told me all about how the guy whom her daughter had kicked was grabbing her leg, and wouldn't let go, so she was well within her rights to kick him, blah blah blah, and she would be ok with it if the other guy was also going to be in detention, but no one should put his hands on her daughter, etc, etc. I listened, agreed, and then told her that I couldn't punish what I didn't see, and that I didn't see anything of the kind, and while I certainly don't think her daughter is lying, if I punished students solely based on the words of other students, that would be a precedent that would put me in an impossible position, as a teacher. She just wouldn't listen and told me that she was going to take her daughter home, and so I told her that if she does not serve her detention, the school policy is that she will not receive a grade for summer school.
Next, she wanted to see the principal, who happened to be walking right by at that very moment. I asked him to come over, and he backed me up, completely, which felt really good. The woman would not listen to him either, and she told him she would go to the school board, and took the daughter, who had been all smiles the whole morning, home with her. What a waste. SK would have served the detention, no problem, but her mom somehow couldn't stomach it. Later, when my mentor figured out the grades, I realized that she would have failed anyway. But besides failing the course, she learned all the wrong lessons about responsibility, and I'm sure the next time the situation will be just the same.
The Strange, Strange World of Self-Observation
So, I just watched myself teach - an experience in self - voyuerism made possible by the modern technology of dd's camcorder. I caught myself on a bad day, perhaps, but that's probably best, as it gives me a long list of problems to be corrected, which just means a long list of ideas of how to be a better teacher (I knew there had to be a way to put a positive spin on it.) Here is my list of things that were bad, in no particular order:
- I was too mean.
- I was too stiff.
- I talked too fast.
- I spent too much time at the board with my back to students.
- Too mean.
- Too stiff.
- There was too much time during which only one or two of the students were working.
- I slouched badly, and in general had poor posture and body language.
- Too mean.
- Too stiff.
One of the most interesting parts was watching what the kids did behind my back when I was writing on the board (I need to work more on writing while still facing the classroom, BG style). One girl, whom I had obviously lost with the lesson, leaned back as I turned to the board, and then whacked herself on the forehead with her hands at least half a dozen times before I turned back around. Thwack, thwack, thwack... I laughed watching it, but it was a sure sign that I had lost my class' attention.
The worst part was how mean I came off being. Ever since I've gotten here, I've been worrying about being too nice. I don't really need to worry about that anymore, at least not based on this performance. I was mean when the kids had questions. I was just mean and nasty. My mentor teacher told me earlier in the month that I was way too stiff with the kids, but as I kept teaching he told me that every day was getting better. This was definitely a reversion. Overall I was just way too tense; I held the lesson plan during the entire class - I never do that.
Overall, it was really painful to watch, and so it must have been at least equally painful for the kids to sit through. Not much else to say about it except that I've got to be better. No complacency.
- I was too mean.
- I was too stiff.
- I talked too fast.
- I spent too much time at the board with my back to students.
- Too mean.
- Too stiff.
- There was too much time during which only one or two of the students were working.
- I slouched badly, and in general had poor posture and body language.
- Too mean.
- Too stiff.
One of the most interesting parts was watching what the kids did behind my back when I was writing on the board (I need to work more on writing while still facing the classroom, BG style). One girl, whom I had obviously lost with the lesson, leaned back as I turned to the board, and then whacked herself on the forehead with her hands at least half a dozen times before I turned back around. Thwack, thwack, thwack... I laughed watching it, but it was a sure sign that I had lost my class' attention.
The worst part was how mean I came off being. Ever since I've gotten here, I've been worrying about being too nice. I don't really need to worry about that anymore, at least not based on this performance. I was mean when the kids had questions. I was just mean and nasty. My mentor teacher told me earlier in the month that I was way too stiff with the kids, but as I kept teaching he told me that every day was getting better. This was definitely a reversion. Overall I was just way too tense; I held the lesson plan during the entire class - I never do that.
Overall, it was really painful to watch, and so it must have been at least equally painful for the kids to sit through. Not much else to say about it except that I've got to be better. No complacency.
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