Our l!t c!rcle artifacts! I'm so proud:
The cute dress I bought a couple weeks ago, just in time for spring...
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The cute dress I bought a couple weeks ago, just in time for spring...
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Wednesday, March 14, 2007
I am Proud of Myself Today
In backwards order:
--I worked out after school, for the second time this week! Other than walking for a week on vacation, I hadn't worked out for like a month. Eek.
--I made four parent phone calls!
--Two of them were "good job" calls!!
--I put charts back up in my room, after two months of bleak, industrial bare walls.
--Last week, the Hydras were throwing paper and making excess noise (like whistling), all week. It continued a bit into this week, and I had to keep them for after school detention yesterday, in their homeroom classroom (the science teacher). I gave them a lecture about respecting themselves and their time, and making sure they and the people around them are doing their job.
Apparently the science teacher talked to them and so the class elected somebody to write a letter to me, apologizing. Then they passed it around the class so every student signed it. They presented it to me in the middle of me discussing Good Listening Habits. I asked a student to read it aloud. It took like five minutes to get them to be quiet enough to listen to the letter.
And sure enough, there was no paper throwing (that I saw, anyway) or excess noise. There was a bit too much regular noise and talking at times, but it wasn't malicious. I thought it was sweet that even though the science teacher told them to apologize, they took it seriously enough to at least say they really meant it.
I told them I would put it up to remind all of us that this can be a new start, that every person is capable of being excellent. I told them how proud I was of their work and success with clauses and sentence diagrams. I emphasized that what I'm doing is trying to help them respect themselves and the people around them, and that these 'rules' apply not just in my classroom, but everywhere in life.
So today was finally a good day with that class, which quite honestly feels more like a relief than a victory at this point in the year. Because I hate feeling so tired and ineffective.
--I worked out after school, for the second time this week! Other than walking for a week on vacation, I hadn't worked out for like a month. Eek.
--I made four parent phone calls!
--Two of them were "good job" calls!!
--I put charts back up in my room, after two months of bleak, industrial bare walls.
--Last week, the Hydras were throwing paper and making excess noise (like whistling), all week. It continued a bit into this week, and I had to keep them for after school detention yesterday, in their homeroom classroom (the science teacher). I gave them a lecture about respecting themselves and their time, and making sure they and the people around them are doing their job.
Apparently the science teacher talked to them and so the class elected somebody to write a letter to me, apologizing. Then they passed it around the class so every student signed it. They presented it to me in the middle of me discussing Good Listening Habits. I asked a student to read it aloud. It took like five minutes to get them to be quiet enough to listen to the letter.
And sure enough, there was no paper throwing (that I saw, anyway) or excess noise. There was a bit too much regular noise and talking at times, but it wasn't malicious. I thought it was sweet that even though the science teacher told them to apologize, they took it seriously enough to at least say they really meant it.
I told them I would put it up to remind all of us that this can be a new start, that every person is capable of being excellent. I told them how proud I was of their work and success with clauses and sentence diagrams. I emphasized that what I'm doing is trying to help them respect themselves and the people around them, and that these 'rules' apply not just in my classroom, but everywhere in life.
So today was finally a good day with that class, which quite honestly feels more like a relief than a victory at this point in the year. Because I hate feeling so tired and ineffective.
Music Stories
Kelly tagged me for a music meme, and I'm gonna do it all wrong, because I'm annoying like that. :) Here goes!
Name 10 songs, and tell the story of each:
1. Most frequently played in iTunes (or the equivalent).
In iTunes (which I don't really use alone), Haley Bonar, Daisy Girls: my favorite track on her second album, Lure the Fox. On iPod, Jason Mraz, The Boy is Gone, from his first album. I like his softer stuff a lot.
2. Set to skip in iTunes.
I heart Billy Joel and Simon & Garfunkel, but I skip Piano Man and Mrs Robinson, respectively, because they've been massively overplayed and I much prefer the other tracks.
3. A lyric you love.
God, so many! I even started a list in a notebook back in high school. Here are three that come to mind as still being great:
I ain't gonna be the same,
but who's to say that's a bad thing?
--Deborah Falconer, Tabs
A restaurant that never has to close
Breakfast every hour,
it could save the world
--Tori Amos, Purple People
that god damn bitch of life she made me cry,
so I'd like to poke her squarely in the eye
--Groove Armada, Think Twice
4. Makes you dance.
I can't not bop around to Jack Johnson. Ask my students! Though, they can't help bopping too. Same with all Grammar Rock. Coolness goes out the window once they hear those catchy tunes!
And you can't forget about Justin Timberlake. Ooh, does he know how to make you move.
5. Different from the rest of your musical taste.
I own an Eminem album, but it's not on my computer. I have a cheesy French rap-type song called "Sexy Pour Moi" by Tragedie that entertains me to no end.
6. You know all the words.
Like all true members of my generation: Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot.
And way more. Like, I sing along with all my favorite albums. Come on, people! What a silly question!
7. Have liked for the longest amount of time.
I was going to say Whitney Houston's pop album, My Name is Not Susan. She was my favorite singer of all time in elementary school, and probably one of the few contemporary artists I was even aware of at the time.
But then I realized that the music I was exposed before then to was folk rock like Neil Diamond, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, and Billy Joel. So I suppose they're the ones I've liked the longest.
Other than that, I've loved Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and Alanis Morrissette since high school. Little Earthquakes and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy got me through the end of high school and are in my Top Ten Albums list.
Uh oh, that made me think of my other Top Albums, and so actually Pearl Jam's Ten has to be the one I've loved the longest. Represented by Jeremy, of course. That came out in sixth grade and I came to love it in eighth and ninth grades. I bought Nirvana's Unplugged album during either junior or senior year, and that's the second of my favorites of All Time.
I told you I was going to do this thing wrong. :)
8. Most recent addition.
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat. I bought the album after hearing this song. I'm a sucker for clear, acoustic melodies.
9. Reminds you of a relationship.
The slower Grace is Gone, Dave Matthews Band: Takes me right back to Chimney Corner with my AmeriCorps team. I can see the rafters (critters Mo and Fo and all) and smell the fireplace, everything. That whole album (well, it was the Lost Lillywhite Tapes, most of which became faster and the album Busted Stuff), plus Poe's Haunted, can do that as well. But also, my teammates turned me on to Jack Johnson and Pete Yorn, for which I am quite grateful.
10. Played at a memorable concert.
Hm. I was going to be at a loss for this one, because I've been to only a handful of concerts: Whitney Houston in 6th grade, Janet Jackson in 8th (velvet rope tour), and Smokey Robinson (at the Puyallup Fair). But I've seen a couple live shows in my post-collegiate life, and a couple songs do stand out.
First is Show of Hands, by Deborah Falconer. She played a benefit show of the Groundlings that I got to attend (very cool!), and later we saw some of her shows at the Coffee House, where Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire, plus Leo DiCaprio and his posse, were in attendance (star-struck! squee!). But that first song was lovely and melancholy, which are two of my favorite qualities in a song. And she's put it on a couple of her indie discs, so I've got several versions.
Next is Drinking Again, by Haley Bonar. I saw her sing that one song, and Mason Jennings was singing with her, harmonizing (it was his show; she was his opener, but I missed her set). It was gorgeous enough for me to remember for a year, when I finally got around to buying her album. And she has become one of my all-time favorites.
See? All done wrong, but I can't help myself. I love to talk, and I love to jabber on about my favorite songs. Check out my list/links in the sidebar.
Name 10 songs, and tell the story of each:
1. Most frequently played in iTunes (or the equivalent).
In iTunes (which I don't really use alone), Haley Bonar, Daisy Girls: my favorite track on her second album, Lure the Fox. On iPod, Jason Mraz, The Boy is Gone, from his first album. I like his softer stuff a lot.
2. Set to skip in iTunes.
I heart Billy Joel and Simon & Garfunkel, but I skip Piano Man and Mrs Robinson, respectively, because they've been massively overplayed and I much prefer the other tracks.
3. A lyric you love.
God, so many! I even started a list in a notebook back in high school. Here are three that come to mind as still being great:
I ain't gonna be the same,
but who's to say that's a bad thing?
--Deborah Falconer, Tabs
A restaurant that never has to close
Breakfast every hour,
it could save the world
--Tori Amos, Purple People
that god damn bitch of life she made me cry,
so I'd like to poke her squarely in the eye
--Groove Armada, Think Twice
4. Makes you dance.
I can't not bop around to Jack Johnson. Ask my students! Though, they can't help bopping too. Same with all Grammar Rock. Coolness goes out the window once they hear those catchy tunes!
And you can't forget about Justin Timberlake. Ooh, does he know how to make you move.
5. Different from the rest of your musical taste.
I own an Eminem album, but it's not on my computer. I have a cheesy French rap-type song called "Sexy Pour Moi" by Tragedie that entertains me to no end.
6. You know all the words.
Like all true members of my generation: Baby Got Back by Sir Mix-A-Lot.
And way more. Like, I sing along with all my favorite albums. Come on, people! What a silly question!
7. Have liked for the longest amount of time.
I was going to say Whitney Houston's pop album, My Name is Not Susan. She was my favorite singer of all time in elementary school, and probably one of the few contemporary artists I was even aware of at the time.
But then I realized that the music I was exposed before then to was folk rock like Neil Diamond, John Denver, Simon & Garfunkel, and Billy Joel. So I suppose they're the ones I've liked the longest.
Other than that, I've loved Tori Amos, Sarah McLachlan, and Alanis Morrissette since high school. Little Earthquakes and Fumbling Towards Ecstasy got me through the end of high school and are in my Top Ten Albums list.
Uh oh, that made me think of my other Top Albums, and so actually Pearl Jam's Ten has to be the one I've loved the longest. Represented by Jeremy, of course. That came out in sixth grade and I came to love it in eighth and ninth grades. I bought Nirvana's Unplugged album during either junior or senior year, and that's the second of my favorites of All Time.
I told you I was going to do this thing wrong. :)
8. Most recent addition.
Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins, Rabbit Fur Coat. I bought the album after hearing this song. I'm a sucker for clear, acoustic melodies.
9. Reminds you of a relationship.
The slower Grace is Gone, Dave Matthews Band: Takes me right back to Chimney Corner with my AmeriCorps team. I can see the rafters (critters Mo and Fo and all) and smell the fireplace, everything. That whole album (well, it was the Lost Lillywhite Tapes, most of which became faster and the album Busted Stuff), plus Poe's Haunted, can do that as well. But also, my teammates turned me on to Jack Johnson and Pete Yorn, for which I am quite grateful.
10. Played at a memorable concert.
Hm. I was going to be at a loss for this one, because I've been to only a handful of concerts: Whitney Houston in 6th grade, Janet Jackson in 8th (velvet rope tour), and Smokey Robinson (at the Puyallup Fair). But I've seen a couple live shows in my post-collegiate life, and a couple songs do stand out.
First is Show of Hands, by Deborah Falconer. She played a benefit show of the Groundlings that I got to attend (very cool!), and later we saw some of her shows at the Coffee House, where Kirsten Dunst and Tobey Maguire, plus Leo DiCaprio and his posse, were in attendance (star-struck! squee!). But that first song was lovely and melancholy, which are two of my favorite qualities in a song. And she's put it on a couple of her indie discs, so I've got several versions.
Next is Drinking Again, by Haley Bonar. I saw her sing that one song, and Mason Jennings was singing with her, harmonizing (it was his show; she was his opener, but I missed her set). It was gorgeous enough for me to remember for a year, when I finally got around to buying her album. And she has become one of my all-time favorites.
See? All done wrong, but I can't help myself. I love to talk, and I love to jabber on about my favorite songs. Check out my list/links in the sidebar.
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Take that, Balanced Literacy!
For the last two days, I have been instructing my students in diagramming sentences. And guess what: they are getting it, and they are liking it!
Ha!
Ha!
Monday, March 12, 2007
Integrating Travel and Writing (for teachers and students!)
Okay, so I have hardly mentioned our trip that was now three weeks ago. Ack. I'll get to it, someday, I hope. Although I seem to remember that I didn't really ever talk about last February's trip to Prague. I hope I posted enough from Amsterdam in December. Note to self: quit being a lazy blogger! Gah.
Anyway, one of my favorite things from this London/Paris trip is Mouse Man. I only mentioned him briefly a couple weeks ago. So now I want to discuss it more.
We were at St Paul's Cathedral. It's gorgeous and beautiful and an amazing structure and I love it. Taking random pictures on the front steps, I noticed something that didn't fit. There was a mouse action figure just chilling at the base of a little lamppost.
I said, "Why hello there, new friend! You look like you want an adventure."
So I picked him up and took him exploring on a grand journey. I was inspired by the movie Amelie (for some reason, no one at my school has seen it!), wherein Amelie sends her father's garden gnome out with her flight attendant friend. Then the friend sends home photos of the gnome at famous places. Eventually Amelie's father gets the picture and takes himself on a long-deserved vacation.
I took pictures of MouseMan (I'm not terribly creative at naming, so I went with the obvious, just to make things easy) all over the place. It was great fun to involve him in Boyfriend's and my travels and even eating, drinking and checking email.
A couple days into this, we had a great idea to pass him along to continue his adventures, with other travelers, and to have them take more pictures, and have a blog to chronicle all of this. Doesn't this sound fantastic and fun? I think so.
Then I had another blast of inspiration. Since the teaching thing never really leaves your brain, even when you're busy being a non-teacher, I came up with a way to involve my students in this fun project.
After I got home and printed photos of Mouse Man all over the place, I brought him and the pics to school. There were enough pictures for each student to take one (I put them in a deck, fanned out face down). The name of the place was on the back.
You'll see them on Mouse Man's
First the students had to research their place. Then, the real project was to take that information and create a postcard that Mouse Man could send home from that place.
This means the kids:
--practiced researching
--learned about another country
--wrote facts
--wrote opinions
--remembered letter and postcard format
--wrote in the voice of Mouse Man
--practiced entertaining writing
--were supposed to use the four types of sentences (that was another challenge I added, related to our warm up practice)
Finally, each student was to read their postcard aloud to the class, and the class would vote on the most effective postcard, and that writer would win a prize. We didn't end up having time to finish all this, unfortunately. I'd actually wanted to extend the project a bit, writing postcards this time to Mouse Man, telling him which place they liked the most and wanted to visit, and suggesting new places for him to visit on future adventures.
The postcards are now up on my bulletin board, and I think it is a really neat project. I wanted the kids to get excited about traveling to other places, and to practice real writing strategies, because postcard writing is a real-life skill!
I would love for other teachers to use or extend this project. You could use the pictures on Mouse Man's blog (or if you want my Snapfish album of all of them, email me), or you could find your own inanimate friend and you or your students could take photos of him or her anywhere. You could do a pen pal project with this, with each other or with other classes or other schools.
In a couple weeks, Mouse Man will be going on another international adventure with Nancy, and then on some domestic journeys with me. So look for more pictures!
Anyway, one of my favorite things from this London/Paris trip is Mouse Man. I only mentioned him briefly a couple weeks ago. So now I want to discuss it more.
We were at St Paul's Cathedral. It's gorgeous and beautiful and an amazing structure and I love it. Taking random pictures on the front steps, I noticed something that didn't fit. There was a mouse action figure just chilling at the base of a little lamppost.
I said, "Why hello there, new friend! You look like you want an adventure."
So I picked him up and took him exploring on a grand journey. I was inspired by the movie Amelie (for some reason, no one at my school has seen it!), wherein Amelie sends her father's garden gnome out with her flight attendant friend. Then the friend sends home photos of the gnome at famous places. Eventually Amelie's father gets the picture and takes himself on a long-deserved vacation.
I took pictures of MouseMan (I'm not terribly creative at naming, so I went with the obvious, just to make things easy) all over the place. It was great fun to involve him in Boyfriend's and my travels and even eating, drinking and checking email.
A couple days into this, we had a great idea to pass him along to continue his adventures, with other travelers, and to have them take more pictures, and have a blog to chronicle all of this. Doesn't this sound fantastic and fun? I think so.
Then I had another blast of inspiration. Since the teaching thing never really leaves your brain, even when you're busy being a non-teacher, I came up with a way to involve my students in this fun project.
After I got home and printed photos of Mouse Man all over the place, I brought him and the pics to school. There were enough pictures for each student to take one (I put them in a deck, fanned out face down). The name of the place was on the back.
You'll see them on Mouse Man's
First the students had to research their place. Then, the real project was to take that information and create a postcard that Mouse Man could send home from that place.
This means the kids:
--practiced researching
--learned about another country
--wrote facts
--wrote opinions
--remembered letter and postcard format
--wrote in the voice of Mouse Man
--practiced entertaining writing
--were supposed to use the four types of sentences (that was another challenge I added, related to our warm up practice)
Finally, each student was to read their postcard aloud to the class, and the class would vote on the most effective postcard, and that writer would win a prize. We didn't end up having time to finish all this, unfortunately. I'd actually wanted to extend the project a bit, writing postcards this time to Mouse Man, telling him which place they liked the most and wanted to visit, and suggesting new places for him to visit on future adventures.
The postcards are now up on my bulletin board, and I think it is a really neat project. I wanted the kids to get excited about traveling to other places, and to practice real writing strategies, because postcard writing is a real-life skill!
I would love for other teachers to use or extend this project. You could use the pictures on Mouse Man's blog (or if you want my Snapfish album of all of them, email me), or you could find your own inanimate friend and you or your students could take photos of him or her anywhere. You could do a pen pal project with this, with each other or with other classes or other schools.
In a couple weeks, Mouse Man will be going on another international adventure with Nancy, and then on some domestic journeys with me. So look for more pictures!
Friday, March 09, 2007
Hurrah for Fridays!
As always, today was a mix of good and bad. I'm continuing to work on my calmer but still strict demeanor; it's going well.
This week the kids started reading their LC books. The two not-so-high classes have been actually listening and reading along, and that part is going well. As of today, they've learned all the roles they're to use in the circles, starting maybe next week.
For warm ups, we've been doing clause work, and it's gone swimmingly! I gave a quiz on Wednesday, and the scores were not terrible, but not great either. So, yesterday we did another pretend quiz, and I returned their real quizzes. They needed to figure out what they got wrong and correct it. They did that very well! if a bit noisily. Then today I gave them another quiz. I've only graded the high class so far, but the majority of scores were 100%!! Most excellent.
So that's all that's been going on in class this week. Sentence work, and reading. Sweet. Nice and simple, and effective.
But I felt a little lazy and guilty, and plus I wanted to get the students involved a bit more and make sure they're thinking and understanding. So we made character maps in class today, together.
For L!dd!e (and by the way, the authors and titles were assigned to us; we only got to choose from there), we discussed her traits and her situations, the important people in her life and how she relates to them. There was some great discussion and understanding of her personality and motives! And for Br!dge, we did two maps. One of J#ss and his traits, which they got pretty easily, and then one for his relationships.
I felt really good about these discussions; it made me feel like a real English teacher like not many things do. I felt good because the students were right there with me; I was leading them a bit, but I wasn't telling them anything. They came up with the ideas just like I hoped they would. I was proud of them for paying attention and being able to verbalize these characters.
And, I'm excited to have some valuable charts to hang up. I know that sounds really silly, but for one, I haven't put anything on the walls since January, so things are bleak. Additionally, I think it will be a good resource for the kids as they read. I made sure to tell them that the reason we were doing this was to get in the character's head and see their world at the beginning of the story, so that we can see and understand their journey as the story continues. So it's my hope that they and I can refer back to this information in a positive and useful manner.
I want to add that Nancy's thoughtful posts, especially the ones where she includes her charts and maps, have definitely inspired me. I like the way that she leads the students to understanding things in a deeper way, and I know that my kids, at a low level in only sixth grade, will really need these skills now and later. So thanks for your hard work, and keep it up!
One other good thing abou today: a good seventh-grade coverage! They read a play from a Scholastic magazine, and we reviewed some grammar. They were a little chatty but good-hearting and fairly hard-working. I had a good time. Shocking!
Now for the bad: both my not-high-level classes are misbehaving. A good portion of each still does an excellent job, but the bad ones are infecting the fence-sitters (you know, the kids that can go either way). The middle class, which I have now dubbed the Hydras (I hope you get the reference), I have for one period on Fridays and usually they're not bad. Today, with a quiz and then more notes, and with the AP in the room for most of it, were very quiet. Within two minutes of her departure, however, paper began flying. Goddammit. And then I don't know what's going on with the afternoon class. So much noise! Two kids were being really disruptive, but that wasn't explaining all of it. I couldn't tell, but I was certainly very frustrated, and so were some of the good kids. Poor kids.
Ack, argh, bah. The good discussion that some of us were having was really affected by the noise. I had to stop so often to count down and/or wait for quiet. Which only lasted for a minute or two before starting up again. I kept them after school for a couple minutes, for the second day in a row. Grr!
Anyway. There was some good work done by some students. I suppose I should focus on that, because nothing I'm doing is really working to prevent or treat the problems in the class. Which makes me feel very ineffective and extremely frustrated, and like I'm letting down the good kids. I had hoped that that feeling would finish with my first year. So maybe I'm not so great like I thought I was. Ack!
It's Friday! There's a blogger event tomorrow evening in Manhattan. Please join us!
http://groups.google.com/group/NYCTeacherBloggers
This week the kids started reading their LC books. The two not-so-high classes have been actually listening and reading along, and that part is going well. As of today, they've learned all the roles they're to use in the circles, starting maybe next week.
For warm ups, we've been doing clause work, and it's gone swimmingly! I gave a quiz on Wednesday, and the scores were not terrible, but not great either. So, yesterday we did another pretend quiz, and I returned their real quizzes. They needed to figure out what they got wrong and correct it. They did that very well! if a bit noisily. Then today I gave them another quiz. I've only graded the high class so far, but the majority of scores were 100%!! Most excellent.
So that's all that's been going on in class this week. Sentence work, and reading. Sweet. Nice and simple, and effective.
But I felt a little lazy and guilty, and plus I wanted to get the students involved a bit more and make sure they're thinking and understanding. So we made character maps in class today, together.
For L!dd!e (and by the way, the authors and titles were assigned to us; we only got to choose from there), we discussed her traits and her situations, the important people in her life and how she relates to them. There was some great discussion and understanding of her personality and motives! And for Br!dge, we did two maps. One of J#ss and his traits, which they got pretty easily, and then one for his relationships.
I felt really good about these discussions; it made me feel like a real English teacher like not many things do. I felt good because the students were right there with me; I was leading them a bit, but I wasn't telling them anything. They came up with the ideas just like I hoped they would. I was proud of them for paying attention and being able to verbalize these characters.
And, I'm excited to have some valuable charts to hang up. I know that sounds really silly, but for one, I haven't put anything on the walls since January, so things are bleak. Additionally, I think it will be a good resource for the kids as they read. I made sure to tell them that the reason we were doing this was to get in the character's head and see their world at the beginning of the story, so that we can see and understand their journey as the story continues. So it's my hope that they and I can refer back to this information in a positive and useful manner.
I want to add that Nancy's thoughtful posts, especially the ones where she includes her charts and maps, have definitely inspired me. I like the way that she leads the students to understanding things in a deeper way, and I know that my kids, at a low level in only sixth grade, will really need these skills now and later. So thanks for your hard work, and keep it up!
One other good thing abou today: a good seventh-grade coverage! They read a play from a Scholastic magazine, and we reviewed some grammar. They were a little chatty but good-hearting and fairly hard-working. I had a good time. Shocking!
Now for the bad: both my not-high-level classes are misbehaving. A good portion of each still does an excellent job, but the bad ones are infecting the fence-sitters (you know, the kids that can go either way). The middle class, which I have now dubbed the Hydras (I hope you get the reference), I have for one period on Fridays and usually they're not bad. Today, with a quiz and then more notes, and with the AP in the room for most of it, were very quiet. Within two minutes of her departure, however, paper began flying. Goddammit. And then I don't know what's going on with the afternoon class. So much noise! Two kids were being really disruptive, but that wasn't explaining all of it. I couldn't tell, but I was certainly very frustrated, and so were some of the good kids. Poor kids.
Ack, argh, bah. The good discussion that some of us were having was really affected by the noise. I had to stop so often to count down and/or wait for quiet. Which only lasted for a minute or two before starting up again. I kept them after school for a couple minutes, for the second day in a row. Grr!
Anyway. There was some good work done by some students. I suppose I should focus on that, because nothing I'm doing is really working to prevent or treat the problems in the class. Which makes me feel very ineffective and extremely frustrated, and like I'm letting down the good kids. I had hoped that that feeling would finish with my first year. So maybe I'm not so great like I thought I was. Ack!
It's Friday! There's a blogger event tomorrow evening in Manhattan. Please join us!
http://groups.google.com/group/NYCTeacherBloggers
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Aw, I made a friend!
I was walking along the Seine, west from Les Halles. And the whole north side of the street was plant shops and, randomly, pet shops as well.
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Who turned the heat off?
Dude! It's been so cozy and toasty in my apartment all winter. All evening I've been sitting here, wearing two pairs of socks, two pairs of sweats, long sleeve shirt and sweater, gloves, and a blanket. And I still can't really feel my fingers. Damn!
I finally finished up my online photo albums on Snapfish for our trip. Check your inbox, I might have sent it to you. If I missed you, send me an email. Or look at my Flickr page in the next couple days, I hope to have made more progress there by then.
Also, I bought a ticket for spring break! Just for a few days to chill out, nothing big. Still leaving myself room on both sides to SLEEP. And hang out for Someone's and my one-year anniversary. Yay. :)
Let's see. Tuesday 5th period seems to be the Time of the Demon. Third period goes fine with that troublesome class, then they have lunch and come back crazies. Kids around the room whistle surreptiously, and freely giggle and disrupt themselves. A solid bunch of good, hardworking kids in that class, and each day that I see them at this time, their time and mine is being wasted. I'm still doing better at not reacting harshly; I calmly erased class points. When they ran out, the class earned a detention, just like I told them.
Argh! Behave, you weirdos! Quit giving us all such a hard time!
I let the other two classes begin today with l!t c!rcles! We discussed two more roles, did a quick book walk, and I let them go to it. They did so well! Especially the afternoon class, who got to listen and read along. It was silent and they were all engrossed, wanting to do more. Stopping the tape seemed to wake them from hypnosis. I'm so totally cool with that. It's Br!dge to T*rab!thia (BtT) for the two lower classes, and Lydd!e for the higher-level class. I'm quite worried about how the midde, squirrelly class will do with this independent reading and role work. Grr! But for the other two groups, I am very pleased and I hope to continue having positive things to report to all you friendly readers. :)
It's already late; I should get to bed. I'm glad I have a cozy nest of a bed to snuggle in! Hope everyone else is plenty warm tonight.
I finally finished up my online photo albums on Snapfish for our trip. Check your inbox, I might have sent it to you. If I missed you, send me an email. Or look at my Flickr page in the next couple days, I hope to have made more progress there by then.
Also, I bought a ticket for spring break! Just for a few days to chill out, nothing big. Still leaving myself room on both sides to SLEEP. And hang out for Someone's and my one-year anniversary. Yay. :)
Let's see. Tuesday 5th period seems to be the Time of the Demon. Third period goes fine with that troublesome class, then they have lunch and come back crazies. Kids around the room whistle surreptiously, and freely giggle and disrupt themselves. A solid bunch of good, hardworking kids in that class, and each day that I see them at this time, their time and mine is being wasted. I'm still doing better at not reacting harshly; I calmly erased class points. When they ran out, the class earned a detention, just like I told them.
Argh! Behave, you weirdos! Quit giving us all such a hard time!
I let the other two classes begin today with l!t c!rcles! We discussed two more roles, did a quick book walk, and I let them go to it. They did so well! Especially the afternoon class, who got to listen and read along. It was silent and they were all engrossed, wanting to do more. Stopping the tape seemed to wake them from hypnosis. I'm so totally cool with that. It's Br!dge to T*rab!thia (BtT) for the two lower classes, and Lydd!e for the higher-level class. I'm quite worried about how the midde, squirrelly class will do with this independent reading and role work. Grr! But for the other two groups, I am very pleased and I hope to continue having positive things to report to all you friendly readers. :)
It's already late; I should get to bed. I'm glad I have a cozy nest of a bed to snuggle in! Hope everyone else is plenty warm tonight.
Monday, March 05, 2007
Taking One Day at a Time
Alright people, today I continued working on my goal to take it a little easier, to stay calmer. Today went pretty well, and I feel good about it. I'm now counting down from five, because they can hear that and it quiets quicker than just the quiet hand signal. I'm really working on my patience and fighting the urge to automatically snap or be harsh, and just be still strict but a little quieter.
We're continuing work with some language activities on overheads. Currently we're practicing combining sentences and phrases, and identifying clauses. They were intimidated at first by the big words (subordinate etc), but once they saw we'd done it last week and examples together, they started to get it. I'm taking it nice and slow, and assigned them to write and identify their own tonight. We'll do more tomorrow in class and as homework. I like that.
I also introduced l!t c!rcles, and one of the roles. I think this week we'll focus mainly on those, practicing, and let that go into 'writing workshop' as well. The students are *supposed* to read two books by the same author by the end of the month. Ha, ha, yeah right. So I've got to move quickly to get things off the ground. If you can believe it, I already heard some complaints about the book! Before we even started! Judgmental little buggers. I'll do my best to just nudge them through all the questions and vocabulary, because I WILL give quizzes and tests. I'm going to have each class doing a book together, instead of having different groups reading different books. It's my hope that this way, we can all discuss things together as a class and get them used to thinking, but they can also practice doing roles in a small group. Wish us all luck, man, we'll need it.
We're continuing work with some language activities on overheads. Currently we're practicing combining sentences and phrases, and identifying clauses. They were intimidated at first by the big words (subordinate etc), but once they saw we'd done it last week and examples together, they started to get it. I'm taking it nice and slow, and assigned them to write and identify their own tonight. We'll do more tomorrow in class and as homework. I like that.
I also introduced l!t c!rcles, and one of the roles. I think this week we'll focus mainly on those, practicing, and let that go into 'writing workshop' as well. The students are *supposed* to read two books by the same author by the end of the month. Ha, ha, yeah right. So I've got to move quickly to get things off the ground. If you can believe it, I already heard some complaints about the book! Before we even started! Judgmental little buggers. I'll do my best to just nudge them through all the questions and vocabulary, because I WILL give quizzes and tests. I'm going to have each class doing a book together, instead of having different groups reading different books. It's my hope that this way, we can all discuss things together as a class and get them used to thinking, but they can also practice doing roles in a small group. Wish us all luck, man, we'll need it.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
Back from a mini-break
On Friday morning, I left for Chicago. My grandma turned 90 on Saturday, and there was a get-together. Originally, my dad and all them were supposed to come out too, but it didn't work out. For me, I got the day off school and a cheap flight, so I still went. It was fun. It's always relaxing, hanging out with the 'active seniors'. My kind of pace--sleeping in, eating, reading.
And, I saw some cousins and further-out cousins that I'd either never met or hadn't seen in over ten years, some of whom have multiple children.
In fact, on Friday night, I couldn't physically keep my eyes open past 9pm (10 in NY), and Grandma had to wake me at 10.30am! I felt so much better after that, though; I'd clearly needed that all week. This morning I got up on my own, just before 7am (after going to sleep at 10).
This morning, while getting my things together, my pinky caught on something and cracked too far the wrong direction. And oh, it hurts. Twice already today I've moved it just so, and cried out in surprised agony. I can bend it and move it around a bit, but I can't hold it tight enough to make a fist or anything. Ow, ow. To my great dismay and misfortune, I believe Tuesday is the earliest I can see my (new, non-ghetto) doctor. Since the office is closed on Sunday, I'll have to remember to call as soon as I can tomorrow.
After a long talk with my awesome AP the other day, I've been thinking about things to do starting this week. We'll be starting l!t c!rcles for reading, and I suppose story-writing for well, writing. I'm going to focus on more structured activities (which will NOT be easy for writing stories!! ack, help!!) as well as making assignments easier and more routine. Mainly in the line of, "write five sentences and ______". You know, underline the subject; using ten pronouns; circling prepositions; that kind of thing. One at a time, of course. And I hope to try some reading homework. But we'll see.
But it's still only Sunday afternoon. I got on an earlier flight out of Chicago, and took a cab home, so I have plenty of time to rest and, theoretically anyway, plan for the week.
And, I saw some cousins and further-out cousins that I'd either never met or hadn't seen in over ten years, some of whom have multiple children.
In fact, on Friday night, I couldn't physically keep my eyes open past 9pm (10 in NY), and Grandma had to wake me at 10.30am! I felt so much better after that, though; I'd clearly needed that all week. This morning I got up on my own, just before 7am (after going to sleep at 10).
This morning, while getting my things together, my pinky caught on something and cracked too far the wrong direction. And oh, it hurts. Twice already today I've moved it just so, and cried out in surprised agony. I can bend it and move it around a bit, but I can't hold it tight enough to make a fist or anything. Ow, ow. To my great dismay and misfortune, I believe Tuesday is the earliest I can see my (new, non-ghetto) doctor. Since the office is closed on Sunday, I'll have to remember to call as soon as I can tomorrow.
After a long talk with my awesome AP the other day, I've been thinking about things to do starting this week. We'll be starting l!t c!rcles for reading, and I suppose story-writing for well, writing. I'm going to focus on more structured activities (which will NOT be easy for writing stories!! ack, help!!) as well as making assignments easier and more routine. Mainly in the line of, "write five sentences and ______". You know, underline the subject; using ten pronouns; circling prepositions; that kind of thing. One at a time, of course. And I hope to try some reading homework. But we'll see.
But it's still only Sunday afternoon. I got on an earlier flight out of Chicago, and took a cab home, so I have plenty of time to rest and, theoretically anyway, plan for the week.
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Finally.
I decided to let myself have a mental health day.
This is the first day I've taken off all year, and I think I really need it. An afternoon crying at school is definitely a sign not to be ignored. Plus my body is still exhausted. My limbs still feel shaky and half numb. I slept quite well, but didn't feel awake at all in the morning, meaning I still need more rest.
Plus I figured that today I could sort of re-program myself for school, to steel myself for the rest of the year. I need to do some thinking and some planning. I need to start actually putting forth some real effort for this teaching thing.
And I need to let myself look for other jobs.
The good news is that I've started uploading pictures to flickr. I hope to write about the trip here with pictures as well, so look out for those.
Dude. Tired. Must lay down some more.
This is the first day I've taken off all year, and I think I really need it. An afternoon crying at school is definitely a sign not to be ignored. Plus my body is still exhausted. My limbs still feel shaky and half numb. I slept quite well, but didn't feel awake at all in the morning, meaning I still need more rest.
Plus I figured that today I could sort of re-program myself for school, to steel myself for the rest of the year. I need to do some thinking and some planning. I need to start actually putting forth some real effort for this teaching thing.
And I need to let myself look for other jobs.
The good news is that I've started uploading pictures to flickr. I hope to write about the trip here with pictures as well, so look out for those.
Dude. Tired. Must lay down some more.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Lord, Help Me.
I am still deep in jetlag recovery, evidenced by the earlier and earlier times that I begin to feel heavily sleepy--9.30, 8.00, 7.30. I've gone to bed at 9.30 the last two nights and have gotten up very early (wide awake by 6 am today), but in the afternoon, I just drag. I feel like I will fall down.
Yesterday's return to school wasn't bad, mostly because of the snow. (By the way, what a disappointment!) I had first and second off, a coverage third, fourth and fifth off, and then taught sixth, seventh, eighth. We did our language warm up and worked on a four square.
Today, though, I had myself a not-good day. I'm sure it's my fault. But that middle class was once again a bunch of rude, obnoxious assholes. At times I have no control, and they literally laugh rudely at my tactics. I feel completely ineffective and just plain pissed off. There are so many kids who willfully do nothing, in class or at home, and purposefully don't control their desire to distract people around them. My calls home, my talks with them, my individual progress sheets--they don't care, they don't change, nothing matters, who cares? I feel like I want to just be done with it, I can't handle it anymore.
And then the afternoon class were also rude and disrespectful. With the jetlag probably intensifying things, but also some thinking about my future, this shit got to me. I made the kids just sit and read for a good hour, and they did, to their credit. But I just sat there, thinking and drifting and tearing up. Why am I doing this? Why do I keep fighting them when it doesn't work? They don't care and it just bothers me. What's the point? I think I don't like my job. I think I need to leave.
This evening, I put on some music on alpha play, like always. Fiona Apple, genius that I love, her song "Get Gone" was playing, and the lyrics just completely fit my day today. Observe, with my adjustments:
Cuz I do know what's good for me-
And I've done what I could for you
But you're not benefiting, and yet I'm sitting
[Tiring] again, [try], [whine] again
How can I deal with this, if [they] won't get with this
[How]'m'I gonna heal from this; [they] won't admit to it
Nothing to figure out; I gotta get [them] out
It's time the truth was out that [they] don't give a
Shit about me
How many times can it escalate
Till it elevates to a place I can't breathe?
And I must decide, if you must deride
That I'm much obliged to up and go
I'll idealize, then realize that it's no
Sacrifice, because the price is paid, and
There's nothing left to grieve
Fuckin go-
Cuz I've done what I could for you, and I do know what's
Good for me and I'm not benefiting,
instead I'm sitting [whining] again, [tiring] again, [done] again
Yesterday's return to school wasn't bad, mostly because of the snow. (By the way, what a disappointment!) I had first and second off, a coverage third, fourth and fifth off, and then taught sixth, seventh, eighth. We did our language warm up and worked on a four square.
Today, though, I had myself a not-good day. I'm sure it's my fault. But that middle class was once again a bunch of rude, obnoxious assholes. At times I have no control, and they literally laugh rudely at my tactics. I feel completely ineffective and just plain pissed off. There are so many kids who willfully do nothing, in class or at home, and purposefully don't control their desire to distract people around them. My calls home, my talks with them, my individual progress sheets--they don't care, they don't change, nothing matters, who cares? I feel like I want to just be done with it, I can't handle it anymore.
And then the afternoon class were also rude and disrespectful. With the jetlag probably intensifying things, but also some thinking about my future, this shit got to me. I made the kids just sit and read for a good hour, and they did, to their credit. But I just sat there, thinking and drifting and tearing up. Why am I doing this? Why do I keep fighting them when it doesn't work? They don't care and it just bothers me. What's the point? I think I don't like my job. I think I need to leave.
This evening, I put on some music on alpha play, like always. Fiona Apple, genius that I love, her song "Get Gone" was playing, and the lyrics just completely fit my day today. Observe, with my adjustments:
Cuz I do know what's good for me-
And I've done what I could for you
But you're not benefiting, and yet I'm sitting
[Tiring] again, [try], [whine] again
How can I deal with this, if [they] won't get with this
[How]'m'I gonna heal from this; [they] won't admit to it
Nothing to figure out; I gotta get [them] out
It's time the truth was out that [they] don't give a
Shit about me
How many times can it escalate
Till it elevates to a place I can't breathe?
And I must decide, if you must deride
That I'm much obliged to up and go
I'll idealize, then realize that it's no
Sacrifice, because the price is paid, and
There's nothing left to grieve
Fuckin go-
Cuz I've done what I could for you, and I do know what's
Good for me and I'm not benefiting,
instead I'm sitting [whining] again, [tiring] again, [done] again
Sunday, February 25, 2007
I am Back.
We returned from our London/Paris trip this afternoon; it took about three hours to get home to Queens, but I'm here. I've uploaded all one thousand forty-one pictures (yeep!), looked all my email, opened the pile of snail mail (an afterschool paycheck and a phone jury summons were the only exciting things), watched one of many recorded tv shows from the past week, and made some "I'm home" phone calls. Somehow I'm still awake, but I need to shower and get to rest.
Today was a long and very uncomfortable journey. The plane seat was the absolute worst I've ever experienced (more awful and painful than the Northwest flight to Amsterdam a couple months ago), and at the end of the flight, a massive migraine suddenly descended upon me like a Parisian summer rain. I'm still recovering from that now.
After a week of sleeping in small, strange beds, and only using two mini towels, tonight will indeed feel like a luxury.
Later, I will have much to share. And many, many pictures. And a whole separate adventure/blog as well.
More soon!
And Camit (? Cami T?), you are correct! Good job, you win the contest!
Today was a long and very uncomfortable journey. The plane seat was the absolute worst I've ever experienced (more awful and painful than the Northwest flight to Amsterdam a couple months ago), and at the end of the flight, a massive migraine suddenly descended upon me like a Parisian summer rain. I'm still recovering from that now.
After a week of sleeping in small, strange beds, and only using two mini towels, tonight will indeed feel like a luxury.
Later, I will have much to share. And many, many pictures. And a whole separate adventure/blog as well.
More soon!
And Camit (? Cami T?), you are correct! Good job, you win the contest!
Saturday, February 17, 2007
There was a Mighty Duel!
[A cookie (or perhaps a European postcard) for those who get the lame reference.]
Last winter I bought a shovel and a straight ice hoe-type implement. I keep them in my car when it's likely to snow or whatever. Friday morning, after the car had been sitting for over a day and a half, I went into battle with my chosen weapon, the ice tool. I vowed victory.
Over the next thirty minutes, I alternated between attacking the ice and frozen snow, and getting in the car to see if I could get out.
Plows leave a ridge of snow that end up blocking cars' exits. Since it's stayed so cold, that pile of snow had frozen, over the layer of ice on the pavement. So each time I bashed the icy snow apart, the car got a little further over the ridge.
Each time, my wheels spun, and I smelled burning rubber. I growled and grunted, trying to will the wheels more power.
I kept grabbing the ice tool and using all my might to break apart the mass that blocked me. Only a few minutes in, I worked up a sweat and took off hat, gloves and scarf. My arms worked overtime to overcome my wintery obstacle.
Thirty minutes into battle, the wheels made it over the icy ridge, swerved on the ice, found purchase on the cleared pavement, and I screamed in animal triumph. Victory was mine!
The battle took its toll, oh yes it did. At first it was just my left arm yesterday, but this morning, both arms, shoulders and back are very sore indeed. Totally worth it, though.
Last winter I bought a shovel and a straight ice hoe-type implement. I keep them in my car when it's likely to snow or whatever. Friday morning, after the car had been sitting for over a day and a half, I went into battle with my chosen weapon, the ice tool. I vowed victory.
Over the next thirty minutes, I alternated between attacking the ice and frozen snow, and getting in the car to see if I could get out.
Plows leave a ridge of snow that end up blocking cars' exits. Since it's stayed so cold, that pile of snow had frozen, over the layer of ice on the pavement. So each time I bashed the icy snow apart, the car got a little further over the ridge.
Each time, my wheels spun, and I smelled burning rubber. I growled and grunted, trying to will the wheels more power.
I kept grabbing the ice tool and using all my might to break apart the mass that blocked me. Only a few minutes in, I worked up a sweat and took off hat, gloves and scarf. My arms worked overtime to overcome my wintery obstacle.
Thirty minutes into battle, the wheels made it over the icy ridge, swerved on the ice, found purchase on the cleared pavement, and I screamed in animal triumph. Victory was mine!
The battle took its toll, oh yes it did. At first it was just my left arm yesterday, but this morning, both arms, shoulders and back are very sore indeed. Totally worth it, though.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
A Long Day
It all began this morning, as days often do.
But I suppose I should actually back up to yesterday.
It snowed. And it iced. I began the morning by uncovering my car of its cold snow, all the while pelted by frozen raindrops. As I drove to school, it sounded like driving through piles of crinkling plastic wrappers. Also, no plows had come through anywhere, which seemed unusual. So everyone was driving very slowly and very carefully. I experienced a couple very small, inconsequential fishtails, but I made it to school unscathed.
The freezing stuff continued throughout the day. When I left school, the streets were covered in four inches of snow the consistency of sand (or margaritas, as one witty shoveler was quoted in the NY Times today), and the sidewalks had a couple inches of icy snow.
My car was filmed with almost a half-inch of pure ice, and another inch or so of snow on top of that. I chipped, hacked, and hacked for twenty full minutes to clean off the car.
And then my wheels did not want to get me forward. Oh boy. But I backed up and turned the wheel, and they finally found purchase. And I drove home, again very slowly and very carefully. Happily, I lucked out with a parking spot not requiring parallel parking.
This morning, I got out of bed a few minutes earlier than usual, in anticipation of more weather fun. The car was still clean of snow and ice, which was a pleasant sight.
After shoveling some plowed ice/snow out of the way, I turned the wheel and hit the gas. The wheels spun and whirred, to no avail. The car rocked a little, stuck in the nefarious grasp of the icy street. Shit.
I'd been thinking about bus routes last night, because three buses stop at my corner. So I hopped on the one that went toward school (it pulled up right as I was coming up, how awesome!). I was pretty sure that it met up with another bus I was familiar with, but I didn't know what stop to take. So I guessed.
Out in the cold, walking entirely around the block, seeing plenty of buses and signs for buses, but not mine, I finally went into the train station. Intending just for a map, but seeing no helpful attendant attending me, I just got on the damn train. One stop. The bus I wanted was right there, which was again pleasant.
I rode that bus for probably forty minutes, disembarking as near my school as possible. There is another bus that goes almost right past school, but I didn't want to wait. So I walked, ten to twelve minutes in the cold. My toes were long numb, along with the front of my legs.
I arrived at school five minutes before first period ended. An hour and a half after I left my cozy apartment. Sigh.
I should have stayed home and gone back to bed.
Once I dethawed my lower extremities, I had to jump immediately into Teacher land, which was a bit abrupt for my taste, but not difficult, interestingly.
After school, I was trapped, because of conferences later on. So I sat in my classroom for two and a half hours, reading. I could have re-marked some old tests, but I didn't want to.
Happily, the conferences went well, and I didn't get too busy. The two parents I was most desperate to see both showed up, and listened and agreed with what I had to say, so that was excellent. No crazies gave me attitude, and I saw plenty of good kids and got to tell their parents positive things.
It took an hour to get back home, with walking, bus, train, and more walking, but this time I took the route I already knew from my pre-car days.
I hopped in the shower and then jumped on the computer to pay bills. My throat hurts, my stomach will not be sated with the bowl of cheerios and cheese and crackers, but too bad. And now it's already ten-thirty, dangit.
Thank god our impending departure was changed to Saturday. I'm nowhere near ready to go. Think good, warm thoughts for me and my wheels tomorrow morning!
But I suppose I should actually back up to yesterday.
It snowed. And it iced. I began the morning by uncovering my car of its cold snow, all the while pelted by frozen raindrops. As I drove to school, it sounded like driving through piles of crinkling plastic wrappers. Also, no plows had come through anywhere, which seemed unusual. So everyone was driving very slowly and very carefully. I experienced a couple very small, inconsequential fishtails, but I made it to school unscathed.
The freezing stuff continued throughout the day. When I left school, the streets were covered in four inches of snow the consistency of sand (or margaritas, as one witty shoveler was quoted in the NY Times today), and the sidewalks had a couple inches of icy snow.
My car was filmed with almost a half-inch of pure ice, and another inch or so of snow on top of that. I chipped, hacked, and hacked for twenty full minutes to clean off the car.
And then my wheels did not want to get me forward. Oh boy. But I backed up and turned the wheel, and they finally found purchase. And I drove home, again very slowly and very carefully. Happily, I lucked out with a parking spot not requiring parallel parking.
This morning, I got out of bed a few minutes earlier than usual, in anticipation of more weather fun. The car was still clean of snow and ice, which was a pleasant sight.
After shoveling some plowed ice/snow out of the way, I turned the wheel and hit the gas. The wheels spun and whirred, to no avail. The car rocked a little, stuck in the nefarious grasp of the icy street. Shit.
I'd been thinking about bus routes last night, because three buses stop at my corner. So I hopped on the one that went toward school (it pulled up right as I was coming up, how awesome!). I was pretty sure that it met up with another bus I was familiar with, but I didn't know what stop to take. So I guessed.
Out in the cold, walking entirely around the block, seeing plenty of buses and signs for buses, but not mine, I finally went into the train station. Intending just for a map, but seeing no helpful attendant attending me, I just got on the damn train. One stop. The bus I wanted was right there, which was again pleasant.
I rode that bus for probably forty minutes, disembarking as near my school as possible. There is another bus that goes almost right past school, but I didn't want to wait. So I walked, ten to twelve minutes in the cold. My toes were long numb, along with the front of my legs.
I arrived at school five minutes before first period ended. An hour and a half after I left my cozy apartment. Sigh.
I should have stayed home and gone back to bed.
Once I dethawed my lower extremities, I had to jump immediately into Teacher land, which was a bit abrupt for my taste, but not difficult, interestingly.
After school, I was trapped, because of conferences later on. So I sat in my classroom for two and a half hours, reading. I could have re-marked some old tests, but I didn't want to.
Happily, the conferences went well, and I didn't get too busy. The two parents I was most desperate to see both showed up, and listened and agreed with what I had to say, so that was excellent. No crazies gave me attitude, and I saw plenty of good kids and got to tell their parents positive things.
It took an hour to get back home, with walking, bus, train, and more walking, but this time I took the route I already knew from my pre-car days.
I hopped in the shower and then jumped on the computer to pay bills. My throat hurts, my stomach will not be sated with the bowl of cheerios and cheese and crackers, but too bad. And now it's already ten-thirty, dangit.
Thank god our impending departure was changed to Saturday. I'm nowhere near ready to go. Think good, warm thoughts for me and my wheels tomorrow morning!
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
Weird Children
Last Friday, someone in my afternoon class found a note. It said, "Ms -- has a myspace" Someone read it out loud and the class erupted into "oohs" and "do you really?" I looked at them askance, shook my head, and told them they all needed brain transplants.
Then today, a girl picked up a piece of her old homework, and someone had written, "I love Ms -- she is sexy" Oh, please, eye roll.
Still later today, the same girl found yet another note. I pocketed it and didn't read it until after the class. It said, "ms -- is gangster she got a myspace and she is mad fine". I had to giggle, because now they're just fucking with me. It's pretty funny, though. I suppose it's better than saying I'm ugly and a shitty teacher. Ha.
Oh, and in addition to that, I had a good laugh reading the homework. They were supposed to write a letter to Dr King, telling him whether or not his dream had been achieved. One girl wrote, "We should work for peace on earth, and anxiety." Ha! I'm not sure what word she was going for, but this made it quite funny.
Then today, a girl picked up a piece of her old homework, and someone had written, "I love Ms -- she is sexy" Oh, please, eye roll.
Still later today, the same girl found yet another note. I pocketed it and didn't read it until after the class. It said, "ms -- is gangster she got a myspace and she is mad fine". I had to giggle, because now they're just fucking with me. It's pretty funny, though. I suppose it's better than saying I'm ugly and a shitty teacher. Ha.
Oh, and in addition to that, I had a good laugh reading the homework. They were supposed to write a letter to Dr King, telling him whether or not his dream had been achieved. One girl wrote, "We should work for peace on earth, and anxiety." Ha! I'm not sure what word she was going for, but this made it quite funny.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
One week left. Oh, man.
Mid-winter break and the London trip are only a week away! We leave next Saturday, in the early evening. Whee! Must get out the suitcase and begin getting prepared. Very exciting indeed!
That also means only one more week of school. At least a part of every day leaves me feeling irritable, impatient, grumpy, old and tired. That one class continues to be a problem, and they continue to do well when it's time to do a simple, structured but boring task like exercises in the grammar book. At this point, I need to do whatever works for all of us.
My last class is in the process of getting smaller: one kid I've had issues with (him and his mother do absolutely nothing) has been switched to another class, and that horrible other kid I mentioned recently will be having a hearing soon. When I heard that, I was excited and relieved, but also a little nervous, because now what's stopping him from truly hurting someone or distracting the class every minute? Surprisingly, he's been fairly calm, for him anyway.
And last week I submitted a list of students I have concerns about, both academically and behaviorally. Thursday, the guidance counselor gave me some pre-referral reports to fill out. And I diligently got them all finished and turned in by lunch Friday. I hope things move ahead, because one kid in particular from my middle class is just out there. He can't focus, he has random outbursts of noise and/or movement, and his comprehension is little to none. I didn't realize what a distraction he is until the other day, when he was not there for half an hour--so much quieter and calmer. Then he walked in, and the rest of the class was touch-and-go, because he'll set the others off with his noise.
Yesterday I gave a big quiz, really two. All last week and a bit the week before? we worked on media stuff, and they had definitions for a lot of things. I've kept a list going on the side board so they can see exactly what they should be knowing. Starting last Friday, I let them know there would be a quiz on the vocabulary soon, and to study. All week that was written by the homework--Media Quiz Coming Soon--Study At Home! And yet, sure enough, all of the students failed. Even the high-level class. Damn. It sucks, but I wasn't too shocked, unfortunately. I hope they learn a lesson and change something, or else they'll keep racking up failing test grades.
The other quiz was on the grammar stuff that we had been doing for warm ups all week--capitalizing, some commas, and type of sentence. And I only graded one full class so far, but I'm really pleased. They all did very well on that. It was exactly like the warm up activities, so they were comfortable, and I think they all felt good about that part.
So I graded them as separate quizzes, and this way, though they failed one, they most likely did very well on the other.
I will be continuing to do the language activities, because they're actually learning, and it's a better way to get them settled in than the more abstract writing prompts that I sometimes use for warm-ups (though I hadn't actually been doing much of anything lately, what with test prep). And I will quiz them every Friday, and that should make them feel good about their abilities.
I'm thinking about giving them the media quiz again but with open notes. They won't get all the answers from there (I specifically wrote different types of questions, some easy and some requiring thinking and memorizing and analysis), and the grade won't be worth as much, but they need to know this information.
Next week I have to get off my ass. I need to cover the advertising types, but not all the classes can handle that kind of activity. I also want them to do a biographical project on a civil rights leader. I have a list of people already, but I need to narrow it down and figure out how to assign the students. Then I need to figure out how I'm going to teach these three different classes that need completely different things. And come up with diffferent homework assignments as well. And then, we're supposed to do a project as well, a public service announcement, to conclude this unit. Again, my high-level class will certainly be able to, but what kind of timeline, considering the biography project and the break coming up? The middle class certainly won't get to do that project, at least not with any class time. I think I am going to focus on essay writing and biography writing with them in class. Maybe I'll assign the PSA as homework only. The third class wavers back and forth about how much they can handle.
On Thursday I probably made a mistake by introducing actual ads with them. I began by explaining the questions one must ask when viewing an ad, and then I described an ad for them. The words of the ad were "Your lips look so lonely. May I keep them company?" Hoots and hollers.
The image? Close up of an unmade bed, with satin-looking sheets and pillow cases. All kinds of noise from the class.
What tone or lifestyle? Romance and love.
They tried to guess the product--most of their guesses were lipsticks or chapstick.
The real product? Can you guess?
OREO COOKIES.
They were just as shocked as you, except noisier. Then I tried to explain how this ad is telling you that cookies or food is and should be a replacement for love and companionship, etc etc. The students were howling and shouting all over the place!
I was exhausted and irritated. Maybe it's not such a good idea.
God, one week. I hope I can make it.
That also means only one more week of school. At least a part of every day leaves me feeling irritable, impatient, grumpy, old and tired. That one class continues to be a problem, and they continue to do well when it's time to do a simple, structured but boring task like exercises in the grammar book. At this point, I need to do whatever works for all of us.
My last class is in the process of getting smaller: one kid I've had issues with (him and his mother do absolutely nothing) has been switched to another class, and that horrible other kid I mentioned recently will be having a hearing soon. When I heard that, I was excited and relieved, but also a little nervous, because now what's stopping him from truly hurting someone or distracting the class every minute? Surprisingly, he's been fairly calm, for him anyway.
And last week I submitted a list of students I have concerns about, both academically and behaviorally. Thursday, the guidance counselor gave me some pre-referral reports to fill out. And I diligently got them all finished and turned in by lunch Friday. I hope things move ahead, because one kid in particular from my middle class is just out there. He can't focus, he has random outbursts of noise and/or movement, and his comprehension is little to none. I didn't realize what a distraction he is until the other day, when he was not there for half an hour--so much quieter and calmer. Then he walked in, and the rest of the class was touch-and-go, because he'll set the others off with his noise.
Yesterday I gave a big quiz, really two. All last week and a bit the week before? we worked on media stuff, and they had definitions for a lot of things. I've kept a list going on the side board so they can see exactly what they should be knowing. Starting last Friday, I let them know there would be a quiz on the vocabulary soon, and to study. All week that was written by the homework--Media Quiz Coming Soon--Study At Home! And yet, sure enough, all of the students failed. Even the high-level class. Damn. It sucks, but I wasn't too shocked, unfortunately. I hope they learn a lesson and change something, or else they'll keep racking up failing test grades.
The other quiz was on the grammar stuff that we had been doing for warm ups all week--capitalizing, some commas, and type of sentence. And I only graded one full class so far, but I'm really pleased. They all did very well on that. It was exactly like the warm up activities, so they were comfortable, and I think they all felt good about that part.
So I graded them as separate quizzes, and this way, though they failed one, they most likely did very well on the other.
I will be continuing to do the language activities, because they're actually learning, and it's a better way to get them settled in than the more abstract writing prompts that I sometimes use for warm-ups (though I hadn't actually been doing much of anything lately, what with test prep). And I will quiz them every Friday, and that should make them feel good about their abilities.
I'm thinking about giving them the media quiz again but with open notes. They won't get all the answers from there (I specifically wrote different types of questions, some easy and some requiring thinking and memorizing and analysis), and the grade won't be worth as much, but they need to know this information.
Next week I have to get off my ass. I need to cover the advertising types, but not all the classes can handle that kind of activity. I also want them to do a biographical project on a civil rights leader. I have a list of people already, but I need to narrow it down and figure out how to assign the students. Then I need to figure out how I'm going to teach these three different classes that need completely different things. And come up with diffferent homework assignments as well. And then, we're supposed to do a project as well, a public service announcement, to conclude this unit. Again, my high-level class will certainly be able to, but what kind of timeline, considering the biography project and the break coming up? The middle class certainly won't get to do that project, at least not with any class time. I think I am going to focus on essay writing and biography writing with them in class. Maybe I'll assign the PSA as homework only. The third class wavers back and forth about how much they can handle.
On Thursday I probably made a mistake by introducing actual ads with them. I began by explaining the questions one must ask when viewing an ad, and then I described an ad for them. The words of the ad were "Your lips look so lonely. May I keep them company?" Hoots and hollers.
The image? Close up of an unmade bed, with satin-looking sheets and pillow cases. All kinds of noise from the class.
What tone or lifestyle? Romance and love.
They tried to guess the product--most of their guesses were lipsticks or chapstick.
The real product? Can you guess?
OREO COOKIES.
They were just as shocked as you, except noisier. Then I tried to explain how this ad is telling you that cookies or food is and should be a replacement for love and companionship, etc etc. The students were howling and shouting all over the place!
I was exhausted and irritated. Maybe it's not such a good idea.
God, one week. I hope I can make it.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
New Carnival in Town!
Go check out the newest edition of the Carnival of Education, hosted by This Week in Education!
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Perseverance, Stubbornness, Willful Ignorance, Whatever You Want to Call It
As you may or may not know, one of my traits is indeed stubbornness. That's really how I survived my entire first year, willing myself to get through it.
Sometimes it comes naturally, and sometimes I have to take myself by the shoulders and say, "Self, buck up and grit those teeth! You won't quit, because you're too scared and lazy to let yourself down! So quit the whining and get on with it!"
What's that, readers? You said the same thing? Ha ha, we're on the same wavelength. Good.
The funk of last week has passed, and my teeth are set once again for the good fight of keep-on-keeping-on. Helped greatly by the countdown to the London trip, which reached T-minus ten days today! Except an interesting thing occurred. I got a phone call from the airline, offering us two $300 vouchers to change our flights one day because of overbooking. Hey, why not? So Boyfriend and I are now leaving a week from Saturday and returning the next Sunday. Whee!
This past Sunday, I spent the whole day doing nothing. I read two whole books (YA novels, but still) and dinked around the computer too. Not even for a minute did I turn on the tv. I don't think that has happened...ever. At least for the time that I've owned a tv. It felt good to just relax and chill out. Also, I sort of spontaneously sat down and thought up a plan for the week, even including interesting and relevant homework assignments, planning for a quiz, writing that quiz (which I'd really started to do in the shower the day before--see what I mean about the job taking over your brain no matter the day or time?), and even planning for a day of grammar work.
That made me feel productive and relieved, which was nice because then I went back to reading and lounging. Excellent.
So far this week things have gone well. My high class has gone faster and in more depth than my other classes, and I'm going to leave it that way. I'm finally starting to let the classes separate into their own comfortable pace, whatever it may be. That means I'm not stalling and slowing down the fast class, and I'm not impatient with the slower and shallower results from the not-so-fast classes. I'm trying to keep things a bit more personalized, so to speak. In theory I'd love to even assign different homework for each class, but that's a bit much. But who knows, we'll see.
Oh, and you frisky Big Apple bloggers out there did not respond to the planned event! Thank goodness Nancy was available (finally!) and showed up with a friend, and Boyfriend was there, and his sister came later. It was a smaller, quieter evening than I'd hoped, but still nice to be out and about with good people. Nancy suggested a once-a-month gathering, to give you folks more of a chance to come hang out and meet and have some tasty beverage. She made a Google calendar, and there's a button somewhere on the right. Click it and you'll...be linked? Or be added? Or see it? I'm not sure. Just click it.
Anyway, right now I seem to be nursing a migraine, so I'm going to go get absorbed in last night's episode Heroes. And then go to sleep and rest up for another day of getting through.
Sometimes it comes naturally, and sometimes I have to take myself by the shoulders and say, "Self, buck up and grit those teeth! You won't quit, because you're too scared and lazy to let yourself down! So quit the whining and get on with it!"
What's that, readers? You said the same thing? Ha ha, we're on the same wavelength. Good.
The funk of last week has passed, and my teeth are set once again for the good fight of keep-on-keeping-on. Helped greatly by the countdown to the London trip, which reached T-minus ten days today! Except an interesting thing occurred. I got a phone call from the airline, offering us two $300 vouchers to change our flights one day because of overbooking. Hey, why not? So Boyfriend and I are now leaving a week from Saturday and returning the next Sunday. Whee!
This past Sunday, I spent the whole day doing nothing. I read two whole books (YA novels, but still) and dinked around the computer too. Not even for a minute did I turn on the tv. I don't think that has happened...ever. At least for the time that I've owned a tv. It felt good to just relax and chill out. Also, I sort of spontaneously sat down and thought up a plan for the week, even including interesting and relevant homework assignments, planning for a quiz, writing that quiz (which I'd really started to do in the shower the day before--see what I mean about the job taking over your brain no matter the day or time?), and even planning for a day of grammar work.
That made me feel productive and relieved, which was nice because then I went back to reading and lounging. Excellent.
So far this week things have gone well. My high class has gone faster and in more depth than my other classes, and I'm going to leave it that way. I'm finally starting to let the classes separate into their own comfortable pace, whatever it may be. That means I'm not stalling and slowing down the fast class, and I'm not impatient with the slower and shallower results from the not-so-fast classes. I'm trying to keep things a bit more personalized, so to speak. In theory I'd love to even assign different homework for each class, but that's a bit much. But who knows, we'll see.
Oh, and you frisky Big Apple bloggers out there did not respond to the planned event! Thank goodness Nancy was available (finally!) and showed up with a friend, and Boyfriend was there, and his sister came later. It was a smaller, quieter evening than I'd hoped, but still nice to be out and about with good people. Nancy suggested a once-a-month gathering, to give you folks more of a chance to come hang out and meet and have some tasty beverage. She made a Google calendar, and there's a button somewhere on the right. Click it and you'll...be linked? Or be added? Or see it? I'm not sure. Just click it.
Anyway, right now I seem to be nursing a migraine, so I'm going to go get absorbed in last night's episode Heroes. And then go to sleep and rest up for another day of getting through.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Job Risks
The NEA Today magazine has an article about non-teacher school employees ("Education Support Professionals") and the dangers they face on their jobs.
Now, I surely appreciate the people who help keep a school running, and I certainly don't want any of them facing undue hardships or injuries. But the list of hazards they should be protected against...well, take a look.
"Bus drivers repeatedly open and close manually operated doors, and depress the clutch and brake pedals."
Many teachers drive to school. All teachers must also move their feet up and down stairs all day long. Does this mean that we can claim job injury from these repetitive motions?
I would think that the risk of bus drivers would be in the arena of hearing loss and stress, dealing with loud and potentially rude or disruptive children, yelling and throwing things. Let's protect them from that instead of brake pedals.
"Food service workers repeatedly life heavy equipment, stand for long shifts, and reach above shoulder level and below knee level or across counters."
Teachers stand all day long. Teachers are constantly bending and reaching: across tables to talk to students, putting charts on the wall while perched on student desks, picking up piles of paperwork and transporting them to the staff room, home, and back. Et cetera.
I've worked in food service, and the lifting and standing were the easy parts of the job. These workers get little respect and have to deal with nasty food and chemicals all day, not to mention children with little to no manners. And the dish-washing that leaves your whole body and clothing soaking, your hands pruned beyond recognition, even with gloves? Or how about the searing steam and heat from the Hobart and hot pans of food? Talk about hazards.
"Technical service and clerical workers perform repetitive keystroke motions on computers."
Several words: Gradebooks. Report cards. Bubbles. Attendance lists. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Keeping in mind, of course, that teachers have to do it all manually, since too many of us (at least in this godforsaken city) are not blessed with computers on our desks like the rest of the professionals. So we have to go to our own homes and do the repetitive keystrokes.
"Skilled trades workers and custodians are subject to muscle stress from tools, prolonged kneeling, and bending."
That's what custodians have to worry about? How about cleaning up disgusting spills and picking up heavy trash cans?
Teachers are very much subject to muscle stress--clutching chalk for hours at a time; tripping over bookbags and other hazards in the obstacle course known as a classroom; balancing writing with never completely taking their eyes off the students; carrying loads of paperwork in cutesy tote bags, resulting in sore shoulders every morning and afternoon; ...this list goes on.
Health workers are exposed to diseases and contact with blood and other body fluids.
Those diseases and body fluids come through the classroom first, and many of them never even make it into the nurse's office. The teacher gets to play nurse for the easy stuff.
And how about removing the ridiculous restrictions on those nurses, so they can actually treat headaches and stomachaches and sore joints, without worrying about lawsuits from parents who worry about all the wrong things?
Security staff face psychological stress from dealing with violent student and parent behavior.
Um. Are you serious? I'm sure this is the case sometimes, but FAR too many 'security' officers simply take up space and do nothing to increase the security of the building or students. And again, all those violent and virulent students and parents go straight to the TEACHERS all day long. And then we get to think about how to deal with them on our 'off' time, often while we sleep. I know the security officers wouldn't have that dilemma.
Really. Where are the teacher job protections? How are we supposed to be the smiling, gentle faces who educate future generations if we can't even get protection from the myriad dangers that the other 'professionals' get? Why do they get to be support professionals and we're the simpletons who couldn't cut it in the real world?
Now, I surely appreciate the people who help keep a school running, and I certainly don't want any of them facing undue hardships or injuries. But the list of hazards they should be protected against...well, take a look.
"Bus drivers repeatedly open and close manually operated doors, and depress the clutch and brake pedals."
Many teachers drive to school. All teachers must also move their feet up and down stairs all day long. Does this mean that we can claim job injury from these repetitive motions?
I would think that the risk of bus drivers would be in the arena of hearing loss and stress, dealing with loud and potentially rude or disruptive children, yelling and throwing things. Let's protect them from that instead of brake pedals.
"Food service workers repeatedly life heavy equipment, stand for long shifts, and reach above shoulder level and below knee level or across counters."
Teachers stand all day long. Teachers are constantly bending and reaching: across tables to talk to students, putting charts on the wall while perched on student desks, picking up piles of paperwork and transporting them to the staff room, home, and back. Et cetera.
I've worked in food service, and the lifting and standing were the easy parts of the job. These workers get little respect and have to deal with nasty food and chemicals all day, not to mention children with little to no manners. And the dish-washing that leaves your whole body and clothing soaking, your hands pruned beyond recognition, even with gloves? Or how about the searing steam and heat from the Hobart and hot pans of food? Talk about hazards.
"Technical service and clerical workers perform repetitive keystroke motions on computers."
Several words: Gradebooks. Report cards. Bubbles. Attendance lists. I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this. Keeping in mind, of course, that teachers have to do it all manually, since too many of us (at least in this godforsaken city) are not blessed with computers on our desks like the rest of the professionals. So we have to go to our own homes and do the repetitive keystrokes.
"Skilled trades workers and custodians are subject to muscle stress from tools, prolonged kneeling, and bending."
That's what custodians have to worry about? How about cleaning up disgusting spills and picking up heavy trash cans?
Teachers are very much subject to muscle stress--clutching chalk for hours at a time; tripping over bookbags and other hazards in the obstacle course known as a classroom; balancing writing with never completely taking their eyes off the students; carrying loads of paperwork in cutesy tote bags, resulting in sore shoulders every morning and afternoon; ...this list goes on.
Health workers are exposed to diseases and contact with blood and other body fluids.
Those diseases and body fluids come through the classroom first, and many of them never even make it into the nurse's office. The teacher gets to play nurse for the easy stuff.
And how about removing the ridiculous restrictions on those nurses, so they can actually treat headaches and stomachaches and sore joints, without worrying about lawsuits from parents who worry about all the wrong things?
Security staff face psychological stress from dealing with violent student and parent behavior.
Um. Are you serious? I'm sure this is the case sometimes, but FAR too many 'security' officers simply take up space and do nothing to increase the security of the building or students. And again, all those violent and virulent students and parents go straight to the TEACHERS all day long. And then we get to think about how to deal with them on our 'off' time, often while we sleep. I know the security officers wouldn't have that dilemma.
Really. Where are the teacher job protections? How are we supposed to be the smiling, gentle faces who educate future generations if we can't even get protection from the myriad dangers that the other 'professionals' get? Why do they get to be support professionals and we're the simpletons who couldn't cut it in the real world?
Friday, February 02, 2007
Manic Depressive
Sometimes teaching makes me feel a little...not so normal. Let me give you some examples.
Last night I was thinking about my day. First, I brought some colleagues to the book room. As we descended the staircase, I noticed that the door was open and the light was on. Someone else noticed the lock was nowhere to be found. The little hook loop on the doorframe was mangled, so that the flip-bar thing on the door wouldn't fit over it. The book room itself looked pretty much the same. I didn't see any new piles or new messes, and there was no giant gap of goods taken from a shelf.
Nevertheless, I felt violated and defeated. Everyone knows that I have the key, and the lock (which I had to buy and put on) was to protect all the hard work that's gone into improving it and making it a valuable resource for the teachers once again. And someone decided to (or ask someone to) break the little padlock off? That makes me feel like the work is not valued and that makes *me* feel not valued, since I was doing the work. So if things disappear or giant piles of miscellaneous crap start appearing, I give up.
Next, common planning. Like I've mentioned before, at times, instead of inspiring me, meeting with my colleagues makes me feel inadequate. We have bulletin boards due on Tuesday, and I have no writing projects going on. Others have already begun or planned small projects, or have had the kids writing about their media work the last week or two. Me, not so much. We've been working with vocabulary and worksheets, helping the kids see what kinds of questions they need to ask themselves to be critical viewers of media. So then I had to realize that I've been slacking and my kids haven't really been learning and the stupid bulletin board has to go up and the work will be shit and I'm not doing my job anyway so who cares?
To boot, I have this kid. Somehow, I have heretofore refrained from posting about him. It's a blood-boiler issue for me, so I try not to think too much about it. Every time I do, I feel the anger and indignance rise up and go nowhere. The kid follows no rules and constantly harasses the class, verbally and physically. He throws paper. He crawls on the ground. He threatens other kids. I have made so.many.phone calls. All go straight to voice mail and nothing ever changes. The admin tell me that they have called home many times as well, and the parents have never responded. When the kid has been suspended, he shows up to school anyway. When told that he can't return without a parent, he comes back anyway and no sign of either parent. This child clearly knows that he can break the rules without punishment, and his misbehavior has continued to escalate since the first day of school. (Yes, on the very first day I saw he was going to be trouble. But for awhile, he was cooperative and tried to work and participate. Slowly, but very surely, that disappeared.) I have submitted all kinds of written documentation, to the dean, to the AP, all to no avail. The kid is still in class every day, and he bothers the entire class on a daily basis, on various levels of severity.
All of this really, really bothers me. And I've done more than my job in attempting to deal with it, and the rest of the students in the class are the real victims here--their rights to a comfortable and safe learning environment are violated every single day. And no one is doing anything about it.
I must stop writing so I can stop thinking about it. I can't get worked up again.
I've also been just a tad behind on grading homework.
All this had me feeling very down and blue and frustrated--with myself and what I'm doing, and with the school system in general.
Thankfully, today was a pretty good day. We had a half day for periodic testing, so I didn't have to teach. I graded nearly all of the grammar worksheets I'd assigned earlier in the week. I was reading newspaper articles to use in next week's advertising work.
I was feeling a little re-energized and rested.
After a lunch break, we had a department PD. And it was a treat. We met in grade groups and discussed how the year has gone so far. My colleagues and I had a productive and interesting discussion, and we came up with some things to tweak for next year.
It turned out that all the grades were thinking about the same themes. One teacher mentioned that reading has become cold--they have to read a book alone regardless of their reading ability, and turn in a book report. Reading is not fun or passionate anymore. Several of us agreed and mentioned ways to start turning that around. The Reading Rainbow book talks I mentioned, and other teachers have done that as well has creating a "Books We Love" display for students who need something to read. Another group mentioned having classes all read one book together. One of my friends has been doing that--even using the dreaded round robin reading! She has found that they are doing really well in comprehending the book, as well as enjoying it. The kids like to read!
All the groups also mentioned vocabulary, and how those basic skills are so vital for the kids, in their reading and writing.
Someone mentioned a particular reading program they'd done in summer school, and how effective and exciting it was for the students. My grade definitely sees many kids who are below or far below level in reading. All the reading workshops in the world will not improve someone's reading ability. So the idea of once again having reading instruction is very exciting for us.
My AP is fantastic for many reasons. One is that she was an EL @ teacher for eight years and is still very much in the mindset of being a teacher and supporting teachers. Thus, she is very open to these discussions and suggestions. She welcomed us to use these "new" (traditional) methods to help the kids increase their reading levels and excitement. And she's going to see what can be done on a funding level to help with that. Wow!
To have a department all on the same page, and a supportive administrator, are some of the best things a teacher can have. It gets me worked up--in a good way, thinking about fun projects and new ideas to inject into our existing curriculum.
Then I start evaluating what I've been doing for the last three years, and I realize once again that I feel ineffective. I told myself that I would do vocabulary and grammar every week. A colleague of mine actually has one day per week set aside to do that. I wanted to, but I've never been able to. I end up feeling time-crunched and pressured to do so many things at once. I try to "share" lessons during the week, but inevitably we get behind, or have an assembly, or I just get lazy.
And once again I become depressed, convinced that the other teachers are better than I am, that my kids aren't really learning anything, that I'm not really doing my job, that all my plans and excitement never end up actually happening, that I am a failure and I am failing my kids.
I go through varying cycles of this all year. The summer is mostly three months of manic thinking and planning (and by manic I mean excited and happy and fruitful), and at least three to four times a year I sink into a depression of truth. Maybe it's winter blues, maybe it's dehydration, maybe I'm homesick maybe I'm stuck in a rut. All the stupid and awful things we deal with every day and complain about? Are never going to change. Ever. What's the point of anything when it's just so pointless? Each week I find myself counting the days until I don't have to work. On Fridays, I'm not happy; I feel physically relieved, like I can finally relax. The sad thing is that during the week I don't seem to work that hard.
I'm tired. Not like burnout, and not like fatigue, just worn out with all the aspects of this impossible "profession." I put that in quotation marks because only people in this profession consider it a profession; everyone else seems to think it's mindless grunt work. Whatever. Right now my mind just isn't there.
It's definitely time for a mental health day.
Last night I was thinking about my day. First, I brought some colleagues to the book room. As we descended the staircase, I noticed that the door was open and the light was on. Someone else noticed the lock was nowhere to be found. The little hook loop on the doorframe was mangled, so that the flip-bar thing on the door wouldn't fit over it. The book room itself looked pretty much the same. I didn't see any new piles or new messes, and there was no giant gap of goods taken from a shelf.
Nevertheless, I felt violated and defeated. Everyone knows that I have the key, and the lock (which I had to buy and put on) was to protect all the hard work that's gone into improving it and making it a valuable resource for the teachers once again. And someone decided to (or ask someone to) break the little padlock off? That makes me feel like the work is not valued and that makes *me* feel not valued, since I was doing the work. So if things disappear or giant piles of miscellaneous crap start appearing, I give up.
Next, common planning. Like I've mentioned before, at times, instead of inspiring me, meeting with my colleagues makes me feel inadequate. We have bulletin boards due on Tuesday, and I have no writing projects going on. Others have already begun or planned small projects, or have had the kids writing about their media work the last week or two. Me, not so much. We've been working with vocabulary and worksheets, helping the kids see what kinds of questions they need to ask themselves to be critical viewers of media. So then I had to realize that I've been slacking and my kids haven't really been learning and the stupid bulletin board has to go up and the work will be shit and I'm not doing my job anyway so who cares?
To boot, I have this kid. Somehow, I have heretofore refrained from posting about him. It's a blood-boiler issue for me, so I try not to think too much about it. Every time I do, I feel the anger and indignance rise up and go nowhere. The kid follows no rules and constantly harasses the class, verbally and physically. He throws paper. He crawls on the ground. He threatens other kids. I have made so.many.phone calls. All go straight to voice mail and nothing ever changes. The admin tell me that they have called home many times as well, and the parents have never responded. When the kid has been suspended, he shows up to school anyway. When told that he can't return without a parent, he comes back anyway and no sign of either parent. This child clearly knows that he can break the rules without punishment, and his misbehavior has continued to escalate since the first day of school. (Yes, on the very first day I saw he was going to be trouble. But for awhile, he was cooperative and tried to work and participate. Slowly, but very surely, that disappeared.) I have submitted all kinds of written documentation, to the dean, to the AP, all to no avail. The kid is still in class every day, and he bothers the entire class on a daily basis, on various levels of severity.
All of this really, really bothers me. And I've done more than my job in attempting to deal with it, and the rest of the students in the class are the real victims here--their rights to a comfortable and safe learning environment are violated every single day. And no one is doing anything about it.
I must stop writing so I can stop thinking about it. I can't get worked up again.
I've also been just a tad behind on grading homework.
All this had me feeling very down and blue and frustrated--with myself and what I'm doing, and with the school system in general.
Thankfully, today was a pretty good day. We had a half day for periodic testing, so I didn't have to teach. I graded nearly all of the grammar worksheets I'd assigned earlier in the week. I was reading newspaper articles to use in next week's advertising work.
I was feeling a little re-energized and rested.
After a lunch break, we had a department PD. And it was a treat. We met in grade groups and discussed how the year has gone so far. My colleagues and I had a productive and interesting discussion, and we came up with some things to tweak for next year.
It turned out that all the grades were thinking about the same themes. One teacher mentioned that reading has become cold--they have to read a book alone regardless of their reading ability, and turn in a book report. Reading is not fun or passionate anymore. Several of us agreed and mentioned ways to start turning that around. The Reading Rainbow book talks I mentioned, and other teachers have done that as well has creating a "Books We Love" display for students who need something to read. Another group mentioned having classes all read one book together. One of my friends has been doing that--even using the dreaded round robin reading! She has found that they are doing really well in comprehending the book, as well as enjoying it. The kids like to read!
All the groups also mentioned vocabulary, and how those basic skills are so vital for the kids, in their reading and writing.
Someone mentioned a particular reading program they'd done in summer school, and how effective and exciting it was for the students. My grade definitely sees many kids who are below or far below level in reading. All the reading workshops in the world will not improve someone's reading ability. So the idea of once again having reading instruction is very exciting for us.
My AP is fantastic for many reasons. One is that she was an EL @ teacher for eight years and is still very much in the mindset of being a teacher and supporting teachers. Thus, she is very open to these discussions and suggestions. She welcomed us to use these "new" (traditional) methods to help the kids increase their reading levels and excitement. And she's going to see what can be done on a funding level to help with that. Wow!
To have a department all on the same page, and a supportive administrator, are some of the best things a teacher can have. It gets me worked up--in a good way, thinking about fun projects and new ideas to inject into our existing curriculum.
Then I start evaluating what I've been doing for the last three years, and I realize once again that I feel ineffective. I told myself that I would do vocabulary and grammar every week. A colleague of mine actually has one day per week set aside to do that. I wanted to, but I've never been able to. I end up feeling time-crunched and pressured to do so many things at once. I try to "share" lessons during the week, but inevitably we get behind, or have an assembly, or I just get lazy.
And once again I become depressed, convinced that the other teachers are better than I am, that my kids aren't really learning anything, that I'm not really doing my job, that all my plans and excitement never end up actually happening, that I am a failure and I am failing my kids.
I go through varying cycles of this all year. The summer is mostly three months of manic thinking and planning (and by manic I mean excited and happy and fruitful), and at least three to four times a year I sink into a depression of truth. Maybe it's winter blues, maybe it's dehydration, maybe I'm homesick maybe I'm stuck in a rut. All the stupid and awful things we deal with every day and complain about? Are never going to change. Ever. What's the point of anything when it's just so pointless? Each week I find myself counting the days until I don't have to work. On Fridays, I'm not happy; I feel physically relieved, like I can finally relax. The sad thing is that during the week I don't seem to work that hard.
I'm tired. Not like burnout, and not like fatigue, just worn out with all the aspects of this impossible "profession." I put that in quotation marks because only people in this profession consider it a profession; everyone else seems to think it's mindless grunt work. Whatever. Right now my mind just isn't there.
It's definitely time for a mental health day.
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Pictures
Last night I finally upgraded to a pro account on flickr! Then I spent several hours uploading older pictures into it. I also pulled out my prints from the Paris 2004 trip and spent over an hour scanning them to my computer and now am headed to finish uploading to Flickr, along with whatever else comes to mind. Woohoo!
And I was looking at making Moo cards, some for personal use, but some for teaching use. I'm thinking of taking pictures of gold stars, the word excellent, me smiling, etc, and making cards out of them to hand out to students who are doing well. Doesn't that sound neat?
I brought my prints to school today and got to show them off to a couple people. They raved about them and made me feel all warm and fuzzy about my photography skills. Snapfish now lets you put borders on all your prints. I chose a thin black border and it makes them look so professional and fancy-like. Ooh, so pretty. You know, for years I've wanted to take classes to learn more. Anyone have ideas or suggestions?
And I was looking at making Moo cards, some for personal use, but some for teaching use. I'm thinking of taking pictures of gold stars, the word excellent, me smiling, etc, and making cards out of them to hand out to students who are doing well. Doesn't that sound neat?
I brought my prints to school today and got to show them off to a couple people. They raved about them and made me feel all warm and fuzzy about my photography skills. Snapfish now lets you put borders on all your prints. I chose a thin black border and it makes them look so professional and fancy-like. Ooh, so pretty. You know, for years I've wanted to take classes to learn more. Anyone have ideas or suggestions?
Reading and Teaching
Yesterday I decided to do something new, and yet old.
I finally took out the anthologies that clog up my bookroom. I also took one of the rare teacher editions! We did some guided reading of the Phantom Tollbooth--I read aloud to the students, and we stopped to respond orally or in writing. I saw many more students on task and ready to participate. The responses weren't very deep, but it was a start. And they seemed to quite enjoy the story. In fact, I read another chapter from the actual book after we finished the excerpt in the textbook.
I did this with the middle class yesterday, and today we finished the story. My afternoon class started it today and it went even better, because I thought of more and better response prompts.
My first class, the highest (on grade) level, won't need to do this. But I think the other two classes will definitely benefit from all reading the same material, discussing it together, and responding to multiple prompts each day. My hope is that with practice, the students will be able to delve deeper into their stories and understand things better, as well as improve their writing. Not to mention discovering new authors and books and genres they might enjoy.
This is the first time EVER that I've used a textbook in teaching. I can't tell you the difference it makes. I think that content-area teachers take them for granted--excerpts already chosen for you, suggestions ready-made for how to use them and teach them, questions pre-written for writing and even vocabulary. These are things that English teachers usually have to make up by themselves, which is boring and tedious and not necessarily effective.
I hope to use it for a little while. Not forever, but to keep the kids in line and thinking.
Other things I want to implement in reader's workshop include Readers and Books of the Week, kind of like Reading Rainbow--choose two or three students per week who present a book they like, and read some to the class. Doesn't that sound fun and inspirational?
I finally took out the anthologies that clog up my bookroom. I also took one of the rare teacher editions! We did some guided reading of the Phantom Tollbooth--I read aloud to the students, and we stopped to respond orally or in writing. I saw many more students on task and ready to participate. The responses weren't very deep, but it was a start. And they seemed to quite enjoy the story. In fact, I read another chapter from the actual book after we finished the excerpt in the textbook.
I did this with the middle class yesterday, and today we finished the story. My afternoon class started it today and it went even better, because I thought of more and better response prompts.
My first class, the highest (on grade) level, won't need to do this. But I think the other two classes will definitely benefit from all reading the same material, discussing it together, and responding to multiple prompts each day. My hope is that with practice, the students will be able to delve deeper into their stories and understand things better, as well as improve their writing. Not to mention discovering new authors and books and genres they might enjoy.
This is the first time EVER that I've used a textbook in teaching. I can't tell you the difference it makes. I think that content-area teachers take them for granted--excerpts already chosen for you, suggestions ready-made for how to use them and teach them, questions pre-written for writing and even vocabulary. These are things that English teachers usually have to make up by themselves, which is boring and tedious and not necessarily effective.
I hope to use it for a little while. Not forever, but to keep the kids in line and thinking.
Other things I want to implement in reader's workshop include Readers and Books of the Week, kind of like Reading Rainbow--choose two or three students per week who present a book they like, and read some to the class. Doesn't that sound fun and inspirational?
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Busy/Lazy
I guess it's been a few days. Not much has been going on, except a lot has been going on. I guess.
Like yesterday: after school, I did laundry, worked out, and entered some more grades, ending with Heroes. Good job, me.
Grades are due Thursday. Today at school I bubbled in the comments and midterm grades. Right now I have just finished updating the last grade stuff and so, if I were so inclined, could sit at home bubbling the grades to finish everything up. Yeah, well. Actually, first I need to find where I put the final grades from first quarter. Any ideas?
We are slowly making progress with our media unit. My middle class appears to be utterly incapable of behaving themselves. So three of the last four days I've seen them, comma time! Interestingly, that they can handle. They all get to work fairly quietly and industriously. Weird, right?
The other two classes are doing better, though. We finished up newspapers and moved into magazines. The workbook I'm using has excellent worksheets that help the students break down and analyze the sample articles. Tomorrow--cross your fingers--we'll actually get to handle real magazines. I'll be hoping that they can keep track of different sections and amounts of ads, photos and features, and the like. To attempt a prevention of trouble, I told the classes that the students who work hard and behave well will be together, working with the magazines, while the students who do not work or behave well will be separated and working with commas. They were like, a-ha/uh-oh.
On Friday, my afternoon class and I had a good time. To help them in identifying f!gurative l#nguage, I played them Simon & Garfunkel's I Am a Rock. (You may remember this from a post almost exactly a year ago.) I played the first stanza and chorus a whole bunch of times, and each time more and more kids starting bopping and moving to the music, and then even singing along. It was quite entertaining. Especially when a kid asked amid the din, "What kind of music is this?" And another kid answered, "Hip-hop." I couldn't help laughing at that!
Um, so I think it's Tuesday now. My prints from Amsterdam arrived! They are so pretty, I want to show them off all over again.
Like yesterday: after school, I did laundry, worked out, and entered some more grades, ending with Heroes. Good job, me.
Grades are due Thursday. Today at school I bubbled in the comments and midterm grades. Right now I have just finished updating the last grade stuff and so, if I were so inclined, could sit at home bubbling the grades to finish everything up. Yeah, well. Actually, first I need to find where I put the final grades from first quarter. Any ideas?
We are slowly making progress with our media unit. My middle class appears to be utterly incapable of behaving themselves. So three of the last four days I've seen them, comma time! Interestingly, that they can handle. They all get to work fairly quietly and industriously. Weird, right?
The other two classes are doing better, though. We finished up newspapers and moved into magazines. The workbook I'm using has excellent worksheets that help the students break down and analyze the sample articles. Tomorrow--cross your fingers--we'll actually get to handle real magazines. I'll be hoping that they can keep track of different sections and amounts of ads, photos and features, and the like. To attempt a prevention of trouble, I told the classes that the students who work hard and behave well will be together, working with the magazines, while the students who do not work or behave well will be separated and working with commas. They were like, a-ha/uh-oh.
On Friday, my afternoon class and I had a good time. To help them in identifying f!gurative l#nguage, I played them Simon & Garfunkel's I Am a Rock. (You may remember this from a post almost exactly a year ago.) I played the first stanza and chorus a whole bunch of times, and each time more and more kids starting bopping and moving to the music, and then even singing along. It was quite entertaining. Especially when a kid asked amid the din, "What kind of music is this?" And another kid answered, "Hip-hop." I couldn't help laughing at that!
Um, so I think it's Tuesday now. My prints from Amsterdam arrived! They are so pretty, I want to show them off all over again.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Event For Real, This Time, I Promise!
Okay, NOW let's do the teacher blogger thing.
Saturday, Jan 27.
Art Bar.
8th Ave just south of 14th, on the A/C/E. Right next to a hip chocolate shop.
I'll be there 9ish. Look for the ubiquitous black NYCTF bag.
Check in the awesome back room too, just in case.
Hope to see you there!
Saturday, Jan 27.
Art Bar.
8th Ave just south of 14th, on the A/C/E. Right next to a hip chocolate shop.
I'll be there 9ish. Look for the ubiquitous black NYCTF bag.
Check in the awesome back room too, just in case.
Hope to see you there!
Futility
On Tuesday, I finally began putting my charts back up.
On Wednesday, they announced that because of the research test today, Thursday, everything had to be covered again.
Oh well.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Maybe this is progress?
I forgot to post yesterday, but it did go better. Of course, in both classes key instigators/followers were absent.
Also, I let them do some interesting, investigative work. Each group got a New York Times, and they had to figure out how it was organized, and why (which they totally understood right away--yay!), then make a list of sections. We had to discuss how you can tell what a 'section' is. (A lot of students wanted Weather to be a section, even though it's a single page.) They got that there was a title on the front page, and all the articles dealt with the topic, and as I kept prodding them, someone finally noticed the letters and numbers in the corners. So at least they learned that valuable life skill.
I had to explain the "Metro" section--that it's not a section all about the train. (And do you know that when I asked my last class about it today, more than one of them said it WAS about the train?) I asked where Superman lived. "Metropolis!" they chorused. What was a Greek city called? They didn't know that yet, but it's a polis. "Metropolis" just means "city." So what about the word "Metropolitan"? Related to the city, and when people say "the metropolitan area" it means the city and the nearby areas too. So, in other words, what would they call the Metro section? Local news!
We also talked about 'importance.' I asked them to think about what is important, according to the newspaper, and how you can tell. Eventually they saw that the 'important' news was in the front, and the 'less important' stuff was toward the back.
Today we discussed a little bit more of that. I introduced them to the terms 'hard news' and 'soft news' and they had to look in their papers for three examples of each. They saw that the hard news is facts, while soft news has opinions.
They worked on a handout which showed two brief articles, and asked them to think about the main idea and what kind of news it was, and to prove it.
It seemed to go fairly well.
Except for the middle class today. Once they all got newspapers, they were all calling all over the place, and playing with the paper and clearly not being on task. I didn't want to deal with trying to corral them again and it was clear that they could not, as a large group, handle doing open hands-on activities.
So guess what I did? I removed the privilege of that hands-on activity. I gave them ten seconds to get all the desks into rows, and I made them take out the class set of grammar texts and we began to work on commas (which they all need to work on anyway). We just got the first exercise done, the dates and place names. (And they had all forgotten what a proper noun was, lazy uncapitalizing all over the place. Shame!)
We will continue with the grammar for at least a day, and if they work hard and quietly, then we will get back to the media stuff. But I will be very stingy with hands-on activities, and will pull them in a moment if I need to.
It's a shame, because the next activity should be really interesting. I want them to investigate the economic reality of newspapers, and count the ads in each section, comparing different sections (I have no idea what they'll find, but I have a hunch there will be something interesting to note), and also keeping track of what kinds of products or services are advertised where, and how often.
Very soon I do want to get into magazines as well. I've already got a big stash of magazines from myself and from last year's students. They can investigate the elements of magazines and look at ads and reviews, and then we can get into who owns what, and best of all, the ad types and techniques. That's my favorite!
Oh, so when the middle class left, I had them leave the desks in rows. When the afternoon class came in and sat down, I told them that the previous class couldn't handle the fun activity and so got to do grammar. I told them that they would have ONE chance to be working hard, cooperating, and on task.
Then, because I was cranky and also itchy to do something, I let the good tables start, very obviously. "I see that Table 4 is all quiet and ready, so they're going to start the activity right away."
I must say that I was happy with the class and their work/behavior, perhaps the warning at the beginning worked, or maybe the individual start times meant more kids wanting to participate and be on task (and those sometimes-lazy ones were on task! woo!), or maybe I was too worn out to be too harsh on them.
It's really hard to take each day one at a time, especially when different parts of the day require different energy levels and quick thinking and adaptation. The kids laugh when I gester vaguely and say things like, "Okay, gather the...thingamajigs at the...whatever-it's-called," but they sure know exactly to do--pile their notebooks at their tables. I'm too harried to always consume energy in recalling the precise names of things. Bah!
Also, I let them do some interesting, investigative work. Each group got a New York Times, and they had to figure out how it was organized, and why (which they totally understood right away--yay!), then make a list of sections. We had to discuss how you can tell what a 'section' is. (A lot of students wanted Weather to be a section, even though it's a single page.) They got that there was a title on the front page, and all the articles dealt with the topic, and as I kept prodding them, someone finally noticed the letters and numbers in the corners. So at least they learned that valuable life skill.
I had to explain the "Metro" section--that it's not a section all about the train. (And do you know that when I asked my last class about it today, more than one of them said it WAS about the train?) I asked where Superman lived. "Metropolis!" they chorused. What was a Greek city called? They didn't know that yet, but it's a polis. "Metropolis" just means "city." So what about the word "Metropolitan"? Related to the city, and when people say "the metropolitan area" it means the city and the nearby areas too. So, in other words, what would they call the Metro section? Local news!
We also talked about 'importance.' I asked them to think about what is important, according to the newspaper, and how you can tell. Eventually they saw that the 'important' news was in the front, and the 'less important' stuff was toward the back.
Today we discussed a little bit more of that. I introduced them to the terms 'hard news' and 'soft news' and they had to look in their papers for three examples of each. They saw that the hard news is facts, while soft news has opinions.
They worked on a handout which showed two brief articles, and asked them to think about the main idea and what kind of news it was, and to prove it.
It seemed to go fairly well.
Except for the middle class today. Once they all got newspapers, they were all calling all over the place, and playing with the paper and clearly not being on task. I didn't want to deal with trying to corral them again and it was clear that they could not, as a large group, handle doing open hands-on activities.
So guess what I did? I removed the privilege of that hands-on activity. I gave them ten seconds to get all the desks into rows, and I made them take out the class set of grammar texts and we began to work on commas (which they all need to work on anyway). We just got the first exercise done, the dates and place names. (And they had all forgotten what a proper noun was, lazy uncapitalizing all over the place. Shame!)
We will continue with the grammar for at least a day, and if they work hard and quietly, then we will get back to the media stuff. But I will be very stingy with hands-on activities, and will pull them in a moment if I need to.
It's a shame, because the next activity should be really interesting. I want them to investigate the economic reality of newspapers, and count the ads in each section, comparing different sections (I have no idea what they'll find, but I have a hunch there will be something interesting to note), and also keeping track of what kinds of products or services are advertised where, and how often.
Very soon I do want to get into magazines as well. I've already got a big stash of magazines from myself and from last year's students. They can investigate the elements of magazines and look at ads and reviews, and then we can get into who owns what, and best of all, the ad types and techniques. That's my favorite!
Oh, so when the middle class left, I had them leave the desks in rows. When the afternoon class came in and sat down, I told them that the previous class couldn't handle the fun activity and so got to do grammar. I told them that they would have ONE chance to be working hard, cooperating, and on task.
Then, because I was cranky and also itchy to do something, I let the good tables start, very obviously. "I see that Table 4 is all quiet and ready, so they're going to start the activity right away."
I must say that I was happy with the class and their work/behavior, perhaps the warning at the beginning worked, or maybe the individual start times meant more kids wanting to participate and be on task (and those sometimes-lazy ones were on task! woo!), or maybe I was too worn out to be too harsh on them.
It's really hard to take each day one at a time, especially when different parts of the day require different energy levels and quick thinking and adaptation. The kids laugh when I gester vaguely and say things like, "Okay, gather the...thingamajigs at the...whatever-it's-called," but they sure know exactly to do--pile their notebooks at their tables. I'm too harried to always consume energy in recalling the precise names of things. Bah!
Monday, January 22, 2007
I think I'm gonna be tired for awhile
The test seems long over...but I guess it was just last week? Gah.
You know how I have a high-level class (by which I mean that they're on grade level and they work hard), and two low-level classes? And how the low level classes are chattier?
Well, apparently that gets magnified, doubled, whatever, after the test.
Today we began our new unit. I used a great media literacy workbook to create today's introductory lesson. Here's what we did:
1. You have a message you need to get to one person. In groups, brainstorm a list of all the ways you can communicate a message to that person.
2. Share: Things like email, call, pass a note, text message, message in a bottle, etc. Many groups knew about carrier pigeons! I was very surprised. Although later I realized that Harry Potter uses that basic concept. Never mind.
3. Now you want to reach a group of people, say, between ten and one hundred people. In groups, brainstorm a list to reach that small group.
4. Share: posters, flyers, loudspeaker, etc.
5. Let's expand the number of people to up to a few thousand. New list, with group.
6. Share: blimp, local paper, billboards, etc.
7. Now, let's get that message to as many people as possible--like millions of them. Brainstorm new list with group.
8. Share: tv, newspaper, magazines, music, internet, blah.
9. Blah blah, this is mass media!
There was supposed to be a bit more, but my last two classes didn't have time to finish even that amount.
Notice that every few minutes, they had a chance to talk in groups. Notice that they STILL didn't have time to finish, because they were TALKING and making NOISE when it was time to be quiet so we could share. GAH.
I tried to tell myself that it could be so much worse. The noise that bothers me wouldn't bother most teachers. Most of the noise was coming from students who meant well, sort of; they were just calling out. But there was also noise that were boys talking to each other or just literally making noise. And there were too many kids talking. And that bugs me. And I had to keep stopping and waiting and doing the quiet signal. And then it kept being noisy. And then when I took off class points and table points, they LAUGHED. Laughed! Can you believe the nerve? Assholes!
I really wanted to make this unit fun and very group involved, so that they could get out their energy but still be able to focus, when it's time to focus.
But if they can't do that, that makes me want to take it all away. It also makes me want to put the desks in rows and eliminate the group aspect altogether.
GAH! I don't want to give up, but I don't want to put up with this for the next five months. What if it gets worse?! Ack!
You know how I have a high-level class (by which I mean that they're on grade level and they work hard), and two low-level classes? And how the low level classes are chattier?
Well, apparently that gets magnified, doubled, whatever, after the test.
Today we began our new unit. I used a great media literacy workbook to create today's introductory lesson. Here's what we did:
1. You have a message you need to get to one person. In groups, brainstorm a list of all the ways you can communicate a message to that person.
2. Share: Things like email, call, pass a note, text message, message in a bottle, etc. Many groups knew about carrier pigeons! I was very surprised. Although later I realized that Harry Potter uses that basic concept. Never mind.
3. Now you want to reach a group of people, say, between ten and one hundred people. In groups, brainstorm a list to reach that small group.
4. Share: posters, flyers, loudspeaker, etc.
5. Let's expand the number of people to up to a few thousand. New list, with group.
6. Share: blimp, local paper, billboards, etc.
7. Now, let's get that message to as many people as possible--like millions of them. Brainstorm new list with group.
8. Share: tv, newspaper, magazines, music, internet, blah.
9. Blah blah, this is mass media!
There was supposed to be a bit more, but my last two classes didn't have time to finish even that amount.
Notice that every few minutes, they had a chance to talk in groups. Notice that they STILL didn't have time to finish, because they were TALKING and making NOISE when it was time to be quiet so we could share. GAH.
I tried to tell myself that it could be so much worse. The noise that bothers me wouldn't bother most teachers. Most of the noise was coming from students who meant well, sort of; they were just calling out. But there was also noise that were boys talking to each other or just literally making noise. And there were too many kids talking. And that bugs me. And I had to keep stopping and waiting and doing the quiet signal. And then it kept being noisy. And then when I took off class points and table points, they LAUGHED. Laughed! Can you believe the nerve? Assholes!
I really wanted to make this unit fun and very group involved, so that they could get out their energy but still be able to focus, when it's time to focus.
But if they can't do that, that makes me want to take it all away. It also makes me want to put the desks in rows and eliminate the group aspect altogether.
GAH! I don't want to give up, but I don't want to put up with this for the next five months. What if it gets worse?! Ack!
Friday, January 19, 2007
What a Day...
Wow! Real snow! What a treat. And shock.
How charming! The sink unit gracefully sitting on the curb, gathering a lovely coating of snow. Ahh, New York.
There, black and white makes it much prettier.
Ooh, frozen trees!Clearly, the day started off in a lovely way. The 'teaching' day involved a crossword to practice homophones, synonyms and antonyms. The kids totally loved it. They got to work in partners, and they did very well. I heard plenty of accountable talk! ...I just hope it wasn't copying off one another.
So there was a ton of noise and craziness, especially because I changed their seats and they were restless. But I gritted my teeth and allowed it in that situation. Next week we'll get down to business.
After school, my friend and I went out for one of our occasional Margarita Fridays.. We had tasty frozen margaritas and chips and salsa, and vented our frustrations with all things school-related. It was great!
An hour and a half later, we headed back out into the evening snow. The plan was to refill the meter and grab some chocolatey dessert. Only...the car was not there.
MY CAR WAS GONE.
My CAR was TOWED.
Oh, shit.
I called 311, because I didn't know what else to do. The operator assured me with his helpful script, "I can help you with that." That involved a transfer to an automated message line, where I had to enter the state of registration and license plate, each digit requiring at least three keystrokes. Argh!
The voice confirmed that my car had indeed been towed. It gave me a phone number and the cost to retrieve my little car: $185! I called the number, like a fool hoping someone would actually answer. Ha!
My friend (who stuck around for excellent moral support) and I decided to ask the police for more information. There we got a real phone number (conveniently it had closed a mere five minutes prior) and the address of the impound lot.
So there goes my plans and energy for tomorrow's fun culture day in the city (a museum, live music, and a great bar with old and new friends).
I think this means that the teacher-blogger happy hour will be postponed. Let's put it on our calendars for next Friday or Saturday. What do you think?
Gah. I have to go line up a car service to take me to the car lot, and then sleep restlessly, worrying about things.
Happy Friday night, friends.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Moving Along
Today while the kiddies completed the last portion of the test, I completed a new set of seating charts! Go us.
Also, I got to bring some more teachers to the bookroom, and they each found a small box worth of books to take back to their rooms with them. Hurrah!
Somehow, I also found the drive to write up some great plans. Double hurrah! Next week for reading, to ease us back into the swing of things, we will do a short mini-lesson (because it's review!) on figurative language, two per day. Then they will read their books and note down the examples they find. I was thinking that the week after that, we'll practice making connections for a couple days, and then making predictions, and then, oh shoot, I forgot the rest. But I'll figure it out. :)
There's a pile great media workbooks in the bookroom. I started flipping through it and found that it had different units for each form of mass media, and included information and activities. Score! In my notes, I condensed the first two (newspapers and magazines) and fashioned those into three to four days of 'writing' workshops. That will bring us into the types of advertising for the next week, the third week we'll specifically look at race and color in the media, and the fourth week we'll be narrow it down to civil rights ads.
And my friend found some fantastic activities in a vocabulary workbook, including a big crossword that involves finding antonyms, synonyms, and homophones! Awesome. That's going to be the main activity for tomorrow, because it will be fun and will help get the kids thinking about words. We'll be jumping back into vocabulary next week, and I think I might do word games for warm ups and see how that goes.
With this RIDICULOUS testing schedule, it's kind of like having two years in one. So next week, we start anew, and we get to have fun and do projects! I'm all over that, and I think the kids will do well. Triple hurrah!
Also, I got to bring some more teachers to the bookroom, and they each found a small box worth of books to take back to their rooms with them. Hurrah!
Somehow, I also found the drive to write up some great plans. Double hurrah! Next week for reading, to ease us back into the swing of things, we will do a short mini-lesson (because it's review!) on figurative language, two per day. Then they will read their books and note down the examples they find. I was thinking that the week after that, we'll practice making connections for a couple days, and then making predictions, and then, oh shoot, I forgot the rest. But I'll figure it out. :)
There's a pile great media workbooks in the bookroom. I started flipping through it and found that it had different units for each form of mass media, and included information and activities. Score! In my notes, I condensed the first two (newspapers and magazines) and fashioned those into three to four days of 'writing' workshops. That will bring us into the types of advertising for the next week, the third week we'll specifically look at race and color in the media, and the fourth week we'll be narrow it down to civil rights ads.
And my friend found some fantastic activities in a vocabulary workbook, including a big crossword that involves finding antonyms, synonyms, and homophones! Awesome. That's going to be the main activity for tomorrow, because it will be fun and will help get the kids thinking about words. We'll be jumping back into vocabulary next week, and I think I might do word games for warm ups and see how that goes.
With this RIDICULOUS testing schedule, it's kind of like having two years in one. So next week, we start anew, and we get to have fun and do projects! I'm all over that, and I think the kids will do well. Triple hurrah!
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Countdown to REAL teaching: 2 days!
Day Two is done, so that's good. One more day!
The above isn't totally true, though. I thought I'd let my kids play educational games, but I changed my mind. Yesterday I had a bunch of homework to hand back, and I gave each kid their portfolios to look at, and evaluate their progress. I don't think it really worked like I wanted to, but at least they got to see their work and their grades.
And then thinking about the various skills in which my students are lacking, and thus the skills I will get to return to or begin working on--reading, parts of speech, sentence structure, reading, spelling, vocabulary, READING, writing in paragraphs, writing full essays, and you guessed it, reading--I didn't want to give up the class periods with my lower level classes. So today we reviewed vocabulary and homophones. It's a start. We'll continue with that type of thing on Friday.
Though we're beginning a media literacy unit (apparently using the one I drafted last year! woo!), I am excited, though nervous, about doing some real catch-up, basics work. We WILL be doing solid reading periods where the students actually read for at least 15 minutes. I'm not going to stress about lessons, per se, for that. Maybe I'll do those fluffy note type lessons ("tag the text" "put a question mark next to something you don't understand" blah blah)(and okay, I've never done those, but they're quick and some say they can aid in comprehension, or at least aid in paying attention, which is the bigger worry). But I want the kids to read.
I'm even contemplating centers. For reals this time, yo. Though, more for writing than reading. Maybe. Perhaps.
One of the most exciting things about the bookroom (I say "one" because each thing is really exciting to me, cause I'm a dork) is the discovery of a three brand new boxes of audio books, and corresponding actual books. So we have multiples of a number of classic titles like The Giver, Holes, Bud, Not Buddy, etc. We also have one class set of The Westing Game, which I may not-so-stealithy conquer for my own classroom.
Tomorrow is our grade's Book Three, and some assembly, and I'm caught up with grading for now, so maybe I'll use my time tomorrow to further develop the media stuff, and figure out how exactly to tie in some civil rights stuff, and write up some 'plans' for reading stuff. Wish me luck!
The above isn't totally true, though. I thought I'd let my kids play educational games, but I changed my mind. Yesterday I had a bunch of homework to hand back, and I gave each kid their portfolios to look at, and evaluate their progress. I don't think it really worked like I wanted to, but at least they got to see their work and their grades.
And then thinking about the various skills in which my students are lacking, and thus the skills I will get to return to or begin working on--reading, parts of speech, sentence structure, reading, spelling, vocabulary, READING, writing in paragraphs, writing full essays, and you guessed it, reading--I didn't want to give up the class periods with my lower level classes. So today we reviewed vocabulary and homophones. It's a start. We'll continue with that type of thing on Friday.
Though we're beginning a media literacy unit (apparently using the one I drafted last year! woo!), I am excited, though nervous, about doing some real catch-up, basics work. We WILL be doing solid reading periods where the students actually read for at least 15 minutes. I'm not going to stress about lessons, per se, for that. Maybe I'll do those fluffy note type lessons ("tag the text" "put a question mark next to something you don't understand" blah blah)(and okay, I've never done those, but they're quick and some say they can aid in comprehension, or at least aid in paying attention, which is the bigger worry). But I want the kids to read.
I'm even contemplating centers. For reals this time, yo. Though, more for writing than reading. Maybe. Perhaps.
One of the most exciting things about the bookroom (I say "one" because each thing is really exciting to me, cause I'm a dork) is the discovery of a three brand new boxes of audio books, and corresponding actual books. So we have multiples of a number of classic titles like The Giver, Holes, Bud, Not Buddy, etc. We also have one class set of The Westing Game, which I may not-so-stealithy conquer for my own classroom.
Tomorrow is our grade's Book Three, and some assembly, and I'm caught up with grading for now, so maybe I'll use my time tomorrow to further develop the media stuff, and figure out how exactly to tie in some civil rights stuff, and write up some 'plans' for reading stuff. Wish me luck!
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Calling All Local Teachers!
Two things:
First, I say we have a big teacher-blogger gathering this Saturday, to celebrate a)the end of the t3st, and b)making it through half the year. Maybe the Art Bar in the West Village, around 10pm Saturday. Let's all bond and imbibe alcohol!
Second, the summer travel group. I'm going to Australia as a teacher leader. My friend is going to be a leader with a group going to the UK. And they need more leaders! The obligations include group meetings once a month until June, and three weeks traveling and supervising the students (leaving sometime in July). There is no pay/salary, but there's also no cost. Email me if you're interested!
First, I say we have a big teacher-blogger gathering this Saturday, to celebrate a)the end of the t3st, and b)making it through half the year. Maybe the Art Bar in the West Village, around 10pm Saturday. Let's all bond and imbibe alcohol!
Second, the summer travel group. I'm going to Australia as a teacher leader. My friend is going to be a leader with a group going to the UK. And they need more leaders! The obligations include group meetings once a month until June, and three weeks traveling and supervising the students (leaving sometime in July). There is no pay/salary, but there's also no cost. Email me if you're interested!
Monday, January 15, 2007
Durr.
Someone's blog mentioned the alleged face-recognition site myheritage.com. I'm pretty sure I'd been there before and checked it out, but hey, it's the last night of the weekend and I'm not doing anything (thank god! woohoo!). So I uploaded a picture, a close up, one where I'm wearing glasses (because I usually am). And the 'facial recognition' first came up with Elvis Costello. There were a total of ten people that I 'looked like', eight of them men wearing glasses, including Elton John and Larry King.
Oh, brother, PLEASE! Are you kidding with this?
I uploaded another picture, without glasses, face angled off to the side. Thankfully, no MEN on the list this time. Now the number one person I look like is BEYONCE (PS, shut up, Beyonce. I will forever go TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, to forever avoid you and your repetitive 'songs'). And every other equally-unlikely person on the list (Grace Kelly and Raquel Welch!?) was also facing the same angle.
Now it's just laughable. DUH, stupid website. You suck.
Oh, brother, PLEASE! Are you kidding with this?
I uploaded another picture, without glasses, face angled off to the side. Thankfully, no MEN on the list this time. Now the number one person I look like is BEYONCE (PS, shut up, Beyonce. I will forever go TO THE RIGHT, TO THE RIGHT, to forever avoid you and your repetitive 'songs'). And every other equally-unlikely person on the list (Grace Kelly and Raquel Welch!?) was also facing the same angle.
Now it's just laughable. DUH, stupid website. You suck.
Sunday, January 14, 2007
Ha! Or should I say, ROAR.
My students totally called this! Tee hee!
Your results:
You are Hulk
Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...
Your results:
You are Hulk
| You are a wanderer with amazing strength.  |
Click here to take the "Which Superhero are you?" quiz...
Book Room Pictures!
Before
Before.AFTER:
(this looks dirty, but look, you can see large parts of the floor! MAJOR clean up)
Pretty, organized piles of titles!
Books, old and new, just waiting for new readers.
These are audio books and matching actual books. These need to be organized, but that has to wait until there's an empty shelf.
Wow!
Lovely!
So many resources!
And even more!
(this looks dirty, but look, you can see large parts of the floor! MAJOR clean up)
Pretty, organized piles of titles!
Books, old and new, just waiting for new readers.
These are audio books and matching actual books. These need to be organized, but that has to wait until there's an empty shelf.
Wow!
Lovely! 
So many resources!
And even more!This is the book closet, and this is the impressive 'after' picture. I forgot to take a before picture, but there were two old doors on the left, and piles of boxes on other boxes. You couldn't get more than three or four semi-steps into the room. I had to step on boxes and then step on that old card catalog, and turn sideways and suck in to get to the back. But now all the reading books (all brand new l!t c!rcle books! in so many boxes!) are out, and the next step (because there will always be more) will be organizing all the t3sting materials in this room (because there's a ton in the other room, and it would make a huge difference to get it out of there).
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