Chess in B-5

Seating charts can be tough.

Strategic, like Stratego. ("Jojo needs to sit up close to see the board better, but he's really tall and his head blocks others from seeing.....hmmmm")

Little bombs hide right under your nose, like Battleship. ("I didn't know they went out last year!")

Some classes are easy--you can let the computer randomize the kids for you, or if you want, seat kids so their names amuse you. You can have a Wild West corner and put Colton M.,  B. Weston,  A. Silverthorn, and Wayne H. all in one corner, and you can have the Alex corner and stick all the Alexandras, Alexes, Alexises, Allies, Lexys all together, maybe center them around an Obiyashi for some fun cognitive dissonance. Lately I've wondered about a row of Leys--Ryley, Kyley, Lee, Bailey, Hadley, Kayley, and of course the perennial Ashley.

So. Many. Moves. Some fatal!

But every year, one class will be a chessboard of tricksy dimensions. This year one of my classes has two Queens, and it almost doesn't matter where you put them because they are so strong wherever they are placed. They are powerful in their own ways, taking down Pawns with scorn or eye rolls or mocking laughter. The same class harbors an unpredictable Knight; how he moves from day to day is anyone's guess. He can be a strong ally to the Queens. There are a few Kings in the class, young men who love learning but have limited personal power and sometimes they are vulnerable. I am lucky to have a few Bishops, really super smart self-controlled students who are fantastic and compliant. It helps to move a Bishop next to a Queen or unpredictable Knights. When I set my pieces on the little seating chart boxes that represent their chairs, I have to use quiet kids or the English learners as Pawns to "block" the chatty pieces' volubility (and hey, that sometimes helps a quiet kid come out of her shell or the English learner practice his English more).

My class is in a double horseshoe in order to facilitate students addressing each other and so everyone can see the Almighty Promethean board. But that also means it's easy for Queens to make eye contact with each other, or even with the unpredictable Knight.

The moment of truth comes, of course, during the game itself. Sometimes kids have friendships with pieces I didn't suspect would block progress, and sometimes the seating is genius. Sometimes my game is limited by Individual Education Plans that say "Preferential Seating," and that leaves some pieces anchored all year.

Anyway, I just finished the chessboard for this tricksy class.  Truth will tell. I just wish I were a better chess player. 

It's the Final Countdowwwwwn! Beach chairs, hard work, and carbonated rewards

Every September, I tell the kids that students who score 103% in my class in June are exempt from taking the final. 

Every test, I remind kids that the final is given after textbooks are turned in, AND that the final comes out of the questions on their tests; I remind them that our test correction sessions are very valuable for their future June selves. 

Every assignment, I give a bonus point to students who really did a fine job. This is how people are able to earn more than 100%.

Every June, I give a comprehensive final that covers everything from Jamestown all the way up to wherever we land; this year, it's the end of the Civil War (no assassination, no Reconstruction, no Jim Crow: where did the time go?). 

Every June, the students who have achieved that dizzying number (ok, so it's really 102.5% because I believe in rounding up) sit in lawn chairs outside the classroom, drinking the soda of their choice (which I supply), munching on snacks (which they bring), playing with their electronics, listening to music, signing yearbooks, chatting, and basically feeling care-free and special as a reward for their commitment and fine work in my class over the school year.  Mathematically speaking, even if they scored a zero on the 50 point final, they'd still have an A- in the course.  Scholastically speaking, dang.

Every year, I am delighted to celebrate their outstanding achievement with their names in my window. 

This is how it looks in my brain. The reality contains considerably more blacktop and zero grass. 

Every year, it's a pain to round up beach chairs from the teachers and search for the sodas they like (inevitably, someone wants a @#$! Cactus Cooler or a !@#$ Welch's Grape Soda--WHERE CAN I BUY JUST ONE CAN OF THESE?), but I don't really mind....it's the least I can do for the kids who've done the most. 

In Summmmmmmmer!!!

So it's summmmmer!!! I've been busy doing summer things. What might that mean?

FUN THINGS!!

RESPONSIBILITIES

   Well, there are some very fun things.
   1. Hawaii for the first time
   2. Catalina Island
   3. The beach



             Some are less fun.
             1. Blood test at Kaiser
             2. Tune up
             3. You get the idea.



    For teachers, there is always a weird tension about summer; as an educator, what's it for?

A. For taking care of all the things I neglect during the school year? (Hello, messy sock drawer.)
B. For having all the fun I was denied every Saturday for 36 Saturdays? (Hello, travel, friends, books.)
C. To relax and get recharged? (Hello, work outs, afternoon naps, evening jacuzzis.)
D. For professional development? (Hello, big ugly giant new writing unit for our school by Lucy Calkins.)

The answer should be all of the above. But that last one....

Toward May, a student monitor came into B-5 and plunked down the huge Lucy Calkins series of writing units thingy on a table. Rationale? The Boss told us it's what his boss wants us to do; not very compelling, if you ask me. We had one (optional) day of professional development about it. I (opted) out. And now The Boss has a new boss. So do I still need to read all this?

It really is big and ugly, isn't it?

I have been guilting about these units all summer. (Yes, I just coined a new word. It's all part of my summer's work.)

In June, I opened one of the four books that comprise it. "Ick, I can't read this now. It's JUNE. I'm packing for Hawaii. This is too heavy."

In July, I opened it again. "Ick, I can't read this now. I am too busy with guests and to-do lists and Harper Lee's first novel that was released second and books for three book clubs and Catalina. I'll read it later."

It's August...
I
am
running
out
of
excuses
and time.

But do I want to use my last precious days of summer reading a unit that The Boss's new boss might not even care about?

Vote now!!

Miracle Fudge, Panic, and a Really Long List

I'm enjoying this vacation, the family time, my belly full of my sister-in-law's Miracle Fudge*, and a wave of panic overtakes me--

in my mind's eye I see a dear student, Z, with his beautiful big smile and spiky hair, launching through B-5's door--and I have nothing planned for him, nothing worthy of him. So not ready!

I do some quick mental calendar work and remind myself that I still have NINE more days before I am back in the saddle. I literally have to focus on breathing properly for the next few moments.

What gives? (And of all my students, why Z?)

This is no one-time event. It happens nearly every break we have. My colleague shared she had a school nightmare the other night, you know, the one where she's unprepared....Are teachers the only ones with nightmares with this recurring theme?

I confess to looking at this list of things to do and getting freaked out:
     design a memorial program
        laundry
        return stuff to Target
       write thank yous
       grade papers
       record papers
       plan our history document-based essays--how to do this???? 
       refocus our Lord of the Flies unit--and get ready for our Big Paper
       gym
       put Christmas stuff away
       bookstore to buy books for two of the book clubs I'm in
       plan an event
       edit my pastor's book
       read for the two of the book clubs 
       have loads of fun


But everyone has to-do lists. I just need to chill out.




*Miracle Fudge. ALL wonderful chocolatey goodness, ZERO calories.**


**Oh, my imagination is really good. It's miraculous because it's so delicious.
     

How to Teach the Middle Passage

Begin with the Triangle Trade, the text, and the smart board or overhead.  In their notebooks, have kids draw the east coast of North Am and South Am, and a rough blob for England and then a really rough outline of the west coast of Europe and Africa. Have them draw arrows indicating what items (or, sadly, people) are moving where.

money, money, money...

Then show them the famous cutaway schematics of slave ships. Have them really look at the pictures. Ask what's going on and WAIT...and then accept only full answers, not blurts like "Slave ship!" or "Cross section!" Dig until you get "It shows how to maximize how many slaves you could fit on a ship." Ask why maximizing would be important to the captain. Note the awful tinny sound the word "profit" makes in the presence of these pictures.

Oh my heart.

Ask kids to draw conclusions about conditions on board. Don't move on until darkness, stuffiness, heat, overwhelming smell, seasickness, easy spread of disease, and no dignity about bodily functions come up. Squelch the "Ewwws" by discussing shame, how they would feel about the lack of dignity afforded to them. Work until the students feel compassion, not grossed-outness.

Draw attention to the fact that the people captured on these ships were losing their direction--many never having been aboard a ship or seen the ocean. And then their language. Pick up Alex Haley's Roots and explain that he was blessed to have a thread of language clues passed down, that he had heard that his great-great etc granddad, Kunta Kinte, had gone to chop wood for a drum but never came back.

so good.

Tell how Haley tracked down his ancestor all the way to the west coast of Africa. How he listened to the griots, the genealogic story tellers that memorized ancestry their whole lives. How he listened to the translator say "Kunta Kinte went to chop wood for a drum, but was lost." About how he wept. About how the tribe wept with him and welcomed him home. Cry, because you just can't help getting teary eyed when you tell this.

"When a griot dies, it is as if a library has burned down." --Alex Haley

Explain that Haley wrote a book about his ancestors using what he found out. Tell them he spent the night on a ship to connect to Kunta's ordeal on the Middle Passage. Read excerpts from Roots about Kunta's first day aboard the slave ship.

Show a six minute clip of the film "Roots," the scenes where the men are being exercised on deck, of a dead man being unchained and unceremoniously flung over the ship's side. Listen for the student who mutters, "Horrible," or perhaps "That's so harsh." Congratulate him for his word choice. Share that this part of history is soooo much more than "sad." Suggest "tragic," "unthinkable," "shameful," and so on.

How did Haley know what to write about? Pass out four excerpts from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, a memoir about his capture as an eight year old boy and his ordeal on a slave ship. Have the kids read it, underlining parts they believe the other students should know about it since everyone is only reading one-fourth of the work. Field what they've read onto a class chart. Take questions. Later, contrast this reading with one John Barbot, a man who was a captain on a slave ship. Analyze the differences. Hey look, ma, I've been doing Common Core stuff since before you were born.

I only define some key words in brackets. It's highly readable.

When the bell rings, watch as they solemnly gather their belongings and file out with their brains (and hopefully hearts) full. Quickly rewind the old VHS video exactly 6:55, get the smart board back in order, and do it three more times.

"Mommy! Mommy!"

Have a nightmare when you are little, and you wake up, run to your parents' bedroom and get some immediate comfort there. I had this year's first school dream--nightmare, really--last night, with no Mommy in sight. Glad the alarm went off, because while I was persevering in my dream, it was NO FUN. (Understatement.)

I'd been last-minute transferred to another site;

Of course no rosters;

Thrown into a classroom that wasn't kid-ready, or me-ready;

After the bell had rung.

Next door was a band room that kept the door open.

On the other side of my room was a huge room that kids could just slip into unnoticed because I had no rosters and didn't know who my kids were.

I was desperately obeying the First Rule of Middle School Teaching: "Stay calm." But there was no way I could obey The Second Rule of Middle School Teaching, "Be over prepared," because, well, last-minute transfer to a crazy room after the bell.

I suppose it could have been worse. I mean, at least I had my clothes on, right??

Elie Weisel and the Little Rock Nine: Unbelievable but True

The first time I ever taught Night by Elie Wiesel, as I scrambled for resources to do this memoir justice, I stumbled upon wonderful materials that were written by one Dr Chris Frost. Mr. Google told me he was a professor at a nearby university. I sent him an email asking if he'd mind if some precocious 8th graders used his materials as we studied the book. He said we could--and offered to come lecture the students--for free.

I was floored by the generous gift of his time (and that he was unafraid of 8th graders, as many adults seem to be). As it turned out, he was one of just 18 students to sit under Wiesel at NYU the first time Weisel taught his own book. Can you even believe it???

His presentation gave our students rare insight into Night and afforded us an opportunity to ask loads of questions. At the end, we presented him with three carnations--a white one for Elie and those who endured the Holocaust, a red one for those who, like Dr. Frost, were teaching truth, and a pink one to represent the students and their promise--he was visibly moved. He said, "I'll have to tell Elie about this today." Can you even believe it???

When asked what courses he was teaching next, he said he was teaching a summer course comparing C. S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud....in Oxford, England. It so happened that I was going to Oxford to spend a week at the C. S. Lewis conference. "We'll have to meet up," he said. "I'd love to crash a class," I said. Can you even believe it???

It turned out the last full day the students and he would be in Oxford was my first day at the event so I couldn't sit in on his lecture. But then I got my agenda for the conference and that first evening Lamb's Players Theater was presenting "Freud's Last Session," a play about....ohmigosh, an imagined meeting of Freud and Lewis. He was able to get permission to see it with his students. Can you even believe it???

So this year is the first year I am teaching Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beals, one of the Little Rock Nine who integrated Central High School in 1957. A parent of one of my kiddos forwarded a flyer informing us that Carlotta Walls LaNier, the youngest of the Nine, was to speak that very week at a local community college. And after a riveting evening of insights and stories and questions answered, I was in line to buy her book when one of my students came over to present me with a copy as a gift!! Can you even believe it???

Mrs. LaNier signed our books and agreed to a photo with us. I don't ordinarily rub shoulders with historical figures...and I want to have proof that it really happened. Because I can hardly believe it.

Here is a picture with two world changers--one of the Little Rock Nine who courageously stood up for justice and my student MRC., an incredible girl who is so gifted I can't believe I get to teach her and I can't wait to see how she impacts our future.

That moment when the high school usurps your curriculum...AGAIN

Last post was about my thrilledness (Humpty Dumpty and Shakespeare give us all permission to invent words) over my highly gifted kids getting into Lord of the Flies. I was exuberant.

(I never blogged about why this unit was a big deal. See, I'd been teaching Animal Farm and To Kill a Mockingbird to my 8th graders for four years when the high school VP emailed my principal and told him those books were now (thanks, Common Core) going to be taught in 9th grade. It was more than lame--for one, I was getting ready to launch AF in a week or so, and two, TKAM is just my favorite. For three, teaching TKAM was so awesome after teaching Elie Wiesel's Night--to teach about a man of courage just brought me joy and was a wonderful counterpoint to Night's darkness. OK, I reconciled myself to writing units for two new texts this year. I asked the VP what the upper grades were teaching and only heard from one 9th grade teacher.

Fine. I spent days creating a unit for Lord of the Flies, and boy did I get excited. Talked to a teacher friend in Texas. Stole a few ideas from a teacher in Pennsylvania. Got some ideas straight from the Creator. Man, this was gonna be waaaay better than AF, waaaaay deeper. You can see read about my excitement here and here.)

Things just kept getting better, especially when I assigned chapter 8 for reading and the kids came in all shaking their heads about the answer to the question, "Who IS 'Lord of the Flies?'" Whoo!!!

After school that day I had a couple of formers come by to visit, sophomores in Honors English at the local high school. "Guess what we're reading, Miss M?" Oh dear Lord, please, no....

I dashed off an email to my principal and the high school VP, forwarding an old email where I'd asked for what the upper grades taught. I told them I'd heard no reply. I told them SOME of what my unit contained--Hobbes, Rousseau, leadership theory, Christ figure symbology, Freud--and got the response: "My best advice is to check with the department head before you select novels."

Are. You. Serious....

If my kids could do this in 8th grade, shouldn't the 10th grade teacher tackle something tougher? Give them Plato. Or just TELL ME WHAT THE UPPER GRADES ARE DOING, AS I'D ASKED. Or ask US what WE'VE done at the lower grades!

Anyway, my principal wrote a response supporting me: "Please understand that we need to keep Lord of the Flies here at DP." I haven't heard anything back from the high school or from him. I am hoping no new news is good news, but it's been a loonnnnng time since I have been that deflated. Gonna press on this year with my plans--comparing Peter Brueghel's paintings to the novels, finding music that goes with each character (compiling the definitive LOTF soundtrack with rationales), writing fine literary analysis papers, and celebrating all of it with a luau complete with PORK (bahaha) and the "islands" creating displays of the symbols and characters chosen from the text: fire, specs, the conch, the beast, pigs, Ralph, Simon, Jack, Piggy......and when they get to high school and the high school forces them to do the same things I had them do already, it will be upon THEM to write a new unit. These kids are ready for more.

And I think I am done giving up the books that work so well with my history course. 

That Moment When the Class Finally.....

I was beginning to think it would never happen, that inner click you feel as an educator when your class corporately buys into the book you are reading. But it happened today, and what a relief.

DAY ONE: Name choosing and nametag making was fine, fun, childish, unacademic, and silly--but good team-building. 

DAY TWO: It did NOT go well. We began with a Golding bio--fine as it went, and then started the book from the Pulitzer Prize winner. But the yards of description Golding pours into the island bogged us down (my exact 10th grade reaction: "Who CARES about all this stuff?? Tell the story, already!").  Boring. Yawn. I brought out the conch--mild interest--passed it around--mild interest. Sigh. I assigned the rest of chapter one for homework. I felt defeated.

DAY THREE: I passed out leadership style readings. This was a bit more interesting. In their islands they had to connect the styles to the boys and write down where in the text their support was. I asked, "Was this activity ok?" B., who LOVES to learn, said sincerely, "This was fun!" But MR. gave me that apologetic head tilted smile that said just as loudly, "Not really." I still felt better because the groups were talking. We launched the next chapter and made lists of the boys, their traits, the symbols, and our designations of meanings. The list-making was full-class but half-hearted. I trusted that list, though. I was thrilled when the kids posted Ralph as democratic and Jack as autocratic. Small victories when things aren't going your way can feel like huge ones.

DAY FOUR: I began chapter three with a handout about characteristics of Christ figures I teacher-stole from a wonderful teacher in Pennsylvania. More interest, especially when we looked at Obi-wan Kenobe, Gandalf, and Dumbledore in that light (they weren't familiar with Cool Hand Luke). "Is Simon going to die?" asked an astute person. "Perhaps, but necessarily--do you think Simon will be crucified or resurrected?" I returned. The normally jolly N. was uncharacteristically scornful: "Number 11 on this list is dumb! No one is a carpenter!" And so we began the chapter only to find the Simon is helping Ralph build a hut. "He IS a carpenter!" someone yelled triumphantly. Things were looking up. They finished chapter 3 over break. The Christ figure trope was a revelation for them, a novelty, cool and adult.

DAY FIVE: We pretty much straight read chapter 4 as a class, adding to our list about the boys. I talked about symbols, and the kids were a bit more into the drama. My VP walked into watch. Wish I had something better than reading aloud. Nope.

DAY SIX: But then today. Ah. Half the students read about Rousseau and the other half about Hobbes. Then we had a Chalk Talk--I had prepared the classroom with ten quotes, half from R, half from H, and the students responded to the quotes and to each others' responses using dry erase markers. It was like having ten silent conversations at once! I had warned them about writing stupid things like "I like turtles," but about three boys couldn't help themselves (Hobbes would say that--and I will use that tomorrow as an example in class). When we began to review chapter four, a shift happened. I don't know what, but the kids began to see the story as a story of human nature. I let them talk. "Would the kids treat Piggy differently if he looked different?" "I think Jack punching Piggy is a sign of civilization running down." (!!) "But what about the cover on this book? Why is that giant fly near Piggy? Is he Lord of the Flies?" And off the discussion ran: who WAS Lord of the Flies?

God bless this ambiguous cover

I finally shared what any bible-reading, church-going Protestant fifty years ago would know, that The Lord of the Flies is Beelzebub, Satan. (I did this by showing Wikipedia's entry and scrolling to the verses in the bible in Matthew 12.) The kids got excited about the reference to the house divided--"The island is dividing!" And then they wondered if the Beast, or maybe Jack, was the Lord of the Flies. Someone wondered if Piggy's name was connected to the pigs on the island. "The names are significant," is all I would say until a girl jokingly asked if Ralph was going to vomit since his name is slang for vomit. "His name means 'counselor,' I said. A thrill ran through the class, I felt it. I decided to share with them the secret of names that had captivated me decades earlier.  Above the lists of the boys, the students watched as the meanings of the names were written:
Ralph - counselor
Jack - supplanter, usurper
Simon - listener
Roger - spear
Piggy

"Piggy's name is significant because it means what it says." And the class blew up--"Piggy is going to die, not Simon!" "Simon is going to save Piggy because he is the Christ figure!" "Jack is evil and must be the Lord of the Flies!" They were all* so excited and absorbed, making connections and predictions--"Roger is Jack's tool to kill Piggy, just like Jack speared the real pig!" "Jack broke Piggy's glasses, does that mean the end of intelligence?" OK, cue the bell.

Tomorrow we will look for Hobbes and Rousseau in the text and have a quiz contest among the islands groups. But I believe that when I assign chapter five as homework the kids will enjoy it. FINALLY.

*"All" is a relative term. Do 36 students ALL do anything at the same time? In a class of 36, many of whom are introverts, it is sometimes difficult to be accurate about "all." I use it here in the teacher sense of "heavy majority with 36 sets of eyes looking alert."

Launching a Novel: A Team Approach

Today was Day One....but the books weren't here yet so I needed to stall.

I already had the kids in groups of four balanced for extrovert/introvertedness and work ethic (they are all bright, so I didn't have to worry about that). On the board were posted nine teams--or ISLANDS, as I am calling them:

Conch       Fire       Pigs      Spectacles     The Beast      Ralph      Piggy      Jack     Simon

First, we had a rock/paper/scissors war to see which team chose which name. And then, in reverse order, teams select from nine different colored team name tags. And then, teams had to choose an alliterative name and design the name tag. This took all period!

(I felt a little badly, because I know how some of the teams will bond with their character--Piggy's team will be upset, but will they be more upset than Jack's team? And Jack [his real name] is on Jack's team....but....)

....This was team bonding. They were exercising decision-making and tomorrow when we discuss leadership styles and launch the book, they will not only be analyzing the characters in the novel, but the characters on their "island."

So here they are:

Cool Conches
Fergalicious Fire
Petrifying Pigs
Sassy Squid Specs
Bewildering Beasts
Reck-it Ralph
Proper Piggys
Just Jack. (with the period)
Simon Says

These tags are on a board, and there will be a place for the best team for that assignment to move to called "Who's Got the Conch?" Plus, when I was in Puerto Rico I bought a gigantical conch and it will be magical when they see it after Ralph in the book finds it. And they will enjoy David Gunnar blasting it (especially since one Sassy Squid Spec is named Gunnar) :

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKNkFMpDfXY

Don't be fooled by this dorky intro; we will be reading Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Sigmund Freud, leadership theory, and more before we end, and we will each write a serious piece of literary analysis. The culminating salon will be a luau with ROAST PORK, of course, and each Island will decorate their table appropriate to their symbol/character, and will present at the luau how their character or item highlights Golding's theme, adds to the plot, and something else I haven't yet decided.

Having the students on Islands means they have built-in discussion partners, built-in, long-haul team work, and that some days I'll only have to collect nine assignments instead of 36. I am also pitting them against each other (overtures of Jack versus Ralph, right?) for each response and that should up the quality for this highly competitive group.  My dream class would be where we could decorate the room like the island in the book as we learned details about it...

Feeding Your Teacher-Soul

Let me lay down some truth:

1) No one understands this job who hasn't done it, but they all think they understand. People will always say stupid things like, "If you complain about grading it, why did you assign it?" They will say stupid things like, "You get out at 2:30 and get all those holidays off." It helps me to remember that if Jesus forgave people for crucifying Him, I should forgive such radical, deep-seated, COLOSSAL IGNORANCE of what it takes to do this job well. Keeps the old blood pressure low.

2) If you care about your job at all, Teacher Brain happens. This is a condition that is marked by the inability to think or talk much about anything else except what happened in the classroom and what you need to get done for school. Where ever you go, you are thinking about lesson plans or challenging students. It can make you verrrrry boring because all of your sentences begin something like, "Last Thursday in period 4...." In extreme cases of Teacher Brain, you dream about school all the time.

Now teaching is the most important job besides parenting. And I love it. But the Two Truths have made me doubt what I do at times.  Look, forever being misunderstood and isolated by my career's idiosyncrasies is no way to live my one precious life.

So here are some ways I've found to feed my Teacher-Soul.

a) Unplug. Choose one night a week to go screenless. No grading allowed. No planning. If at all possible, no talking. Find the quiet. Ahhh.

b) Read a book that is NOT a professional development book. (This is my favorite!)

c) Read Angela Watson's Awakened, a book specifically written to help us teachers deal with Teacher Brain and teacher burn out. It's reallllllly sensible, and since Watson was a teacher, she KNOWS.

d) Watch teacher movies that inspire you, not demean you. Say "yes" to "The Ron Clark Story," "Stand and Deliver," "Dangerous Minds," "To Sir with Love" and the like. Buy them. Watch them when you are down. Avoid movies that trivialize the true work of educators.

e) Schedule fun. If you don't, those @#$% essays will consume you and embitter you. (Not a pretty combo.)

f) Join social media that is deliberately teacher-uplifting. I am loving Angela Watson's "Encouraging Teachers" on MugBook. Talking to other people who really DO understand what you do is a safe place to vent without boring anyone, and no one will say profoundly STUPID things.

e) If you can swing it financially, keep your precious summers free of summer school. It'll take a little while for Teacher Brain to subside, but that time will rejuvenate you and ensure that you love your job even two decades after you started. Well, that's a personal testimony. But we simply MUST step away from the classroom for our own mental well-being.

f) Exercise! But you already knew that one, right?

Teach me HOW to, Dougie....and I'm just wild about Harry

THE FIRST DAYS OF SCHOOL: For many years I have believed Harry Wong was the only one who really knew how to write so that teachers would become better at what they do. He knew without good management skills, good teaching was near impossible. When he said to NOT do a fun activity to lead the year, it was water in my face--a shock. Really? Wouldn't that make kids excited about school? But he explains himself and he is right. I have read this book sixteen (16) (XVI) times and it's probably time for me to do so again. Wong always reminds the reader of how respectable our profession is, how indispensable, how wonderful. He makes me proud of what I have chosen to do, and he helps me do it better.

At first I thought that was it. This was the one really great useful book for teachers. Oh sure, there were lots of little inspirational ones, or little helpy ones that usually didn't apply to my content or whatever. But then our site decided to delve school-wide into:

TEACH LIKE A CHAMPION: Doug Lemov succinctly explains the best techniques that the best teachers use, and he shares how to implement them.  He cares about EVIDENCE, not trends, upon PROOF, not intuition. I kind of laugh when I hear some of our staff members say, "This is all stuff I do already," because, tee hee, "No it isn't. You do SOME of the stuff, and some of the stuff you do, you do in the way that he says not to do." Not gonna lie--I thought I was a pretty good teacher until I read this book. I have a long way to go and lots of room to improve, and Lemov's eminently useful book is going to get me farther in my journey to be an awesome teacher than I could have dreamed. I also bought the field guide to accompany the book but can't speak to that since I haven't cracked it open yet. Lemov makes me eager to see how much I can grow.

The YMCA School of Swimming, German, and Feisty Sharks

Long ago when we were wee 'uns and enrolled in a Backyard Swim class, my brother told me that at the YMCA, they just threw you in the pool and let you figure out how to stay afloat. Although that's not true (is it?), my student teaching felt a bit like being thrown in the deep end after having merely READ about swimming, with a university supervisor, master teacher, and my own rising panic all screaming, "Swim better!" as I flailed about in a pool with 30 smallish but feisty sharks. Consequently, whenever I have student teachers, I've always tried to make things easier for them.

My current student teacher began the semester boldly independent, sure that he could be an amazing teacher right away, mostly by building rapport with kids, which meant talking about football. Without realizing it, he began pretty much copying my day-to-day lesson style and sometimes whole presentations, using my examples and pauses, borrowing far more from me than he imagined, because lesson planning is time consuming and he was teaching, going to school, and working ten hours a week: "I liked the test you're giving, so I'm going to use a lot of it" meant he was pretty much going to change my joke question to one about the Philadelphia Eagles. I suggested activities, had him spin them his way, let him use my homework, and let him believe that he was mostly original.

So. Student Teacher realizes his 4th period is beginning to turn on him (the worst feeling) with only two more days of school, today and next Monday. Finals are over today. "What do you have planned for Monday?" I ask.

"I don't know."

"You better think of something, because the natives are restless." With no test to dangle over young teens and as a teacher without much life experience and with not much originality, he's in deep water.

He hemmed and hawed and hung about, and said, "I wonder what I could do? I wonder what would keep them involved? Hmmmm."

Yes, he was flailing, hoping I'd rescue him. "The internet is loaded with ideas, M." Suddenly, I was working for the YMCA.

"I know! I'll teach them to count in German!" He looked at me for feedback. (Teach them to count in GERMAN?!? OK, that'll be interesting to about ten of them. But twenty sharks'll kill you just as dead as thirty. "If you were thirteen, would that interest you?" is normally what I would ask, pushing him to fix his lessons until the answer was "yes.")

"What incentive will you use? I think you are going to have to cave and buy candy."

"Yes, that's what I was planning to do." I tell him I'm glad he thought of that, because middle schoolers will do anything for a Jolly Rancher, but I think he told a fib. I hate fibs: my brain thought, "You and your German lesson are on your own. After ninety days of Lola-designed, -modified or -approved lessons, you are going to have to apply what you've learned at Backyard Swim."

I'll be in the room so there will be no blood, but fifty-five minutes feels a lot longer when you see fins.

 

Cruel to Be Kind

Last post wasn't very cheery, was it?
But it was real.

A large part of my angst was training a novice teacher. All kinds of ego and fear were in the picture, because he wanted to design his own lessons and he was going to take over two classes full of my giant thirteen year old babies.

"You do realize that teaching is three huge jobs at once--presenting, planning, and class management, any one of which can be really challenging..." I really thought it might be best to use my already designed standards-based lessons, not because I thought they were good (which I do), but because I wondered about his ability to do the other two. Truth be told, he is physically a bit awkward and his enunciation is mushy; when he shared that he'd 1) been bullied in high school 2) overcome a speech impediment and 3) had had an IEP, I believed him. Colleagues would ask me, "How's he doing?" with the small, knowing smile of one who already knows the answer; they thought he'd be lunch meat.

Here's the surprise: he generally connected well with the kids. He was able early on to think on his feet, to persevere, to press on--wow, stuff that you can't teach--impressive. Granted, he was blessed with the best behaved kids I have ever taught IN MY CAREER, and they were already trained when he took them. But their awesomeness built his confidence on the management front.  Presentation-wise, he was pretty good, sometimes even funny, and his mushy diction didn't seem to pose problems for anyone but me. His incessant football references helped him with some students (although they seemed to alienate others, truthfully).

His lessons? Hmm. That was another story. I worried about how he never. ever. wrote anything down. He shared with me that he responded well to encouragement. Uh, oh. I feel weird about high five-ing grown ups, and in the beginning I wasn't sure I should even be encouraging. I was (and remain) freaked out by the atrociousness of his spelling and grammar ("mils" for "mills," for example). I was concerned about his lack of, or over simplified reflections about how the class had gone. His class management? The typical problems of wanting to win the approval of "the cool kids," of needing them to like him, of passing over the quiet children.

Real conversation snippet: Me: "So what went well today?" Him: "It was AWESOME!"

Sigh. 

So last Friday after something bad happened because he didn't write it down, I sort of turned into the calm, icy surgeon and let the scalpel fly a bit. "You don't read much, do you? You don't like to read. [I had tons of evidence]. It shows in your lessons. You don't want to admit to the kids you don't know something,  I understand, but you can't just make things up. You can't get up there and teach something you don't know about. You need to research the time period you are teaching, dig deeper than the text--read a ton!!-- make sure what you are teaching helps them understand, look at your presentation through the eyes of a thirteen year old. You need to rehearse your lessons, anticipate what they won't get, how they'll respond, blah blah blah...." It wasn't a monologue. But it sure wasn't the "Good for you! You are trying so hard" lines that tone-deaf grandmas give their American Idol wannabe offspring.

And I thought, "He hates me and thinks I'm mean." I'm not really used to being hated, and I'm not mean.

Funny thing is, he TOTALLY brought it this week! His lessons had depth, and so did his understanding. When kids asked questions, he fielded them with soft hands himself, or he said, "Hm, I'm not sure, Miss M do you know?" and let me either field them or shrug my shoulders with him. While teaching them about Sequoya, he even googled how to say "Hello" in Cherokee* and had a mini language lesson.

I gave him a high five after class. He earned it.

And then after school I began speaking in football terms: "I would think you'd want to review your performance--don't coaches watch films of games in order to improve and anticipate, to praise and refine? When I ask you how something goes--" He smiled and interrupted, totally understanding what this elderly lady twice his age was doing, but actually and finally COMPREHENDING the urgency, the importance of what I expected him to do to improve: "You don't want to know the score, you wanted to know the big plays," he said. "No, I want to go even deeper than that: I want to know why you called those big plays, how you were able to execute them, and why you went to no-huddle when the players were obviously lost and there was no audible..." 

Anyway, that seemed to change the air, clear it, charge it. Why can people take constructive criticism from coaches but not others? Coaches can literally YELL at kids and it's no big deal, and kids get out there and work for the coaches' curt nod of approval. I would gently say, "Can you think of another way to get S. to participate?" to a grown man and he'd cross his arms and look injured and depressed.

At any rate, I am finally relaxing. He will not mess up my giant babies. He will be a better teacher over time, he is doing quite well for how early on in the semester, he is grading 40% of the papers, and I will be able to do much of my grading at school, thus freeing up my weekends. Win-win. Or as he would put it, "AWESOME!"















*oh-see-YOH

Feeling like a loser....

Why oh why do my kids bomb the Constitution test every year?

I give them a study guide. The study guide even tells them the exact essay question on the test.

My lessons teach what's on the study guide. Our notes explain the text.

The kids are involved in the Convention--they "become" a member of one of the original states and see how the compromises would affect their state.

The homework reinforces what was in the lesson that will appear on the test. They have a project wherein they actually draw the powers and checks of each branch.

I relate the past with their present with school-based analogies. For example, federalism divides power between the national govt and the states, just like school, because the front office has power like the national government and so do the classroom teachers, like states. Another example is when we have a three-legged race to show how our three branch government prevents any one branch from abusing power, the effectiveness of separation of powers. Or when we use rock paper scissors to show how each branch gets checked by the others.

I truly am not just a talking head.

Granted, the concepts are abstract and the terms are fancy: ratification, federalism, checks and balances, separation of powers. I check for understanding. In the moment, they get it.

I am turning to my colleagues for help, because I am apparently being blind to some glaring weakness or issue. I need their eyes to help me see what's going on. Or not going on.

I do expect them to look at their notes for one minute every night, and pretty much no one does. Is that me shifting the blame to them? Is it wrong for me to expect them to carry some of the intellectual weight around here? How much learning responsibility is theirs? If I don't blame them, I have to blame me. Doggone it, I work so hard it's demoralizing to accept responsibility for the results.

Fourteen kids in each of the three classes earned a grade below C level--even with a free point for the question #34: "Hey! How'd you like to earn a free point right now? A. No thanks, trying to cut back.  B. I am just randomly bubbling, hoping to work two minimum wage jobs someday. C. Why thanks Miss M--that's so awesome!"

Every year.

Ugh.

Day One, Harry Wong, and Pie

The first day of school isn't, really.

I mean, it's not a normal day of school. Colleagues who ordinarily wear polo shirts are wearing ties. Every student's binder is perfectly neat and orderly. Usually, not the least because teacher demigod Harry Wong says to, the hour is spent establishing the rules and norms of the classroom.

I try something different.

As I wrap up a truncated version of The Rules & Consequences information, I pass out slices of pumpkin pie to random students. The slices are not evenly cut--some are wide wedges; others, narrow slivers. Not everyone gets a piece. In fact, only about ten kids get any at all.

I ask them what they think is going on. The unusual event--random, unequal pie distribution on the first day of school--is enough to get the conversation going, something that can be reallllly hard at the beginning of the year.

"You gave us pie," says one genius.

 "No, I didn't. I gave SOME of you pie."

"You gave pie to the people who weren't talking."

"Nobody was talking when I gave out the pie."

"Some pieces were bigger." "We didn't all get any." "The pie is pumpkin." "I'm hungry."

"This year, we will be looking at three big ideas that drive everything that happens in US history: ideals, economy, and POWER. I gave you pie to symbolize power. In a society, power is not usually distributed equally, and sometimes not everyone gets any power at all. Is that fair?"

A strong chorus of Nos, mostly from boys who received no pie.

"Should I take away pie from kids who had it and divide it that way?" I query.

In fluent Middleschool-ese, a student points out "there wouldn't barely be nothing for no one, just a crumb." Another student, full of pie, points out that taking away his pie would make him mad, even if it was more fair that way. "So would you agree that making a society more fair could be a struggle? Maybe people don't want to share their pie--er, their power. That is what this year is about, folks--trying to build a country where more and more people get a piece of pie--preventing some people from hogging it--all sorts of power struggles."

"Couldn't you just buy more pie so we all could have some?"  It's too early for me to tell if he is wisecracking or serious. I choose to believe he is joking. "Uh oh, no pie for you, ever!" I laugh, and the class laughs with me.

Do you know it can be hard to find pumpkin pie in September? I needed a pie that was easy to slice and would maintain its shape and not schmoosh all over the tables or kids' new clothes.

We end by taking notes (some groan--work already? ha! I am establishing the norm of the class--academic and hardworking from day one, but hopefully unpredictable) on the nature of power, and the bell rings, but they wait to be dismissed by me, because, after all, I have more pie than they do: I am the Pie Master.

Houston, We Have Re-entry

My brain is set on "whirly." That is an entirely different setting than "coherent." So here are some of the thoughts whirling in my head today:

Kids arrive a week from tomorrow--PANIC: I'M NOT READY and THIS ROOM ISN'T READY.

I think I will ditch latitude and longitude this year and dive right into colonization.

Hey, no rat dookie.

NO, ant scout, you must not live. 

The custodians took my desk like I asked them to. YAY! There's room to polka! If I wanted to polka. I don't want to polka. Should I pronounce the "l" in "polka?"

Why doesn't the pricey rotating fan that I bought with my very own money rotate? It rotated in June.

PANIC: Should I switch my computer desk to the other side of the behemoth Promethean board?

Where should I put the iPad cart?

PANIC: I don't know how to use iPods in history lessons. I suck.

The custodians took my desk like I asked them to. PANIC--where can I shove stuff I don't know where to put?

I better start making copies of the syllabi before the machine breaks and the Christmas rush. PANIC: I have to make the syllabi, or find them--are they on the Mac? The PC? Aughhhhhh--

Syllabi is a funny word, and coincidentally my principal said "foci" this morning. What else sounds like that? Alibi. Lullaby. 

Lessons are more important than the room. I should work on the lessons immediately.

I can't work on the lessons--this room is unacceptably chaotic. 

How can other teachers just show up on Wednesday all calm and serene? Is it medication?

No one has been in here for July or August. So why is it so dang DIRTY? Brown dust is coated everywhere. 

Hey, class sizes of 32. Nice!

Hey, just when did "32 kids" become a good class size in my district? That is just so wrong.

No more separate GATE classes--all the kids are mixed together. Lord, help me stretch them all.

Where'd I put those Glade plug-ins? They don't make these any more. PANIC: How will I keep my 8th grade bungalow with no a/c from smelling like an 8th grade bungalow with no a/c?

OK, so in over twenty (gahhh--over twenty???) years of opening days, I have ALWAYS been ready on time. (Well I wasn't ready for the opening day when ten minutes into class E. threw up. Nothing can quite prepare you for that. Ready to stand and deliver, I mean.)

Odds are on my side.

Graphology, Television, Plato, and Paul

When I was in third grade, we had a guest speaker who was a graphologist. I was FASCINATED by the idea that you could discern someone's personality traits from their handwriting.


The guest said since we were just learning cursive, it was too soon to really analyze our own writing. But I do remember a classmate asking that since our writing showed our personalities, could CHANGING our handwriting shift our personalities--because the guest said YES. I tripped out.  (Hold that thought.)


Now I have never researched graphology (although I admit to analyzing people's handwriting all the time based on what I learned that day--high cross on your t's mean you think highly of yourself. Open loops above your a's and o's? You can't keep a secret), but this morning I wondered if there was a similar link between SES and TV viewing. 


I found a study from 2001 which analyzed viewing habits of 26,420 people in five Latin American countries, and sure enough, what they watched was influenced by their wealth and education.


Here is what the researchers found:


" Insofar as their television viewing are concerned, we observed these preferences:

• SES Level A: travel, business & finance, economy, recent Hollywood movies (on premium cable channels or pay-per-view), internationally produced drama series, politics  [TOP 10% of SES]
• SES Level B: biographies, documentaries, general interest & education, local news, sports [NEXT 20%]
• SES Level C: sports commentary, live music concerts, music videos, cooking, home decoration, entertainment, home shopping, internationally produced telenovelas [NEXT 30%]
• SES Level D: domestically produced novelas, game shows/contests, comedies, horror, cartoons. [NEXT 40%; see chart below; all brackets Haiku Education's]"

Back to the held thought: can changing one's viewing habits influence one's SES? Hmmm.

Here is the education connection. Aristotle believed that the purpose of education is "to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought." Everything Else Thrown In puts it this way:  "Plato, the teacher of Aristotle, said that a properly trained youth was one “who would see most clearly whatever was amiss in ill-made works of men or ill-grown works of nature, and with a just distaste would blame and hate the ugly even from his earliest years and would give delighted praise to beauty, receiving it into his soul and being nourished by it, so that he becomes a man gentle of heart.”    As scary and Big Brother-y as this can sound, it's true that children tend to develop tastes heavily influenced by those around them and their culture, INCLUDING their teachers. 

AND SO... I want to expose my charges to the beautiful and the true. I want them to feed on integrity and good character. I want them to ask "why?" I want the novels in my class library to help them become noble and jolly. This TV study supports my notion that mainstream TV is an enemy of their financial future; perhaps so are certain types of books. This is not a censorship argument--if a kid is into bodice-rippers, that's her business--but I want to have a shot at helping to WIDEN and perhaps shift that taste to include, perhaps, some Charlotte Bronte or Jane Austen, or Ray Bradbury for that matter. 

I guess I am just echoing what Paul wrote in  Philippians 4:8:

"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

They can't say I didn't try...

When kids finish my final, I have an optional, anonymous survey for them: I ask them to rate each technique on its effectiveness or inspirational quality, from 1  -  4, and leave a space for them to 'splain anything they want to:

1) passing around the grade sheet on Monday and then posting it

2) making you keep track of your grades in your agenda

3) if the teacher could somehow force you to use your agenda

4) assigning goal sheets asking you to set goals and write out your game plan

5) passing out tickets for random candy drawing--tickets for academic or citizenship excellence

6) rewarding good work with bonus points

7) knowing that late work is half credit

8) getting donuts when the whole class turns in hw three times

9) Stupid Teacher Plays where we act stuff out with the teacher narrating

10) our mnemonic songs

11) Stupid YOU plays where YOU invent the skits

12) having kids teach a section/topic

13) the Constitutional Powers project

14) getting a printout of your missing assignments

15) notifying parents when you are missing three assignments

16) the teacher writing a note in my agenda when I did something fabulous

17) knowing my class ranking

18) taking graphic notes (all those cartoons the teacher drew!)

19) keeping your notes in one separate, bound composition notebook

20) doing reports and projects

21) knowing that the homework will be directly helpful for doing well on the tests

22) review game: brain gambling [note: other teachers call it "Las Vegas"]

23) review game: jeopardy

24) review game: steal the bacon

25) knowing that if your grade is high enough, you can skip the final

26) earning a free hw pass for having six weeks of perfect hw turn ins

27) the study guides

28) when the teacher draws a star on the class chart with the highest class average that week

29) when what we study in history overlaps with what we are reading in English

30) getting tests signed by a parent

31) knowing your teacher believes you can do better than what you are doing

I end with this: "What else could your teacher do or try that would encourage kids to do their work, learn, or try harder?"

And then I read them. This year the big winners are #9, 1, 19, 31, and 10.  The relative losers (most were still helpful, but not comparatively) were #30, 11, 12, 3, and 4. I am sad about #4 and don't intend to stop it, but I need to figure out a way to revisit the plans and make them more immediate. The kids do write their goal percentage in their agendas so they see their goal every Monday, and #2 scored pretty high, but....sigh, there is just too much to do in 55 minutes--or there are just too many chilluns. 

It was interesting to see how many kids shot down being taught by their peers. I asked my seminerds about that, and they explained that you really learn your section, the one you are teaching or performing, but you get next to nothing from the other groups. 

Suggestions this year: 

• replace tests with more projects to "engrave the info in our minds"  (but some kids hated projects)

• use more puppets (apparently the one I have, Citizen Genet--a critic of the Proclamation of Neutrality--is a big hit and the kids asked about him all year.)

• get privacy boards to use during tests

• change seats more often

• more review games (not different ones, just do more games in general)

• during the Civil War game, give kids points for answering, not just points for their side

• use more graphic notes--they really help and they are motivating

and the "I wish" award goes to: 

• make the kids think in a positive mind frame

Total Engagement = Muy Bueno

One of seven Robert E. Lees today

Today we re-enacted Pickett's Charge.  Instead of being 700° and frying me to a crisp in our seven consecutive outdoor battles, it was cool and overcast, perfect weather to watch the Confederates get mowed down by the Federals.

As challenging as this event is to plan (ten teachers were involved, plus three high school students and one substitute), as many details as there are to remember, it is worth it when the kids are totally engaged, lost in the moment, believing they are living in 1863.