Day 32: For The Love of Students

A few days ago, several of my female students quietly approached me to say that one the male students was making them uncomfortable.  They said that he was "slyly" touching girls in ways that they didn't like and he would stand too close.

I'm not going to speculate on why they approached me, but I have fierce paternal instincts towards many of my female students.  I'm not sure if this is because I have daughters of my own, although my wife will tell you that I was this way before we had kids.

Hearing the concerns from these students gets my back up in ways that almost nothing else does.  I pulled the young man aside and told him what I had heard.  I said that I didn't know if it was true and I wasn't yelling at him, but he needed to be aware of where his hands were at all times.  He needed to know that his actions, rightly or wrongly, were making other students uncomfortable.

The situation has since gone further up the chain and is being dealt with on a building level, but it really made me think about my reaction.

I stop and address inappropriate behavior in the hallway. regardless of the perpetrator or the victim.  I am highly attuned to sexual and verbal harassment.  It is often hard for me to tell when students hitting each other are joking around or being serious, but I address that as well.

Early in each year, a student will use the word "faggot" and I will stop the class to address it.  I talk about the origins of the word and how it will never be used in my presence again.  I snag on racial and ethnic slurs that students use even without them knowing what the words mean.

I'm not sure why all of this gets under my skin the way it does.  I was never, to my recollection, the victim of any of this, nor were the majority of my friends.  I'd like to think that it's because I am trying to be a decent person and, in turn, teach my students some decency as well, but I know plenty of very decent people who let these things slide.

Perhaps my reaction to the current situation with my students stems from a much more selfish place.

Perhaps my own social insecurity is so strong that I cherish anyone who shows me care.  My appreciation of that shows to that person, who in turn cares more, creating a feedback loop that instills a sense of love and loyalty in me that I will defend to the death.

Could it be that I am simply a stray dog, lovingly defending the hands that pet me?

I honestly don't know and that idea makes me wildly uncomfortable.


What I will say is that this had made me realize openly something that I think I've known secretly for a long time.

I love my students.  They are my family and I want what's best for them.  Sometimes, I lose my temper and say things I don't mean or react in ways that I regret later.  Sometimes, I get frustrated that my love and care are not reciprocated and respond poorly.

But I love these kids.  I may not like all of them all of the time, but I do love them.

And I will fight for them until the ends of the Earth.

Day 31: Pot Au Feu

I've been trying to find ways to get my students to talk about use of fractions in practical terms.  My thoughts went to food and recipes.  Since I don't like to reinvent the wheel, I placed my hopes in Our Lady of Google and looked around the Church of the Interweb.

The majority of fraction activities that I found were for 4th or 6th grade.  I wanted my activity to be a bit more challenging but not so hard that they give up.

I went to the library and grabbed 10 cookbooks of various styles, purposely omitting Paula Deen's But Mom, Butter IS A Vegetable: A Healthy Cookbook For Children.

The students were asked, in their new groups of 4, to pick any recipe they wanted, and copy it to a separate page.  They then needed to double the recipe, half the recipe and then show how many of each ingredient would be needed to serve that recipe to 20 people.

I was incredibly impressed by how well the groups worked on this!  The original project that I found included a poster presentation and was for individual students.  I wanted to solidify the new groups working together and I wanted them to complete this in a single class rather than a few days.

What I found the most interesting was the choices of recipes.  The majority of the groups picked desserts, mostly with strawberries.  One group picked hamburgers.

And one group picked pot au feu.

This is a meat soup with 5 different kind of meat, including oxtail, veal knuckle and beef shin.  When finished, this dish looks like it's for a carnivore who doesn't care about the appearance of food.

I want to try it...

In the second class, the majority of the groups picked either fried chicken or desserts.

And one group picked chicken livers.

I suppose there's always one group...


In geometry, we continued talking about the Seven Bridges of Konigsberg.  We moved into the idea of networks.  They had a collection of 16 shapes with points and connected lines and were asked to determine which ones could be drawn without picking up their pencil, or going over the same line twice.

Here are 4 examples.  Which ones can be drawn without lifting your pencil from the page?  What quality do they have that lets you say yes or no?

I LOVE these puzzles.

I especially love them for this unit on conjecture and counterexample!  Students were asked to come up with conjectures about the shapes and their groups were told to try to find counterexamples that destroyed that rule.

I was very impressed with the effort they put forth and the amount of time that they were willing to spend working on this single problem.  I was, however, slightly distressed by their thought processes.  In very few cases was there any sort of method to their conjectures.  It seemed very much like shotgun blast of ideas.

As the class continued, however, several groups started to narrow their focus a bit.

I tried to stay out of the conversations except when they thought they had an a good conjecture and wanted to check it.  Even then, I only gave input by drawing a counterexample if I could and asking them to refine their conjectures.

I was VERY pleased with the work that they did.  I believe that it's activities like this one that helps them to better understand my goals for the class.

After a rough start, I feel as though I may be starting to win over more students in that class.  I have a feeling that the year is going to get better and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Day 30: How We Group

There is a ton of debate about how to effectively group students.  At the start of every year, I group students alphabetically because I don't know them.  It's the easiest way for me to learn their names and to get a basic idea of who they work well with.

For intents and purposes, this is a random grouping.  I don't put the kids together based on personality because I don't know them.  I don't put them together based on ability because I don't know it.

I don't put them together based on clothing style because...that's not a thing.

I would prefer to group them by fictional dance-gang affiliation, but the school says that has to be saved for gym class.

If you do a google image search for "sharks with human teeth" you will NOT be disappointed

After the first couple of weeks, I get a pretty good idea for who can and who can't work together, either because they don't get along, or they get along too well.

But beyond "these two should not be together" I really struggle with how to set up my groups.  Many of my colleagues advocate for random groupings and I see a real advantage to that.  I have done the groups where I pick names out of a hat, then adjust based on personality, but I don't love it.

At the suggestion of our literacy coach, whose opinion I greatly trust and judgement I deeply value, put together a list of the students based on Lexile levels.  Her suggestion was that we organize groups this way, grouping students of different, but relatively close ability together.  The theory behind this is that teacher attention, which is already spread thin, could be focused on a group of struggling students.

The group of struggling students could be given a modified assignment.

By having their ability levels be close, they would be able to work together and achieve more than if they were with a higher lever group and being left behind.

I would like to have my higher level students help out those who are struggling, but in the 8 years where I have had my own classroom, I haven't seen this happen more than a handful of times.

So I tried it this way.


I'm not completely sold, but I will say that day one of this went relatively well.  There were no cross-room conversations.  Students worked well in their groups, helping each other along.  At no point did I see one or two students spacing out while the rest did the work.  The kids worked.

So did I...

I spent the period running from group to group, clarifying questions that they had clearly discussed together beforehand.  I found myself, more than answering questions, settling disputes.

"Aren't we supposed to do it this way?"
"Tell me why you think that."

More often than not, I was able to walk away without saying anything.

Students who had been stuck in previous assignments were working well.  They were still struggling, but at least this time it was a group struggle and they didn't give up.


I know that there are many arguments against grouping by aptitude or ability and it makes me nervous to do so, but at the same time, we are expected to modify and differentiate our assignments for learners of different needs.  I don't know how to square both of these concepts.

I'll stick with these groups until they stop working, or until I see students falling behind as a result.


In geometry, there a bit of complaining about the groups, but I gave them a difficult problem and they got to work.

I miss drawing...

Their assignment: Find a way around the city, back to the start that covers all bridges only once.  If it's impossible, explain why.

I gave them 6 minutes.  At 35, they were still working VERY well.

Day 29: Group (Un)Work

I am trying to get my students to do more group work.

I began class by reviewing the homework and the work we did on square roots from last week.  I handed out a group assignment.  I had a student read the directions and outlined the expectations for the class.  I asked if there were any questions about what they were being asked to accomplish.  I said go.

24 pairs of glazed eyes stared off into space.

I walked around from group to group, asking if they needed clarification.  I asked the to run through the steps that we've been using since day 1, asking "what am I looking for?"  We had discussions about the assignment.  I answered the questions that they asked and clarified objectives.

24 pairs of glazed eyes stared off into space.


It took a solid 15 minutes to get all 7 groups working on the assignment.  For some, it was confusion about the directions.  For others it was anger at having to work with a group that they didn't like.  For the majority, it was the belief that if they sat there doing nothing, eventually, someone else in the group would pick up the slack.


This is not an assumption.  This was explicitly stated by at least 1 person in each group.

So how could I have made the assignment better?

I could reword the questions.  The assignment was about cooking and finding proper measurements based how many cookies needed to be made, how many each recipe produced and the amount of ingredients.  It was a fairly basic fraction exercise couched in practical terms.

I should have re-written it.  I should have talked about it as a story in plain language.

I rely too heavily on material that is not my own.  I know my kids and know what they are willing to do.

I fall under the delusion that it's all about the teaching.  If I teach well, the assignments will take care of themselves.  Or worse, if I teach well, the kids will be able to do any assignment.

But this is simply not the case.  I am working with them to come around the my way of thinking, but the assignments that I'm giving are not always in line with that.  This is because of my own shortcomings as an educator and a planner.

Two years ago, this is where I would type my excuses for why I don't do these things, even knowing that I need to.  I list the reasons why it was out of my control, but the reality is that it's not.  If I were willing to put the time and effort in, I could do it.

As usual, I'm the only one standing in my way.


Thankfully, I'm able to learn from period 1 and fix many of the errors by the time period 8 shows up.  We spent MUCH more time talking about fraction division and did several examples as a class.  For the most part, period 8 did much better with the calculation aspect of the assignment, but they still got tripped up by the interpretation.  What were they trying to find?  What did their answer mean once they found it? What was the question asking them?

However, after several attempts to get the groups in period 8 back on task and failing to do so, I gave them an appropriate homework assignment.  Tonight, the students in my 8th period are to write me 2 paragraphs answering the following question:

When you are off task, how would you prefer Mr. Aion to get you back on task?

I am at a loss for how to keep the few loud students from sabotaging the rest of the room, so hopefully, they can help me.

I will be making up a new seating chart tonight based on aptitude, seating students of similar ability near each other, allowing me to concentrate my effort where it is most needed.

Day 28: I Took A Breath

Yesterday was not a great day.

Today was better.

I chalk it up to a combination of spending time with my children, talking with other teachers who are immensely supportive, and spending a few hours sailing around the Caribbean waters of the 1600's as a privateer hunting down British and Spanish merchant ships for plunder.

I cannot adequately convey the therapeutic benefits of chasing a merchant vessel around Nassau and firing heavy shot cannons into their hull.

All in all, I came in this morning feeling much better.

I had a tense interaction with a student before first period even started and had to remove her from the room.  After she and I had both calmed down, she came back in of her own volition and we had a very good conversation about the lesson.  I sat with a group that, up to this point, has been the most disruptive and the least productive.  With me sitting there, they worked very well and asked good questions.

I pulled her aside later in the day to let her know how much I appreciated that she came back in and helped to make the class productive.  I need to do a better job of taking steps like that more often.  Students need to know that they are allowed to mess up and it won't make you hate them.

We've been entered the topic of square roots and I have framed it in a way that it different from what they're used to.

Traditionally, we teach students that the square root symbol asks the question "What number multiplied by itself gives us the number under the symbol?"

However, since we have been talking about fractions in terms of rectangles, I framed the discussion in a different way.

I started by asking them, since we've been talking about using blocks, to write down all of the ways that they could represent the number 6 using multiplication.  They gave me exactly what I wanted: 1x6, 2x3, 3x2, 1x6.

For each representation that they gave, I made a cluster on the board with those dimensions.  I asked them to do the same thing for 12.  I put those up too.  "What do you notice?"

"The ones with 12 are bigger because we had more blocks
"Each one is doubled, it has the same shape, but flipped on it's side. Like 1x6 has 6x1."
"They are all rectangles"

Then, I asked them to do the same thing for 16.  With all of the representations visually on the board, I asked them what they noticed.  Eventually, we got where I wanted:

"16 is the only one that can form a square."

The discussion proceeded  to talk about shaded squares and how the square of 16 (or 9 or 25) blocks was related to the number 4 (or 3 or 5).

We got around to the main idea:

The square root of a number is the length of the side of a square that has that area.  To find the square root of 9, draw a square that is made up of 9 blocks.  Each side has a length of 3, which is the square root of 9.

We did several examples of how this worked, including how to use it for the square root of fractions.

The students seemed to really grasp this and, when we spent the second half of the class working on practice, they did VERY well.

I was able to sit with different groups, helping to guide them towards success.  As I saw my students using their phones, I confiscated them, signed them up for my Remind class and gave them back.

It was really nice to have the majority of the students working well so that I could spend time with those who needed me the most.

It doesn't happen often, so I'm very pleased when it does.

It was a good day.

Day 27: The Educational Suicide Bomber

I should have called off today.

I have been feeling irritated and on a short fuse all day.  Over the past 9 years, I've gotten much better at not taking it out on my students, but it does mean that my patience is a bit shorter for nonsense.

After speaking with our instructional coach and the other teacher in charge of pre-algebra, we have changed the sequence of the course to reflect the PA Common Core Domains.  If you were to ask me what any of those things are, I will show my best impression of someone who has no idea.

What I DO know is that the other teacher went through and reorganized the course sequence based on the way that the Pennsylvania Department of Education wants us to teach it.  I am deeply grateful to him for this work, because it's not something that I would have done.

For my part, I'm going through and making packets for the students that will cover all of the material in the new sequence.

I love packets.  They are lightweight, easy to get new copies of, don't need to be returned and, if well designed, can be the only thing other than a pencil that a student needs to bring to my class.  In the past, I've added notebook paper into the packets so they serve as notebooks as well as worksheets.

My students are pretty terrible at bringing materials to class.  Since they are not allowed to carry backpacks, they often carry nothing.  This means that when they DO take notes, it's often on a piece of loose paper that is left in my room, or their next class and never seen again.  I don't assign text books for students to take home because I don't assign textbook homework and I don't want the books to go missing.

A well curated chapter packet is a great way to solve all of these problems.  I have found in the past that students will forget notebooks, textbooks, etc, but if they have a packet with all of the work for the chapter, it will be there more often than not.  I think part of this is knowing that if they lose it, they will have to do it all over again.  In addition, when students are absent from class, they know to simply work further into the packet.  They don't have to worry about having the right assignment because it's ALL the right assignment.

But much like most of the important things on my to-do list, it has gotten postponed.

As soon as it's completed, some of my stress and distress will be alleviated.

My conversations with a colleague lately have centered around what I can control and those forces that I am powerless against.  I am very clear on the extremes.  There are district policies that are out of my control and I've been doing a great job of not worrying about them.  The assignments that I use are well within my control and those are the things on which I chose to focus.

The things in the middle, however, are where she and I disagree about level of control.

There are many students whom I have not won over to my way of thinking or teaching.  My growth-mindset wishes me to add the word "yet" to the end of that sentence, but my colleague claims that there are students whom I will never reach.  Intellectually, I know this.  There will always be students who slip through the cracks, no matter how hard we try.

But isn't it my job and responsibility as an educator to never stop trying?

When I moderate #MSMathChat on Monday nights, the question often comes up of "when is it ok to cut your losses and move on?"  To be accurate, it's usually a kinder version of this.

Or, to make a second sci-fi reference in 10 seconds:

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  Or the one."

I can't answer this.  I will say that there are days when allowing a student, or a small handful of students to remain in the room destroys the learning environment for everyone else.

Today was one of those days.  Halfway through period 8/9, I just sat down.  I apologized to the students within my earshot for the substandard education that they were receiving as a direct result of my inability to convince their classmates to get with the program.

The "program" being "allowing me to teach the other 23 kids in the room."

I have made phone calls home, I have assigned them leadership roles, I have spoken to them privately.

I am out of interventions.


I am starting to feel as though the things that are out of my control are getting to be more than I can handle.

We will see what tomorrow brings.

Day 26: IMPROVE YO'SELF!

I was very disappointed with the scores on the pre-algebra quizzes yesterday.  I knew the students would be as well since they seem to know what's going on in class.  I don't want them to get discouraged and give up on the class, so I decided to let them revise.

"These tests were pretty terrible, which I find confusing since you guys clearly know what you're doing!  We've been talking about this stuff for 2 weeks now and everything you've done in class has been quote good.  So, here's my deal: show me what you know and I'll acknowledge, in grades, that you know it.  But I need you to also think about what happened on this quiz."

"Mr. Aion, can I just keep this grade?"
"Unless it's 100%, there is room for improvement. I want to see you improve."
**grumble grumble DO AMAZING WORK!**

I was very impressed by the effort in 1st period.  Students formed groups and worked together, asking good questions of each other and thinking that they were cheating by dividing up the work, but I know the truth: They were teaching each other.

MWUAHAHAH

In geometry, I lead a number talk, apparently.

I had a mild argument with a friend on Facebook about the "Common Core problems" that her son is working on and frustrated by.  I plan to write a longer post about this, but in short, the purpose of Common Core is to help students think about numbers.

All too often, the methods that we teach our students are VERY different from the ways that they think about numbers on their own.  So I asked them.

"I'm going to put a problem on the board.  If when you have a strategy for solving it mentally, I want you to put your fist to your chest.  I don't want anyone to call out the answer, but be ready to explain your strategy."

I put a series of simple problems and asked the students to explain their strategies.  I wrote their strategies on the board and asked the rest of the class if they understood.  Only 1 or 2 seemed counter-intuitive, but after explanations, they were quite clear.

We had a nice discussion about the importance of "thinking about numbers in many ways."

I was VERY impressed with the reasoning that they demonstrated and the ensuing discussion about multiple methods for problem solving versus using a "standard algorithm."

Even the students from yesterday who have expressed their desire to focus on "the way to do it" agreed that there were many multiple ways to solve problems and to think about numbers.  It wasn't a huge win, but it was a win and I'll take it.

I meant for the discussion to only be a few minutes, but when it lasted for the period, I was ok with that.