Day 84: Comeuppance

After 5 days of 2-hour delays, we got back to a normal schedule today.  Suddenly, my classes are SO LONG!!

Also, to make up for all of the prep time I've had over the past 5 days, my preps today were filled with coverages.  I can't really complain about it, but I totally will.

After the success yesterday in math 8 with the movie ticket problem, I took it a step further today.  I went onto the Verizon website and pulled up the data for a single line plan.

I know they aren't paying for their own phone plans yet, but they do spend a ton of time on them and which  cell plan to buy is a good way to look at systems of equations.

 This ended up with a fairly good discussion about data use and the importance of having enough information when you buy a product.  I actually got one of the students to say that when they went in to buy a plan, they would need to know about how much data they use each month.

We talked about finding the equations of the lines from the data and from the graph.  The next step will be to collect more data and see what we can do with it.  My 8th period asked about cars, so I think I'm going to look into price and mileage for a few cars.

The geometry class continued working on their midterm reviews while I met with students individually to discuss their chapter 4 tests.  I only got through a few kids, but the conferences went very well.  I wish I had the time to do it more often.



I slipped up today.  I got overly familiar with a student and ended up hurting her feelings.  I didn't realize that I had done so since we were all joking around, but I found out later that she was very upset.  A few other students came to tell me and I immediately pulled the girl out of class to apologize.  I think she's a remarkable young woman and I was careless with my words.

I apologized to her in person and will do so again, but I also want this to serve as a public apology in the event that she reads it.  I am so sorry and I promise to be more aware of my words in the future.

I never want to be that teacher who ruins something for a student.

Day 83: Spiralling Back

I assigned a take-home quiz to my students this weekend..  I had assigned it in class on Friday, but I realized quickly how unprepared they were to take it in a timely fashion, so I sent it home.

My 1st period has 27 students on the roster.  Of those 27, 3 were absent on Friday.  Of the 24 who received the paper, I had 2 turn it in.

Instead of yelling, I told them again about how education is not a spectator sport.

"Who in this room got better at football by watching the game last night?"
**crickets**

I can't go back.  I can't spend any more time on concepts that I've covered repeatedly.  I understand that if they didn't learn it, it means I didn't teach it, I didn't reach them, but I worry that by going back, it only solidifies that they don't need to put the effort in because I'll just do it again.

So I'm moving on.  I'm making a concerted effort to spiral back on concepts and  incorporate them into the new material.

I'm also going to try to work on spoon-feeding them less.  Today, they came in to this:

We've been talking about this problem, or this scenario, for a month or so.  Each time we have a new topic, I go back to this example and add something new.  Instead of asking them a content question, I put this information up on the board and asked them what questions THEY could come up with.

The majority of their questions were about the rules of the discount. Could they bring a friend? How many movies could they see? If they bought the card near the end of the month, would they get it cheaper?

Eventually, we got around the question that I wanted: How many movies do I have to see to be worth buying the discount?

I asked them to speculate, write it down and think about how they would figure it out.  Then we talked.

We started with a chart and when we had explored their thoughts and questions, moved on to the graph.  I wanted them to see why it made more sense to buy the card after a certain point and what that looked like.  We talked about the implications and what the lines meant as well as the what the intersection meant.

It was a good discussion and the students were more engaged than they have been.  It was hard to tell if that was because of the material, or because of what I had told them, but I'll take it.

The geometry class is starting their midterm review.  It's a 71 question packet that the high school developed.  I'm giving them a few days to work on it.  We discussed that one of my main goals is to make them into independent learners and so they needed to check with three other sources before they asked me any questions.

They broke off into groups and did a great job being on task for the whole time.  There were great discussions that I heard and I was very proud of them.


In the chaos and frustration of last week, this was a welcome breath of fresh air.  I'm not quite feeling better about what's going on here, but I'm feeling better about feeling better.

Day 82: Cheese With My Whine

Yesterday I talked about control.  I was (and still am) thinking about how to determine which things are in my control and how to divorce myself from the stress of things that are not.

Today, in math 8, I lost my control.

Instead of giving a typical quiz, I gave a group quiz.  Students could use their notes, their books and work with friends to complete problems that were more complicated than the ones we have done in class.

It did not go well.

First, the majority of the students didn't get to work right away...or at all.  It took multiple promptings before many of them even picked up a pencil.  Once they did get started, it took less than 20 seconds for students to approach me to say they had no idea how to do the problems.

I referred them to their notes, in which should be examples of similar, though simpler, problems.

Students: "I didn't understand it when we went over it."
Me: "Alright, then you need to be asking me questions at the time.  Bring me your notebook and we'll see what we can do."
S: "I didn't write down the problems."
Me: "So, if you didn't write anything down and didn't ask any questions, how did you think you were going to learn it?"
S: **shrug**

This is a VERY typical interaction with many of my students.  No matter how many times I explain that learning is an active process, they are conditioned to think that just showing up to class will be enough.

It's very frustrating to me that certain students expect me to reteach a topic to them when they made the conscious choice to work on history homework when I covered it the first time.

It puts me in mind of my own children on long car trips.  We purposely make bathroom stops along the way and ask them to try to go.  There are always those times, however, when the following conversation happens:

Me: "Do you need to pee?"
Kids: "No."
Me: "Are you sure? I think you should try."
Kids: "No. I don't have to go."
Me: "I understand, but you should try because we won't be stopping for a while."
Kids: "No."
**30 seconds after getting back on the highway**
Kids: "DAD!! I HAVE TO PEE!!!"

At that point, if I don't, or can't, stop, I'm the villain.


Sometimes, it feels as though my classroom is this situation, except instead of a bathroom break, it's knowledge and critical thinking, and instead of 2 children, it's 75.

So, what to do?

I stopped the class.  I pulled their attention back up to me and I put a VERY complicated problem up on the board.  I told them to all take out their notebooks and copy what I'm about to write.

Then we went through the problem.

We went through it slowly and thoroughly.  We did it using the scale and the equation, providing students with both mathematical and visual methods for solving.  At each step, I asked for questions and I called on random students to explain what we had just done and why.

Then they got back to work.  Honestly, I don't think it will turn out well.  I think I'm going to have to spend a significant amount of time next week reviewing these topics.  We may have to go back to specific guided notes because moving away from them is not a method that has worked.



And then I went to In-School Suspension duty.  One of my students was there, had been all day, because she skipped an assigned detention yesterday.

She had skipped it because her mom had to work and there was no one to care for her little brother after school.

And suddenly, my concerns about trying to get students to solve multi-step equations seem very petty.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I have lots of things I need to think about.

Day 81: Control

I've been thinking quite a bit recently about control.  This is a major theme of educational philosophy and it has an incredible number of facets.  Educators discuss how to get students to take control of their own education.  We discuss how (and whether) to give up our control of the classroom for the benefit of those students.  We complain about administration making us do things that we don't want to do and how it feels to be controlled in that way.

We talk about the factors of a student's life that are beyond our control, such as home/community environment, aptitudes and knowledge when they enter our rooms, social issues, poverty, racism, etc.  We have a modicum of control over these things when they come to our room, but that accounts for a VERY small portion of their lives.

So I've been thinking about control.  Specifically, one of my major goals for this year (life) is to do a better job of categorizing the things that I can control and the things that I can't.  Once I have those categories, I want to be able to let go of the latter.

This idea has infused many of my interactions with my students (and my children) this year.  A typical conversation goes something like:

Me: "Don't hit her. It's not nice to hit people."
Her: "She hit me first!"
Me: "That may be true, but you only have control over your own actions.  You are in charge of you and your actions, not her."

I'll leave it up to you to decide if this was a conversation with my 8th graders or my 5 year old.

I'm much better at dispensing sage advice than I am at following it.

In spite of what is told to us by educational policy makers, even something like students engagement is only partially in our control.  No matter how engaging you make a lesson, if a students is worrying about a sick parent or where their next meal is coming from, it's going to be much more difficult to get them involved in learning.

At the age of 12, 13 and 14, long term concerns almost always take a back seat to short term ones.  Even though I'm not a teenager, this is still true for me much of the time.

So the question that I've been asking myself is how much of my surroundings can I actually control. Some things are very clear.

Things outside of my control:

• Student home-life
• District mandates
• Class size
• Snow days/delay days

Things inside of my control:

• My attitude towards my class and teaching
• How I interact with my students
• How I interact with my coworkers

Other things are not so clear.  These are things that I clearly have SOME influence on, but I honestly don't know how much:

• How engaged my students are
• How well my lessons do
• How much work my students actually do

With these three categories in mind, what I want is to be able to know what goes where and then how to deal with it.

If something is outside of my control, I want to be able to dismiss it, or at least not stress about it.  This, I think, has been the purpose of my blog from the beginning.  I have tried very hard to not write about things that are outside of my control because it doesn't serve any useful purpose.  I want to be reflecting on my own abilities, my own interactions and my own thoughts and relationships.

Also, knowing that I have a tendency to complain, this blog has been a place where I don't allow myself that indulgence.

The real goal is to move that outwards to the rest of my life.

I know it takes practice and this blog has been the first step.

I'm worried, however, that because of the sheer volume that I write here, I'm allowing myself to say "I'm doing enough."

I'm not doing enough.  I need to focus more on the things that are within my control and letting go of the things that aren't.


If I were religious, I'm sure there would be some sort of a ...prayer...that would help me to reach ...serenity...

Day 80: 2-Hour Delay, Day 2

**Yawn**

Another 2-hour delay.  These are really a double-edged sword for me.  As a morning person, I much prefer to just get up and get right to what I need to do.  My alarm goes off and I'm in the shower, dressed and out the door in 15-20 minutes.  I get to school early to prep and get ready before the students show up.

My ideal schedule is morning loaded, getting the majority of my classes out of the way before I run out of steam around lunch.

Once I get going, I need to keep going.  Momentum is my friend.

"Watch out, learning! Here I come!"

A 2-hour delay kills much of that momentum.

I can't really sleep in because I still need to be at school at the normal time.  Then I'm ready to start my day with another 90 minutes to wait before the students get there.

In addition to this, many of the students seem to think that a 2-hour delay means a day off when they just happen to be in the building.  Reigning them back in from this misconception takes a bit of effort.  Students crave routine.  There is safety and comfort in predictability.  A disruption to that routine is hard for everyone.

The benefits, however, FAR outweigh these inconveniences.

First, classes are shorter.  Since my classes are all double period, this means on a normal day, I see my students for 90 minutes.  90 minutes every day.  Every day for 180 days.

90 minutes is REALLY hard for middle school students.  60 minutes, however, is perfect!  It allows me to do enough activities that I feel we've covered enough material while still changing things up enough to keep them interested.

Second, starting later in the day means that the kids are more alert when I ask them to perform complex tasks.  The number of times I have to say "pick your head up, please" drops dramatically when I'm not saying it at 7:45 am.

Also, my classes are generally smaller on 2-hour delay days.  It isn't particular students who stay home, but I imagine that as the parent of a kid who doesn't want to go to school, it's much easier to extend a delay than to skip let them skip a normal day.  As a result of cold temperatures, parents giving latitude, or just the inability to add 2 hours to the normal time you would leave your house, my classes are 30%-50% smaller.  Regardless of who the students are, a class of 15-20 is much more manageable than a class of 25-30.



Snow days are nice, especially when I don't have to go anywhere, but I'll take a 2-hour delay over a snow day 9 times out of 10.

They've already called one for tomorrow!

Day 79: The Visuals

Way back in September, I wrote about teaching positive and negative numbers in terms of digging and filling holes.  Since then, I've been trying to incorporate as many visual representations into my lessons as possible.

Today, we had a 2-hour delay and, again, half of the buses were either late or never showed up.  The chaos was a bit too much for me, so I kicked two kids out of homeroom to restore order.  I reiterated my expectations of classroom behavior and procedures and got back to my lesson.  After a quick group review of the topic we covered yesterday, (solving equations with addition and subtraction) I handed out sheets with balance scales and asked them to do visual representations for 4 problems of their choosing.

Several learned VERY quickly that it was better to pick something like x + 4 = -7 instead of x - 45 = -62.  It gets cumbersome to draw 62 blocks.

After I set the students up with their assignments, I sat at a desk in the middle and worked with anyone who wished to join me.  I was very impressed with the results.

In geometry, I talked about my desires to have them demonstrate their knowledge however they can.  Ideally, I'd like to give them total freedom by having the assignment be "Prove that you know the material, however you can."

But that type of assignment would make me apoplectic as a student.

Instead, I chose 2 different chapter assessments and gave them the choice.  Both will be due at the start of class tomorrow and they can use whatever resources they want.  Several students wanted to go over the guided notes, so I sat with them and helped them.  After working a proof or two, I realized that they may have been wanting a little more structure, so I dug through my treasure trove of resources and pulled out a set of Proof Blocks!

We did another proof using these and I think the students liked them.  I had them printed on card stock last year, but we didn't use them, so I had a few sets sitting around.

I forget that I don't always need a class set of every resource.  Differentiation is key to student achievement.

Some students would find the proof blocks confusing while others could really benefit from them.  Maybe at some point, I'll get my act together and organize my resources in a way that would give me easy access to them when needed.

That won't be today, but some day...

Today, I have a Global Math Department presentation to get ready and a Dresden Files book to read!

Day 78: Back To It

Over the last two weeks of break, I slept very well.  Last night I did not.

When my alarm went off this morning, my bed was the most comfortable it has ever been.

When I took my shower this morning, the hot water was as comfortable and soothing as it has ever been.

Both my bed and my shower begged me to return to them, beckoning me with promises of ever-lasting love and peace.


Then I went to work.

I got my room ready for the influx of students, got a cup of coffee and filled out a survey I've been putting off for a few weeks.

My first interaction with a student in 16 days was the following:

Me: "Good morning. Welcome back."
S: "Aw man! I was hoping you would be out today!"
Me: "Happy New Year. It's nice to see you."


My second interaction made up for it.  Two students from geometry hunted me down to give me a box of cookies.
"You said it's important to remember teachers during the holidays!"
I was deeply grateful and told them so.

I think these two events, happening no less than 60 seconds apart perfectly illustrate what it is to be a teacher.

My homeroom was small.  Several of the buses were late picking up students and one never showed at all.  In addition to being the first day back from 16 days out of routine, my class had the extra disruption of someone joining us every 5-10 minutes.  There was a fight in the hallway between first and second period.  I covered a class third period.


Today was a very difficult balance between getting kids back into the habit of learning and remembering that they are out of practice.  I spent much of the break talking with other teachers and thinking about my practice, but they have not.

It would be unrealistic for me to expect them to hit the ground running at 7:40 today.

I expected it anyway, but allowed for leeway and lack of focus.  I tried to be patient when redirecting them back to task and understanding about them not being back in school mode yet.

As the day went one, however, they clearly remembered where they were.  My 8th period was ready to learn by the time they got to me.  In general, that group seems much more ready, willing and able to take notes when given a specific format.


During my prep, I walked in on a conversation between some of my students and another teacher about white privilege.  They were already heated when I got there so I tried to calm everything by being the voice of reason.  It became quickly apparent that no one was actually listening to anyone else, so I pulled a few students aside to make them feel heard and calm them down.  I suggested that they take a break and revisit the conversation later.

I'm not sure they heeded my advice, but it was important to me that they felt heard and I accomplished that.  Many of my students are VERY passionate about social justice issues and often let that passion push them faster than they can handle.  I consider it an extension of what we are doing in class, in terms of problem solving and critical thinking, to help them channel that energy into productive ways.