Last week I had kind of an episode. Being sick certainly contributed to the mistakes I made, but it has to be admitted that I lapsed, made a couple big mistakes and was only able to save face in my classroom because at this point in the year most of us (students and staff included) have solidified our personas in the classroom.
On Tuesday I was off grading exams, which was lucky, as I felt ill enough that I was considering canceling my last-period elective and going home early. Wednesday wasn't much better and I planned something that took longer than the minutes I had in class, so I sent the classwork home to be completed. That's usually a bad idea for two reasons: half the students won't turn it in and it starts to set a precedent that the work cannot be completed in class, which in turn leads students to simply not work in class (their excuse being that they'll finish it at home, even though, as just stated, most probably won't). That was not a good way to precede my plans for the following day, to say the least.
Thursday I walked in with a lesson that could have been pulled off if the management had been clamped down, students worked quickly and if the teacher had pushed them. I've had a good number of days like this over the course of the year (compared with maybe one last year), so I strolled into school Thursday thinking I'd pump out another one without a lot of effort and while ill. Then I completely disregarded a truth I'd learned both in the School of Ed and in the classroom last year: do NOT let students pick their groups if you want them to work efficiently or diligently. As much as teachers should be able to give students directions and expect them to be followed, giving them to the option to have a social hour with friends or completing class work has only led to one end in my classroom: a lot of loud conversations and little work, if any.
That's how brilliantly I set myself up for Thursday. While my other periods either ran themselves or were barely held together by some newly-forged alliances with students that used to give me trouble, I should have known going into sixth period (the one with the largest number of crazy maniacs) that there would be trouble. It ended in a whole lot of yelling on my part and eventually my students doing something they did all the time last year, but only once or twice this year: they stopped working entirely and stared at me. This is one of the most humiliating, humbling, and excruciating things a first year teacher goes through. It's a loss of control and students determining the pace of the class- their deciding they are going to stop working and following directions until you doing something besides yelling and cajoling them to comply with your call for order. My class even topped it off one of the things that made my stomach bottom-out last year: they laughed, nearly every one of them, at my frustration with them.
The problem achieved crystal clarity when one girl said out loud, "You let us pick the groups. What did you expect?", which was a demonstration of how the students have a way of being brutally honest in the midst of their defiance. When I heard that I agreed with it in my head, reprimanded the girl for speaking out of turn, stated that there was absolutely no excuse for the class to act the way it was and then I cranked up the pace of instruction, hoping to get the class back to moving at my pace. By the end of the period I'd convinced them to stay five minutes after the bell and assigned them a good deal more work than my other classes. I was so angry at the end of the period (and sick to boot) that when my last-period elective walked in I gave them their assignment and set them to it immediately while I fumed a bit about the previous period.
It all spoke again to the fact that there are still moments like this in the second year. While not nearly as affected by them now, they come out when I'm off my game for whatever reason. All you can do is not let it affect you, follow through with your disciplinary measures (I called about half the class to inform their parents of the students' unruly nature) and walk in better-prepared the following day. Next year I hope there will be even fewer days like this. The nice thing about this May is that I can imagine it happening, whereas last year I still couldn't believe that the second year could improve enough to make me like my job.
Today's Wine: '07 Rosso Di Sicilia- Colosi, Sicily: or so the menu said. This was another at our favorite wine bar, Cavatappo. Medium bodied, a bit smokey and phenomenal. Nero d'Avola does it to me every time.
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Showing posts with label management. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Male (Dis)Advantage
Like it or not, we all crave male attention- I’ve watched enough Law and Order and read enough of the psychology text I was given in the school of ed to know that- just as we all crave female attention, albeit for different reasons. Being a male in the urban setting will both help and hurt you. I'm sure being a female is the same, but for different reasons and ones with which I'm not as familiar given the circumstances. The bottom line, however, is that being a male teacher can either be one of your greatest downfalls or it can help you considerably with some students.
If the students in this setting sense you are weak they want nothing to do with you. This is where being a scrawny white guy can really hurt you. If you do not assert your dominance in a positive, unwavering and respectful way, if you cave to student demands and let them get the best of you; they may see you as weak and will not give you the time of day.
Last year it took until the very end of the year to gain the respect of most my students and even then I didn’t get it from a good number of them. For many of the young men I worked with they either saw me as a push-over or as someone who wasn’t strong enough to look up to. I don’t think any of them looked up to me as their major male role model, as they saw day in and day out that I could be stomped and kicked around by a pretty small group of eighth-graders. If I were them I probably wouldn’t have thought, “Jeepers, I’d like to be like that guy!” Oh my, no. I probably would have said, “Sucks for that dude,” or if I could muster some level of empathy, “That guy gets stomped by these d-bags just like me, only worse. That’s too bad.”
In short, if the students run the show, your maleness will work against you multiplicatively. There will also always be students who have a problem with all males. In many cases this goes back to the fact that the fathers of many of our students are not present in their lives or the ones who are abuse them. The authority figure at home may be a mother or grandmother, so when a male tries to assert his authority they resist and resist. These are factors outside of the school building that cannot be controlled from within it.
On the flip side of the coin, being a male can also be a very powerful thing. It seems that with boys especially, many are looking for positive male attention instead of the negative or abusive attention they receive at home. Many others are simply trying to fill a void. In many respects male teachers can take on a father-figure role in a setting like this, which brings along with it additional responsibilities. It seems worth it though and the feeling it brings is one that motivates many to come into this field. The role of surrogate parent, while limited, is a considerable one.
If you are a strong male who shows students he knows what’s up you can set yourself up to be the strong male presence many of our students cannot find anywhere else. I cannot speak to the fact as to whether I should be considered a strong male presence, but I can say that my skin is thicker than last year. My first year was a rough one- full of anger, discouragement, and even self-pity. That came out while in the trenches and the students readily picked up on it. I was not a strong male to be looked up to, but instead a fledgling teacher trying to get his footing. From what I can tell, things are improving on that front. Hopefully they continue to and I'll be able to positively impact my boys.
Today's Wine: Villa Pillo Cingalino Rosso di Toscana 2007. This was labeled as a "super Tuscan" at the wine shop. It hales from Tuscany and also bears the label "IGT" for Indicazione Geografica Tipica- some measure of quality assurance slightly below the D.O.C. that people look for in Italian wines. I didn't pick it for anything that logical. There is a wild boar wearing a suit and holding grapes on the front. That paired with the idea of a "super Tuscan" got me thinking of some kind of wine-making pig super hero and I therefore had to purchase this specific bottle. It went well with the prosciutto and pea quiche we ate.
If the students in this setting sense you are weak they want nothing to do with you. This is where being a scrawny white guy can really hurt you. If you do not assert your dominance in a positive, unwavering and respectful way, if you cave to student demands and let them get the best of you; they may see you as weak and will not give you the time of day.
Last year it took until the very end of the year to gain the respect of most my students and even then I didn’t get it from a good number of them. For many of the young men I worked with they either saw me as a push-over or as someone who wasn’t strong enough to look up to. I don’t think any of them looked up to me as their major male role model, as they saw day in and day out that I could be stomped and kicked around by a pretty small group of eighth-graders. If I were them I probably wouldn’t have thought, “Jeepers, I’d like to be like that guy!” Oh my, no. I probably would have said, “Sucks for that dude,” or if I could muster some level of empathy, “That guy gets stomped by these d-bags just like me, only worse. That’s too bad.”
In short, if the students run the show, your maleness will work against you multiplicatively. There will also always be students who have a problem with all males. In many cases this goes back to the fact that the fathers of many of our students are not present in their lives or the ones who are abuse them. The authority figure at home may be a mother or grandmother, so when a male tries to assert his authority they resist and resist. These are factors outside of the school building that cannot be controlled from within it.
On the flip side of the coin, being a male can also be a very powerful thing. It seems that with boys especially, many are looking for positive male attention instead of the negative or abusive attention they receive at home. Many others are simply trying to fill a void. In many respects male teachers can take on a father-figure role in a setting like this, which brings along with it additional responsibilities. It seems worth it though and the feeling it brings is one that motivates many to come into this field. The role of surrogate parent, while limited, is a considerable one.
If you are a strong male who shows students he knows what’s up you can set yourself up to be the strong male presence many of our students cannot find anywhere else. I cannot speak to the fact as to whether I should be considered a strong male presence, but I can say that my skin is thicker than last year. My first year was a rough one- full of anger, discouragement, and even self-pity. That came out while in the trenches and the students readily picked up on it. I was not a strong male to be looked up to, but instead a fledgling teacher trying to get his footing. From what I can tell, things are improving on that front. Hopefully they continue to and I'll be able to positively impact my boys.
Today's Wine: Villa Pillo Cingalino Rosso di Toscana 2007. This was labeled as a "super Tuscan" at the wine shop. It hales from Tuscany and also bears the label "IGT" for Indicazione Geografica Tipica- some measure of quality assurance slightly below the D.O.C. that people look for in Italian wines. I didn't pick it for anything that logical. There is a wild boar wearing a suit and holding grapes on the front. That paired with the idea of a "super Tuscan" got me thinking of some kind of wine-making pig super hero and I therefore had to purchase this specific bottle. It went well with the prosciutto and pea quiche we ate.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Fight!
Yesterday was the day. Two students went at it big time right in front of me in my classroom. The relationships I had with them and a stern voice weren't enough to ward off the fight. While I know I wasn't the cause of the conflict, the fact that it happened on my watch is rather disheartening. In spite of the improvement I've seen in my students and in my own ability to teach them, crap like this still has to go ahead and happen.
It all started when one of my students lost interest in the homework he was supposed to start to keep him occupied for the last bit of class. As dead time in general is a death sentence for management, I made it clear that every student was to be in his or her seat completing the day's lesson or beginning the homework. He wasn't into that. Instead he thought he'd walk around and lightly slap everyone's paper with a long eraser, I suppose to say "hello" or simply make sure everyone knew he was alive. Whatever it was, it was not well-received by one particular young lady, who I'm sure decided that by calling him a "faggot," everything would be set straight, put in order and we'd all get back to work. Too bad Eraser Boy felt being called a "faggot" was the gravest insult one could possibly receive.
So, in spite of the fact that I was already standing beside them, it escalated. Eraser Boy put his fist on her chin and pushed it a couple feet in one direction. "Faggot" Girl then slapped Eraser Boy in the face, causing his glasses to go flying across the room. Eraser Boy, already incredibly imbalanced in so many ways, was now backed into a corner via impaired vision and announced to the heavens that he "don't care if she's a girl," and lunged for her, the result of which was both of them hitting, slapping, punching and tossing one another around while I tried to pry them apart. I pulled Miss Slaps-A-Lot off of Eraser boy, and dragged her across the room while instructing another student to go and fetch a useful adult, and then shoved Eraser Boy out of the classroom.
Now, last year this would have been cause for celebration on the part of the other students in the classroom. Class would have been officially over and the gossip mill would have been in full swing. Half of all eighth graders would have been informed of the fight via text message within five minutes and there may very well have been another fight scheduled later that day just for kicks. The aftermath of this fight was much different, however. The students knew it was a terrible thing and there was something like embarrassment, empathy for their comrades or something that left a much more somber feeling in the room. According to one student who was a bit dazed, fights are only supposed to happen in bad teachers' classrooms. I took that as a compliment and thought perhaps the somber feeling was the result of complete surprise that the fight happened.
Advice for the First Years
If things feel like they're about to well up and explode, it's tough to say what is the best action to take. Last year a blow-out fight happened in my class after one kid was throwing highlighters across the room (not an irregular occurrence). After walking across the room to apologize, that student received a fist in the face after being misinterpreted, which led to desks flying and me pulling apart a couple of the larger students in my grade (both over-aged).
Unfortunately, fights happen in a lot of schools. Most of the time the students who actually fight are those who have a lot of other problems they're dealing with.
Today, after everything was cleared up, I was told by another teacher that when other teachers hear about this fight, it won't reflect on my management, rather than on the fact that these two students are nuts. I can't help but to think that I should have seen it coming, though, or should have more forcefully restrained Eraser Boy before things got out of hand. Perhaps both perspectives should be considered, but regardless- it sucks when things go down right in your classroom.
Chin up though. You can't stop all of the fights in the world. If a fight does occur in your class, make sure to think about the things that led up to it so you can diffuse the next one more easily. That and constantly working to improve are your best bets at keeping the fighting out of your classroom. After the fight yesterday, I'll be cracking down on anyone out of their seat without a hand raised, which is one of my classroom rules anyway.
Today's Wine: Il Poggio dei Vigneti Chianti 2004. This guy was pretty good- not too dry and not terribly fruity. It has the D.O.C.G. stamp of approval, which I've just now learned is a quality insurance label given to food and wine in Italy. It also has my stamp of approval.
It all started when one of my students lost interest in the homework he was supposed to start to keep him occupied for the last bit of class. As dead time in general is a death sentence for management, I made it clear that every student was to be in his or her seat completing the day's lesson or beginning the homework. He wasn't into that. Instead he thought he'd walk around and lightly slap everyone's paper with a long eraser, I suppose to say "hello" or simply make sure everyone knew he was alive. Whatever it was, it was not well-received by one particular young lady, who I'm sure decided that by calling him a "faggot," everything would be set straight, put in order and we'd all get back to work. Too bad Eraser Boy felt being called a "faggot" was the gravest insult one could possibly receive.
So, in spite of the fact that I was already standing beside them, it escalated. Eraser Boy put his fist on her chin and pushed it a couple feet in one direction. "Faggot" Girl then slapped Eraser Boy in the face, causing his glasses to go flying across the room. Eraser Boy, already incredibly imbalanced in so many ways, was now backed into a corner via impaired vision and announced to the heavens that he "don't care if she's a girl," and lunged for her, the result of which was both of them hitting, slapping, punching and tossing one another around while I tried to pry them apart. I pulled Miss Slaps-A-Lot off of Eraser boy, and dragged her across the room while instructing another student to go and fetch a useful adult, and then shoved Eraser Boy out of the classroom.
Now, last year this would have been cause for celebration on the part of the other students in the classroom. Class would have been officially over and the gossip mill would have been in full swing. Half of all eighth graders would have been informed of the fight via text message within five minutes and there may very well have been another fight scheduled later that day just for kicks. The aftermath of this fight was much different, however. The students knew it was a terrible thing and there was something like embarrassment, empathy for their comrades or something that left a much more somber feeling in the room. According to one student who was a bit dazed, fights are only supposed to happen in bad teachers' classrooms. I took that as a compliment and thought perhaps the somber feeling was the result of complete surprise that the fight happened.
Advice for the First Years
Unfortunately, fights happen in a lot of schools. Most of the time the students who actually fight are those who have a lot of other problems they're dealing with.
Chin up though. You can't stop all of the fights in the world. If a fight does occur in your class, make sure to think about the things that led up to it so you can diffuse the next one more easily. That and constantly working to improve are your best bets at keeping the fighting out of your classroom. After the fight yesterday, I'll be cracking down on anyone out of their seat without a hand raised, which is one of my classroom rules anyway.
Today's Wine: Il Poggio dei Vigneti Chianti 2004. This guy was pretty good- not too dry and not terribly fruity. It has the D.O.C.G. stamp of approval, which I've just now learned is a quality insurance label given to food and wine in Italy. It also has my stamp of approval.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
The Day After Break
Don't expect things to be better after break. Don't expect them to be worse. Go in expecting a lot of the same and work for something better. Your students, though they may not show it, will be relieved to see you after a week and a half away. You have also had a chance to breath away from one another for over a week. Now is not the time to revamp your entire classroom and management plan, but it may be the time to put your foot back down on the ground (or get it there for the first time) and keep it there a bit better than it was before the holidays.
The day after a break provides a unique opportunity to re-establish rules and procedures. Treat it like a fresh start in the classroom, going back over the rules like it was the first day. Concentrate on any of them that were working and if you think adding one or two will make a significant difference, make sure you keep them simple and that you can handle following through on each rule or regulation you want to cover. In the time that you've been in the classroom, it has probably become very apparent that not following through on a single thing you say is very damaging to your ability to govern your classroom. That's why it's important to keep it simple and concise.
A problem I had when people told me this last year was that I would go in to "lay down the law" and expect some kind of drastic improvement. That was always a let down. I would get frustrated after a couple days when one of my classes would go poorly and any small gain I made would go down the drain as I lost it in front of the class. Keep in mind that this is something that could help in the long term; it's not a fix-all, end-all. Regard the day after break as a starting point, not a day to fix all of the problems.
Go back over the rules you want to keep. Don't bring up any that you're going to let go. If you didn't have a sign with the rules up in the classroom, it might be the time to get one. The advantage you can use after coming back from break is just that: an advantage. Don't expect a fresh coat of paint on your management plan to fix all of the problems. Make sure the plan has your solid, core rules and make sure you stick to them better than you did before break. While all your problems won't go away, if you lay out the rules again and stick to them invariably, the students may give you a little back.
Today's Wine: Evodia Garnacha 2008. It took a little time to figure out what the grape on this was. It's from Spain, not too expensive and easy to drink.
The day after a break provides a unique opportunity to re-establish rules and procedures. Treat it like a fresh start in the classroom, going back over the rules like it was the first day. Concentrate on any of them that were working and if you think adding one or two will make a significant difference, make sure you keep them simple and that you can handle following through on each rule or regulation you want to cover. In the time that you've been in the classroom, it has probably become very apparent that not following through on a single thing you say is very damaging to your ability to govern your classroom. That's why it's important to keep it simple and concise.
A problem I had when people told me this last year was that I would go in to "lay down the law" and expect some kind of drastic improvement. That was always a let down. I would get frustrated after a couple days when one of my classes would go poorly and any small gain I made would go down the drain as I lost it in front of the class. Keep in mind that this is something that could help in the long term; it's not a fix-all, end-all. Regard the day after break as a starting point, not a day to fix all of the problems.
Go back over the rules you want to keep. Don't bring up any that you're going to let go. If you didn't have a sign with the rules up in the classroom, it might be the time to get one. The advantage you can use after coming back from break is just that: an advantage. Don't expect a fresh coat of paint on your management plan to fix all of the problems. Make sure the plan has your solid, core rules and make sure you stick to them better than you did before break. While all your problems won't go away, if you lay out the rules again and stick to them invariably, the students may give you a little back.
Today's Wine: Evodia Garnacha 2008. It took a little time to figure out what the grape on this was. It's from Spain, not too expensive and easy to drink.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Low Attendance Days
Attendance is a major issue for many of our students. It's the major issue with our school's progress and it oftentimes leaves our administration and staff scratching our heads about how to increase our numbers. Right now we're averaging about eighty-five percent as a school, although the high school averages in the seventies while the middle school averages a bit higher (our seventh graders in particular never miss school, which makes me very excited about teaching them next year). The numbers are averages, so of course there are good attendance days and bad attendance days. The numbers also drive us to plan around them, which is both smart and dangerous.
Last year I did not anticipate one of the the lower-end outliers: Halloween. It was really poor planning on my part, but my lack of experience and inability to accept the fact that students oftentimes don't do what they're supposed to do led to a major project almost falling flat in front of my administration.
On Halloween (a Friday) I planned a work day during which the students were to complete speeches for a rally the following Monday. They were writing speeches about the presidential race, either supporting Obama or McCain (I did actually have one student write one supporting McCain, though it was a bit sarcastic). It had begun to dawn on me that Friday's had lower attendance rates, but last year on Halloween the attendance in the eighth grade bottomed out at around twenty-five percent. When that happens the motivation of the students who do come to school plummets and the amount of work that is completed is abysmal. Come the following Monday, I had to give students the first half of the period to finish speeches before they were given. Smiling nervously at the administrators who had come to watch, wondering if the whole thing was going to fall apart, the students who I hand-picked to give speeches actually did fairly well.
The day before Winter Break this year showed something interesting about which students tend to show up on days before a break. Because our classes are highly tracked we have been able to see the dramatic differences between low and high achievers at our school. The turnout on Wednesday was as we expected, but was not perhaps what people off the front lines expect: the high-end students and the low-end students show up; the students in the middle do not.
The reasons for this are numerous, but if you simplify it completely: high-end students come because they are motivated to succeed, the low-end students come because they oftentimes have no where else to go and they want to be in a warm, familiar place before they head into a break that will be less than spectacular. The middle of the road students, on the other hand, have neither of these incentives working for them. They know that the day before break most teachers aren't going to plan anything major and there is the assumption that other students will be absent, so they can be as well. They may also simply want to extend their break by a day.
Fridays in general mean a sharp decline in attendance. Students look for that three-day weekend, some feeling that they've done enough work by showing up at least three days of the week (perhaps they even followed directions!). While we should try to boost attendance on Fridays and other low-attendance days, we also need to plan for the fact that many students will not be present. On one end of the spectrum, the day before break this year saw our high school teachers taking their students to the movies, which meant half their students stayed home and the other half were doing nothing academic. Our ninth grade science teacher complained that the teachers allowed the students to dictate what was going to happen that day, as the teachers made the assumption that absolutely nothing academic could be done on that (whether that was true or not is debatable). The other end was what I did in my classroom, which was a huge gamble, though less of one because I teach middle school and not high school.
I did plan something academic this year before break. I've done my best to push the students academically and somehow, with an hour left before ten days of break, my high-tracked class (which had been reamed out all day for goofing around), buckled down and for the most part finished five-paragraph essays about working conditions in the early 1900s and what the government and individuals did to improve those conditions. While I got a number of pretty awesome presents for Christmas this year, that one trumped them easily. I'm still trying to figure out what happened, but I'm happy as a lark about it.
As a first year teacher something that happens a lot is that students dictate the tempo of instruction. I struggled so much last year with this, thinking that "students aren't going to do s*** anyway, so why plan for it?" This is dangerous. On low-attendance days allowing students to dictate what is going to happen empowers them to take control on other days. Of course there is a balance to be had- planning huge assessments or assignments for low attendance days is also not the answer (it'll be like pulling teeth to get my students who were absent for that essay to actually complete it), but if you expect that the students will not produce anything that day, they won't- and many of them won't even show up.
Today's Wine: Louis Martini Cabernet and a cheap house wine at a bar. These were had at a local establishment out in semi-small town USA. The cheap something may have been the strangest red wine I've ever had. It was bad, to be sure, but it tasted as if they'd left the grapes out. It wasn't light-bodied, it had no body. The waitress was very gracious, taking it back and asking what "flavor" we'd like to try instead. I've written about Louis Martini before and knew it would be just fine, so I chose that flavor.
Last year I did not anticipate one of the the lower-end outliers: Halloween. It was really poor planning on my part, but my lack of experience and inability to accept the fact that students oftentimes don't do what they're supposed to do led to a major project almost falling flat in front of my administration.
On Halloween (a Friday) I planned a work day during which the students were to complete speeches for a rally the following Monday. They were writing speeches about the presidential race, either supporting Obama or McCain (I did actually have one student write one supporting McCain, though it was a bit sarcastic). It had begun to dawn on me that Friday's had lower attendance rates, but last year on Halloween the attendance in the eighth grade bottomed out at around twenty-five percent. When that happens the motivation of the students who do come to school plummets and the amount of work that is completed is abysmal. Come the following Monday, I had to give students the first half of the period to finish speeches before they were given. Smiling nervously at the administrators who had come to watch, wondering if the whole thing was going to fall apart, the students who I hand-picked to give speeches actually did fairly well.
The day before Winter Break this year showed something interesting about which students tend to show up on days before a break. Because our classes are highly tracked we have been able to see the dramatic differences between low and high achievers at our school. The turnout on Wednesday was as we expected, but was not perhaps what people off the front lines expect: the high-end students and the low-end students show up; the students in the middle do not.
The reasons for this are numerous, but if you simplify it completely: high-end students come because they are motivated to succeed, the low-end students come because they oftentimes have no where else to go and they want to be in a warm, familiar place before they head into a break that will be less than spectacular. The middle of the road students, on the other hand, have neither of these incentives working for them. They know that the day before break most teachers aren't going to plan anything major and there is the assumption that other students will be absent, so they can be as well. They may also simply want to extend their break by a day.
Fridays in general mean a sharp decline in attendance. Students look for that three-day weekend, some feeling that they've done enough work by showing up at least three days of the week (perhaps they even followed directions!). While we should try to boost attendance on Fridays and other low-attendance days, we also need to plan for the fact that many students will not be present. On one end of the spectrum, the day before break this year saw our high school teachers taking their students to the movies, which meant half their students stayed home and the other half were doing nothing academic. Our ninth grade science teacher complained that the teachers allowed the students to dictate what was going to happen that day, as the teachers made the assumption that absolutely nothing academic could be done on that (whether that was true or not is debatable). The other end was what I did in my classroom, which was a huge gamble, though less of one because I teach middle school and not high school.
I did plan something academic this year before break. I've done my best to push the students academically and somehow, with an hour left before ten days of break, my high-tracked class (which had been reamed out all day for goofing around), buckled down and for the most part finished five-paragraph essays about working conditions in the early 1900s and what the government and individuals did to improve those conditions. While I got a number of pretty awesome presents for Christmas this year, that one trumped them easily. I'm still trying to figure out what happened, but I'm happy as a lark about it.
As a first year teacher something that happens a lot is that students dictate the tempo of instruction. I struggled so much last year with this, thinking that "students aren't going to do s*** anyway, so why plan for it?" This is dangerous. On low-attendance days allowing students to dictate what is going to happen empowers them to take control on other days. Of course there is a balance to be had- planning huge assessments or assignments for low attendance days is also not the answer (it'll be like pulling teeth to get my students who were absent for that essay to actually complete it), but if you expect that the students will not produce anything that day, they won't- and many of them won't even show up.
Today's Wine: Louis Martini Cabernet and a cheap house wine at a bar. These were had at a local establishment out in semi-small town USA. The cheap something may have been the strangest red wine I've ever had. It was bad, to be sure, but it tasted as if they'd left the grapes out. It wasn't light-bodied, it had no body. The waitress was very gracious, taking it back and asking what "flavor" we'd like to try instead. I've written about Louis Martini before and knew it would be just fine, so I chose that flavor.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Holiday Parties
When I started writing this post it was my intention to tell you to take no part in holiday parties for students. This was because the thought of mine last year makes my stomach churn a bit. I was very, very frustrated after a day we tried to give the students who came to school a bit of a break but during which we were handed loads of discipline problems and headaches. What changed was my giving a draft of the post to a fellow teacher in my school who told me how her holiday party went last year.
These are some of the things she said:
In order to have a successful party, or even easy day, you have to have the time be particularly structured. If the students have a positive community and respect for their teacher, celebrations can worthwhile and fun.
We fell down right there last year. We didn't have a structure to the activities we did, only the day itself. Just like the classroom has to be structured, celebration time needs to be as well. My classroom (and two of my teammates') were also not as a rule positive communities where respect for the teacher was to be found.
Students have to see the value in what they're doing. Watching a movie for the sake of watching a movie is transparent, while watching a movie after you've read a book is desirable. The kids know what to expect and have been likely looking forward to watching the movie ever since the reading of the book began.
We showed a movie last year, but we showed it just to show it. That meant "do whatever we please time" to most of the students, which ended in half the students present being kicked out of a movie room for the rest of the day into a detention room that was monitored in shifts, which was less than entertaining for the teachers doing the monitoring.
Holidays are a little different, but I even had a nice holiday party last year. I sugar-coated it as a "Publishing Party" and it seemed scholastically oriented and viable. Since there was a structure to the day, there was a structure to the party and things went off without a hitch.
We tried to teach some small lessons in the morning and show a movie in the afternoon, but even the class schedule was completely different than what the students were used to. By the time the movie rolled around in the afternoon they would have been a little nuts on a regular day, to say nothing of the day before winter break.
You have to have student buy-in. You have to put them in charge sometimes so that they feel what they are doing is meaningful. Have a plate passer-outer and juice-pourer and a napkin-giver. All of a sudden you have an entire classroom working for the party! And THAT is what having a successful party is all about.
Last year I ran around like the waiter I used to be brewing hot chocolate for students, popping popcorn and handing both to the students in the movie room. At this point in the year my trust in the students had been so shattered by their lack of participation and terrible behavior in class that I flat rejected offers to help with handing these things out- probably not smart.
This year I am planning no holiday party. The teachers on my team (two of four of which are new to the school/team) and I are all having some kind of culminating project in each of our classes (mine was today- a rally for modern progressive issues topped off with a few bags of chips), but we aren't going to try to have a grade-wide celebration.
If you're still struggling with management and getting a handle on your class, plan something that's educational, but not incredibly difficult. Stick to all daily routines you have in place. Last year two days before the botched holiday bash I brought in for each of my students two of my favorite cookie and one of those small candy canes wrapped in a gift bag with ribbon. Unlike most of the other things I'd handed out last fall, these were not based on merit or performance or behavior, which meant everyone got one. I can't tell for sure, but the gesture may have been something of a turning point in the relationship I had with those kids. Whatever did it, things started to get better after break.
Today's Wine: Misterio Malbec 2006. This made for smooth drinking and, as is usual with Malbecs (for me), a nice bottle for the table.
These are some of the things she said:
In order to have a successful party, or even easy day, you have to have the time be particularly structured. If the students have a positive community and respect for their teacher, celebrations can worthwhile and fun.
We fell down right there last year. We didn't have a structure to the activities we did, only the day itself. Just like the classroom has to be structured, celebration time needs to be as well. My classroom (and two of my teammates') were also not as a rule positive communities where respect for the teacher was to be found.
Students have to see the value in what they're doing. Watching a movie for the sake of watching a movie is transparent, while watching a movie after you've read a book is desirable. The kids know what to expect and have been likely looking forward to watching the movie ever since the reading of the book began.
We showed a movie last year, but we showed it just to show it. That meant "do whatever we please time" to most of the students, which ended in half the students present being kicked out of a movie room for the rest of the day into a detention room that was monitored in shifts, which was less than entertaining for the teachers doing the monitoring.
Holidays are a little different, but I even had a nice holiday party last year. I sugar-coated it as a "Publishing Party" and it seemed scholastically oriented and viable. Since there was a structure to the day, there was a structure to the party and things went off without a hitch.
We tried to teach some small lessons in the morning and show a movie in the afternoon, but even the class schedule was completely different than what the students were used to. By the time the movie rolled around in the afternoon they would have been a little nuts on a regular day, to say nothing of the day before winter break.
You have to have student buy-in. You have to put them in charge sometimes so that they feel what they are doing is meaningful. Have a plate passer-outer and juice-pourer and a napkin-giver. All of a sudden you have an entire classroom working for the party! And THAT is what having a successful party is all about.
Last year I ran around like the waiter I used to be brewing hot chocolate for students, popping popcorn and handing both to the students in the movie room. At this point in the year my trust in the students had been so shattered by their lack of participation and terrible behavior in class that I flat rejected offers to help with handing these things out- probably not smart.
This year I am planning no holiday party. The teachers on my team (two of four of which are new to the school/team) and I are all having some kind of culminating project in each of our classes (mine was today- a rally for modern progressive issues topped off with a few bags of chips), but we aren't going to try to have a grade-wide celebration.
If you're still struggling with management and getting a handle on your class, plan something that's educational, but not incredibly difficult. Stick to all daily routines you have in place. Last year two days before the botched holiday bash I brought in for each of my students two of my favorite cookie and one of those small candy canes wrapped in a gift bag with ribbon. Unlike most of the other things I'd handed out last fall, these were not based on merit or performance or behavior, which meant everyone got one. I can't tell for sure, but the gesture may have been something of a turning point in the relationship I had with those kids. Whatever did it, things started to get better after break.
Today's Wine: Misterio Malbec 2006. This made for smooth drinking and, as is usual with Malbecs (for me), a nice bottle for the table.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Coverages
Last year I was asked to step in and cover a class for a teacher who was inexplicably absent. The students had been "my students" for months and while I wanted to believe that they would listen to me better than they would listen to a substitute, they didn't seem to want to go along with that fantasy.
When I walked into that room and could not get the attention of the class, I asked why they wouldn't get quiet and they responded with, "You're not our teacher for this class. You're a substitute." From there on all bets were off. I walked into that class hoping only for some semblance of order and as little headache as possible. I was given no lesson plan, had no computer and no resources other than what I could scrape together in the room. My grand plan was to look to the classroom library, hand out books and ask the students to read (which really pissed off the absent teacher when she got back, as she'd spent some time working on that library). Their grand plan turned out to be something totally different, although it did involve books from the classroom library. My version involved books in their hands, while their version involved books on the floor.
Today I had my first coverage of the year. Like last year, I taught the class the period before and then followed them to the next class. Like last year I started with a joke along the lines of "You guys are SO lucky that you get ME for two periods in a row!" This class is the class that had been tearing apart our math teacher. This class has been the root of rumors and the butt of numerous jokes. Walking into the room I was less than thrilled to be holding a one-paragraph lesson plan with seventy minutes between us and lunch (during which I'd be running lunch detention).
What happened next was miraculous and surreal. I read the email to the students, gave them some paper out of a closet in the classroom and told them to get to work. It took them about ten or fifteen minutes, but the students got to work quietly. This was probably due to a lot of factors that I'll spare myself the task of writing about, but the point is that with a very similar population it was night and day from last year. Last year the students hardly considered me their teacher outside of my own classroom and the period they had me. This year, even though this particular group doesn't care too much for me, they recognized the fact that I was in charge in the room. That's very encouraging for when I have them in my own classroom from this point forward.
It's also pretty nice to identify another thing that's gotten much better since last year.
Today's Wine: SIPranillo Tempranillo 2006 (Spanish). While I generally like drier wines, this one was really well-balanced and went incredibly well on the table with some cheese and prosciutto. It's full-bodied, but was pretty soft on the palate.
When I walked into that room and could not get the attention of the class, I asked why they wouldn't get quiet and they responded with, "You're not our teacher for this class. You're a substitute." From there on all bets were off. I walked into that class hoping only for some semblance of order and as little headache as possible. I was given no lesson plan, had no computer and no resources other than what I could scrape together in the room. My grand plan was to look to the classroom library, hand out books and ask the students to read (which really pissed off the absent teacher when she got back, as she'd spent some time working on that library). Their grand plan turned out to be something totally different, although it did involve books from the classroom library. My version involved books in their hands, while their version involved books on the floor.
Today I had my first coverage of the year. Like last year, I taught the class the period before and then followed them to the next class. Like last year I started with a joke along the lines of "You guys are SO lucky that you get ME for two periods in a row!" This class is the class that had been tearing apart our math teacher. This class has been the root of rumors and the butt of numerous jokes. Walking into the room I was less than thrilled to be holding a one-paragraph lesson plan with seventy minutes between us and lunch (during which I'd be running lunch detention).
What happened next was miraculous and surreal. I read the email to the students, gave them some paper out of a closet in the classroom and told them to get to work. It took them about ten or fifteen minutes, but the students got to work quietly. This was probably due to a lot of factors that I'll spare myself the task of writing about, but the point is that with a very similar population it was night and day from last year. Last year the students hardly considered me their teacher outside of my own classroom and the period they had me. This year, even though this particular group doesn't care too much for me, they recognized the fact that I was in charge in the room. That's very encouraging for when I have them in my own classroom from this point forward.
It's also pretty nice to identify another thing that's gotten much better since last year.
Today's Wine: SIPranillo Tempranillo 2006 (Spanish). While I generally like drier wines, this one was really well-balanced and went incredibly well on the table with some cheese and prosciutto. It's full-bodied, but was pretty soft on the palate.
Saturday, November 28, 2009
Pinch Lesson Plan
This past week I changed two lessons on the fly in class. The lessons I planned were not well-designed for the class in which I implemented them, which left me with the choices of drowning for forty minutes or taking a drastically different route than what I'd mapped out. It went as well as could be expected- no mutiny in the classroom, although a couple students tried.
Monday I planned a lesson to engage students in the vocabulary that they need to know for the unit that will unfold over the next month. We did an activity that helped them to review the definitions, and then were going to play charades to help them visualize the definitions and hit hard on kinesthetic learning. My first period class has been my most troublesome this year and at the point in the lesson when I was trying to explain how to play charades they wouldn't even get quiet. At that point it became deafeningly apparent that getting the students up in front of the group to act out words like "suffrage" or "labor unions" was going to be tough. Trying to talk in front of a group who isn't listening at all whatsoever is incredibly difficult. That task becomes infinitely worse when it's in front of a group of peers, of course, and I knew from a similar incident last year that if I asked students to come do anything academic in front of a crowd of their jeering friends, I'd have a classroom of eighth graders refusing to follow directions and shutting down my lesson, thereby shutting down my authority in the classroom. That incident last year resulting in an entire class refusing to come up to present because the rest of the class was talking to much and being rowdy.
It was at that point on Monday when even I couldn't get the group to listen that I switched gears and picked up the speed of the lesson. Instead of charades I told the students to turn the vocabulary handout over, make four boxes and then pick four words we covered. The students then created a graphic representation of the word (they drew stick figures), wrote the definition in their own words, and used the word in a sentence. The incredible thing was for one of the first times this year the class got quiet and nearly every student completed the assignment as directed. What is more is that I don't think they noticed that the lesson had changed at all.
T I was going to show a film (Iron-Jawed Angels) to help illustrate what the women's rights movement was all about in the 1800s and early 1900s. My first period class already lost movie privileges because they couldn't handle watching a film with some mild violence without laughing hysterically at very serious content. This time during my last period class the students would not get quiet to discuss the things we needed to in order to prepare for the movie. The general feeling in the room was far more talkative and rebellious than usual, so I told them if they were not quiet in fifteen seconds that we would scrap the movie and do another assignment, as I couldn't have students talking through the movie. They didn't and I couldn't balk.
I didn't say anything at the end of the fifteen seconds. I just started counting how many students were present with my fingers- something that actually got the students curious and quiet. I walked to the bookcase, stacked enough books for partners to share at the front of each row, told them to pass them back and as they did I flipped through the book hoping to god there was something I could do with women's suffrage. Luckily there was (if there hadn't been, I would have used a different activity from the unit), and I gave the direction to open the books to that page and complete an assignment distinguishing fact from opinion using a suffragette article. Done. They all completed it and one student even asked near the end of the period if that was the assignment I'd planned for them, which got some snide remarks out of other students. At least they were aware that they'd misbehaved and a privilege had been taken away.
Last year I was so terrified to switch things up mid-lesson and so bad at it that I very rarely tried it. Those times that I did it was so apparent that I was very irate that the students took the switch personally and didn't do anything, which meant a long period of floundering and a classroom full of students defying adult authority. That of course leads to a lot of issues down the road, which in turn made the situation even more stressful. Of course the goal is to not have to switch things up mid-lesson, but sometimes you realize that the students are simply not going to get anything out of the lesson for whatever reason. Try to be cool-headed about the switch, pick an activity that is ridiculously straight-forward (the text can be a decent option), and don't back down. If it isn't necessary don't immediately point out that they are being terrible and you are switching things up, just switch and try to get them working. If possible, to the end of the period you can have the conversation about what you wanted to do, why you couldn't do it and how to move forward from the incident.
If this happens remember that the breakdown is most likely due to their behavior, not an unsound lesson. Whether your management is an issue or not, the point is that if it's blindingly apparent that the students aren't really going to do the lesson and if they aren't going to follow directions, you need to give them something that they will do, regardless of how it compares to your original lesson in terms of educational value.
Today's Wine: Il Borgo Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2008- pretty good red. It had some kind of a strange earthy feel when I drank it. It might have been what I was eating or something, but it was different from what I normally drink.
Monday I planned a lesson to engage students in the vocabulary that they need to know for the unit that will unfold over the next month. We did an activity that helped them to review the definitions, and then were going to play charades to help them visualize the definitions and hit hard on kinesthetic learning. My first period class has been my most troublesome this year and at the point in the lesson when I was trying to explain how to play charades they wouldn't even get quiet. At that point it became deafeningly apparent that getting the students up in front of the group to act out words like "suffrage" or "labor unions" was going to be tough. Trying to talk in front of a group who isn't listening at all whatsoever is incredibly difficult. That task becomes infinitely worse when it's in front of a group of peers, of course, and I knew from a similar incident last year that if I asked students to come do anything academic in front of a crowd of their jeering friends, I'd have a classroom of eighth graders refusing to follow directions and shutting down my lesson, thereby shutting down my authority in the classroom. That incident last year resulting in an entire class refusing to come up to present because the rest of the class was talking to much and being rowdy.
It was at that point on Monday when even I couldn't get the group to listen that I switched gears and picked up the speed of the lesson. Instead of charades I told the students to turn the vocabulary handout over, make four boxes and then pick four words we covered. The students then created a graphic representation of the word (they drew stick figures), wrote the definition in their own words, and used the word in a sentence. The incredible thing was for one of the first times this year the class got quiet and nearly every student completed the assignment as directed. What is more is that I don't think they noticed that the lesson had changed at all.
T I was going to show a film (Iron-Jawed Angels) to help illustrate what the women's rights movement was all about in the 1800s and early 1900s. My first period class already lost movie privileges because they couldn't handle watching a film with some mild violence without laughing hysterically at very serious content. This time during my last period class the students would not get quiet to discuss the things we needed to in order to prepare for the movie. The general feeling in the room was far more talkative and rebellious than usual, so I told them if they were not quiet in fifteen seconds that we would scrap the movie and do another assignment, as I couldn't have students talking through the movie. They didn't and I couldn't balk.
I didn't say anything at the end of the fifteen seconds. I just started counting how many students were present with my fingers- something that actually got the students curious and quiet. I walked to the bookcase, stacked enough books for partners to share at the front of each row, told them to pass them back and as they did I flipped through the book hoping to god there was something I could do with women's suffrage. Luckily there was (if there hadn't been, I would have used a different activity from the unit), and I gave the direction to open the books to that page and complete an assignment distinguishing fact from opinion using a suffragette article. Done. They all completed it and one student even asked near the end of the period if that was the assignment I'd planned for them, which got some snide remarks out of other students. At least they were aware that they'd misbehaved and a privilege had been taken away.
Last year I was so terrified to switch things up mid-lesson and so bad at it that I very rarely tried it. Those times that I did it was so apparent that I was very irate that the students took the switch personally and didn't do anything, which meant a long period of floundering and a classroom full of students defying adult authority. That of course leads to a lot of issues down the road, which in turn made the situation even more stressful. Of course the goal is to not have to switch things up mid-lesson, but sometimes you realize that the students are simply not going to get anything out of the lesson for whatever reason. Try to be cool-headed about the switch, pick an activity that is ridiculously straight-forward (the text can be a decent option), and don't back down. If it isn't necessary don't immediately point out that they are being terrible and you are switching things up, just switch and try to get them working. If possible, to the end of the period you can have the conversation about what you wanted to do, why you couldn't do it and how to move forward from the incident.
If this happens remember that the breakdown is most likely due to their behavior, not an unsound lesson. Whether your management is an issue or not, the point is that if it's blindingly apparent that the students aren't really going to do the lesson and if they aren't going to follow directions, you need to give them something that they will do, regardless of how it compares to your original lesson in terms of educational value.
Today's Wine: Il Borgo Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2008- pretty good red. It had some kind of a strange earthy feel when I drank it. It might have been what I was eating or something, but it was different from what I normally drink.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Whole Class Punishment
Something I was guilty of quite a lot last year was punishing an entire classroom of students for the behavior of a few crazy students. When nearly an entire class is in an uproar and you're battling a group of thirty-plus students day in and day out it's hard not to get frustrated, accuse an entire class of being out of line and dish out a group punishment. If you think about it though, it is pretty unfair to punish the students, however few they may be, who are sitting through class always trying to do the right thing, but who are stuck in a room with way too many other students, many of whom are not in the right setting to be academically productive and who tend to act out each and every day in class.
Last year I found myself saying a lot of things like "you all need to understand that there are people out there that will ruin things and you need to learn to hold them accountable." This seems a bit misdirected. In a setting where keeping others accountable is not dreamed of, let alone embraced, punishing the students doing the right thing may only lead to them to acting out with the rest of the class in the future. The students doing their jobs depend on you to manage the class. Whether you do or not is not the issue. You are punishing those students because you are having difficulty managing the class. That's how they see it.
During the day I had an explosion last week I also had difficulty in another class, which was also on the verge of rebelling against silent reading. After trying to have another discussion on why it's important to learn to read non-fiction, a couple students starting goofing off and calling out to the class, ridiculing reading and the teaching methods in my classroom. As I was already irritable, I acted rashly. Instead of doing some role-playing to show what good interview skills are, I made them get quiet and write down PowerPoint slides instead- hardly sound teaching. The kicker was that a student pointed out that it was because of two students that twenty-eight were now having to write a ton of notes instead of doing what I'd planned for them.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do what you can to help your classes realize their actions affect other students. Keeping a whole class a couple minutes into lunch until they are quiet so that they don't storm out into the hallway and the rest of the school being obnoxious is not a bad idea. I do that on a regular basis and the students then keep one another in check. There might also be instances when in order to preserve order and even safety in the classroom you'll have to shut everyone down as best you can and have them do something that is not very academic. In the case of the SSR near-rebellion, I didn't have much else planned to pull out of my hat to teach interview skills, so I made them write down what those skills are in hopes that some of it would be used. Had I been more calm and collected I would probably would have been able to gain control of the class and move forward with the lesson, but I made the decision to punish the class and then had to stick with it.
Be very careful about punishing a whole group of people. If you're pissed off and not thinking clearly, you may want to hold off on delving out large swaths of detention times and extra work. There are still times that I feel the whole class deserves some kind of punishment, but I'm doing my best not to act on it when I'm angry in the classroom.
Today's Wine: Kaiken Malbec. This one is out of Argentina. I need to pay more attention to the qualities of the wines I'm drinking. I got lazy with this one and simply thought "pretty good!" Perhaps that kind of review is enough though.
Last year I found myself saying a lot of things like "you all need to understand that there are people out there that will ruin things and you need to learn to hold them accountable." This seems a bit misdirected. In a setting where keeping others accountable is not dreamed of, let alone embraced, punishing the students doing the right thing may only lead to them to acting out with the rest of the class in the future. The students doing their jobs depend on you to manage the class. Whether you do or not is not the issue. You are punishing those students because you are having difficulty managing the class. That's how they see it.
During the day I had an explosion last week I also had difficulty in another class, which was also on the verge of rebelling against silent reading. After trying to have another discussion on why it's important to learn to read non-fiction, a couple students starting goofing off and calling out to the class, ridiculing reading and the teaching methods in my classroom. As I was already irritable, I acted rashly. Instead of doing some role-playing to show what good interview skills are, I made them get quiet and write down PowerPoint slides instead- hardly sound teaching. The kicker was that a student pointed out that it was because of two students that twenty-eight were now having to write a ton of notes instead of doing what I'd planned for them.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't do what you can to help your classes realize their actions affect other students. Keeping a whole class a couple minutes into lunch until they are quiet so that they don't storm out into the hallway and the rest of the school being obnoxious is not a bad idea. I do that on a regular basis and the students then keep one another in check. There might also be instances when in order to preserve order and even safety in the classroom you'll have to shut everyone down as best you can and have them do something that is not very academic. In the case of the SSR near-rebellion, I didn't have much else planned to pull out of my hat to teach interview skills, so I made them write down what those skills are in hopes that some of it would be used. Had I been more calm and collected I would probably would have been able to gain control of the class and move forward with the lesson, but I made the decision to punish the class and then had to stick with it.
Be very careful about punishing a whole group of people. If you're pissed off and not thinking clearly, you may want to hold off on delving out large swaths of detention times and extra work. There are still times that I feel the whole class deserves some kind of punishment, but I'm doing my best not to act on it when I'm angry in the classroom.
Today's Wine: Kaiken Malbec. This one is out of Argentina. I need to pay more attention to the qualities of the wines I'm drinking. I got lazy with this one and simply thought "pretty good!" Perhaps that kind of review is enough though.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
EXPLOSIVE Unprofessionalism
There was an explosion in my class on Monday. Had I been a cartoon, my head would have been cherry-red and the top would have blown off, whistling like a steam engine. I yelled at my first-period class so loud that the para-educators’ and every students’ eyes went white and wide. As these were the students who were even more used to uncontrolled, raging adults than my other classes- this was the lowest-tracked class, the one arguably with the most difficult home situations and certainly the one with the worst behavior problems- the surprise soon turned to giggling.
It wasn’t a single action that set me off. I’ve been sick for the past week and a half and the amount of chatter has been steadily increasing lately. Those things, together with the SSR (silent, sustained reading) I’ve been trying to cram down their throats has left my students very unsettled on the days I’ve asked them to get quiet for twenty minutes to read non-fiction trade books (short, flimsy, concise readings on a large variety of things pertaining to my current unit).
So I was standing at the head of the class after one of these “reading” sessions that went particularly awry, stewing over the fact that this class was about to mutiny over reading (little did I know that the other two classes would do something similar the same day) and the students were simply not getting quiet when I asked. It was the first time this year that they just wouldn’t do it.
BOOM. I lost it. The discomfort the students felt turned into laughter, which of course was even more irritating. From there I did an about-face and sent them to work immediately copying something off a slide whole I collected myself. Most of them did that and I was able to talk to a few individuals one on one. Luckily the main instigator of the near-insurrection and walked out of the class to tell the dean she was having major problems in my class- not because of me, mind you, but because she wanted to beat the hell out of a ninth grader that I taught last year. She failed to mention that when I pulled her aside in class to ask what was going on.
This explosion was unacceptable. It did absolutely nothing positive. I even wrote a post just a couple weeks ago talking about getting very angry in class in which I talked about how destructive to the educational process it is.
Sometimes we need to step outside of the classroom- really take our mind out of the game and think about what it is we do. For many of my students I'm the closest thing they've got to a full-time male role model. The last thing I should be doing is getting angry at unruly fourteen year-olds and having a blow out in class over something like students not listening.
This situation is not irreversible. Things can be mended with this class. It'll take some time and it'll take even-tempered instruction and careful fielding of discipline problems for a while. I'll need to reach out to a few more students in this class, something I should have been doing already, as they are the lowest achieving of all my classes.
I'm not sure what else I can say about this topic. Clearly things like this don't just happen in the first year, but it's important to point out that last year by this time I'd completely lost it with a class at least a dozen times at school. This is improvement by any standard. While still not the way teachers should act in the classroom (of course, my students shouldn't be acting as they do either), it's good to know that things are getting better in the long run in spite of this weeks set-backs. According to reports from veteran teachers, the fact that the year started off well will generally allow me to re-establish a more orderly classroom in spite of a bad week.
Today's Wine: Barocco Primitivo Puglia. I couldn't tell from the label that this is was a zinfandel, nor could I tell from drinking it. I had a glass of this after a glass from another bottle and I've been under the weather lately, so I can't really comment on how good this one actually is. It is the first wine I've had from this region of Italy (Apulia: The Heel of the Boot).
It wasn’t a single action that set me off. I’ve been sick for the past week and a half and the amount of chatter has been steadily increasing lately. Those things, together with the SSR (silent, sustained reading) I’ve been trying to cram down their throats has left my students very unsettled on the days I’ve asked them to get quiet for twenty minutes to read non-fiction trade books (short, flimsy, concise readings on a large variety of things pertaining to my current unit).
So I was standing at the head of the class after one of these “reading” sessions that went particularly awry, stewing over the fact that this class was about to mutiny over reading (little did I know that the other two classes would do something similar the same day) and the students were simply not getting quiet when I asked. It was the first time this year that they just wouldn’t do it.
BOOM. I lost it. The discomfort the students felt turned into laughter, which of course was even more irritating. From there I did an about-face and sent them to work immediately copying something off a slide whole I collected myself. Most of them did that and I was able to talk to a few individuals one on one. Luckily the main instigator of the near-insurrection and walked out of the class to tell the dean she was having major problems in my class- not because of me, mind you, but because she wanted to beat the hell out of a ninth grader that I taught last year. She failed to mention that when I pulled her aside in class to ask what was going on.
This explosion was unacceptable. It did absolutely nothing positive. I even wrote a post just a couple weeks ago talking about getting very angry in class in which I talked about how destructive to the educational process it is.
Sometimes we need to step outside of the classroom- really take our mind out of the game and think about what it is we do. For many of my students I'm the closest thing they've got to a full-time male role model. The last thing I should be doing is getting angry at unruly fourteen year-olds and having a blow out in class over something like students not listening.
This situation is not irreversible. Things can be mended with this class. It'll take some time and it'll take even-tempered instruction and careful fielding of discipline problems for a while. I'll need to reach out to a few more students in this class, something I should have been doing already, as they are the lowest achieving of all my classes.
I'm not sure what else I can say about this topic. Clearly things like this don't just happen in the first year, but it's important to point out that last year by this time I'd completely lost it with a class at least a dozen times at school. This is improvement by any standard. While still not the way teachers should act in the classroom (of course, my students shouldn't be acting as they do either), it's good to know that things are getting better in the long run in spite of this weeks set-backs. According to reports from veteran teachers, the fact that the year started off well will generally allow me to re-establish a more orderly classroom in spite of a bad week.
Today's Wine: Barocco Primitivo Puglia. I couldn't tell from the label that this is was a zinfandel, nor could I tell from drinking it. I had a glass of this after a glass from another bottle and I've been under the weather lately, so I can't really comment on how good this one actually is. It is the first wine I've had from this region of Italy (Apulia: The Heel of the Boot).
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Do Not Smile or Scowl Until Christmas
Going through the School of Ed I was told, "Don't smile before Christmas."
Going through the School of Ed I was also told, "You know that line 'Don't smile before Christmas?- that's nonsense! Of course you should smile and show your students you care from day one!"
I'd like to endorse the former. When people say not to smile before Christmas they don't mean to literally not smile. They mean don't lighten up. After my student teaching I came to the city ready to work alongside students, ask them about their ideas and put my trust in them as students who, regardless of their issues, wanted to learn on some fundamental level. Trying that straight away was a terrible idea. My students thought I was "nice," which to them meant "this guy'll be easy to play." While most of them didn't try to tear me apart, those who tried certainly succeeded.
My smiling early soon dissolved into a scowl that was affixed to my forehead for the better part of the year. Not only did my students think I was a push-over, they thought that I had a terrible temper. The students actually trying in my class hated this and those who were causing the problems thought it was funny, so they pushed and pushed. It was a lose-lose-lose situation. If the students see you get angry and yell with any regularity, you can yell until you're purple and it won't help. Scowling and walking around pissed off really just sends them the message that you're angry with them. Would you be interested in working for a boss that was angry at you most of the time?
By the end of the year I was better able to control my reactions, as the students actions weren't surprising at all whatsoever, but I was still really angry about the whole situation. At the beginning of this year, however, I'd somehow gained the ability to simply not react to the funny things students have done or the more regrettable things they've done. I've certainly smiled, but not in reaction to anything inappropriate or during class when something has happened that is disruptive.
My advice to the First Years in the city is "don't smile and don't scowl until Christmas." Kids are hilarious and infuriating. Showing the students a human side is also important, however. The balance is difficult to achieve. When you're in front of the class you have to show them you're running the show. If you react by getting angry or playing along with students whose actions are disruptive, it may show them a weakness they can exploit. If you don't want them to push your buttons, don't show them where they can push.
When I was student teaching and substitute teaching I really, really wanted to get to the human side of teaching, show the students I was a real person and show them things they needed to know to be successful. Gaining their respect and trust that you can handle a class is much more important than trying to show them that you're human. In the city the students are going to test you and what they want to know is if you're cool under fire. You can get to the progressive education later. First gain the students respect. Without it you won't gain much else. To do that you have to stay in control of yourself and the class. While they'll show you in the most backward way, that's what they crave, need and demand and if you can't give it to them they won't give you what you ask of them.
Today's Wine: Indaba Shiraz. I picked this up at Trader Joe's for $7 and was incredibly pleased with it. The label says black cherry, pepper, etc. I wasn't really paying much attention past the fact that I really enjoyed it, however.
Going through the School of Ed I was also told, "You know that line 'Don't smile before Christmas?- that's nonsense! Of course you should smile and show your students you care from day one!"
I'd like to endorse the former. When people say not to smile before Christmas they don't mean to literally not smile. They mean don't lighten up. After my student teaching I came to the city ready to work alongside students, ask them about their ideas and put my trust in them as students who, regardless of their issues, wanted to learn on some fundamental level. Trying that straight away was a terrible idea. My students thought I was "nice," which to them meant "this guy'll be easy to play." While most of them didn't try to tear me apart, those who tried certainly succeeded.
My smiling early soon dissolved into a scowl that was affixed to my forehead for the better part of the year. Not only did my students think I was a push-over, they thought that I had a terrible temper. The students actually trying in my class hated this and those who were causing the problems thought it was funny, so they pushed and pushed. It was a lose-lose-lose situation. If the students see you get angry and yell with any regularity, you can yell until you're purple and it won't help. Scowling and walking around pissed off really just sends them the message that you're angry with them. Would you be interested in working for a boss that was angry at you most of the time?
By the end of the year I was better able to control my reactions, as the students actions weren't surprising at all whatsoever, but I was still really angry about the whole situation. At the beginning of this year, however, I'd somehow gained the ability to simply not react to the funny things students have done or the more regrettable things they've done. I've certainly smiled, but not in reaction to anything inappropriate or during class when something has happened that is disruptive.
My advice to the First Years in the city is "don't smile and don't scowl until Christmas." Kids are hilarious and infuriating. Showing the students a human side is also important, however. The balance is difficult to achieve. When you're in front of the class you have to show them you're running the show. If you react by getting angry or playing along with students whose actions are disruptive, it may show them a weakness they can exploit. If you don't want them to push your buttons, don't show them where they can push.
When I was student teaching and substitute teaching I really, really wanted to get to the human side of teaching, show the students I was a real person and show them things they needed to know to be successful. Gaining their respect and trust that you can handle a class is much more important than trying to show them that you're human. In the city the students are going to test you and what they want to know is if you're cool under fire. You can get to the progressive education later. First gain the students respect. Without it you won't gain much else. To do that you have to stay in control of yourself and the class. While they'll show you in the most backward way, that's what they crave, need and demand and if you can't give it to them they won't give you what you ask of them.
Today's Wine: Indaba Shiraz. I picked this up at Trader Joe's for $7 and was incredibly pleased with it. The label says black cherry, pepper, etc. I wasn't really paying much attention past the fact that I really enjoyed it, however.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Settling In for the Long Haul
We've now gone through two and a half weeks of school. I'm getting to know my students better and better and we're coming to know what to expect of one another. In another couple of weeks we'll have settled in quite nicely. The good news is that the place where we're settling is a good one in which to be, while the place I landed three weeks in last year was no where close to what I wanted.
While not every one of my students is listening and completing their work, I feel that the few problems I'm experiencing with management can be dealt with. Last year at this time my class and I had settled in for a repeat of WWI- trench warfare for the rest of the year. Because the tone set was one of struggle and me fighting to take control of the class, that was the routine we settled into the first month of school and it was one I had to deal with the rest of the school year. On most days the students and I fought to gain ground while in the long run very little progress was made. We spent the entire year charging across No Man's Land, them throwing paper balls, pencils and pens and me firing angry directives back at them, what seemed like all day every day. It as exhausting and it ground us all down.
The bad news for first year teachers is that if you've gotten off to a rocky start, you have to wait until next year for a brand new one. The good news is that it's not too late to really dig in, make sure things are consistent and get to work. While the year is going to be a trying one, your learning curve can be drastic and your students can certainly learn a lot. Make sure you're talking to colleagues and always working to make things better. Start developing procedures and ideas with your students and, even if they don't seem to be working, stick to your guns as you get bigger guns.
If you're doing anything like I did last year, you may be trying a thousand different things right now simply to get the students quiet and working. That's a mistake. Pick a couple strategies and stick to them. The students need structure and if you are trying a new management strategy every two days they know that if they ignore you enough whatever "rule" you're trying to push on them will go away. Working to improve does not mean trying a thousand new things with your students. In part it means working to get your game face on and to keep it on, as well as figuring out your teacher persona. As you do that, variation will decrease and your management will improve.
Today's Wine: Laurel Lake Chardonnay Reserve. This was a wine we had on Saturday's wine tour. I haven't posted much about white wines because the big reason for posting about wine is to promote good health and the white wines don't do nearly as much for you a the reds. That said, when I come across a white I really like it's something I usually tell my friends about. This one fits the bill. It's smooth, hardly acidic and you can really taste the vanilla and fruit.
While not every one of my students is listening and completing their work, I feel that the few problems I'm experiencing with management can be dealt with. Last year at this time my class and I had settled in for a repeat of WWI- trench warfare for the rest of the year. Because the tone set was one of struggle and me fighting to take control of the class, that was the routine we settled into the first month of school and it was one I had to deal with the rest of the school year. On most days the students and I fought to gain ground while in the long run very little progress was made. We spent the entire year charging across No Man's Land, them throwing paper balls, pencils and pens and me firing angry directives back at them, what seemed like all day every day. It as exhausting and it ground us all down.
The bad news for first year teachers is that if you've gotten off to a rocky start, you have to wait until next year for a brand new one. The good news is that it's not too late to really dig in, make sure things are consistent and get to work. While the year is going to be a trying one, your learning curve can be drastic and your students can certainly learn a lot. Make sure you're talking to colleagues and always working to make things better. Start developing procedures and ideas with your students and, even if they don't seem to be working, stick to your guns as you get bigger guns.
If you're doing anything like I did last year, you may be trying a thousand different things right now simply to get the students quiet and working. That's a mistake. Pick a couple strategies and stick to them. The students need structure and if you are trying a new management strategy every two days they know that if they ignore you enough whatever "rule" you're trying to push on them will go away. Working to improve does not mean trying a thousand new things with your students. In part it means working to get your game face on and to keep it on, as well as figuring out your teacher persona. As you do that, variation will decrease and your management will improve.
Today's Wine: Laurel Lake Chardonnay Reserve. This was a wine we had on Saturday's wine tour. I haven't posted much about white wines because the big reason for posting about wine is to promote good health and the white wines don't do nearly as much for you a the reds. That said, when I come across a white I really like it's something I usually tell my friends about. This one fits the bill. It's smooth, hardly acidic and you can really taste the vanilla and fruit.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Push Back
Week one this year was quiet. The students came in ready to get started; attendance was very high and there were very, very few discipline problems school wide (including a day with zero suspensions school-wide, which is the first since I started working there). While celebrating a smooth start that will help with the rest of the year, I prepared myself last weekend for the counteroffensive by the students. Based the intelligence I gathered from their teachers from last year, to whom they ran downstairs to talk to after school each day last week, they think that the eighth grade team "means business" this year. Intelligence is good and fine, but the students' actions speak more poignantly.
This week the students began their push back. Caught off guard by the organization of the staff from the outset, many of the students on the cusp, those who need one or two others to get the ball rolling to take part in the shenanigans, have kept quiet and done their jobs in class. Even still, the individuals with chronic behavior problems are testing boundaries, as are the whole classes. The important thing to remember is that there are solid policies in place and that the staff (myself included) needs to stick to those policies without exception.
Exceptions to the rules get teachers in trouble. I approached last year with a "benefit of the doubt" mentality that dug a hole so deep that I was crawling out all year. It dawned on me eventually that the term differentiate was not intended for disciplinary action. If a kid screws up they need to know it. Period. Making little exceptions to appease certain students ends up snowballing into a complicated, difficult-to-enforce code of conduct.
My advice to First Years and Newbies: Get help developing appropriate classroom guidelines for your student population. Stick to those guidelines no matter what, no matter how much paperwork they entail initially. If you don't it'll create a lot more paperwork and headaches down the road.
Tonight's Wine: 3 Buck Chuck
This week the students began their push back. Caught off guard by the organization of the staff from the outset, many of the students on the cusp, those who need one or two others to get the ball rolling to take part in the shenanigans, have kept quiet and done their jobs in class. Even still, the individuals with chronic behavior problems are testing boundaries, as are the whole classes. The important thing to remember is that there are solid policies in place and that the staff (myself included) needs to stick to those policies without exception.
Exceptions to the rules get teachers in trouble. I approached last year with a "benefit of the doubt" mentality that dug a hole so deep that I was crawling out all year. It dawned on me eventually that the term differentiate was not intended for disciplinary action. If a kid screws up they need to know it. Period. Making little exceptions to appease certain students ends up snowballing into a complicated, difficult-to-enforce code of conduct.
My advice to First Years and Newbies: Get help developing appropriate classroom guidelines for your student population. Stick to those guidelines no matter what, no matter how much paperwork they entail initially. If you don't it'll create a lot more paperwork and headaches down the road.
Tonight's Wine: 3 Buck Chuck
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...computers
When I walked into my new school last year as a first-year I was asked with the rest of the staff what my goal for the year was. I, of course, having had some mild success using a podcast and a blog before, very confidently responded:
I am going to set up a wiki site and use it extensively throughout the year. Perhaps they'll put podcasts on it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's about as far as I got with the idea.
I was so badly shell-shocked my first month in the classroom that I was paranoid about using computers at all. I actually did the exact opposite of using a wiki- I killed about a tree a day making copies the ENTIRE year. Even after the first-year science teacher across the hall was using them semi-frequently, I wasn't convinced that my management was good enough to prevent a laptop from being thrown across the room. We only used computers during the last couple weeks of school to implement a pilot for our 1:1 initiative. Even that was like slowly wading into ice-cold water in the beach end of a swimming pool in May- carefully, painfully, and eventually accepting the fact that it's going to be miserable for a bit, but then it's going to be a great time.
This year things will be different. We have our 1:1 laptop initiative and I think that our teaching staff is strong enough to roll it out in a way that will be highly beneficial to our students. Even so, I wish I had made the decision to use laptops earlier in the year last year. While I was inexperienced and frightened by possibility of something going terribly wrong, I realistically could have used the technology much earlier than I did.
Advice for new teachers: Even if your classroom seems to still be in the crapper come third marking period, don't sell youself short on your ability to try a few new things before the end of the year. The first year is about survival, but you still want to learn as much as possible so your second year will go much better. That means you need to stick to whatever routines are working, but try new things out that go along with those routines.
Today's Wine: Cataldo Nero D'Avola. Same variety out of Sicily as a post a bit ago. This one was at Pescatore Restaurant in Midtown on the east side. The seafood salad in their tapas bar is amazing, and the prices are great.
I am going to set up a wiki site and use it extensively throughout the year. Perhaps they'll put podcasts on it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
That's about as far as I got with the idea.
I was so badly shell-shocked my first month in the classroom that I was paranoid about using computers at all. I actually did the exact opposite of using a wiki- I killed about a tree a day making copies the ENTIRE year. Even after the first-year science teacher across the hall was using them semi-frequently, I wasn't convinced that my management was good enough to prevent a laptop from being thrown across the room. We only used computers during the last couple weeks of school to implement a pilot for our 1:1 initiative. Even that was like slowly wading into ice-cold water in the beach end of a swimming pool in May- carefully, painfully, and eventually accepting the fact that it's going to be miserable for a bit, but then it's going to be a great time.
This year things will be different. We have our 1:1 laptop initiative and I think that our teaching staff is strong enough to roll it out in a way that will be highly beneficial to our students. Even so, I wish I had made the decision to use laptops earlier in the year last year. While I was inexperienced and frightened by possibility of something going terribly wrong, I realistically could have used the technology much earlier than I did.
Advice for new teachers: Even if your classroom seems to still be in the crapper come third marking period, don't sell youself short on your ability to try a few new things before the end of the year. The first year is about survival, but you still want to learn as much as possible so your second year will go much better. That means you need to stick to whatever routines are working, but try new things out that go along with those routines.
Today's Wine: Cataldo Nero D'Avola. Same variety out of Sicily as a post a bit ago. This one was at Pescatore Restaurant in Midtown on the east side. The seafood salad in their tapas bar is amazing, and the prices are great.
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