First Year Experiment

Long time, no see!

2012-01-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

I just read my last post. What a bad day! But that's what the job is about, picking up the pieces and moving forward.

Well, that ICT class that gave me hell last November ended up doing phenomenally on the Regents! 75% of the class passed when the school-wide average was 50% (I only taught half the algebra classes so think what you will about the kids in the other classes...) Gotta love those crazy kids.

Last year was good to me. Aside from the stellar performance of my special ed students, I also completed my (first?) master's degree, was given a prestigious teaching award, and, more importantly, I got my tenure!

Now I'm halfway through my 4th year. My students drive me nuts a lot of the time, and this year I'm dealing with two separate first year co-teachers for my ICT classes which has been a trying experience. But I really do enjoy the work I do.

Next on my agenda? I'm thinking of applying to the LEAP program to get my SBL license. I'm not sure where I want to go with my career, and I do love teaching, but it's nice to have other options available for those opportunities that seldom, if at all, arise.

today i cried

2010-11-10T20:27:00.000-08:00

i'm used to being the best at what i do in the school.

i'm used to being the best at engaging the special ed classes every year.

i'm used to having the coolest lesson plans.

i'm used to the kids loving my class.

but right now i'm a failure.

my ICT class has been slipping away all semester. i falsely thought they were improving last week, but that was a joke. this week i have been dreading teaching them. yesterday they were awful. i put my all into a fabulous lesson for them today. i lost them before they even entered the room.

it's not about my lessons anymore. they have no respect for me. they hate my class. they purposely try to upset me. i never let them see how i feel though. as the dean i can give them all the suspensions and detentions i want, but i refuse to use that as a crush. i've doled out a couple here and there and they just get mad at me and shut down for days.

i've tried to build relationships outside of class with many of the students. i always smile and greet them in the hallways. i always praise positive behavior. i write lessons that are engaging, motivating, and address their kinesthetic and academic needs. but i can't even begin my lessons most days.

i feel like a failure right now and it's pretty shitty. i'm used to being the best. I think the fact that it's still bothering me at 12:30am tells me that my job is consuming too much of my life. And that i rely on my professional success as a source of positive self esteem, when really i should be looking for other areas of my life with which to feel successful and satisfied.

i am thankful that i have the wherewithal to pick up the pieces and come up with an action plan so that this doesn't get the best of me.

i am thankful that i have an awesome co-teacher who knew not to step in and let me fight my own battle, as this is the only way to maintain consistent classroom management.

i am thankful that this awesome co-teacher has some great ideas that he's going to help me implement beginning Friday morning.

i kept my composure during class but i felt the tears coming on. the students left and i held it in. i took deep breaths, and i let the feeling go away. but then when my co-teacher and i were reflecting on the horror show that was our classroom, i started to feel shaky again. he mentioned all the other responsibilities I have in the school that take up my time, and that I have two children, and that he understands how pressed i am for time.

suddenly, the thought of all the responsibility came caving in on me and the tears started flowing. for the first time in 2.5 years of teaching, i cried on the job. i think i cried out of desperation, and out of the realization that i just am not doing my job. not at all.

like i said before, i have a plan. i don't know what's in store for friday, but it's time for no holds bar classroom management. it's time to start over. friday will be day 1 of our new and improved zero tolerance classroom. i know this sounds like a strict disciplinarian environment, but that's only a small part of it. we have a lot of systems that will need to be put into place and a lot of work to do before friday, but i think things will get better.

but for right now, i still feel like shit.

i also have an observation with this class friday morning. the day after a horror story, on a friday after a day off from school, first period with stragglers who won't get the message as easily. i'm not sure how to write up this lesson plan. our mini-lesson will consist of discipline contracts and explaining our new routines and how class will function from now on. then i will allow them to engage in some group work that explores the pythagorean theorem, as we've been *trying* to learn for 3 days.

it won't be what the AP is looking for. but there's not point in trying to give a conventional math lesson when it will just crash and burn with these kids. i just hope the plan works. no backing down.

things looking up and tomorrow's friday! yay!

2010-10-21T15:29:00.000-07:00

my plan for the special ed department was approved, however it couldn't be implemented because of our block scheduling, unless the AP of instructional support taught 10 periods a week. my principal gave me two options:

1) bring in a retired sped teacher for $3000+ per session for the year (she said she'd find the money)
2) receive more training and support from our AP and outside sources and keep it as it is.

I discussed it with my team and we decided on option two. We made the ICT class our subject of inquiry study this year, and discussed strategies in depth. We are going to structure a continuum between all of our classes. Two teachers made phone calls to all the parents and I held a parental conference with one of the difficult children. And we've been ignoring the poor behaviors whenever possible and acknowledging the positive behaviors with tons of praise.

They whipped their butts into shape and have been amazing for the past two days. All we need is ten minutes of their attention for instruction and they just fly with it.

today after the warmup (which they all did!) i taught them how to do two step equations. we had planned on them practicing equations, breaking, and then moving back to instruction to break down word problems, then having them practice again. i had 2 different levels of problems prepared.

what happened at first is that two kids found the lesson to be too easy. my co-teacher gave them a scaffolded workbook that let them advance to the next level independently. after the kids started their individual practice, some wanted the advanced book, too, so they worked extra hard on their problems. then other kids just raced through so i gave them the word problems sheet. some kids finished more quickly than others so i plucked them from their seats around the room and grouped them together to create their own challenging word problem on chart paper, with the corresponding equation and solution.

by the end of the class, 6 kids had successfully worked on a worksheet of two step equations of varying degrees of difficulty. four kids had worked through the workbook section on combining like terms and mutistep equations. 4 other kids had begun working through word problems successfully. and six kids worked in 2 groups to create their own challenge word problems with equations on chart paper. to top it all off, the most ED kid in the group agreed to sit outside for concentration's sake and did quite well.

they all ended up doing different things naturally, but the bottom line, they were all able to solve the two step equations. it was the best lesson all year, and it was naturally so differentiated without much planning.

i'm hoping for continued good results, but i know there will always be ups and downs.

better day

2010-10-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

i stayed up late last night working on a document for my principal's brainchild. when i handed it out this morning, at first my principal said "wow." but upon further inspection, she said "this is a starting point..." umm no, this is it. this is all i'm doing this semester with this work. i feel confident enough to tell her i've worked on the process and feel that we have made ample progress and need to move on. we will revisit the document at the beginning of next semester.

i'm finding my voice again.

we have a supposed ICT class that's 77% IEP's. it's also our most crowded class. we are spoiled with small classes in our school; we have two cohorts with 12 students each, one with 14, and then the special ed cohort with 26 kids, 77% of them special. and we are so understaffed, they only have a coteacher in math and ELA. how is this servicing their needs?

as teachers, we can't even manage that class. it's practically a self contained class of 26. i know i'm really good at what i do, however, i'm struggling beyond belief with this class. and they're worse with other teachers.

teachers voiced their complaints to the principal today. she didn't know what to do. i did a little investigating and some aris work and realized we could move half the IEP kids into one of the smaller cohorts and move one of the ICT teachers to give math and ELA support to the second group. of the two new cohorts, one class would have the legal 60:40 ICT ratio, but the other would be 47:53. not ideal, however it's better than the current 77:23 ratio. and both classes would have 18 or 19 students.

i did my researched and pitched the idea to my AP. he said we can reprogram the handful of kids tomorrow and start them fresh on monday. so tonight i put together a document outlining the changes for the cohorts. i feel like i accomplished something worthy. now i hope my AP of special ed approves the plan.

my music students are learning how to play jingle bells with two hands. it's frustrating for them but they're excited to play a "real" song and not just the baby songs with one hand.

tonight i had grad school. last week i had a paper due, and i seriously half assed did it 30 minutes before class. it was really substandard work. but i got it back tonight and got an A. my teacher said she gives tons of A's, but you only keep that grade if you eventually hand her your corrections and edits. but she's awesome, because she asked specific questions for me to address and basically edited my paper for me. i never expected such hand holding in grad school, but i'll take it given the stress i'm under!

and lastly, my coworkers and i started a biggest loser competition today. i weigh a freaking ton. i'm also ultra-competitive, so i'm hoping the competition will keep me losing and i can lose 15-20 lbs by december 22nd.

i wish i was just a teacher

2010-10-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

the issues with my coworkers as mentioned in the last post have blown over. i had a talk with my team and everything was cleared up.

but in my ultimate quest for money and responsibility, i feel that i'm cracking. i'm handling everything but i just lack me time. my whole life is spent running around for other people. i'm finally heading to bed every night sometime between 11pm and 1am which is an improvement, but that means i have even less me time.

sometimes i wish i could just teach and come home. but i can't.

for the month of november, i've been asked to run a 90 minute campus wide PD (for over 100 teachers and staff members) and to travel to florida for one day to run 6 hours long of PD activities at an educational conference. both of these tasks involve me selling something i truly don't even believe in, the brainchild of my principal that i've been asked to implement. i feel my work in this area has been lacking, and my school poorly implemented the idea, thanks in part to yours truly. even though i have a few weeks to plan what i'm doing, i still feel my heart beating quicker every time i think about it. including now.

not a team player

2010-09-28T22:59:00.000-07:00

right now our teacher teams are working on personalized education plans for each student.

we use our 2 hour PD block in the afternoon for appointments to meet with students and help them set goals for the year. however, many students aren't showing up for their appointment because there is no incentive for them to stay late.

when i threw the question out during monday's meeting as to what we can do to entice the kids to come in, a few teachers had the suggestion of holding their appointments during advisory time instead, and that the teachers who don't have an advisory would surely not mind covering each other's classes so that the appropriate teachers can hold their meetings with the students.

we're talking voluntary, unpaid coverages, every day, for about 2 weeks in a row. HAHAHAHAHA.

the teachers (mostly first and second years) were going on and on about what a great idea this was to get all our student meetings finished in a short time.

i spoke up and said: #1, we were given 2 hours every wednesday for four weeks to do this. if we don't do it during this time, our principal will just pile more work on us to do during this time. so let's figure out how to get these kids in the door and forget about using advisory time. and #2, even if i was paid for every coverage, there is honestly no way i would do it.

one teacher was stunned i said that and started to get on my case. i told him as the dean, i cannot commit to taking on another class every day. the staff members seem to think my "free" periods are for me to frolic around when in fact they are professional periods and i have a ton of work. and truthfully most days i have NO free time to myself. i am pulled into meetings left and right, have to deal with student issues, and have have a ton of paperwork.

i redirected the group towards brainstorming ideas to get the students in. that lasted for 5 minutes when the vocal teachers decided there was no way. they gave up. then one rookie insisted he was going to speak to the principal about paying us for doing it in the morning, like that is going to happen!!!

at which point, a second year teacher muttered under his breath next to me well that's not going to work anyway, as long as *some people* are not going to be team players.

hot damn so i'm not a team player!

i do everything for this job. i'm the dean and the inquiry specialist of the school. i spend every period i'm not teaching working to make everyone else's life easier. i prepare for and run meeting for the staff 2-3 times a week and no, i don't get paid any extra for this. the teachers come to me for everything they need. i'm lucky if between everything i do for the school, i get 20 minutes of downtime a day. so why in the world would i take on an extra period? it's not possible for me at this time.

secondly, the teacher who backhandedly accused me of not being a team player lives a typical brooklyn life. he's in his 30s, single, lives with a roommate, just goes home or chills after work.

my personal life looks like this: i work until 4 or 4:30pm at school. then with my kids in the car i drive my husband to work and then drive home. i get home around 5pm. then at 5:30pm twice a week i go to college. i get home about 10pm. i eat dinner. i lesson plan and grade (since i can barely use my preps for this.) i do laundry for my family and clean. i try to relax a bit. i'm lucky if i get to bed by 1am.

in the morning i need to get my kids ready and out the door. i walk in at 8:00am on the dot. if my paperwork isn't completely overwhelming from the day before, i try to use 20 minutes to get my classroom together and finish up any lesson preparations. then i start my rounds to the different advisories to check for uniform infractions, make announcements, print up necessary detentions, and then rush to my second period class. I CANNOT GIVE UP THIS TIME. the other teachers think it's just fun free time for me. this really pissed me off.

my personal life, i believe, is a lot more stressful than most of the other teachers at my school. but it never stops me from doing my job. and i hands down have more responsibilities at the school than any other teacher. some of them are purely for personal gain (think teaching credit recovery for extra $$$ and advising the music club) but everything else i do, even though i do it for $$$, has a direct benefit for every teacher and is completely a part of me working for the team.

but whatever. maybe i should level with the teacher that pissed me off. i barely have room to breath during the day. i really envy every other teacher, who i see relaxing, sitting at their desks grading, and having lunch when they want. i don't know what more they could expect of me.

oh and i did offer to stop in and help conduct some student appointments but told them i could not be tied down to covering a class. but that wasn't good enough.

it's all about the benjamins

2010-09-21T14:26:00.000-07:00

I thought I was insane last year with my per session activities, but this year I'm even more nutso.

I'm definitely feeling it and I'm getting home at 5pm every day as opposed to 3:15 like my first year or 4pm like last year, but I don't mind it. And even the nights I have school at 6pm, I feel just fine. I actually enjoy grad school this year!

I thought I might be burned out from working the summer, but the new freshmen are pretty great as a whole, so I'm managing.

A breakdown of my per session activities is as follows, in hours per week:

Math tutoring class: 2
Algebra credit recovery: 2
Geometry credit recovery: 3
Inquiry specialist: 2
Detention: 2 - 4
Music club supervisor: 1

That's a minimum of 24 hours per paycheck. Plus miscellaneous weekend activities come up from time to time.

Sick money, and good for my resume. But I wonder how long will I last this way...

I had to suspend a freshman today and her mother screamed at me over the phone, defending her daughter. The girl racked up 2 detentions in 2 days (stellar for a first year student) and then stole work from my desk during detention to copy the work and pass off as her own, thereby getting out of detention earlier. Uh academic dishonesty anyone? I didn't even nail her for that; I cut her slack as a first year student and only gave her a level 3 suspension.

But the mother called me worthless and basically pulled a "la la la i'm not listening to you" over the phone and tried to go over my head. i swear i thank god every day for my job and my supportive administration. they always tell me to do what i think is right and back me up on everything.

in other news, my music students learned how to play notes with their left hand today. they just love to show off when the faculty and administrators pop in to listen. and we get visitors every day! everyone who stops in is amazed that these kids, who never have read a note of music in their life, are playing songs after just a week. for the past two years the music classes were never this successful. no one even tried to teach them how to read music; they were told to play by ear. and they never got past mary had a little lamb.

i guess the other music teachers never took the time to teach them the language of music; maybe they didn't believe the kids could learn. but heck yeah they can! and they're awesome! a couple of them want to perform at the end of the year already!

whatever, i can go on and on about how proud i am of these kids. i like teaching math, but music is so interesting and so much more gratifying! for now at least, while it's still new to me:)

A Breath of Fresh Air

2010-09-18T19:33:00.000-07:00

WOW I can already tell this will be a much better year than last year.

Firstly I had to jump through some hoops and ask favors of a couple of people, but everything worked out with my college. One of my professors changed my failing grade to a B+ and I am able to retake and replace the grades for the other two courses. I feel so refreshed and motivated.

Secondly, my students seem so different this year. Of course I recognize we're still in the "honeymoon" phase, however I just can tell these students are a totally different crop than last year. They seem more intrinsically motivated and more respectful in general.

Also, I only teach two or three classes every day. I have 2 periods a day off for dean work this year. Plus, there's a second dean now, so the workload is lessened.

And best of all, I only teach two algebra classes, and one MUSIC class!!! i'm teaching the kids how to read music and play piano and they are loving it. i'm loving it, too.

i still have a lot of dean work and per session activities that add stress, but my program is so manageable and my students so wonderful this year, that i just know it's going to be much easier this time around.

recap and moving forward

2010-08-16T11:00:00.000-07:00

i ended the year with 56% of my students passing. that's pretty pathetic but I did my best. over 25% of my kids were SPED and the rest were downright low functioning nearly 80% 1s and 2s) so i'm ok with the results.

i just finished up a successful summer school class so I think my stats will go to about 65% passing but i've accepted my low scores either way and am looking forward to meeting the new freshmen in september.

i have a new, interesting schedule for this upcoming year. they reduced my teaching load by another period to do dean work so now i only teach 3 classes. i'm teaching two algebra, and then one music class which i've never done before. it will be a piano lab which i'm nervous about, but it's nice for a change of pace.

but i'm extremely stressed right now. i might lose my license and be kicked out of grad school. i was stupid and didn't follow through with things and got 3 ABS grades. One of them I never resolved, but I handed in the work to the other 2 professors. However both professors never changed my grade and now it's too late. One professor, who still is teaching at the school, has downright refused to return any emails or phone calls and my GPA is horrendous. I also took a class last semester where the professor visited me at my school and he told me I got an A, but it's not on my transcript. Apparently I was on academic probation, so they didn't register me (although the teacher was visiting me so I had no clue this was an issue!) and now I basically wasted the entire semester with that class because I have to retake it.

so i'm on academic probation with 2 semesters left. 2 semesters to take my pre-thesis class, my thesis class, plus retake the 3 ABS classes that turned into Fs and the observation class. There is no way in hell they're going to let me do this and I just don't know what to do! I got a letter in July telling me to speak to the department chairperson, but after calling, emailing, and then visiting in person, I found out she will not be in until the first week of school. The school secretary that was in when I visited told me she thinks they will kick me out.

This is not looking good.

I am really good at what I do, but really bad at school.

I am just going to go down as soon as the chairperson gets back, give it my best shot, and hope for the best. This is really stressing me majorly. I fucked up so badly.

ZOMG 31%

2010-05-22T22:52:00.000-07:00

I administered a practice Regent's this past week. It was an actual 3 hour run through that 22 students stayed until 5:30pm to take. The group was a perfect cross section of my school: 3 level 3's, the rest 2's and 1's. 5 student's with IEP's and 2 ELL's. A few repeaters, too. This was not planned, but that's the group that chose to stay after I announced the run through to my students the day before.

I graded the exams on Friday and a whopping 31% passed! And yes, this was with the Regent's curve.

I'm hoping to double this score with 4 instructional days to go.

ZOMG not happening.

I will administer another Regent's this coming week. I hope for 40% passing this time...

i will be teaching geometry

2010-05-21T00:45:00.000-07:00

for 2 short weeks, that is.

i filled out my preference sheet and chose to teach algebra again. the current geometry teacher who has seniority chose to teach algebra II, and then geometry as her second choice because she's that sweet and feels comfortable teaching anything. so i will be teaching the same subject for the third time in a row.

however, she opted out of teaching summer school so i've been asked to teach both algebra and geometry in july. we do a super short summer school for two weeks of two hour classes a day. it's good for review, but hardly anything else.

i'm excited to foray into geometry without a year-long commitment. i'm looking forward to wetting my feet a bit and maybe in another year, i'll feel like changing subjects.

My class is now in "Regent's Institute." If they are not there to work hard, I kick them out of my class and then have them come in for 7:15am detention to make up what they missed. So far this has been keeping my students very much in line. I guess having dean power is very helpful, but technically any teacher can adopt this policy. Before I was dean though, I would have never thought of doing anything like that.

I'm a firm believer of NOT kicking kids out and working with each kid to learn, however, at this point in the year we are moving very quickly and working intensely and I feel that no student has the right to take away from an entire class' chance of passing the Regent's.

Along with the assistant principal, I have also put 4 kids on permanent suspension for the rest of the school year. I love the no tolerance attitude. Our 9th graders are taking 3 Regent's, and our 10th graders at least 2 Regent's each so we want to make sure individual classrooms run as smoothly as possible right now.

ok it's 4am, another one of my insomniac nights. must go to sleep.

hit me (with a pie) baby, one more time

2010-05-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

the students are making a carnival in june. as part of the fundraising, they're having a pie throwing contest. students will pay $5 to throw a pie at teachers' faces. when surveyed which teachers the students at my school were most willing to pay to throw a pie at, i overwhelmingly came in as #1. yesssssssssssssssss. i hope to raise a ton of money for the school!

in other news i gave a test this week and my students overwhelmingly aced it. 20% of them scored above a 90, up from about 5%. 3 more special ed students passed for their first time ever, too. it's very exciting. my CTT class is trying so hard, it's fantastic. my bad-ass class was still bad ass today, but they learned really well.

i'm just about racing through the curriculum right now since i'm soooo behind, but the kids are going with it. unfortunately, i seem to be out of school more than in school lately, so i've been falling even more behind. the one thing about taking on more responsibility at work is that i have more professional duties to pull me away. this month alone i flew across the country to speak at an international conference, and i also had a network meeting in the city. i know of 3 more days that i will be out in the next 2 weeks, and i'm getting nervous. i'm fairly certain i will not even come close to last year's regent's passing rate, but i'm trying my best.

for the record, i still am a per session whore. i picked up even more hours by running an extra math class so now i'm up to 12 hours a week.

and now for the joke of the day... how many students does it take to make tables from a classroom set of desks? no one knows for sure, but apparently more than 27!

love being dean

2010-03-24T15:02:00.000-07:00

the phys ed teacher told me this afternoon that the kids are scared of me.

no, that isn't my goal as dean. my current goals are that the kids comply with the school rules for the most part, student frustrations and fights are kept to a minimum, and that detention is restored as a viable threat, sought to be avoided.

in gym class today, the students were discussing that i suspend them just for saying "okay." bwahahahahaha. i'm really not that evil but i have very little tolerance for the students disregarding rules. there are certain students i'm willing to give an extra chance, but overall i have been suspending for simple offenses.

my feeling is if the students see they can push the boundaries with basic rules, it will only get worse. next year we are adding another 80 students to the school and i want to set a precedent for behavior.

i have already noticed a big attitude change in a couple of my repeat offenders. they're following the rules more and being more respectful in general. i'm also "insane" with my detention policy but this week uniform compliance has been at an all time (96% ) high since we first instituted the policy in 2008.

i also noticed that now i can walk into advisories in the middle of the day and get the whole class' attention within seconds of standing there. they are becoming so respectful, and it only took about a month!

in terms of my other goal, minimizing fights and frustrations, i try to pull kids out of class and talk to them when i notice or hear of the first hint of an issue. when i hear a child's name mentioned with a certain issue, even if only as a periphery figure, i still pull them to talk. i check in often and try to have many personal conversations with the kids. while i am known as being "super strict," at the same time i don't want to lose my softer edge and sacrifice the personalization most students need.

just as i'm still tweaking the way i balance my personality and teaching style, it will take time for me to find the perfect balance outside the classroom.

awesome observation

2010-03-18T19:22:00.000-07:00

i decided at 2:30am that today i would have the students design their own theme park rides.

i came up with a project proposal form in a matter of minutes and wrote up a lesson plan in less than 5.

why is it that my best ideas come to me at the worst possible times, and only take me minutes to write up and plan for? i should just sit down for 15 minutes a night and do what i need to do at normal hours.

so my class learned about disjointed inequalities today and practiced. then they proposed and sketched theme park rides of their own. they needed to impose height restrictions on their rides and make an inequality to represent it (and justify their reasoning as well.) tomorrow they will put their plans to chart paper and draw them up.

my kids had sooooo much fun with it, and i really got to see their personalities shine. they came up with some interesting and crazy ideas too. i look forward to seeing them finish tomorrow.

during my observation, i used 40 minutes for the warm up, mini lesson, practice, and discussions before group work. the kids were excited and engaged. two kids put there heads down and i woke them up with a bang. they debated the math, as well as semantics and meanings of words. they were raising their hands for every question. even my of the boat ELL student answered a question using her hands to simulate inequalities because she couldn't answer in english just yet.

from bell to bell i used every second and once we moved on to group work, the kids went right to it without any prodding. they did everything asked of them and i was able to wrap up with a couple of summary questions.

when i finished, the first word my professor said was "wow." i thought he was wowing the kids (they're a bit attitude-filled and feisty) but now, he was wowing that lesson. then he said "that lesson hit on everything i could ever want a teacher to do."

he went on to go through the lesson piece by piece and praise it. but i realized why it ended up being so good... the motivational hook. i never think too much about the motivations but my professor emailed me earlier this week reminding me that he would be looking at how i handle motivating my students. so yesterday and today i used the amusement park theme and drew in the kids from the first step.

i know that i need to really think hard so i can hook my kids with every lesson because it clearly works wonders. i just only wish my AP had stepped in, because he promised me he would pop in either today or tomorrow to observe.!

i rocked out interdisciplinary studies

2010-03-17T14:43:00.000-07:00

today i walked into school at 7:58 am with little idea of what i was going to be doing. we're learning inequalities and my kids are already good at solving multi-step ones so i couldn't exactly give them a whole period of practice.

i was reading about some of the best roller coasters in the world last night, and in a split second, a fantastic idea came to me.

i grabbed a few tape measures out of my closet and borrowed my neighbor's yard stick and proceeded to tell my class about an amazingly fast, tall, and intense ride called the "extreme horror coaster" in japan. of course i made up the name and pretty much all the details.

my kids were totally hooked, either they wanted to learn more and were listening intently, or they were horrified and completely silent while they took in the details.

little did i know this would be an awesome lesson which reviewed not only math with them, but some global studies, literacy, and biology as well.

i told them that because of the intensity of the horror coaster, riders had to be at least 66" tall. I armed them with measuring equipment and told them to determine whether they would be allowed on.

while they were measuring away (which is a skill they really needed the practice in) a colleague of mine happened to stop in to see what we were doing. when i told her, she mentioned he pingping, the shortest man in the world who recently passed away. she said she even had some copies of an article about him and she got them for me.

after they measured, came to conclusions, and drew up some inequalities, i handed out the article. we read and discussed it briefly. it even had a picture of both the shortest and tallest men together.

the class, who is currently in living environment, made the connection to the endocrine system and hormonal defects that cause dwarfism and gigantism!!!

then we came up with a ride that only pingping could go on (the choo choo train) and made an inequality for it.

then we decided the bumper cars would exclude both pingping and the tallest man for safety and comfort reasons and learned how to build a compound inequality with this information.

i'm getting observed tomorrow, and i want to come up with a good idea on how to continue with our amusement park inequalities (and perhaps some candy game,) preferably BEFORE i get into school to teach my first class tomorrow!

better week and tales from the darkside

2010-03-16T18:44:00.001-07:00

sexual innuendo boy was suspended. after a conference with him, myself, and the guidance counselor, i think he's clear on the issue and extremely apologetic. i'm somewhat confident this won't happen again.

my lessons have been going well since friday. i'm practically going broke purchasing candy for the students, but this is the self dubbed "candy unit." the kids are eagerly spending the first 45 minutes of each class learning and working out problems, just for 10 minutes of the candy inequality game in which they hold up a number in the solution set of a given inequality. if they are correct, they get a piece of candy tossed to them and if they are incorrect, they get a paper ball thrown at them. they all see to enjoy the game, especially when kids get hit with flying paper balls.

so last week was really bad and this week is better. that's the nature of this profession...

my principal nominated me for the teaching fellows ACE award again this year. my second application essay was rushed, as I submitted it at 11:59pm on the due date. but my resume is significantly more extensive and i'm much more involved in my school this year, so it might help. i could really use the money, i don't even care about the faux prestige!

and now for tales from the dark side (aka dean's office):
-today, after inappropriately touching two girls, a male student grabbed an iron bar in science lab and modeled it as his own penis and thrusted into the air telling the science teacher "isn't this what you do when you go home at night?"
-another student threatened a teacher and tried to throw punches at him, only to be intercepted by security just in time.
- yesterday two female students got into a fight in the main hallway over facebook comments. one girl was pulling the other's hair and when a teacher tried to intervene, the other girl literally climbed over the teacher, bashing her face in.

i have an insane number of kids currently on suspension or removal from class, about 10% of the school right now. my AP told me it gets very bad in the spring and if we crack down in march, it will be easier buckle down and the kids on board with their regent's work in april and may.

i'm also completely revolutionizing the detention system with a ton of resistance from the students. they don't want to serve their time because they hate it, which is leading to multiple suspensions. the administration is fully behind me and feels that students will adapt to the new system with time, which will ultimately lead to less detentions and suspensions in general.

how i know i'm really hated

2010-03-11T16:22:00.000-08:00

i attended an inquiry meeting today instead of teaching (woohoo.) after a long day, i had to come back into work to catch up on some paperwork.

i walked into my classroom and almost started crying.

my box of crayons and markers was laying open and empty on a desk and the floor was covered with my uncapped markers, plus broken up little bits of crayons. and my floor was flooded with torn up little bits of paper, all coming from detention letters.

the kicker was that i know it couldn't have happened during advisory because the teacher that took over my advisory class would NEVER let the students leave the room looking like that. so i was able to identify that it was my 5th period class that did it-- which means they saved their detention letters for 2 hours in order to trash my room with them.

the sub isn't at fault at all. from what i can tell, she did a great job. i had her actually teaching my class something, at it seems that many of the students learned. something else i noticed when i walked in is that there were explanations and answers up on the board and textbooks all over so my classes were somewhat productive today.

but back to my trashed room... the initial shock wore off after about a minute and i started cleaning up. then a 10th grader (boy do i miss teaching those kids!) came in and when he saw the mess, he offered to clean my room in exchange for me knocking an hour off his detention, which i gladly accepted. (note to self: think of more duties i can have kids help me with in exchange for detention hours.)

lucky for this boy the janitor walked in about 3 minutes later so the job was easy. i profusely apologized to the janitor for the mess, but he was pretty rude to me. i understand why, but it still bothers me.

oh then my day got even worse. there's a relatively new boy in my school who has been completely disrespectful to me. i pulled him into the office to talk to him, tell him he's getting on my last nerve, that i'm willing to start anew with him, but next time he bothers me i'm not even going to give him a chance and i'll just suspend him...

so he seemed ok with everything. an hour later, when i left work he was waiting outside. he told me he wanted me to take him home with me and he wanted to be with me. asked if i had a husband, and other assorted nonsense. too bad he didn't do this in the school building because i would have sat him down, had him call his father and explain what he did, and suspended him for sexual innuendos.

i was nervous the boy was going to follow me home but he didn't.

i am calling his home tomorrow but i feel so goddamn defeated. EVERYTHING is getting to me! i think i'm more of a mess this week than i have ever ever been in my teaching career (all 18 months of it.) i am realizing though that my AP gets nearly as much crap from the kids as i do, but he lets it roll right off of him to the point where it amuses him-- and that discourages the kids. so i think i'll develop thicker skin from this, because i know myself and i always succeed at everything i try. i'll just have to adapt.

i feel like running away

2010-03-09T20:26:00.000-08:00

the students hate me this year. i went from most loved to most hated very quickly. i suppose that means i can be loved again but right now it's bugging me.

i'm under so much pressure at work. i feel like i'm letting things slip past me and maybe i shouldn't care so much but i'm used to being 100% on top of things and in control.

something i haven't discussed thus far in this blog is my personal life. i won't go into detail, but my marriage has been in turmoil for a long time and it very well might be ending. but right now i'm feeling tortured and scared.

every week it seems a new babysitter cancels on me and i'm now in jeopardy of failing my grad school class because of attendance issues, even though i have the highest scores in the class.

i want to stay home and cry and hide. seriously.

but i cant.

spring break is coming but it's no vacation. it just means getting up early and taking care of my children, all the while fighting with my husband. i'd rather be at work than on break.

i need to manage my time better and get in control. i'm feeling extremely on edge and vulnerable right now. and i know i'm probably biting off more than i can chew at work, but to make matters worse i'm desperate for the money. i gave up one per session posting (only 4 hours a month) but i can't afford to take on less at this point.

I am a per session whore.

2010-02-23T19:37:00.001-08:00

I would probably do best not to overwhelm myself in only my second year, however as my husband's pay has been seriously cut and we're struggling to make ends meet, I have happily stockpiled as many per session positions as I could get my hands on.

My extra duties go something like this every 2 weeks:

Extra math class I picked up: 4 hours
Running detention: 6 hours +
Data specialist: 4 hours
Coordinator of education plans: 1 hour

This leaves me with approximately $630 extra every 2 weeks.

Today I pitched an idea to my AP for an extra hour every week to work in a small group with the ESL students who miss a lot of my class due to mandated ESL work and he went for it. He liked it so much that he's asking one of the science teachers to do the same. I just have to find the time for it.

So now I'm going to be getting over $1400 per session a month. I'm such a whore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I started a project the day before break last week and have been continuing it this week. I forgot how much projects are a win-win situation! The kids enjoy doing them, while I don't need to make lesson plans or worry about teaching as they work together practically the entire period.

I'm ever so slightly ahead of last year's pace and I did TONS of projects and chart paper lessons and presentations, so I should be just fine relaxing slightly until the end of April and work on making my class more enjoyable.

need to rethink things

2010-02-10T18:01:00.000-08:00

i realize i'm not differentiating enough.

and i've been way too boring.

i need to take next week to relax, think, and come up with new ways to help my kids learn.

making the most of advisory

2010-02-08T16:17:00.000-08:00

They still haven't hired a new history teacher so I have my advisory in the meantime.

I actually came up with a pretty decent 2 week project to tide us over until the break, after which, I hope to have the class relieved from me.

I have the kids making their very first resumes and they actually really enjoy it. I've been alternating days in the classroom with days in the computer lab. When they're on the computers, I let them play music and surf the web as long as they complete the assignment and hand in a printed document by the end of the hour. They're great at multitasking on the computer-- and trust me, I get it. I do the same thing myself all night long.

They have enjoyed the peer editing as well. Tomorrow they'll print out a final version and Wednesday I think we'll do mock job interviews. Thursday, if I know for sure that a new teacher is coming to take over my class, I'll throw them a little "going away" party.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have officially been chosen for the per session after school dean position. This is from 4-8 per session hours every 2 weeks.

I'm already making 9 per session hours each pay period so this will be a nice addition.

advisory is almost gone!!!

2010-02-02T14:38:00.000-08:00

the dean position is still not posted. and apparently i'm not the only person gunning for it.

however, my AP told me yesterday that him and the principal decided that since I have been given so much responsibility since my colleague left (running PD, meetings, basically at the beck and call of my principal) they agree that it's only fair to take my advisory away from me to free up some of my time.

and when the time comes that dean is posted, it'll be easier to take the position as i'm only teaching 4 periods a day.

so in the meantime i'm just waiting for them to hire a new teacher to take over my old colleague's classes. because of the freeze, they have to interview all the ATR's in addition to traditional candidates before they are allowed to make a decision so it's taking a while. but i can't wait for the new teacher because i'm in the mood to meet someone new and this person will be picking up my dreaded advisory class!!!

while i'm waiting, i'm hanging around the AP trying to learn the ropes. today i played with the building security cameras for the first time and caught a kid graffiti-ing up a table in our main hallway. exciting because he just happens to be someone my AP is trying to get rid and here the kid earned himself a suspension.

my AP was so excited that we nabbed, he actually high fived me when he saw the camera footage.

omg i'm such a suck up. but really i'm desperate for money right now so i'm mostly gunning for per session hours.

2010-01-26T15:11:00.000-08:00

i have been told today by my departing colleague that my advisory has already been taken away from me. THANK GOD. although it's kind of strange that the position still hasn't been posted yet and the administration hasn't said a word to me about deaning yet. but if i were on the other side of the fence and wanted the position i'd be extremely upset.

it will not, however, be a reality until i hear it direct from the the higher ups.

something i'm mulling over though is that my colleague asked if i want to take over his classroom. he's directly across from the main office so if issues came up he could quickly take or make a phone call or print out a suspension letter. my classroom is in the main teaching corridor but not near any office or computer or phone. it would be an advantage to move to his old classroom, but i there are a few things to consider:

a) it would be a huge hassle to move my entire classroom, take down student work and bulletin boards, move my bookcases and textbooks, and empty my lockers and cabinets.
b) i just got new oversized desks and don't want to give them up, nor do i want to inconvenience the custodial staff and make them switch two classrooms.
c) many of the students are emotional about my colleague leaving. i feel weird taking over his position as well as his room when everyone knows i have my own room already. i don't want to give the students any more reason to be resentful towards me.

but should i really care? am i being too meek and overly sensitive towards others? ugh whatever. maybe i'll stay put just for this semester and then i can always move rooms over the summer if i feel it will be easier.

out with the old... possibly.

2010-01-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

My dear colleague is leaving next week and will only be with us for a maximum of 3 more days.

Although the position for data specialist hasn't been posted yet, I've been told it's mine. There's only one other person who might apply, but I know the administration wants me for it. I'm nervous about going to network meetings and schmoozing with all of the higher ups at the district but it's good for me. My ultimate goal is to become an administrator so this can only help me grow and learn professionally.

The school will also need a new dean now. My colleague has been pushing for me to consider it for a while and I felt it wasn't for me. However, I teach a godawful advisory class 4 days a week and would do anything to get out of it. I really struggle with the class and would not mind whoring myself out to ditch it.

As dean, I would be able to get rid of one of my classes to take care of paperwork and other issues. So now I'm sure I will be applying for the position and am hoping I get it. Anything to get out of advisory!

I spent almost 2 hours this afternoon learning everything about being data specialist and doing dean work. I know all the computer stuff and how to take care of paperwork. I've got it down. I learned about the budget for the different positions and for my data team staff. I'm not worried about any of this. What I am worried about is standing in the hallways and ensuring order. And earning the respect of all the students. I don't have enough confidence with this.

I have some big shoes to fill and I'm nervous. But everyone starts somewhere. I'm just going to jump in head first and go for it.

As for dean, I've been told that there are 2 other people who might apply. The administration was unsure of who they wanted but I'm the only one who has been trained on the back end aspect which is valuable. I also have the school secretary on my side and she's thisclose with the principal. She's sold on my ideas to change our ineffective detention center.

So here's hoping I can get rid of my advisory, something I've been trying to do since my very first week as a teacher!!

my disjointed year

2010-01-17T07:04:00.000-08:00

last year i felt that the prentice hall textbook presented integrated algebra in such a disjointed fashion that i attempted to reorganize the curriculum this year. i don't think i've made any major improvements though and approximately half way through the year, i still have a ton of ground to cover.

so far i've done:

writing expressions and equations
solving equations
ratios and proportions
function tables
scatter plots
graphing lines
slope and y-intercept
solving systems of equations graphically and algebraically
probability
properties of real numbers

so far i have to do:
data analysis (MOCT, types of data, presentations of data)
inequalities (understanding and graphing)
systems of inequalities
working with exponents and scientific notation
polynomials (adding, subtracting, and multiplying)
factoring
parabolas
pythagorean theorem
simplifying square roots
trigonometric ratios

i'm skipping rational expressions for now...

i'm not so sure i'm going to be able to fit this all in by mid-may. somehow last year i was incredibly ahead of where i am now.

what i'm hoping is since my kids are now mavens at graphing, the inequality and parabola sections will go super fast. i'm really nervous!

Bittersweet news

2010-01-13T15:40:00.000-08:00

There is a teacher at my school who I really look up to. He is younger than me, but is in his 5th year. We always have gotten along great and he really helped me learn the ropes of the whole school system. Unofficially, he has been my mentor.

He has always talked very highly of me to the administration and introduced me to important people. He also pushed me to coordinate the inquiry team for my grade and has nudged me into other leadership roles since he saw great potential.

I love working with him for another reason; we challenge each other intellectually. We are both highly competitive and push each other to be the best we can be. And aside from that, we compete in silly games and make bets and just generally make work a lot more enjoyable.

He has been looking for an administrative position and today he let me know one of his interviewers called back and he's been offered an AP position to begin within 2 weeks. I am sooooo happy for him, but also quite sad to see him go. He will be sorely missed.

He thinks I should be happy that he's leaving because he's also vacating a slew of per session positions for me to fill (to the tune of about $20K/yr.) And god knows I need the money. But I'm not so sure I'm ready to fill his shoes. I only just ran my first PD for the school today and was enjoying easing into various leadership roles. This is all so sudden.

I'm nervous, scared, and already missing a good friend dearly before he has even left.

bad day

2010-01-11T14:24:00.000-08:00

omg today was semi-hellish.

of 4 classes that i taught, 3 were absolutely horrid (the sole exception being the CTT class because apparently i have some natural skill with them.) i wanted to make at least 20 phonecalls home this afternoon but i had no free periods. instead i had a mandatory PD meeting at the end of the day.

so of course tomorrow the kids will be just as bad since they "got away" with their bad behavior today as i had no way of calling home. thankfully tomorrow i have the last 2 hours of the day free so i will be on the phone and hopefully make some sort of impact.

ugh.

i'm not going to even bother starting from september again in regards to rule enforcement because i have 1 week to go until finals. in another day these kids will be working in groups with review materials and it's up to them if they want to pass or fail. i've temporarily resigned from helping them at this point.

after finals is regents week so there's no school, and then the new semester starts at which point i will go back to basics with the rules. until then it's just survival.

2010-01-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

I never got a chance to relax or rest during christmas break, so my first week back was pretty miserable. I guess the kids were also a bit off the wall and things didn't start looking up til around Thursday.

I started a new practice this week which is so obvious, I don't know what took me so long to do it! The topic I'm doing now easily lends itself to a long answer section of the Regents. So I put up my own 4-point Regents rubric on the board, encouraging the kids to get a point or 2 even if they're pretty clueless (as I go over the rubric, I teach them the tricks to earn partial credit even with minimal knowledge.)

The students are eating it up! For about 30 minutes I give the class multiple examples to work on either independently or with their groups and as they finish each one I give them a rubric grades. Kids who I usually get no work from are getting 1 or 2 points, and the really sever special ed students are also able to get at least 2 points using what I taught them.

I've found this to be particularly helpful for my CTT class, because everyone can get involved and see some measure of success, but at the same time the high achieving students strive for perfect 4's and with the immediate grading, they compete with each other for the perfect 4s, and look for errors and correct the work right away when they get anything less.

Ok so speaking of CTT, there was a big meeting on Friday with the principal, AP of special ed, the special ed teacher, 2 paras, the secretary, and guidance counselor. They discussed how the CTT class isn't working well and changes needed to be made next semester. They asked the CTT teacher if they saw the class working well in any subject and she said that only in my class are the SPEDs making progress while the gen ed kids are doing as well as, or better than when they started back in september. she pointed out that they work particularly well in groups in my class, and that i maintain a competitive enviroment that encourages the lower function students to achieve while engaging the higher functioning ones.

I wasn't at this meeting; I had no idea it was even taking place. But for the rest of the afternoon random people came up to me to tell me what a "hit" i was at the SPED meeting. Pretty awesome.

So last week started terribly (I mean there had to be at least 10 times a day that I just stood there staring at my students not knowing what to do because they were so bad!) but it ended pretty successfully. We'll see how next week goes.

omg respect

2009-12-08T12:28:00.000-08:00

i teach in the main hallway in my school and lately there has been at least one fight a week outside my doors during class. usually when this happens, you can observe classroom doors swinging open throughout the entire hall as students rush out to see what's going on.

today there was a fight near the end of the day as i was 45 minutes into a math class and trying to get the class's attention to start to wrap up.

there was yelling outside and students swarmed into the hallway to get involved.

my kids actually ASKED me if they could leave their seats to see what was going on! i told them they could crowd around and watch but they had to keep my doors closed. and they listened.

unbelievable.

and within 3 minutes i was able to resume, give out some reminders, and a wrap up problem.

the lull before christmas break

2009-12-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

i feel like both mine and my students' motivation is sinking. it's that time of year again!!

before thanksgiving the classes were getting out of control so i kicked off this week with a return to rules. good strategy. i called 3 parents today alone and got one student suspended. maybe things will get better...

i really really miss last year's students. but i'm starting to like this year's kids more, too. not all of them, but a few of them are growing on me.

bad habit of the month: i am coming into school with no lesson plans and just a general idea of where i'm going. i make up my lessons in between periods, or take 10 minutes during my preps. but i'm encouraged to keep doing this because it's working.

like today, in 15 minutes i came up with a full lesson that divided my room into 4 stations, with activities and a competition where each team got 10 minutes per station to complete the tasks then had to rotate. then they got 5 minutes to fix up their work and hand in a portfolio for immediate grading and a reward for the top team. i got lucky and found 2 activities online immediately, and then made up 2 of my own. and it went over amazingly! the kids loved it soooo much, i'm totally repeating this lesson for all my other classes.

shit like this tempts me to come in empty handed again.

proficient

2009-11-17T22:11:00.000-08:00

pretty decent.

eight students were asked to go speak to the reviewer regarding the school environment, academics, etc. one student came to tell me she talked about how great i was. i thanked her for the flattery.

then in the presence of some school staff but no other teachers, my principal said that while she would never say this in front of the teaching staff, it was clear when discussing the teachers that the students overwhelmingly favored my class.

pretty awesome although i sometimes question my principal's motives and wonder if she's being 100% truthful. either way, it's a pretty effective strategy to help teacher feel confident in their practice.

oh also i found out the final regent's passing rate for last year including summer school: 78%. kind of overwhelming because i think it will be highly impossible for me to attain that again this year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

note to self: i know that right now, i can't make my lessons interesting to the students every day. sometimes i even go day after day of difficult skills and practice. i found that right now, for me, the best way to engage the students is to alternate fun topics and projects with rigorous skill development. maybe one day i'll be masterful enough to teach every topic in an interesting, innovative manner. but for now, i'll stick with infusing the curriculum with chart paper, markers, projects, and games every 2-3 weeks. i stick out the tough stuff as much as possible, and push them to their limits of pure mathematical skill. then we take a breather and enjoy an easy, project based unit.

i know some teachers teach everything inquiry and project based but i haven't gotten to that point. in some ways what i do is a cop out, but OTOH it works for my students and i think the change of pace every few weeks invigorates them.

i'm interested in what my take on this method of teaching will be a few years down the line.

quality review

2009-11-16T16:12:00.000-08:00

the inquiry meeting wasn't bad. i hope we got a proficient, but either way i found it to be a nice experience to talk with someone from the doe and get a feel for what kind of questions they ask, as well as what direction they want the school to go in. the woman gave us a lot of advice in terms of one issue we were having with part of the inquiry process.

so they were only able to visit two classrooms today out of 12. of course my principal brought them to mine. i know i should be proud, but it's so stressful!! my principal caught wind that the students were presenting projects they worked on and i guess she wanted to show them off. my kids actually did extraordinary well, except for the one group that burst out laughing in the middle and cursed each other :)

they're gonna be back again tomorrow. not sure exactly why they need two days, but i should be in the clear. i've already been observed by them and met with them about inquiry and about general school environment questions.

now i have to prepare for my observation on thursday. my professor is observing me in my CTT class, as usual. and i'm going to be out the day before so i might walk into pure chaos.

quality review

2009-11-15T22:20:00.001-08:00

the quality review team is coming to my school in just a few short hours. as one of the inquiry team coordinators, i'm going to have to meet with them. i've been told just to listen to the other members BS and jump in when i feel comfortable. ugh, so not me.

i'm also giving the final assessment of the team based unit to the CTT class tomorrow. trying to get them above a 48% pass rate. i already have one special ed kid move to the passing side since this unit started. i have a few more who are getting much higher grades, but their homework is still holding them back. i have to figure out an action plan to get more work out of them or they still won't pass since they're test grades are borderline as it is.

score

2009-11-14T17:19:00.000-08:00

i met with my principal this past week and scored 2 more per session hours a month (and a new responsibility-- i now have someone reporting to me!) so now i'm up to 14 steady hours, plus whatever random jobs i pick up.

such a headache

2009-11-10T20:08:00.000-08:00

there is so much drama in my school and i just feel drained.

i'm trying to figure out whether last year there was drama and i was just oblivious to it, or this year there happens to be a lot more issues, or if it's a little of both.

i am not taking sides and i try not to get involved in any of the nonsense but it's still hard to constantly listen to what everyone is saying about each other. and, at the same time, wondering if they're talking about me, too.

i seriously hear complaints and gossip about people at my school on a daily basis. what really got me was yesterday, the assistant principal took me aside with the dean had the audacity to complain about a who i thought was a highly respected teacher, and then accused her of a conspiracy theory. who am *i* to be privy to this information? why do i even have to hear it? sometimes i wish i was still a clueless first year.

i know that the administration likes and respects me (for now) and i've been giving an increasing number of responsibilities (and per session money-- yay.) but with this responsibility has come the enormous burden of hearing all the bullshit that goes on in my school and it's wearing on me.

80%-- not really happening

2009-10-27T18:10:00.001-07:00

one of my goals was for 80% of my kids to pass the Regent's this year. while i can already see that i have a higher percentage of high performing kids this year who i know will pass the Regent's with no problem, i have a much higher percent of special ed kids and no shows. and also kids that just can't do anything. literally.

some of the sped kids will pass. i'm working with them. but there are just a ton that don't have a shot in hell. i think if even the borderline kids pass, at most i will get a 75% pass rate. and i'm thinking it will be closer to 70%. it's a shame to fall so short of my goal, but there are some things i can't control, like the crack baby (teenager) who comes to school, fights, and then gets suspended or walks out every day, or the split personality boy who attempted to rape another student outside school and is on suspension indefinitely. then there's a girl who has potential; she shows some skills in math. but she is severely emotionally disturbed and acts as if the classroom is a jungle. her IEP calls for a para, but we still didn't get one for her yet. so she runs around the class like a chicken with no head while we're waiting for proper educational support services.

and there are more, so many more. i can only do so much. last year my students were overall at a lower level than this year, but at least they were almost all "workable." so we'll see what this year brings, but a lofty goal by august would probably look more like 75% passing.

laziness

2009-10-21T18:00:00.000-07:00

i've got this inattentive kid in one of my classes. he has decent skills, but he doesn't do well because he tunes me out the entire period. then he copies off his groupmates in the last 5 minutes to get work done.

he's not passing. i told him this method will not work in my class. he suggested i do what is 8th grade teacher did. he didn't do his classwork, so for a make up, she gave him extra homework problems to count. then he got classwork credit for the day. he said this is the only way he was able to pass.

i told him he wasn't in baby school anymore and i would do no such thing. i can't believe a teacher would let a student show up every day, refuse to work, and then make it up each nice with a couple of textbook examples. talk about enabling laziness and poor work habits...

he came up with an idea that might help him do work in class. but i have a feeling it's going to take a long time before he's a productive student.

2009-10-20T15:46:00.001-07:00

i have a class that really cares about their grades. they are enormously competitive but at the same time they help each other out left and right. it's amazing to see. today i gave a test and they begged me to grade them on the spot. most of the class charged my desk when time was up to see how they did. they watched as i graded each and every paper waiting for them to be handed back out. there were two girls who were so anxious they were shaking.

so i graded the tests and gave them back out. after nearly everyone compared scores, something else happened. they grouped together on their own and not just compared answers but helped each other work through the examples they got wrong. in one group, a student even came up with some practice problems to give the other kids. they all took care to make sure their fellow classmates understood everything.

after this beautiful moment, a bunch of them wanted to know their averages now that a new test score was inputted. they wanted specifics. GPAs down to the nearest tenth. ranking in the class. the works. the top four students in the class are girls, and boy can they get catty. the class ended with the 97.6 average student telling the 97.8 that she wished the girl had failed so she could be #1 instead of #2. then #3 in the class, with only a 95.7 ripped up her test paper. the 92 she scored wasn't enough for her to keep the #2 spot and she was pissed. #4 in the class at least finally came to terms with her 93 average but she's still determined to be at least #3.

the competition is unbelievable. i tend to make the kids in my classes really competitive, but with just a little fuel from me, these kids have gone beyond what i've ever seen before. i can't say it's necessarily healthy because it bothered me to see the girl rip up her 92. it reminded me of my days in a specialized high school. i was a complete slacker with a 90 average.

however, i love to see the kids care so much. and by competing with each other, they're studying more, doing all their homework, complete angels in class, and constantly help out their classmates. the competition between the top four has also inspired others to compete with each other at various levels, and nearly each student is steadily raising their GPA. i'm not really sure how this happened; i guess i got lucky with a great mix of kids, but it's absolutely brilliant what's going on in that class.

i guess they do learn eventually (well some of them at least)

2009-10-19T19:41:00.000-07:00

my worst offender from last year (who happens to be the same kid i kicked out of summer school on day one) is doing fabulous. he defied me in front of the whole class and the next day we gave him a suspension and had his parent come up. finally something clicked and he's on the right path in my class.

i failed the kid every single marking period last year and he was already failing one month into this school year. the day after his father came up he completely turned around. two weeks ago he got an 88 on the first class test. last week he proved to be the most helpful and useful member in his group day after day. he continued today and handed me in a stack of missing homework he completed over the weekend.

he's actually passing with a 78 now. there are four A students in his class, all girls. i have challenged him to represent the gentlemen in his class and show the girls where it's at. i don't know that he'll get there, but if he keeps this work up he'll come darn close. and boy do i hope he does because he can be a terror when he doesn't want to work!

fridays rule.

2009-10-16T13:33:00.000-07:00

i tell my students on friday's that i'm even happier that the week is over than they are, and if i can control myself, then there's no reason they shouldn't be able to!

i love fridays so much. and many thanks to the scheduling gods that gave me the last period on friday as a prep. so i finish at 1pm.

first marking period is almost over. last time this year i had around a 50% passing rate. i have one class now with an 83% pass rate.

the ctt class is the only one under a 50% pass rate and sadly all the special ed kids in the class are failing. the sped teacher and i both believe that it's more of a behavioral and focus issue rather than difficult work or problems with differentiation.

so i started teams this week. i let them work in small, focused groups for the entire period. i teach a skill for maybe five minutes total and then they explore it and practice with their teammates. halfway through the hour i stop them and teach for another five minutes after which i expand their assignment. their team is graded on a 3 point rubric each day with one delegate responsible for making sure they earn their points. this focus, ownership, and lack of me actually trying to address the group as a whole has really helped. i've noticed a number of changes with the special ed students in the class and i suppose next week's test will help me see if this structure has been as effective as i think!

great success! errr maybe not...

2009-10-15T16:07:00.000-07:00

I gave a test last week and many students failed. I am very against giving extra credit work and I won't let the kids take the test home and fix it for credit either, because I know most of them will just copy answers. But I did tell them I would give another test this week on the same material with different questions. I gave them one week to relearn the material on their own and give it another shot.

Last year I offered a makeup test only once. Out of 40 failing students, two came and both failed again. I expected similar results this time. Yet today, out of about 30 students, nine came. And even better, out of the nine students that failed originally, five now passed. And better yet, of those that passed, one got an 80 and the other four got high 90s! These kids increased their averages by at least 20 points! I'm really proud of them and am glad that I have five more kids on board with me in class. And of course, success breeds success so I look forward to an upward trend with these kids.

I will consider giving make up tests more often because I don't care if it takes the students a second chance to get it right, nor if they come to rely on the make up as a crutch. The bottom line is that they have to learn the material and pass the Regent's and if this is an incentive for them to study on their own, so be it.

Now for the non-success... four of my former students, now 10th graders, stopped by my classroom after school. They were bored and when they saw I was giving a test, they wanted in on it. They claimed they would ace the exam. So I gave them one test and let the four of them group together outside the classroom and take it together.

I heard them murmuring... "slope.... i think you have to subtract something..." and "product... what's that?" Guess I didn't teach them well enough last year for them to retain the information!!! After 20 minutes the four boys handed me the exam and asked me to grade it. Even with all their collaboration, they scored a............ drumroll............ 63%!!!!! I totally reamed them for getting their butts kicked by more than half the 9th graders in the room. They told me they're going to come back and take more of my tests because they need to prove to me they know what they're doing! whatever floats their boat... but i personally love to see students who actually take an interest in academics. it's so refreshing!

update

2009-10-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

even though i only slept two hours and taught a full load plus a per session class today, it turned out to be better than expected. some highlights:

- i took off a day last week and one girl asked me if i got her classes work that they completed while i was out. she was proud that they did an amazing job. well i checked and i was astounded. everyone completed the assignment with such precision and neatness which is uncharacteristic of my students. they all neatly stapled their graphs to their papers and labeled everything without being instructed to do so. i was so proud of them!

- a boy who complained about me being so boring that he can't learn ( 2 weeks ago) was so happy to be in my class today. i teased him and prodded him but with a ton of pushing he did his work successfully. i had him in three different classes today and by last period he tried to hug me multiple times but of course i left him hanging:) then he dutifully did his homework and copied down all the assignments he missed and started on them too. i guess he decided he likes me and will now work for me! i love when that happens.

-another student who can be somewhat problematic decided he's striving for a B so he buckled down today and did a ton of make up work. we'll see if this lasts!

- i scored another per session position. now i'm up to about 13 hours a month. i so need the money.

so this second year has been way better. and it's only looking up with a three day weekend coming up!

it's been three weeks

2009-09-29T18:20:00.001-07:00

since school started. and i'm very happy with how things are going. this new crop of ninth graders seems really eager to please. it might be due, in part, to how i'm presenting myself, but i actually think they're worlds better than last year's freshman.

i spent the first week on rules and procedures, with a little math here and there. in the past two weeks, my kids have learned how to handle fractions, write algebraic expressions, fill out function tables, plot points, graph simple lines using tables, and graph scatterplots with the line of best fit and recognize correlations. i'm going to take the rest of the week slow, practice, review with regent's questions, and give my first full test next week. i'm toying with the idea of introducing slope already. i know it's something most of my students found difficult in middle school so i might wait.

one student completely defied me today in front of the entire class and then a hallway full of kids. luckily i have enough of a paper trail on him to get him suspended. i didn't think of logging every little thing last year, but i see now how it gives me leverage to really reign down on these kids. now i'll use him as an example so that the other student don't think they can get one over on me like that.

i guess i'm really lucky to have a super supportive dean and administration. i simply said i need this kid suspended, told them what i had on him, and they got right to it. it really scares me to think about what some of my colleagues go through in a less supportive environment. i don't think i'd ever last.

2009-09-10T13:37:00.000-07:00

this year is already starting off better, for one reason only: i know what i want.

i know exactly what type of classroom I want to run and how to shape things to get there. last year i had some vague ideas but i just went with the flow and took it all in.

last year was successful. but in order to reach my goals for this year, i need more instructional time. i can imagine that all the times i had to call out a kid for a behavior issue, plus all the times the entire class dragged because they weren't doing what they were told, added up to a couple of weeks worth of time.

i'm hoping the systems i put in place this year work to eliminate a lot of these problems so we can have more time for Regent's review at the end of the year. I'm actually aiming to add 2.5 weeks onto what I did last year.

so far kids are actually asking permission to leave their seats for EVERYTHING... throwing out garbage, and even for spitting out gum!! the school counselor told me one of her students already complained that he got in trouble in my class. i walked down the aisle past a different student and she literally jumped. today when i wanted their silence for the first time and certain students were still talking, the rest of the class stared at them in shock. another student told them "silence!" they were afraid. I'M NOT TRYING TO SCARE THEM!!! but apparently i am instilling fear which is a good thing. i'll definitely loosen up once they're in the routine of doing what they should.

i have also called home for one student already and sent a letter home for a parental conference. i foresee having to call at least 2 other homes tomorrow. i seriously would have never done this last year because these misbehaviors didn't bother me. but i'm all about putting my foot down in the beginning and i hope all these parents don't hate me!

school starts in the morning!

2009-09-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

i want to be in work within 6 hours.

what in the world am i still doing up then???

i was super prepared this year. had my opening letter, quiz, and powerpoint done a week ago. i have the first week entirely planned. i even reorganized the curriculum a bit and mapped out a year long plan attacking the different units, with timelines.

i look forward to being super strict this year. i posted rules and consequences in my room today, more as a reminder to myself to be consistent and follow through with my actions.

it was suggested to me to become a dean at my school. i never thought that would be me, but apparently the current dean sees it in me. anything to get rid of my damned advisory class... so i will practice being no nonsense this semester, both in my class and in the hallways.

final topic: i need a new blog name. "first year experiment" worked well last year but it no longer holds true for me. i know i don't have a large readership, but if anyone has any suggestions i'd like to hear them.

happy teaching to all!

summer school recap

2009-08-24T16:50:00.000-07:00

it wasn't bad at all. teaching 2 hour long classes was a bit trying, but i loved being done with my day by 10am. i kicked the worst kid out of my class on day one, and i had virtually no problem with any other students.

i needed the money and it was definitely worth it. even as the summer is ending and i'm gearing up to start a new school year, i would say i will definitely teach summer school again next year as long as the opportunity is there.

almost half of the kids that sat for the summer regent's passed. this brings my passing percentage up to somewhere in the 75-80% range. thank goodness for low standards.

i'm starting to get a little nervous about the upcoming school year though. i'm teaching the same subject as last year, but i want to revamp it in a sense. i want to change the order of the curriculum and change a lot of my lessons. i've been putting it off but i need to start. i would like to have at least my first unit written out by Monday.

summer school

2009-07-19T19:41:00.001-07:00

how am i supposed to take a class filled with both the most disruptive kids in the school and the kids that need the most extra help, manage them for a two hour block each day, and in 8 days flat teach them enough to pass the regents???

remind me why i'm doing this again? i feel like i'm setting myself and the students up for failure.

math regents

2009-06-22T12:53:00.000-07:00

about 70% of my students passed.

not too bad. 72% of the students that sat were level 1s and 2s.

i'm aiming for at least 75% next year though. there's so much i plan on doing differently.

attention all first year NYCTFers!

2009-06-21T18:47:00.000-07:00

I have been privy to a number of resumes received by my school from first year hopefuls trying to find a job. I have also sat in on some demo lessons as well. What I've seen makes me embarrassed for some of these would be teachers, as well as embarrassed for the fellows as a whole. No wonder people find it difficult to find a job... use your common sense, people!

A couple of pointers based on what I've seen in the past month:

#1: If you are sending a resume via email, do not make your cover letter a separate attachment. The body of your email should be the cover letter itself! If you write a boring, generic, or casual email and expect anyone to actually download a cover letter or resume after that, you're wrong. You may have only 8 seconds to make a great impression. Please utilize your emails wisely!

#2: Get the name of your school right! There is no "Brooklyn University." If you sound clueless, certainly we have no reason to believe you're not!

#3: Having a world travel section on your resume makes you seem downright pretentious. And actually, I'll just laugh behind your back from this.

#4: If you are invited to an interview, come on time! In fact, come ten minutes early. Bring extra copies of your resume and dress professionally! Capri pants are not the ideal interview attire.

#5: If you are invited to do a demo lesson, have a lesson plan with you!!! I understand you're not teachers yet, but there are plenty of resources online. There is no excuse to show up empty handed. In addition, a lesson where you present an interesting topic and the students ask questions for 45 minutes is not acceptable! There should be clear parts to your lesson, including some sort of group work component and sharing if you want a chance at landing the job.

#6: If you are asked to give a demo lesson in earth science, it is not acceptable to teach a lesson in astrology!!!!

That's all I have so far. I'm sure the readers of this blog (are there more than 2???) have more sense than to make one of the above blunders, but you never know. I do hope that those teachers who were not called back, or did not get the job, reflect on what they can improve for subsequent interviews. After all, even I went on 4 interviews before I landed my job!

i'm done.

2009-06-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

pretty much. tomorrow begins regents week. no more lessons, no more teaching. this is getting way exciting.

it just remains to be seen how my kids do on the exam. apparently last week there was a rumor floating amongst the students that the math was the most important exam to pass. i'm not sure how this came to be, but hey why not? even the school secretary told me that lots of kids came into her office talking about how they really wanted to pass the math exam.

somehow i don't think my results will be all that great, but supposedly my administration isn't expecting greatness. how much can you do with a school basically filled with level 1s and 2s??

musical histograms and other news

2009-06-04T20:25:00.000-07:00

interdisciplinary connections in action:

upon reviewing histograms, i overheard one student ask another about the difference between a histogram and a bar graph. the response: in a bar graph, the bars are staggered, but in a histogram, they're legato."

most excellent.

________________________________________________

the end is near and i'm getting excited. i am no longer nostalgic; rather i'm quite sick of the students. they have been poorly behaved this week and they're getting on my last nerve. but i understand it, really. they all know that what they do this week doesn't matter; if they pass the Regent's next week, that's all they need.

at 8am my homeroom students come in and work dilligently. they want to pass and they take full advantage of having an extra hour with the math teacher. every single student in that class who completed a practice regent's this week passed to my surprise. but once 9am hits and the students *have* to be in math class, they get antsy. overall i'm hoping for at least a 50% pass rate. the dean tells me i should get around 75%. it's difficult considering nearly the entire school came in as level 1 or 2. but yes, half of them should pass which i hope means that i raised some of those level 2s to a level 3.

in other news, i decided to teach algebra next year. i was truly leaning towards continuing with my current students into geometry, but really I'm sick of them! also, i completed 2 courses in geometry this semester in grad school and i hated them. i could barely do the work. i'm looking forward to getting another shot at teaching algebra and perfecting my lessons. then maybe once i have a handle on teaching in general, i'll expand to do geometry.

so, one more day of teaching left for me this year! monday will not be a regular class day in my school, and tuesday starts regent's week. it's been fun, but i'm so done!

fortunately for me, my behind is unscathed.

2009-05-04T15:40:00.000-07:00

in my per session remedial math class this afternoon (read: a bunch of kids who hate math, hate me, but were forced into coming,) one girl asked me if they were going to have to hire a new math teacher for next year since we're going to have another grade come in. when i told her yes, she asked me which grade i was going to teach.

now this is a girl who has talked back to me, called me boring, and basically dissed me out numerous times this year. but i sometimes get through to her.

i was certain she was about to get excited at the prospect of having a new teacher. i told her that i didn't yet know if i was going to teach 9th or 10th grade. she said to me "noooo you have to teach us next year. if we get someone new, we're gonna abuse them. we're going to glue their ass to their chair."

charming, really. and here i thought this group was tough on me.

the closer i get to the end, the warmer they're becoming with me. and i keep liking them more and more each day. they're really helping me make up my mind.

finally!

2009-05-03T19:52:00.001-07:00

last summer when i was student teaching, i only got to teach one lesson of my own creation. i stayed up all night long creating color coded manipulatives. i worked my butt off to come up with something engaging and informative and much to my satisfaction, it worked wonders with the students.

i saved everything so carefully in separate envelopes and baggies (the manipulatives were divided amongst 8 groups) and looked forward to the day that i could reuse that lesson. finally, that time has come. way behind on the pacing, i have finally hit factoring. excitedly, i printed out the lesson that has been waiting on my hard drive since july 2008. about to pack up my bag for the night, i look into the closet where my teaching materials are, and lo and behold the contents of my lesson is missing.

i guess i have a bit of a search mission to execute before bedtime.

they want me.

2009-05-02T18:13:00.000-07:00

last period on friday i told an obnoxious student that i couldn't wait until next year so i can teach the new 9th graders instead of them, and he said "noooooooooooooooo ms. Adelaide.... you HAVE TO teach us!!!"

my gosh as annoying as these kids can be i really do like them, and most of them like me. still mulling over next year's options, but i think i can handle these kids. i just have to be stricter and more consistent from day one.

------------------------------------------------------

of worthy mention, i got my last observation of the year on friday. it was #6, and the AP gave me a huge thumbs up as he left the class 20 minutes into the period. two more years left until tenure...

decisions to make

2009-04-30T20:33:00.000-07:00

if there are any teachery folk out there reading my blog, i'm curious as to your opinion on the following matter:

for a first year fellow, i think i've done a pretty good job. i have a decent passing rate, pretty motivated students, and a good relationship with a lot of them. my lessons usually go well, too. however, my biggest problem is that the students don't listen to me as much as i'd like them too. they see the AP coming down the hallway and they run inside class. they see me walk down and they continue misbehaving. they're doing something they shouldn't be and one person will say "you better stop or [the english teacher] will get mad." you never hear that about me. i'll tell a student to get back in their seat and maybe on the 5th time he'll listen.

so... next week i'm going to chose which grade i want to teach next year. i have 3 options:

a) move up with my current students
b) teach the new class of 9th graders
c) teach a mixed program of 9th and 10th grade

all of these options have definite pros and cons and i'm having a very hard time deciding.

With option a:
-i already know the students and know what works for them, how to differentiate, their skill levels, have solid relationships with many of them, etc
-i have an awesome textbook that i custom ordered geared towards my teaching style
-i like most of the students
-we won't constantly have new students added every week like there is in 9th grade
-they will hopefully be slightly more mature as sophomores
but
-i will be teaching geometry which i really don't like
-i want to run a tighter ship in my classroom and it might be hard reinventing myself with the same students that are too friendly/not respectful to me.

With option b:
- i get to teach algebra again, a subject that i love
- i can reuse a lot of my current lessons and powerpoints, just with some tweaking.
- i already know how i would go about teaching the course differently, and think i could do an awesome job
-i can reinvent myself as a stricter, no-nonsense teacher with students that don't know me at all
but
- 9th graders are horribly immature
- the class sizes will be bigger (possibly 30 per class as opposed to 20.) this is a biggie
- with 9th grade, there is constantly an influx of new students for the first few months and it makes teaching the class difficult when so many people are behind.

with option c:
- i can chose the classes i want to teach from the 10th grade list (ie take the students i want!)
- i can still reinvent myself with the 9th graders
- i can gain experience teaching a new subject while still perfecting my algebra lessons
but:
- i will have to prepare for two different math classes and one advisory every single day.
- half the time i write up my lessons in the morning and i can see myself getting into big trouble if i can't get everything done in time.

my principal is pushing for everyone to stay with the same students but it's ultimately my choice. my AP did tell me that i can chose to teach 9th grade for next year and then move to 11th grade the following year when my boundaries and routines are more defined (so i can get my old kids back and teach trig/algebra 2 which i happen to love.) he also said that if i change my mind in august i can let them know and they'll change the programs. (i'm the senior math teacher in my school; i can do that!)

i think i know what option i'm leaning towards at this point. but i'm second guessing myself.

quality review

2009-04-21T23:37:00.000-07:00

they came, they saw, *we* conquered.

apparently we exceed expectations, and got the highest grade on the preliminary review. boy, i'd hate to see what a school that merely meets expectations looks like...

back to life, back to re-al-i-ty

2009-04-19T15:15:00.000-07:00

my life ends yet again. tomorrow. ugh.

maybe tonight though, as i don't have a lesson yet for tomorrow's classes.

i truly understand why so many teachers just never come back after school vacations. the freedom is amazing and upon realizing i was going back tomorrow, i blurted aloud that "my job sucks..." which is partially true, but once i'm back in the groove, what other job can make me feel more gloriously bipolar than teaching?

sure, i don't want to go back tomorrow. and right now i feel like a tiny little part of me is dying. but, i can honestly say that i've never had a job like this before, where nearly every day i'm motivated to come in and do things differently than the day before. plus i'm a big time experimenter in the classroom, and i really appreciate the freedom my career offers me, even if they are yoking me back in, in less than 14 hours.

asking questions to the clueless

2009-04-06T19:30:00.000-07:00

This morning when I walked into the main office I was informed that they were ordering Geometry textbooks for next year's course... today. The secretary told me there was no core curriculum and she needed to know what book to order within a few hours.

Potential problems:
#1: I have never taught geometry and have no idea what books are out there.
#2: I don't know anyone who is currently teaching Integrated Geometry to ask for advice.
#3: A novice myself, I don't even know what makes a textbook good!
#4: I'm the only math teacher in the department with no AP to consult.

At the advise of the secretary, I visited the math AP from another school on our campus. He suggested a particular book (Amsco), however he didn't seem too thrilled. I previewed that book online and it seemed very cut and dry.

I ruled out the textbook by Prentice Hall, because I currently use their algebra book and my students are routinely confused by the language the text uses. Plus it complicates virtually everything.

I ruled out yet another book that we have a sample copy of. It also seemed to complicate everything.

I went back to the NYS website and see that they recommend one of three books, each of which have published their own pacing calendar aligned to NYS standards. One of them I had never heard of: Discovering Geometry.

I looked up the book and found that it was an inquiry based approach textbook that encouraged hands on learning. I registered for an online review copy, and I was absolutely amazed by the chapters I looked through. The language was thoroughly readable and understandable. There were amazing pictures and interesting facts on every other page. And they weren't just thrown in for a few "real life connections" either; they were actually integrated into the learning thread itself.

I think I was completely sold when I opened up a random section and on the first page of the chapter it said "in your groups, have one member do..." The book is freaking geared towards group learning with actual projects in activities in each section!

So completely clueless and just basing my choice on a few random chapters, color photos, and instinct, I went ahead and told the secretary to order a school wide set of the textbook.

I figured I can't do any worse than I did this year. And if I really need to, I can supplement their text with photocopied problems from one of the crappy geometry books we have laying around, or with pages from the Barron's review book.

I'm really excited to get the text in hand and start planning for next year. I've been kind of torn about whether or not I want to move up to the 10th grade next year, but if this textbook is really as awesome as it seemed, it might make things much more bearable.

2009-03-03T18:44:00.000-08:00

Today I had a random observation from my principal. Not cool. She stayed for the entire hour.

My lesson went over very well with the kids and I happened to be super prepared today, but I didn't have a cooperative learning component. I opted not to do it with this class because 1) they're CTT and generally don't do so well with day to day group work and 2) it was the day after a 3 day weekend and I really wanted them to focus.

It happens to be that almost all of them understood the concept very well and considering their usual behavior, I'm very happy with them. Just not so sure what my principal thought of the lesson.

On a side note I think a student of mine has a girl crush on me. I heard her talking about how pretty I was with some other students. Then she complemented my eyes twice. Later in the day she told me how cute my hair was. And at the end of the day she said "I love you, Ms. Adelaide." I just ignored her, and I hope she's over this by tomorrow (she's flaky like that.)

2009-02-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

i've been putting in the grades for my students' first school wide progress reports this evening. i'm passing more than ever, and giving more A's than I have ever given. i know this won't last til June, but i'm glad to see worlds of progress from my kids.

on wednesday my principal said i was as good as a veteran teacher. i'm thinking ok maybe not a *good* veteran. but i can definitely see how in 5 years or so i have the potential to be pretty awesome if i don't get burned out before then!

in other news this week, i let a group of three students teach my class for one period. i had them learn a topic ahead of everyone else and teach in exchange for extra credit, participation points, and homework exemption. it was really something. they couldn't control the class for the first 25 minutes, but eventually they got most of them to quiet down. and the majority learned something. i did have to do a 20 minute recap and review with the the next day but by then everyone understood the topic.

at first these students said they would never teach the class again. but the next day we discussed it as a class. the feedback was mixed. half the class said they liked having their friends up there, that it made them feel more comfortable. the other half said they were horrible teachers and begged me to reteach the topic! the "teachers" said that the class was rude and disrespectful and they didn't know how I dealt with it every day. but by the end of the discussion, the entire class agreed that this was something they'd like to try again. about 10 people said they would like to try teaching, and even the original "teachers" said they would like to try it again. so we're going to attempt this twice a month as long as we're on track and they're being well behaved.

i find that the more i experiment with my classes, the more fun we all have and the easier it is on me!

nyctf mantra: no excuses

2009-02-12T19:00:00.000-08:00

the nyctf guidebook, as well as our adviser, touted the no excuses classroom environment. your class should be set up so the students have no excuse not to do their work. always have extra supplies available and all the resources they need to succeed.

using my own common sense (having forgotten about the no excuses mantra) i set up a homework chart in my room. all the assignments with final due dates are posted, as well as a folder with any make up work and handouts. i was sick of students telling me "i was absent, i didn't know i had to do the work!" of course i penalized them anyway, but i didn't want them using that as a crutch anymore.

i just instituted it this week and i've gotten at least 30% more homework than usual. the makeup sheets are going like hotcakes. anyhow, one student came into my room after school today asking about an assignment that he was absent for. i directed him to the HW chart and folder, the first he'd ever seen of them. he stared at it for a minute, took what he needed and then said "no excuses!"

i flashed back to my summer training and knew that i had unintentionally acheived what they drilled into our heads. not only did i know my students had no excuses, but they're starting to realize it too. this job is really tough, but i'm starting to see good things happening.

2009-02-11T15:48:00.000-08:00

teaching these kids is such a struggle. i'm constantly battling for control of my classroom. all they want to do is TALK. even when they're so into what we're learning, they just talk and talk. the group work can be pretty dysfunctional too. i have them agree upon and sign up for roles before they begin every project. but they just can't figure out how to work together! i supposed they'll get better with time, but my god, every group complains about each other.

i do have to say though that when it came down to presentation time, all the groups pulled it together nicely and did a great job. almost everyone had an understanding of the work. so i guess it's not too bad.

what is a problem though is that i'm way behind on my pacing. i anticipate skipping an entire chapter, plus i skipped half of our current chapter. i'd rather not bore and confuse the kids with stuff that they might see one question on. but we are about a month behind my colleagues teaching the same course. i do way too many projects and fun activities that take up a lot of time. but somehow i'm thinking that i will have just as many, if not more kids passing the regents.

honestly, i have maybe 5 level 3s's and the rest of my kids came in as level 1's and 2's. if other teachers have a similar demographic, i can't possibly see how they could go through the material so fast and leave the kids with a good understanding of it. if they can, power to them. but i know we will cover about 90% of the material and most of my students will know it well.

in other news i picked up another hour of per session per week. so now i'm up to an extra $120/week. sweeeeeet.

a day of opposites.

2009-02-06T13:10:00.000-08:00

tough kid was great today, good class was bad today. bizzarro world here we come.

i made the tough kid cry!

2009-02-05T18:13:00.000-08:00

my students drove me up the wall yesterday. today i spent an entire hour with one class giving a pop quiz to piss them off, then discussing their behavior and grading policy.

i explained that behavior was now worth 45% of their final grade, test and quizzes 45%, and hw 10%. they were really shocked. their jaws dropped when i told them that if they routinely misbehave in my class, the best they could hope for is a 55. I told them i'll give them a bunch of 20s and 30s if i have to. They were in disbelief.

One student said he isn't a good test taker so how can he pass my class. We went through the math and saw that even if you average a 50 on my test, if you give 100% of everything else, it's still possible to get around an 80. The kids loved that and decided they could live with my grading policy.

Then we did the math and saw that even if you get a 90 average in my class, if you can't control your behavior, and miss homework, you will get a 55 from me. They were shocked yet again.

After this, they wanted to know what their averages were so far. I went through the entire class list out loud (they all love to share their grades except for one girl!) Everyone was passing since the semester started on Tuesday except for the biggest bully/tough guy/obnoxious kid in the school. He was averaging about a 40. He was very mad and nearly walked out of the room.

___________________________________________________________

The second class I decided to discuss grades with were much more receptive. They accepted it as is and in addition, they asked for weekly progress reports with their daily behavior grades and notes for improvement. This is a lot of work for me, but if it can help keep a few kids on track, it's worth it. We decided that every friday we'll spend 10-15 minutes discussing their progress. If it works with this class, I might try it with my other classes. I'm actually very proud that they came up with the idea on their own. This class happens to be very motivated, but they can easily get out of control, so I think this might work.
___________________________________________________________

Fast forward to after school, and the guidance councelor came in to talk to me about the failing kid. The boy was very upset and didn't understand how he could be failing after only 2 days and asked me to speak with him about his options. Well we couldn't find him and when we finally did, he was hiding out in the classroom next door to mine. He came to talk to me and his eyes were damp with tears! I told him what I needed from him tomorrow and what he needs to do from now on. I ran a couple of computer simulations for him to show him that since it's so early, he could be passing by tomorrow already. and by next week he could be in the 80s. but he was choking back tears the entire time. i couldn't believe it. i didn't feel bad for him at all; call me an insensitive bitch, but the kid has been doing the same thing since september. but this time i think it really hit home for once. and i'm glad it did. we'll see if he makes any changes now.

new semester

2009-02-02T19:11:00.000-08:00

I actually have 2 lesson plans done in advance! And I stocked up for the new semester with new markers and mini whiteboards for the kids. I'm smarter this time though, and only bought mini markers. The kids leave the caps off the markers, or just plain steal them, so they would not last long anyhow. Might as well save half the cost...

i'm excellent.

2009-01-27T20:14:00.000-08:00

at least that's what my principal thinks! she nominated me for the nyctf award in classroom excellence. anyone can apply and you don't have to be nominated to even be considered for the award, but i'm very excited that my principal went out of the way to recommend me for one. i asked around my class on monday night and no one else has been nominated yet.

the thing is, i probably won't win the award since nyctf is very big on touting the prestigious universities the program member attended prior to teaching, as well as the careers many of us came from, such as lawyer, hedge fund manager, etc. if you win this award, there is a tell-all press release, along with promotional material on their website, plus you have to give a speech to the incoming cohort in the summer.

i was just a stay at home mother who worked for an internet business for many years while attending a city university part time until i finally graduated and applied to the fellows. there's nothing prestigious or even remotely interesting about my path to teaching, so i doubt i would even come close to winning the award if i apply. now the $2000 award money would be nice, but that's not what really matters. as much as i bitch on here and write about the crappy lessons i do, i really have done some great stuff this year. and as much as my principal and our educational partners tell me this, it is really meaningful to know that they went out of their way to suggest to someone else that i was an exceptional first year educator. it kinda reaffirms what i do, award or not.

i start grad classes tomorrow

2009-01-25T20:45:00.001-08:00

help me now.

i actually like my kids

2009-01-20T19:17:00.000-08:00

it was amazing watching them during the inauguration today. they were so excited and proud, and hung on to obama's every word. i've never seen them so excited about something so "real" before. seriously, i was almost in tears!

the other thing today that made me realize how adorable the students are is that the toughest, nastiest boy in the school (who has been softening a bit lately) bought some candy that he was eating during the inauguration. he thought it smelled a bit funky and was afraid to eat it so he asked me in a really nervous voice if i thought it smelled ok. He actually needed my help with something because he was scared! I have never seen him that vulnerable before, and over candy no less. Well I thought it smelled fine, and so did his girlfriend, but he was still nervous. So I told him to make his girlfriend try it first. He thought I was funny, and she got mad at me:)

worksheet aftermath + differentiated instruction

2009-01-15T13:09:00.000-08:00

I finally graded the tests that I gave on the worksheet unit. The grades were about the same across the board, maybe a little bit higher. I guess it all comes down to retention though. I don't know how much they're going to remember come June.

So I completely differentiated my instruction today. A few days ago, I had the students choose the topics they wanted to review the most. I then grouped them according to their learning needs, but also balancing the strengths and weaknesses within each group. Each group got a folder with personalized work (they loved that their names were on their instructions!) They each had an instructional plan to follow over three days and a different role in their group. I also had them fill out forms in which they committed to their specific group roles. Most of them took it quite seriously! I also differentiated their homework! Each was given an assignment specifically relating to their classwork.

I had to prepare 20 individualized packets for all my classes. It was a ton of work. I spent every minute of my preps for the past two days getting their assignments ready. I photocopied hundreds of pages and even hand wrote some assignments. And when it came time to work in class, it was amazing. They did really well with their groups and learned a ton. During their presentations, I asked some kids questions on the spot and they were able to answer without relying on their notes. They made some good progress today. It's a lot of work, but I'm thinking of doing spiraled review like this every 2-3 weeks to keep them fresh on old work.

This was the first time that they were actually helping each other. I enforced the rule that they can't ask me any questions until they discuss it with their groupmates first. I should have been doing this all year but better late than ever. They were so productive; my preparation really paid off!

worksheet: day 2 and 3: the best week ever.

2009-01-08T20:52:00.001-08:00

a huge success! this time i wrote up my own scaffolded worksheet. day 2 was awesome. the kids practiced at the board, then practiced on the worksheet. they were competing to get right answers and helping each other out. and those that were done quickly tried to tackle the next group of problems on the page. only 2 kids in the whole school were able to figure out the advanced problems before we got to them as a class, but most of them were on the right track.

by day 3, the advanced problems threw my most advanced class off. so i will have to readdress them tomorrow, but they will have officially finished a unit in 4 days. i realized with 5 minutes to go that my teaching was way too complicated. i was being too conceptual and nearly all of them lost me. but i did figure out how to take it down a notch and i'm sure they'll get it tomorrow.

i am finishing the unit with all of the classes tomorrow. this has been my fastest unit ever. we beat algebra equations to death for a month and it paid off big time. absolute value inequalities and equations have been a breeze. next week we will do one day of review for the test, have a test day, and then have two review days for the final (more worksheets, but in groups where they can pick their topics.)

this week started off terribly, but since tuesday, it has been the best week of my teaching career to date. my classroom management has been much more effective. i put the students in rows and haven't even allowed pair work. i know that student collaboration is important, but i felt my classes were out of control for the past 2 months. they need to relearn how to behave properly before we move on. i have been a lot more authoritative, too. i have revoked board privelages from 3 students this week. i realized i was putting up with way too much. now if a student does something stupid at the board, they're out for 2 days-1week, depending on the offense. i still allow them to share from their seats to keep them involved, but no more board till monday.

also, today i stopped the entire lesson because 3 students walked in late and started rearranging my desks. i made an example of them, and no one else thought to move a desk for the entire period. i have stopped putting up with their bullshit, and it's so much better! and that's part of the reason we raced through the unit. i have had to spend far less time trying to get the class to quiet down.

tomorrow might be challenging because it's the last day of the week, we're all sick and tired of school, and i have the largest class load. but i'm very happy with what's been going on. the groupwork will resume with the finals review. and then we'll start off next semester back in rows with worksheets until i know they can behave appropriately. (which i hope is soon because i have some great groupwork ideas that i want to implement for the next unit.)

operation worksheet: day one

2009-01-06T14:26:00.000-08:00

it was a success. i was able to teach my good class normally, and just use a few worksheet problems with to do as a class together.

but for my other 3 classes, it worked pretty well. i have a really smart but usually rowdy class, and they loved having problems in front of them to work from. i ended up doing close to 2 lessons in one with them, since they were so well behaved and into the work. on one particularly challenging problem, you could hear a pin drop in the room; they were all so intensely calculating!

my moderately bad class also did ok with the the worksheets. the worst offender was asleep today, so i didn't have the behavioral problems as usual. the rest of them really understood the work confidently. they did so well, some of them surmised that the regent's was going to be a piece of cake and they could take it in january already.

and the ctt class was still loud, but man do they love worksheets. they were their usual rude and obnoxious selves, but toned down. about 2/3 of the class was working and i'd say at least half of them understand it well. the rest just need more practice.

so it seems that the less effort i put in, the better they perform. or maybe it's just a correlation; the less effort i put in, the less stressed i get, and therefore i handle my classroom better? who knows. but i will be making up another worksheet for tomorrow!

yuck

2009-01-05T15:11:00.001-08:00

first i wanted to say that while i was completely lazy in terms of accomplishing anything this winter break, i did happen to get completely well dressed and put together every day. nice hair, makeup, clothes, and shoes. i think the routine of getting made up every morning for work since september, coupled with the fact that i actually had more time for myself while on break, made for a hotter adelaide.

but today, oh god, i hated it. my kids were unruly as usual, and i had an utter lack of authority. things on the home front are not going well... a year after one parent passed away from cancer, i found out this weekend that my remaining parent has a brain tumor. so i'm not in a good state mentally. my students were the last things on my mind, and i came in unprepared. i really don't feel like teaching, and as of today i do not like the career. but whatevs... maybe i'm just in a depressed mood.

i have two more weeks of teaching until finals, so i think i'll just do bare bones lessons and worksheets. next semester, i'm making classwork 50% of the grade, tests and quizzes 40%, and homework 10%. i'll fail all those little fuckers that can't keep their behavior in check.

so good, but oh so bad...

2008-12-17T18:14:00.000-08:00

So my lessons are innovative; I know that. Apparently they're so creative and appeal to so many different learning styles that I've been asked to write about two specific lessons for a national educator's magazine. But if I'm so good with my lessons, why am I finding controlling my classroom so difficult???

The teaching fellows program taught us that if you have an amazing lessons and routines in place, then the classroom management will follow. Sounds great in theory, but that is so not happening in my class! When I told this to the head of the organization I'm writing for, he told me that would be true basically anywhere else in the country, just not for our diversified and challenging student population. That's great. NYCTF *knew* I'd be teaching in the city (duh!) so why bother feeding us this bullshit?

OK, I realize I'm sounding angry, which I really am not. The lack of control really gets to me, but in truth, I wasn't 100% faithful that good lessons will always lead to a well managed classroom. My principal keeps trying to convince me that the chaos is good, that the kids are really learning. Who knows.

Speaking of innovation, today I threw a worksheet on the kids' desks and told them to take their textbooks and learn themselves since they wouldn't shut up. That's surely a new one for me! This class is a smart one though, and after 15 minutes of struggling through the work, they let me speak. Pretty good for my second easiest group of students. Seriously, I don't know how teachers handle class sizes of 34. Mine are such a struggle with only 20!

2008-12-13T22:55:00.000-08:00

So, out of nowhere this week, I thoroughly lost the respect, and subsequently the control of, 3 out of my 4 classes. I'm not really sure where this came from, and I'm feeling terrible about it. The students worked on a fun, creative project last week, so it wasn't my lesson. Some of them were outright saying they have no respect for me, in the middle of class.

Students came in and out of my rooms and wouldn't leave when asked to. Whole classes talked through my entire lessons. Students started yelling that our conversation was stupid. The dean was out all week on various school trips, so the one time when I called for help, no one picked up. I almost cried in class on two occasions, but I thankfully kept myself composed.

I'm supposed to teach these same kids next year and I have no desire to do so. I know next year's students aren't going to be any better, but I will be hopefully have better classroom management techniques. If these kids have zero respect for me this year, what's going to be in store for me next year?! At least I can start fresh with new kids next year.

I'm just holding out for xmas now, because I desperately need a break.

2 s-ratings

2008-11-24T14:20:00.000-08:00

I had a post-ob today with my principal, and I also got an S from her. She said even though I'm new, a lot of my work shows the maturity of an experienced teacher. So nice! I still feel totally lost with my classes sometimes though.

Speaking of which, I totally lost the CTT class today. They did so well last week but not only forgot everything over the weekend, but they even regressed. I don't know what to do with them! Ah well, only one more class with them and I'm free to think about it until Monday.

woohoo, i'm s-rated

2008-11-22T16:49:00.000-08:00

i had my post-ob conference on thursday and my AP loved the lesson. the only thing he wants me to watch is how i phrase my questions, which i can easily work on.

friday was a weird day. we had a school wide activity in the afternoon and my principal kept looking at me. she can be prone to stare at times, and it made me feel like i was doing something totally wrong.

but on the plus side, i got homework from every student in my CTT class except two of them! they were exceptionally good on thursday and for the second time this year, actually understood everything and wanted extra work to challenge themselves. let's see what monday holds...

2008-11-19T19:16:00.000-08:00

i took my first sick day yesterday. i guess i just can't get used to working 5 day weeks:) actually though, it was an emergency and i had to take off... even though i was supposed to get observed, whoops!

luckily i rescheduled the observation today and i already know i did fine. i used the same lesson i was observed with on monday by my university liaison. it was a real hit two days ago, and i'm sure it went over equally as well today. the only difference is i was observed with a rowdy class, which wasn't as originally planned.

we got a new transfer student today who came in from a private school. seems like that's going to be happening a lot do to the economy. i asked her what she was learning in math when she left, and her class was about 2 months ahead of where i'm holding. it's only mid-november, i don't know where i went wrong!

feeling better

2008-11-17T19:04:00.000-08:00

my week started off today a bit crazy. i'm fortunate to have a great class first period on mondays, so even without a clear lesson plan, they're game for example after example on the board, competing with each other to get the most right and put them up for everyone to see. so that's what we did.

then i have 2 hours of prep. with about an hour left, my school secretary reminded me that i was being observed by my college professor today (during a bad class; i don't know what i was thinking!) so i thought real hard and planned a fun, easy lesson on unit rates and thanksgiving recipes. it went over really well with the kids and the observer loved it.

i also was reminded that i'm getting observed by my AP tomorrow at 9am (the good class.) i'm thinking of using the same lesson, just making it more advanced and competitive for them.

i got my graduate class over with for the week, too. tomorrow and friday are my hardest days. once i'm finished tomorrow, the rest of the week is a breeze until friday. i already have lessons for half my classes tomorrow so i'm almost there. i so wish i didn't plan day to day though. but this week seems like it will be a bit better than last week.

no motivation.

2008-11-12T20:31:00.001-08:00

i am so tired. i haven't been planning my lessons in advance for the past few weeks. i just write up something quickly during prep periods, and i'm seeing the kids lose interest because of it.

but right now i'm not really caring so much. i'm a bit overwhelmed with work, school work, and housework. i withdrew from one of my college classes. i was failing and thursday nights were really bad for me. i needed to be home.

i stay up really late every night doing nothing, and it's killing me. i have so much on my mind. i need to snap out of it.

i can get through this... i just can't wait for thanksgiving!

mission complete

2008-11-08T20:37:00.000-08:00

I finished grading the massive pile of make-up homeworks that were due to me this past week. Even though I only gave 1/2 credit for the work, my passing rates went up immensely. Right now 64% of my kids are passing my class, up from exactly 50% from the last marking period. 10% of the kids are virtually no shows and about another 10% can't even read or write, let alone add numbers.

that last 15% are just lazy, or really struggling with the material and not putting enough effort into everything else to pass. but i hope i can bring them up and have close to an 80% passing rate by january.

2008-11-04T20:24:00.001-08:00

i'm so tired. i don't have a lesson for tomorrow and i'm not about to write one!

just wanna give a shout out to algebra tiles. you rock, man! on monday i worked one on one with a kid who scored a low 1 on the 8th grade exam. using the tiles, within 5 minutes he was able to solve 3x-6=18.

2008-10-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today I declared to the other staff members that I actually liked the CTT class in a strange way. They thought I was demented.

I gave them a lesson on adding and subtracting signed numbers. Basically boring stuff, but most of them did not know how to do it. Now they're halfway good at it. Some more practice and they should be great. They are a bit crazy and class is wild. But they did their work for the most part and their crazy personalities made it more enjoyable.

One girl in that class is averaging a grade of a 7. That's a 7 out of 100. Her mother threatened to take her out of the school and away from her friends if she didn't pass everything, so she's desperate. I gave her a ton of work to do over the weekend and mandated her to come to tutoring twice a week if she wants to pass. She was amazing today during class. She was attentive, participated, and did the group work nicely. I hope she keeps it up, because I could use more students like her!

I have to make sure I don't get egged tomorrow to officially declare this a good week. But I'm hoping...

bad test, good lesson

2008-10-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

i gave a test this week that i thought would be really easy for them. i made the things they really knew well worth the most points but unfortunately, they either forgot it, or just forgot everything else. i'm not really sure how i would do this unit differently in the future but somehow i didn't prepare them well enough. i got 2 As out of almost 80 students. My top students all got in the 70s and 80s, and a couple even failed.

I was most upset with my CTT class, in which only 4 students passed, with the highest grade a 74. So yesterday I gave them a really fun lesson that covered a specific topic that the test was on. Usually this class is out of control, and it was hard to draw them in, but once I got their attention, everyone but one student was involved. I think every kid in the class was up to the board, even the ones that haven't done a drop of work all semester. At one point I had 10 students up at the same time and it worked great! My class was loud, but it was the most amazing lesson I had ever given. It was so much fun for us all, and when I gave them work to do on their own, they were all trying to outdo each other and go above and beyond my requirements.

Then I gave them homework to create their own examples and told them I'd give them 20 extra points on their test if they hand it in (this particular topic was worth 28 points on the test and they all bombed that part.) And if they made a super-duper example, I'd give them 30 points.

I didn't even have them today but 2 kids stopped by my classroom to drop off their homework early since they were so proud of what they'd done. one kid did 2 super-duper examples instead of the 2 regular ones I assigned. I told him to go home and do another one and he was excited! The other kid that came by is the biggest gangster in the school. He can barely even read or write, and hasn't done an ounce of work in anyone's class so far this year. It's the first homework assignment he's handed in since he started high school. He was so proud of his work, and he also did the super-duper example. He actually almost passed my test!

I'll see what kind of work I get tomorrow, but I might make a big poster with all of their super duper math examples and put it on my honor wall. The CTT kids would never get up their otherwise, and I'm so proud of them.

As for the other classes, I think I'm going to give them a second test for homework and average their two grades. I can't bear to see so many low grades. In the past when half of them failed, at least I had a good distribution. With this one, every student performed terribly! Oops...

one more thing

2008-10-25T19:52:00.001-07:00

On Friday, the new girl who I've previously written about came in and said that since I gave her a 55, she's going to continue to fail my class on purpose. I said "whatever you want, that's your choice." She just laughed and said "nah, I got you. I'm just kidding!" Then she took the first desk at the front of the room and did all of her work. She was actually the model student.

I think I'm the only teacher she tried to push to the limits, but I guess since I stood up to her I somehow earned her respect.

Now there are only 3 discipline problems left in that class, most of whom I can deal with on a day to day basis.

parent teacher afternoon

2008-10-24T13:17:00.000-07:00

We had just as many parents come up today as last night, and all in all, 45% of the parents came. I think that's a pretty awesome turnout.

I also had record amounts of homework handed in to me today and lots of journals brought in. I promised the students a list of missing work for Monday and I believe that at least half the kids will bring it in.

I picked up easy grade pro and I'm finding it to be a dream! I have to say the hardest part of teaching for me has been organization. My attendance and HW records need a ton of help. When it came time to put in my grades, I had to manually calculate records and it was terribly time consuming. In the two days I've been using the program, I've been 1000x more organized. I think I'm in love.

parent teacher night

2008-10-23T19:39:00.001-07:00

So I ended up failing exactly half of my students, mostly because they don't do journals or homework. And of all the kids I failed, exactly half of their parents came tonight which was a nice turnout.

The parents were all very supportive, and all but one student knew why they had failed. I had extra copies of the current homework assignment on hand, and I hope to get record amounts of homework back from the students tomorrow.

In other news, one student was locked up last week for armed robbery, and another student was out today because he's on trial for attempted murder. Man, I hope he doesn't get too pissed that I failed him.

I'm getting sick and I feel like shit. Thank god tomorrow is a short day, even if I have to meet with parents.

the aftermath

2008-10-16T13:32:00.000-07:00

i came back after a few days off and the new girl was in an in house suspension, except that she never bothered to come to school. so much for a new start.

most of the kids did work while i was gone. i had a fantastic sub that pretty much kept the order in my room. but then a bunch didn't show up for the actual presentations. ugh.

my grades for first marking period are due monday. i haven't gotten around to reading the journals since i allowed them the grace period to make them up but i'm not seeing a whole lot of them passing. i so hope i'm wrong!!

take 2

2008-10-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

friday, thank god, was the total opposite of wednesday. the ctt class was a struggle, but everything else was a dream.

new girl came in and asked to join a new group with 2 students who weren't there on wednesday. she asked if she could start the project all over. i agreed and even told her we could start off completely new as far as the class goes. she was happy with that.

all the groups worked really well. even the one with the terrible kids. they were joking around a lot and didn't get as much done as the others, but they had concrete ideas about where they were heading with their final work product.

and i had some amazing ideas coming from some of these kids. to explain the concept of the additive inverse, one student drew a meteor plus a black hole. another one drew a sandcastle and the seashore (the waves wipe out the castle.) and someone else drew a pen plus white out.

i'm not going to be back into school until thursday; i really hope they continue to work on everything. i'm no so sure about the ctt class, because i barely got the directions across to them, but i see everyone else passing this unit easily. and thankfully my sub assisted with my classes on friday so he know what the project is all about, so i'm sure he can help the kids in the ctt class just fine.

the new student

2008-10-09T18:46:00.000-07:00

what a doll she is, really. first day in my class she tells me she plays by her own rules and ran out of my class when i expressly told her she couldn't.

i called home and left a message.

the next day she started out a bit better as she let me know in advance that she would have to leave shortly and i told her fine, as long as she finished the do now. she agreed.

but then as i was assigning the group work-- mind you this is a 4-day long project that counts as a test grade-- she refused to join a group. then 3 other people followed her. i said fine, you're all gonna fail. then i handed out school discipline sheets. the dean happened to walk into my class at this point to see one of these students and when he came back with her, the girl said she would make sure everyone did their work and i shouldn't use the discipline code yet.

fine, i agreed to this. it took a few minutes, but everyone started to work. well actually they agreed to join a group but refused to work. after 5 minutes the new girl told me she was working on something (praise the lord) but when i asked her a question she was bitchy and sarcastic.

i have let her know more than once that her attitude accounts for 25% of her final grade, but i don't know if she cares.

and to put the cherry on top, they decided to dismiss themselves 4 minutes early. they starting cheering and throwing up things in the air to get out of my room. but i wouldn't let anyone out until they all sat back down. they were cursing and mad at me that they were going to be late to their next class. one student said the class was in charge of dismissing themselves and not me. hahaha. new girl said she was going to hang herself if she had to be in my class any longer. hahahahaha. they ended up leaving my class 3 minutes late which meant yes, they were late for the next one. but i don't care if i have to do this every day until it stops, it's ridiculous.

at the end of the day, luck would have it that her guardian came in because she had an altercation with some other students. i spoke with them and they told me she's the same way at home. i don't know if this means they have no control over her, or if they will actually help. but they weren't happy to hear how she was acting.

and the funniest thing was this other boy, who has to be the worst in the school was shocked when i told him i would fail him if he didn't do the project. i asked him if he passed my last test. no, he got a 53. then i asked him if he ever handed in any hw. no, never. does he ever participate? once the entire semester.

it's pathetic, really. i bet they were allowed to get away with this through junior high and passed no matter what.

but they're not going to graduate hs without one math regents, and enough credits, either.

the changes have been finalized.

2008-10-07T16:08:00.000-07:00

the staff met and we decided to switch around all the kids' classes. we created one CTT class, and the rest are basically a mix. i hope this is for the best.

i taught a lesson on probability today that really had very little content. but it was fun and incorporated a ton of literacy with journaling and reading an old NYT article that was relevant. even the kids who are usually the hardest to engage were interested and asking questions. my kids can have a lot of fun in my class, but the problem i have is balancing content with the fun. today, there wasn't very much learning-- just a few review items. and the project i have them working on for the next week isn't so content oriented, but i think that something will stick with them long term for doing it. plus it makes my life easier not to have to teach much!

after this unit i start some hard stuff again so i wanted to give them a break, and an easy way to succeed in the class.

something interesting that happened today is that i shared my religion with two of my classes. it came up naturally in conversation for some reason, and when they found out they were absolutely shocked. i'm jewish and they just couldn't believe it. i'm not sure what they thought jews were supposed to look like but i was shocked that they were shocked!

then one kid asked me if i was reform or orthodox, which also really surprised me. these kids for the most part have no exposure to different cultures and here this kid knew about the different sects of judaism. i was very impressed.

but alas, most of my students were upset that i'm taking off part of next week... which i was also suprised at. i guess they like me which is great!

and one last thing, we have a new student little ms. attitude. one day in my class and i called home. unfortunately i couldn't reach anyone. i'm going to try again soon. i have never dealt with someone so disrespectful in all of my 25 days of teaching! :)

i actually have a unit plan

2008-10-05T20:10:00.000-07:00

yep, my very first one. i have the next 10 lessons fully mapped out. this is ever so exciting. but at the same time i'm already 2 weeks behind the pacing calendar.

my kids told me they feel like all they do in my class is take tests. which is partially true. so i'm giving them a fun project to work on this week.

my plan is to skip the first 3 chapters in the unit, and make a 4 day project out of the next two chapters. since the ones i'm skipping are mostly review, i will take one or two 20 minute blocks away from each group over three days just to individually teach them what they need to know and catch them up on any review items. this makes it easier for me, plus i can individualize their studies.

then i have two days on the last 2 sections (and i already have the activity planned for one of those days,) a day of review (probably powerpoint jeopardy,) and a unit quiz since their project will count for half their unit grade.

yep, exciting indeed!

great success

2008-10-04T22:48:00.000-07:00

the words of borat basically sum up my latest formative assessment of my kids.

i spent a month on unit 1. much longer than i had planned, but i wanted to teach and reteach until enough of them had success in the beginning that they would continue on in my class with confidence. and it pretty much worked.

i tested them this time on the same topics, but the exam was at least twice as hard as the quizzes have been. half of the questions were regent's type ones, and all the other required them to construct things, analyze and explain data, and write sentences giving examples or justifying their answers. it was really really hard. and not only did i get some good results, but a lot more students passed even on this level.

-28% of my kids scored under a 50, compared to 36% last time. and considering 22% of my kids are special ed, and i have others that just won't do a damned thing no matter what, that's pretty good.

-19% scored between a 50 and a 64. I think I can move these kids up eventually. actually quite a few of them were kids who passed the quizzes but couldn't handle the intensity of the questions. with practice, i'm sure they'll get better at it.

-28% scored between a 65 and an 84. among these are a guy who got a 20 and a 30 on the first two quizzes. he came to me the morning of the test for a cram session during homeroom. he ended up getting an 80. i hope this encourages him to pay more attention since i told him i will not be teaching him during homeroom again. this group also includes a girl who got a 40 and a 33 on her quizzes. she told me she doesn't know how she passed the 8th grade, as she has never gotten higher than a 43 on a math test in her life. she used to have mad attitude with me but she suddenly mellowed out this week. i found out that she was pregant and got an abortion on monday which might be the reason she has been giving all the teachers tons of problems. well anyhow she worked with me a lot this week and actually did her homework and she ended up with a 65, her first pass in math ever. i think this will mean a lot to her and i hope she will work as hard as she did this week every week.

- finally, 25 % of my kids got over an 85 on the test, up from 18% last time. this includes a girl who started off with a 45, got a 67 on the last quiz, and now got a 92.

-an added note, only 4% of my students scored below a 40 which mean that even those who are in my lowest bracket aren't too far off from passing.

given that this test was regent's format and reading/writing intensive, i'm pretty impressed.

so indeed, it was a great success. now if i only had a plan for the next unit...

It's grading time!

2008-09-28T17:24:00.000-07:00

Progress reports are due tomorrow. This is exciting. There are comment codes for just about everything. Poor/missing journals, absent on test days, has ability to do better, recommended for afterschool tutoring, etc.

On Friday, a student told me "Ms. Adelaide, you know you're my favorite teacher." I told him "Well you would be one of my favorite students, but you never show up for my tests." So sad, because the kid obviously knows his stuff in class, but I refuse to give late quizzes since I grade everything and go over them the next day and just move on. Now I have the perfect comment codes for him, plus he knows he gets another chance next week, that if he aces my test (read 80 or better) I'll ignore the fact that he didn't take the first two quizzes of the unit.

Then we have two days off for Rosh Hashana, I'm giving a test when they come back, and I think I'll do something fun with them on Friday. I made it through my first month!

yet another reason my school is so awesome

2008-09-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

i think i've mentioned my toughest class. they're really out of control. there are a few motivated students in there, but they're really suffering because the rest of the class makes teaching a lesson nearly impossible. i've tried investigative group work, experiments, lecturing, games, and nothing seems to get through to them.

anyhow it seems they're starting to cause a problem for other teachers now too, and the genius kid in that class has asked to switch out.

well this afternoon i heard the administration has decided to break up that class a bit and switch around some kids' schedules to make the group more manageable. all the kids take the same classes and have the same hours, so it wouldn't make a difference in their education, it would hopefully just subdue this cracked out class.

i think it's so awesome my school would do that just to respond to the teacher's and a few kids' needs.

also, they're thinking of switching some kids into an single inclusion class. right now, all the classes are inclusion, and the one or two sped kids in each class are really suffering since they're not getting the academic support they need. with one specific inclusion class, we could include the sped kids with those that just need some extra help, and with the sped teacher pushing in to support, it should go much more smoothly.

i'm all for heterogenous classrooms, really. but with the sped kids and no team teacher, they're falling way behind. for the most part, the more advanced kids can help out the average and somewhat below grade level kids during regular classwork, but the sped kids really need a lot more academic support.

i also finished grading and analyzing the data from my quizzes. my failure rate has dropped from 54% to 50%. and 27% of these failures are from kids who came to class in the last week and missed nearly all of the first month of school. this means that over half the people who failed my last quiz passed this one. but the real big deal has been the movement to the top tier. 5% of my kids scored above an 85 last time, but this time 18% of my kids are above an 85. That's huge. I really think on the test next week I can get closer to 25% of them above an 85. It's finally time to start and honors wall!!

today was interesting

2008-09-24T14:27:00.000-07:00

I only had two classes today besides from homeroom. I decided cursing was really getting out of hand with my kids so when someone cursed in homeroom, i handed them a discipline sheet. he was a good sport and filled it out with no problem. then, during my next class, i warned them that profanity was unacceptable and would result in a discipline sheet. i got one "fuck you" after 15 minutes. 5 minutes later, another kid said the f-word. Both kids took the discipline sheet. one didn't want to do it but i convinced him, and the other was ok. The whole class was good for a while, but 10 minutes later, another one said shit when he gave a wrong answer. This kid absolutely refused to do it. The only thing that convinced him was that I told him he wouldn't be able to play football if he refused. I gave him an extra period to think about it, and at the end of the day he had a half complete sheet for me.

Hopefully this should help the cursing issue.

Then my last class was a whole other story. I gave a test and two students were being mildly disruptive. One girl kept turning back and laughing at and talking to a boy who kept humming and making random comments. I decided to move the girl's seat, since the boy wasn't really talking to anyone but himself, but the girl was completely turning around and trying to converse during the test (and she wouldn't care about a zero either.)

Well she refused to move. She mostly just ignored me, but occasionally asked why she had to listen to me. The third time I asked her to move, I told her I would give her a minute to gather her things and go to another desk, or I would have to give her a discipline sheet. She wouldn't move, and then she refused to fill out the sheet. At this point, the entire class had stopped testing and was watching me and this student. Luckily, a dean happened to be walking down the corrider so I asked him to come and take the student.

Not moving her seat isn't such a huge offense in my book, but this was the u2b class (she is my newest addition to the roster.) They used to be a huge discipline problem for me and if they saw me let this girl do whatever she wanted, I feel that all hell would break loose the next time.

So it turns out that the dean conferenced her with the principal and they spoke to her parent too. And apparently she pissed off the always calm principal so much that she walked out of the room on her. That's not a good thing, but it makes me feel like maybe I wasn't overreacting with this girl.

But thankfully my administration is super supportive and are adept at handling these problems while I learn the ropes.

In other news, my entire schedule is now messed up since Friday's classes were cancelled for a school wide activity. I was planning on giving a test on Monday but that will have to be pushed off until Thursday and Friday because of Rosh Hashana. I'm sure the kids will rejoice.

ok scratch that

2008-09-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

now i have 2 bad ass classes. i love how it changes from week to week. and the u2b class is getting worse, but i think i can fix that with a seating change. every day there is a farting issue with them, ugh... they're so immature. the other 2 classes, i'm not sure what to do. i need to think hard and come up with some strategies. i'm actually thinking of changing their seats into a circle, but that's a superficial move. i have to get to the root of the problem, which probably has something to do with me boring them!

in other news, i told 3 failing *with zeros* kids to come to tutoring today and they agreed. but then they never showed up. but then 10 other kids did come so at least if i can't bring up my kids at the very bottom, i can bring up those borderline kids with 50's to passing.

i'm giving a quiz this week, which will be a mini version of the test i'm giving on monday. i know it's excessive, but i want to leave a day to review before the test and have different topic "experts" make booths in my room to teach the other kids. if i quiz them the day before, i have a better idea of who know what and who needs reinforcement in specific areas.

hopefully this will work. and if not, then i spent too much time on unit 1 and i know to abandon that idea for next time!

i'm going to basically skip unit 2 since it'll all about adding and subtracting using matrices. i'll stick it in at the end of the year if i have time. unit 3 gets into the algebra which is fun.

but seriously, i don't know how i'll get my kids ready for june! i have a few really high performers who i want to accelerate up a semester so that they can get college credit in math before they graduate. everyone else, i'm not so sure of!

how do i get them to shut up??

2008-09-16T18:19:00.000-07:00

seriously. my classes talk and talk. and one in particular never shuts up, uses street language, and i almost had a fight break out with them.

i have learned to handle the other classes, even with their chattiness and getting out of their seats, and all that jazz. but this one class is the pits. and the worst part is that half of them are in my advisory so i see them twice per day. i really dread advisory now, because even there they talk over me. i can't get anything done with them at all. ughh.

ok anyway, i gave my first quiz and we're averaging about a 50. i'm not really sure what to do. i'm thinking of making test number one super easy, just make sure there are a couple of questions that they absolutely need to know for the regents and the next chapter, and the rest dumbed down. as long as they know the *must know* material, they should be fine. and perhaps getting a good test grade will boost morale and performance a bit.

we'll see...

Today certainly was different!

2008-09-12T13:55:00.001-07:00

I decided I didn't want to do much work with my kids today since yesterday was awful for them and me. So I did a quick review with two classes and then started an in class project that had them drawing and counting and building. I had to go around facilitating all the groups, but I didn't have to do any real teaching which was a load off of me.

Then the awful class from yesterday got greeted today with a classroom filled with row seating. This really threw them off. I drilled into them that I have no problem failing them if I here even a peep from them. Then I made them arrange the rows into tables and line up in the back of the room while I seated them. I really took control of the situation. They were a million times better today. It also helped that the worst kid was out! But I asserted my authority and I think I gained a lot of respect.

So for the used-to-be-awful-class (I'll call them U2b) I tried something different. I gave them really challenging functions to work out while I helped the struggling kids with the basics. I gave them only 2 homework problems for the weekend and told them that we could all leave home happy today. As they acted up, I added more homework problems. All it took was one time, and they quieted down.

And then for my last class, I tried to keep them challenged and ended with a game. But I have to work a little harder for them because there is a big range of talent in that room, everywhere from special ed to kids who are really really smart. I'm going to have to make more of an effort to differentiate better.

But anyhow, today went really well, and it's actually supposed to be my most intensive day. I was really impressed with how I brought the teacher 'tude to the classroom, and the change it made in my kids. And even more impressive, my principal and AP visited my room at the end of the day to ask me how it has been, and also to make sure I didn't want to quit! I'm sure even if I did, they would've done anything they could to help me.

I left the building today with a big smile today. I'm sure next week will be full of it's ups and downs, but I know I can survive!

And again, what a difference a day can make...

2008-09-11T14:46:00.000-07:00

Today was mostly a failure for me. My advisory class walked all over me again. I'm a crappy advisory teacher, that's for sure. I need to think of something fast that will keep them engaged.

Then my brilliant lesson from yesterday didn't work so much for my classes today. One of them was a little lost, and then the other one I just had to slow down entirely with. But still it was ok. I promised them the fun activity for tomorrow.

But then the class that my advisory kids are in, they were wild. They pissed me off to no end. I told them they're getting a quiz tomorrow. I bet half of them won't even show up!

Some of my best kids in that class were awful... but two things i just thought of that are cheering me up... as I was telling the class how I was upset with their behavior today, one kid said to me "tomorrow is another day." and yeah, he's right. everyone has off days. i certainly did. i'm going to go in tomorrow and just try to do my best, and i hope they do as well.

secondly, two days ago the staff discussed my used-to-be-awful-class. they were little terrors with me and one other teacher. this afternoon I got a letter in my box from the guidance counselor that said that he spoke with three of the students who were causing problems. two of them acknowledged their behavior and one of them was clueless/denied it. regardless, it's good to know that in my school, action is taken immediately and everyone works together to improve the learning environment. i don't think i could be in a better spot for my first year, especially since my lessons are failing half the time so i need all the help i can get!

What a difference a day can make

2008-09-10T17:44:00.001-07:00

My advisory class came in and were pretty quiet and respectful for the most part. I guess word got out that I enacted the school discpline code on a student yesterday and no one else wanted in on that.

Then my principal sat in on my class with the horror show kids. They were pretty much perfect with her in the room. But it wasn't only her presence; I gave such an interactive and engaging lesson that I genuinely had their attention throughout most of the hour. I know that for this class especially, I really need to bring it.

Too bad this wasn't a formal observation, really, because my principal and the curriculum coach commended my lesson immensely. I blended literacy with math, and had the class make a graphic organizer. Then to top it all off we played a game that really got them fluent in what I was teaching. I pulled out all the stops, and thank goodness, this lesson is a keeper. I even had a closing journal entry that we couldn't get to which I will use as my do now for tomorrow's lesson. This means 2 less hours of work next year... woohoo!!

In other good news, I checked the DOE payroll system and I'm on it, set to get paid on the 15th. No delays! Other teachers were warning me that it might take months so see my check. But nosiree... I even saw my paystub online (I have to change my exemption status because they are taking out waaaay too many taxes.)

So now I have to plan to see how I can bring it for the kids tomorrow!

First Year Experiment

Long time, no see!

today i cried

things looking up and tomorrow's friday! yay!

better day

i wish i was *just* a teacher

not a team player

it's all about the benjamins

A Breath of Fresh Air

recap and moving forward

ZOMG 31%

i will be teaching geometry

hit me (with a pie) baby, one more time

love being dean

awesome observation

i rocked out interdisciplinary studies

better week and tales from the darkside

how i know i'm *really* hated

i feel like running away

I am a per session whore.

need to rethink things

making the most of advisory

advisory is almost gone!!!

out with the old... possibly.

my disjointed year

Bittersweet news

bad day

omg respect

the lull before christmas break

proficient

quality review

quality review

score

such a headache

80%-- not really happening

laziness

i guess they do learn eventually (well some of them at least)

fridays rule.

great success! errr maybe not...

update

it's been three weeks

school starts in the morning!

summer school recap

summer school

math regents

attention all first year NYCTFers!

i'm done.

musical histograms and other news

fortunately for me, my behind is unscathed.

finally!

they want me.

decisions to make

quality review

back to life, back to re-al-i-ty

asking questions to the clueless

nyctf mantra: no excuses

a day of opposites.

i made the tough kid cry!

new semester

i'm excellent.

i start grad classes tomorrow

i actually like my kids

worksheet aftermath + differentiated instruction

worksheet: day 2 and 3: the best week ever.

operation worksheet: day one

yuck

so good, but oh so bad...

2 s-ratings

woohoo, i'm s-rated

feeling better

no motivation.

mission complete

bad test, good lesson

one more thing

parent teacher afternoon

parent teacher night

the aftermath

take 2

the new student

the changes have been finalized.

i wish i was just a teacher

how i know i'm really hated