Carpetbagger

Had to Share

2007-05-01T18:16:00.000-07:00

Today, as one of my student's presented her group's research on Geralmo Cardano , she mentioned that Cardano had done lots of work with perpetual motion machines and the spinning things in compasses (her phrases).

So, as she informed the class next, we should call those things on our cars Cardanos, not spinners. FYI.

----, With that Fresh Cut

2007-03-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

Today I went 1 for 2 on new life experiences.

I did not drive the 90 min round trip journey to go to a two-hour church service. In my defense, even though RM invited me on Monday. I was never given directions. I asked a couple of times but she didn't really know how to get there, just that it was by McDonalds and Beans on the highway. I probably could have found it, but that was a good enough excuse for me to put it off until after break. I don't think I really have the energy right now to go to a two-hour church service, drive and hour and a half and get through these last two days before break.

I did, however, let WR (aka T) cut my hair on the stage in the gym during the Thrift Shop, as they called it. The four dollars I spent is about four more than I usually spend on a hair cut, but the money goes to the senior trip and a great story, not to mention a fresh line. I didn't get it that short (3/8") but T did insist on the clean line and whom am I to refuse? So, the edges of my haircut are very crisp and defined at precise angles. T decided against shaving anything else into my scalp, which is good in the long run. T was a little shocked at first at how much hair I had. But, he did pretty well. I have no complaints. He seemed pretty happy with himself whenever I saw him for the rest of the day. I'm sure he'll brag a little in Alg II tomorrow as well, but that's his right. He's the artist.

By the way, in case you were wondering. The Thrift Shop consists of the senior class setting up booths in the gym selling tickets for food, soda, basketball, video games, and, yes, haircuts. After the ninth grades alloted 30 mins in the gym, class was, shall we say, interesting. After the initial dolling out of writing assignments for rapping, yelling and the like, we took about 20 minutes to get any reading done. Then another first: a student threw up in my room because of some heinous slushy that the seniors served her. So, that was a little bit of a management situation. But, in the end, we read a couple pages and then switched classes.

So, for all of you prospective/incoming MTCers anxiously reading the first-years' blogs, if you're out there at all, I'm not sure is these are reasons for or against teacher corps, or if they're things you should know before you come. In any case, maybe I could suggest a new slogan: Fresh Cuts and Throw Up, All in a Days Work.

Mundane Life Update

2007-03-05T18:15:00.000-08:00

For the first time in recent memory, I can see my floor.

That is all.

MH says it won't last. Well, let's make "last" a relative term then, eh?

Well, I'll take next months topic since I'm late already

2007-03-04T12:50:00.000-08:00

What should I know before arriving in June?

Consider the following questions:
What, in your life, makes you smile?
What do you need to be happy?
How assertive are you?

I'm still figuring these out. That is, the first two speak to how this experience can be very consuming in both positive and negative ways.

If you know what you enjoy and how you can use that to take a step back and breath, things might be a little smoother. I found, particularly last semester, but it remains true, that if I am not reading a book, I am less happy. Just setting aside an hour or 30 mins a night to read made life appreciably better.

What you need, however, is a different question. Do you need people around you? Stores? Supportive co-workers? Comfort food? family? close friends? animals? I have always had problems with this question, often wishing I needed less to be happy. But, the more you can think about this question and try to answer it, the better off you might be. That said, I think this experience can have the effect of helping you answer this question as you go. I wouldn't have thought I would answer it like I have been a year ago.

I am not assertive. This is often a problem. I have had to work hard at learning how to assert my authority in the classroom in ways that I am, at least, somewhat comfortable with. School is full of confrontations, tests, and limit-pushing. I was told that, but the violence, severity, frequency and scale of these happenings is still somewhat mind-boggling. If you are someone who has an attitude, can command respect in confrontation, has a big sense of self-esteem, I think you might be much better off than some others of us, particularly in the more rural schools. I know this is vague but the experience is almost indescribable. It's always a mix of large and small, always unbelievable behavior, which I need to confront. Assertiveness, I think, is a helpful skill.

You will meet lots of amazing people, lots of amazing students. You will see things you could probably never see anywhere else in the US.

In retrospect, I think there is probably very little I could have done to prepare myself. I have tried and still try to keep an open mind and take advantage of new life experiences as they arrive. So, perhaps it will be a comforting thought to say, don't worry about it. Just come on down, pack your bag and hold on tight. You'll go places and directions you didn't expect, in fact, that expectation probably couldn't even imagine.

See you in June?

What Jesus and I have in Common

2007-03-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here is a small anecdote that I found entertaining as it happened to me.

Background:
I often eat lunch with the same group of ninth graders. I really enjoy this time of the day. It allows me to interact with the students in a role which is not strictly authoritarian/authoritative/in charge. I can listen to their stories, laugh with them, joke with them all without having to worry about work getting done or seeming weak in their eyes. At these lunches, the students have no shame. They will often talk of their sexual exploits (then try to ask about mine). It's a fun time.

Scene: Lunch on a typical mid-day week.

Players: DD, TB, BS, EW, and others, ME (that's me, if you're wondering)
DD: What the f*** you doing, man? Those are my tater-tots.
ME: What the frick are you doing? Is that what you said, DD?
DD: Hunh? Oh yeah, of course. What the frick.
TB: Hey, [insert my name here], that reminds me. You would have been so proud of me at the basketball game last night.
ME: Why's that?
TB: Well, I was getting really angry and pushing with this other girl and the refs were dumb. So, i was about to swear up a storm. But, instead of saying "what the f***" I though to myself, Well, what would [insert my name here] do? So, I said frick instead. And instead of saying sh*t I said shoot. Everytime.
ME: That's great. (rolling in laughter with others)
TB: So, DD. That's really what you have to start asking yourself: What would [insert my name here] do?

So, there's that.

Compulsary McBlog: In Two Parts

2007-02-06T17:45:00.000-08:00

Part the First

Romeo and Juliet.

So today marked the end of my experimental foray into teaching Romeo and Juliet to a bunch of ninth graders. It was slow going by any stretch of the imagination. The play took us close to two months. Pretty much everyday we would read aloud anywhere from 1-5 pages out of the textbook which we have with a full version of the play. At the end of every page, we would pause and I would ask the class what they thought happened and why. I didn't ever let people act it out; my sanity is worth too much to me, I suppose. We would choose parts for the day and then just dry read as far as we could. We started every day with a quiz on the previous day's reading; we ended every act with a journal entry. We're reading this novel, Monster, next. It looks like something the kids will like; at least, odds are they'll like it more than Romeo and Juliet. I don't mean to be glib, I think so of the kids really liked the play. many were more or less ambivalent; many hated it.

Part the Second

I was chatting with Mentor Moe on Saturday night while my compatriots were, apparently unsuccessfully, bar-hopping. He mentioned a point I've been thinking a lot about recently. Our program seems to prepare us to be good, competent teachers of people; however, it seems woefully inadequate at preparing us as teachers of subjects. I think I am luckier than many in that I feel like I was able to synthesize of use a decent amount of my methods course in this setting and, when I teach elsewhere, I think I'll be able to use even more of it.

I guess I expected more time and energy put into the program with respect to how and why we teach our subjects the way we do. That might mean fracturing the classes somewhat more, but I think its benefits would be manifold. I want to be a good Math teacher or a good English teacher, not just a good teacher. That is to say, I am thoroughly passionate about my subjects and I wish I had the opportunity to learn more in the program about how and why we might teach our subjects in certain ways.

What are the implications of certain teaching styles on how our students learn? What does it mean to create a good assessment? What processes go into solid curriculum building? How can I best link activities to assessment to student learning? I feel wholly unprepared to explore these questions and I'm not even sure where to start. I've got some ideas (backward design and such) from previous experiences, but I wish I had the opportunity to explore these topics with my peers.

How I became, for a time, a pastor

2007-01-22T17:48:00.000-08:00

I wrote this one a while ago. I don't know why I didn't post it when it happened, but now's a good a time as any. Some of you have gotten this in an email, but others of you have not.

So last Friday, I went to this church service with one of my students. The church is called the Mightydome Apostolic Deliverance Church* (name changed slightly for our purposes). With a name like that, you're destined to win, right? Anyway, so I went to said church around 730 pm. I was early so I loitered awkwardly outside the church as a couple of people started to come. Did I mention he church is right on the downtown street in my town? Yes, if I were telling this story I would be doing the awkward robot, right ... now.

So, finally the pastor/prophet/I forget what they called him guy comes. He's got greased back Jheri (thank you wikipedia for correcting my spelling there) curls, and some jamaican colors on. Soon the service started. Lots of singing to start. It was a small group about 30 or so people by the end, but only 15-20 to start. I was, of course, the only white person, sitting sheepishly in the back. Luckily I decided not to wear a tie. Otherwise, I would been the only overdressed white guy, not just the only white guy.

Anyway, lots of singing. And the service, apparently, was an extraspecial one in which there were 10 speakers each giving 7 minute or so renditions of each of those pesky commandments. Highlight: for honor thy mother and father "Remember, spare the rod, spoil the child (huge applause)." The service continues like that for a long time.

After that and a couple of songs and drums, the prophet/pastor guy came on. He would call people up, they would come. Then, as many of you may have seen from televangalist programing, he would put one hand on the persons head and start chanting. Music was roaring and people were jumping. Instead of healing people, however, he was simply infusing them with some extra holy spirit. So, people would come up walking and leave jumping and shouting; in fact, some people jumped around so vigorously that they fell down in pain. Luckily a nurse followed the pastor/prophet guy around with some sort of magical healing blanket. She would lay it over the recently infused and they would rest until the blanket was needed elsewhere. All well and good. until ...

"You, young man in the back." Hand motion to come forward. Mr. Me, the unsuspecting boring academic turned High School teacher looks behind him. He furrows his brow slightly. "I guess I don't have a choice, he mutters. At least they're not trying to feed me cheese." Mr. Me walks forward. Prophet/pastor guy places hand on his head and begins chanting. Sometimes he uses sentences; other times he uses nonsense sounds. The school secretary adjusts Mr. Me's hands to the proper upright position and places her hands on his belly shaking vigorously at points of emphasis. The pastor/prophet guy begins whispering in Mr. Me's ear. "You're not alone. I know you've been going through a lot of stuff recently, but just know, you're not alone." Mr. Me wonders if he should fall down or speak in tongues. Would ancient Greek count? "Is that what they want?" he thinks. Mr. Me decides against falling down, wonders if this will turn into a game of wills. Even though the prospects are grim, Mr. Me is still glad he is not involved in either a land war in Asia or in a game of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line. Soon, Mr. Me is released and returns slightly shaken. Later. he will be told by two students that he "received the spirit" and "heard the call"

Church ended at 1045. For those keeping score at home. That's almost three hours of church.

My First Christmas Gift as a Teacher

2006-12-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

For the whole week before we got out, one student whom I like but who also is one of my biggest clowns kept saying he had gotten a present for me. Needless to say, I was worried. Would it explode, corrode, implode, unload, decode(?), or another other disastrous -ode away my life, friends or home? Fortunately, I have lived to share my experience.

He came in before testing and presented the gift. A little intrigued upon receiving a heavy, wrapped cylinder I prayed that I was not holding a large stick of dynamite and gingerly removed its holiday robes. Voila, I exchanged quizzical glances with a 1.44 kilo Christmas Stick.

What is a Christmas stick you ask? Well, it's like a candy cane. But let me draw an analogy. Marble is to Heavenly Body as Candy Cane is to Christmas Stick. We're talking several orders of magnitude bigger than your average candy cane, complete with nutritional information on the back (about 70 servings at 22 grams per serving). Yep, just one huge, cylinder of striped sugar ready to stand and rotate outside of a barbershop near you.

At that point, I bust out laughing and thanked the student who looked on grinningly.

The Silent Epidemic

2006-12-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

So, school this week started off alright on Monday. But, it went down hill quickly. I'll spare you the details from the trenches, but here are they highlights:

Sometime earlier in the week, during homeroom we learned that we had a previously unannounced "program" at 930. At the time, I thought they said Christmas program, so I thought I was just in for some more forced religiosity, which, by the by, I am no less comfortable with or desensitized to after one semester.

I had misheard. When I arrived, I discovered, from the folding board poster and the program guide My Fellow New Englander (MFNE) passed me in the stands, we were being graced with an Abstinence program: Think Before You Let It Go. Joy among joys. The host for this assembly was none other than one of our teachers dressed as Flavor Flav. Other highlights of the program were: 1) the long, long, long skit in which different students "role-played" situations in which they chose not to drink and have sex, but to study instead; 2) the poem delivered by a ninth-grader wearing a large wrapped gift costume (because I LOVE the idea that we should tell keep telling women that their virginity is a gift they should give to the man they wish to marry. I have NO problems with that metaphor AT ALL); 3) the cheerleaders doing a slow dance to some r&b song about sex; 4) the early head start program parading the children through the gym like some sort of perverse intimidation tactic (LOOK! BABIES! BE SCARED OF SEX! YOU'LL EXPLODE! AHHH!).

All of this was really just a nuisance. I'm used to my school wasting my time and the time of my students. But then MFNE showed me the pamphlet they were passing out which I had decided to ignore. Then, I was angry. Oh, so, angry.

"Condoms fail so often in preventing pregnancy (10%-36%) that doctors call them "antiquated birth control." Condoms fail even more often in trying to prevent STDs. * ... Condoms break, crack, slip, leak, can be applied too late, removed too early, deteriorate with time and heat, and FDA recommendations allow up to 4 defects per 1,000. Defect holes can be at least 50 times larger than the HIV virus."

WTF. As MFNE joked: Antiquated birth control? So, they want our kids to say, "no baby, condoms are antiquated birth control, I'll just pull out." I am still waiting for the reference list which I requested since the pamphlet, surprisingly, doesn't provide them. I would parse all of the misleading statements in the quotation above, but it actually makes me too blindingly angry to think about it. Instead, I'll link to these counter-facts from an organization more up my alley.

Also, on friday we had another surprise program, this one completely unannounced, in which the commander-in-chief guilt tripped the staff and the students into performing better and taking tests seriously. We then watched an "inspirational" video in which a white coach blindfolds a member of his lily-white team and provides him the opportunity to exceed expectations because he believed in himself. The whole video took a solid 7 minutes, full of dramatic music and skinny football players. How touching. I can't seem to find a copy of the video though. oh well.

Required Reflection on the First Semester in the Trenches

2006-12-06T18:57:00.000-08:00

Well, as trenches go, my first semester has been the proverbial up and down. Luckily for this post, I am currently up for the down stroke. This post is going to be mostly just a medley of ideas running through my head about what's been working recently and how that reflects the changes I've gone through over the last four months.

Long thought:
What I feel like people expect/want me to say: I should have started off this year as a stricter teacher. I should have come out harder in terms of my rules, procedures, and management.

I think that statement would be largely false. I think, oddly enough, I came out as hard as I could. I planned out my procedures as best I could; I was as strict as I could really imagine being; I was as authoritarian as I could imagine being. The classroom I created was much different than the one I had during summer school and even than the one I though I would have during summer school. Mostly, this decision was one of (accurately) low self-confidence. I was very right to think I am not yet a good enough manager to have the classroom environment I want to have. I'm still not (obviously).

None of this was good enough. Management is not simply a matter of procedures, rewards and consequences. The tone behind management seems to be the most important aspect of management. When you lack the institutional support to back up your "objective" ladder of consequences, it seems that you need to get the students to respect you, personally, enough to back up all those consequences in house. In this culture, that becomes uncomfortably Machiavellian. Respect here seems to be almost synonymous with fear. Fear has to come even before love. Gaining students' respect becomes a matter of asserting emotional and psychological dominance over each student individually, and then once this hierarchy exists of showing the students that you will, in fact, love them. This love, in turn, allows them to maybe begin to try to think about loving you back.

Some people seem more able than others to develop this tone of fear and love in their classroom. As a TFA-er I was recently talking to told me, the best white male teachers she knew were the ones that have yelled at their students. In fact, I've been told on multiple occasions that i need to "yell" and get "angry" at my students. "Yelling" just operates as a way of creating that tone of fear. Once you've gotten word out that you can "yell," you have to do it less and less. Once you've got your own back, you're all set.

Unfortunately (or now fortunately) for me, only yesterday, did I, for the first time, feel like I had even begun to be able to impersonate someone who might be said to have such a tone. It wasn't even that I was angry that they were talking; but I needed them to think I was angry or they wouldn't listen to me. As one of my more annoying students said, "Mr. Weimer is becoming a man." It is the beginning of me trying to speak to my students in a language of verbal violence that they can understand so that eventually I might be able to show them another way of expressing those emotions or thoughts. This sort of "angry" tone is a function of a behavior that I do not want to have. That is a person I do not want to be. It is one of the reasons why I don't think I should stay here too long. For one, I honestly don't believe I will ever be able to impersonate a person who can have an angry tone well enough to convince these students. I need to be that person, which is a person I don't want to be. At the same time, just being able to impersonate that person adds a skill to my tool-belt I never thought I'd have. In most any other teaching situation, I think just the confidence behind the ability will be enough to secure respect.

Shorter Thoughts:
I love teaching. I love watching students think. I love helping them think. I love seeing them smile. I love seeing them frustrated by thinking. While these moments can often be rare in my poorly managed ninth-grade classes, they come around every so often. They are more frequent in Algebra II.

Non-verbal management is priceless: a look; a hand gesture; an eyebrow raise.

I don't know where I'll be in a year, but it'll be in a classroom.

Required Post McGee

2006-11-17T20:53:00.000-08:00

I'll be honest here. I didn't exactly follow the assignment on this one, but I adjusted it to fit what I needed to do in my classroom. A while back (at least it feels like a while back) I felt like I didn't know how to be consistent. I mean, apart from the most objective and strict rules, there's going to have to be an act of interpretation in assigning consequences; in addition, I was unsure how to balance respecting individuals' needs and differences while trying not to be "inconsistent." On the one hand, yes, I treat my students with behavioral IEP's differently than other students. The most effective way to manage these students is not necessarily to "enforce my consequences at every opportunity." Is that being inconsistent or responsive? Which should I try to be?

Instead of trying to be self-consciously consistent with one of my more challenging afternoon classes, I decided to instead make a similar effort to purge disrespect in all of my classes. I would give a warning for each first offense and then it was a referral after that. Every time. I made this clear. I was also given, am still given, and will soon again be given the opportunity to demonstrate how this procedure works on many occasions. While I still feel just as consistent (or am I still inconsistent?) as I ever was, this consistency has made a huge impact. Its gotten to the point where even 6th and 7th period will have quiet days (once a week, at most). That's good.

The plan for break is to pick my battles. I'm going to revamp my rules to a short list of two or three as close to objective rules as I can. I will die by these rules. Except in the rarest of extreme cases, I will give consequences for every infraction.

Management

2006-11-11T09:57:00.000-08:00

Rules:
Right now my rules are the same they've been all year: Listen Carefully, Speak Respectfully, Act Reasonably, Take Responsibility for the Classroom Community. Practically speaking, my rules are basically: Come Prepared, Listen Silently While Mr. Weimer Is Speaking, Do Your Work, Act Reasonably. Before I just wrote those I expected those "new" rules to be farther away from my originals, so maybe that means I should simply rephrase the rules in my room and make a new poster. I guess that will be change number one.

Consequences:
I have changed my consequences to some degree. At the beginning, I decided to split apart major and minor consequences. Minor consequences could rack up as many checks (earning a writing assignment each); major consequences can earn detention and a referral. As it turns out, I have only assigned two detentions in class. Detentions have become a purgatory of sorts for the majority of students who never hand in writing assignments before I write them up for skipping detention. A minor consequence behind the most common consequence (writing assignments). In other words, I already have 20ish people for detention on Tuesday, 10ish people for the Tuesday after that, and some people in detention until after Christmas. There have been periods in which students have done my writing assignments, but recently I've almost completely stopped getting lines from any of my ninth graders.

In short, I've changed my plan by writing more students up and sending them out of my room; I've never really given detentions in class; I've been trying to tighten up on disrespect. Verbal abuse directed at me from my students is a management problem I hadn't fully anticipated and am still struggling to find effective ways to manage.

Rewards:
I've added a ticket system. I pull tickets and give candy every other Friday. They can also trade two tickets for a bathroom pass and five for a participation/hw pass.

Success

2006-10-29T00:52:00.000-07:00

Might as well make it two in 24 hours, no? It's raining, it's pouring, soon the old man will be snoring?

I've been thinking a lot about success. What does it mean for me to succeed as a teacher? What does it mean for my students to succeed in the classroom? in MY classroom?

I've got nothing so far. I mean, what am I supposed to trying to accomplish with my 17 year old freshman? I'm not so idealistic to think that I will instill these individuals with either a profound love of reading or analytic thought. I would even be hard pressed to convince myself that I can really instill the habits and corresponding frame of mind that would orient these students toward life as life-long learners.

So what then am I trying to do? How can I best serve these students?

So far, the most common response has been that I'm trying to expose these individuals to something like middle-class values. I'm supposed to show them what it means to exist in a structured environment with varying degrees of democratic involvement.

This answer is unsatisfactory. For me, the disturbing cultural disconnect between me and my students undermines this idea of civic schooling. More often than not, I find that my students and I cannot actually resolve dialogue in any meaningful fashion because we don't really have a language in which we can understand each others' point of view. For many of my more challenging students, it seems that they can only understand authority that asserts itself through violence, be it verbal or physical. Where I might try to express the same message through a demerit or a writing assignment or even a warning, someone who speaks in and through the culture that my students seem to share would not yell per se, but attack that student verbally. I am neither able nor willing to engage in this violence. How then can I engage in a meaningful lesson on civic values if the very means by which I feel it necessary to express that message is unintelligible to those with whom I wish to speak? What if I am unable to speak a language that they can understand?

To return to my original line of questioning (of myself, of my job, of my goals, of my daily life), how can I best serve my students? I wish I knew how to teach them to read, but unfortunately I've known how to for as long as I can remember. I need to learn how to learn how to read (so, hopefully, my commander-in-chief will get around to the third copy of the two-month old requisition to go to Nashville to learn just that). If I could start to teach them how to really read, I'd feel like that was a start. But even that isn't particularly tangible. Would success be students who are trying to read? reading? wanting to read? In math, would it be students who are problem solving? wanting to problem solve? thinking about the possibility of problem solving?

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm discourage because I feel like so much of an outsider that I don't know up from down in terms of goals and success. So much so, that I can't even evaluate my own daily actions let alone the work and attitude of my students. In addition to that, I feel like most of my communication with these students is lost in a translation neither I not most of my students can understand.

A Story and Two Anecdotes

2006-10-29T00:22:00.000-07:00

ToC:
1) Story
2) Anecdote
3) Anecdote

1) My reading class is often unfortunately straightforward. We sit in rows reading a poorly written, 400 page book of pedantic prose to each other while the students in the room answer eight simple comprehension questions for each chapter. Most days I have them write a journal describing the plot of the chapter and their favorite part. Other times, I pick a particular scene I want them to respond to. Very rarely we might venture into the dark and gloomy land of class discussion; however, that decision usually ends poorly.

Some of my students (well, sometimes many of them depending on which period of the day) have taken to various levels of protest over the obviously unfair and vindictively boring structure of my class. Some stoically refuse to open the book or answer any questions; some decide to try to talk over and under anyone's attempts to read aloud; some have, on rare occasion, resorted to some more drastic measures.

****
At this point, I should include a little side anecdote. About a month ago at our weekly staff meeting our commander-in-chief asked who in the room didn't yet have a key to their room. My hand joined a few other weary hands. Strophe: "No, Mr. Weimer, I gave you your key." Antistrophe: "Um, nope. I definitely don't have a key." Strophe: "Oh, well, I'll come try some more keys right away." Antistrophe: "Alright. I appreciate that."
****

As I mentioned, some of my students apparently really hate this book (Homecoming, by Cynthia Voigt); in fact, they may hate it even more than I do although I doubt it. The first physical demonstration of this hatred came almost a month and a half ago now. As always, I returned from the increasingly demeaning task of escorting my 16-18 year old Algebra II students to lunch. As I walked in my room I noticed that the 16 copies of everyone's favorite young adult novel were glaring missing from their perch on my long lab table (yes, I teach in a room with lab tables). As you'll remember, my door does not lock and my room sits unguarded for the small window of opportunity I had thus far been inclined to call lunch. My eyes suddenly became about one-and-a-half times their normal size as I scurried about the room rummaging for the missing books. Luckily, the offending parties were only vindictive enough to move the books across the room and to try to hide them in one of my large blue cabinets. From there, the day continued as planned.

At the end of the day, I wrote a short letter to the commander-in-chief. He immediately promised to personally lock my door everyday. All I had to do was send someone to the office before I left for lunch so he could come down and lock the door. As well-intentioned, his solution was laughable for several reasons. First, finding our commander-in-chief during the day is about as easy as juggling eggs while doing the chicken noodle soup. Second, the risk of actually finding our commander-in-chief but not being able to find him to unlock the door is frighteningly high. I'm getting goose bumps just thinking about holding 18 ninth-graders in the hall while trying to find our commander-in-chief who has the only key in the New World that opens my door. Third, okay, I lied, it's only laughable for a couple of reasons. Needless to say, the kind-hearted offer to lock my door never really blossomed into a working compromise.

Theft-wise my life had been going pretty well since the aforementioned incident (talk about an ominous opening sentence). This past Monday, however, I returned from lunch happy for hoe the morning went but dreading the 150 minutes of ninth-graders with attitudes the size of alaskan glaciers before the onset of global warming. Like in any good dramatic scene, at first, nothing seemed out of place. But. Wait. The stack of books that can only live on the lab tables because of the sickeningly overbearing messages of teenage rebellion and clear-cut moral values would eat through any normal wood surface had either been eaten by the roaches or had once again been stolen.

I quickly searched every hiding place in my room. Nothing. Luckily, since whoever ordered the "class-set" of this rotten trash only ordered 16 copies, I have about 7 photocopies of several chapters on hand at all times. So, for the rest of the day I dealt with the wonderful classroom management situation of sharing.

Unsure of what to do, I asked my veteran housemates how they would handle this situation. The beautifully vindictive solution that my housemates and school-hallway-mate devised was to make all my classes do writing assignments until the books were returned or I got information leading to their return. (As you may notice, whereas my attitude is about the size of that easily dust-off-able speck of dirt on Jay-Z's shoulder, my housemate's attitude can rival Gaston in size.) My classes hated this. In addition, as per her suggestion, I also assigned demerits every time some foolish hormone driven adolescent felt the need to express his or her deepest inner longings in highly coded audible utterances. Let's just say, by the end of that Tuesday, after 15 people skipped detention and I had written out all my referrals for talking, I had written up fewer people than Nights in Arabia but more people than there are days in this month.

What of this books, you say? As I had guessed, they were stashed in someone's locker very close to my classroom. I had looked in many of these lockers but had not looked in the proper one until that afternoon. I was standing outside my door for hall duty when I was graced with the following interaction.

Weimdogg: Afternoon.
Student, whom I do not teach, arriving at her locker right next to my door: (grunt)
W: ...
S: Hey, what are all these books here for?!
W: Books? (peeking into locker) Um, I'll take those. Thanks.

The next day, I finally installed a latch and lock on a cabinet like my housemate advised me to do in August.

In other news, I liked to share the following two unrelated anecdotes:

2) One day a student was asking me to use the bathroom so incessantly during 7th period that I had to warn her that she was on the verge of getting written up. The following scene ensued:

Players: Beleaguered Comic Hero (BCH), Mouthy Student (MS), Very Very Country Student (VVCS)

MS: I know why you won't let me go to the bathroom. You're racist.
BCH: Yeah, that's it. I'm racist. I moved to Mississippi to teach because I'm racist. Good observation.
VVCS: You know, he's right. He wouldn't have moved here from Massachusetts if he was (sic) racist.
MS: Whatever.

3) Scene Two:

Players: Teacher Trying to Stall So One Section of Reading Doesn't Get Too Far Ahead (TTSSOSRDGTFA), Quiet Mostly Unasuming Student (QMUS), Good Student (GS)

TTSSOSRDGTFA: So, they just ate oatmeal. Who here likes oatmeal?
GS: I do!
TTSSOSRDGTFA: Raise your hand if you like grits more than oatmeal?
Everyone: (The swoosh of hands being raised).
GS: I went to Massachusetts once with my uncle. I order grits for breakfast and the waitress didn't know what I was talking about!
QMUS: They were out of grits?!?!?!
GS: No, No, there aren't any grits in Massachusetts!
TTSSOSRDGTFA: Yeah, I've never had grits.
QMUS: But what do you eat for breakfast?

Intelligence Survey

2006-10-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

To be frank, I was not particularly surprised by the data I got from my Multiple Intelligences survey. At the same time, I'm not exactly sure how I am supposed to use this data (how's that for a thesis statement! huzzah).

Since each student is reflecting on his or her own abilities, how can the students know which way they learn best? For example, many of my students say they learn best when I give them direct, deductive notes; however, although they may be able to repeat the skill at hand, I would argue that it is much harder to gain a deep understanding with only this sort of direct lecture. Are the students still correct that they learn best this way?

Looking at the data, I see that my students are visual learners. No surprise there. I knew from their initial clamoring for notes and visuals that this was the case. I had also been forewarned of this by many a teacher corps teacher. On the other hand, they rated their interpersonal intelligence as rather low. That is, they do not think that they learn well from other people. I noticed this particularly in my ninth graders who were and are incredibly averse to group work. Does this mean that I should use group work less or more? Should I be trying to encourage development in the areas where these students feel the weakest or just play to their strengths?

I guess, I just take the data as a reflection of he comfort zone of my students and not much else. It's too small a sample size to make big generalizations, so I think of it more as a way of knowing how and when I can push my students. It gives me a better sense of when my students might feel either comfortable or uncomfortable in the classroom. Therefore, I can use the data to mix and match the comfortable with the uncomfortable and hopefully get a good medium of learning without shutting down.

Just Keep On Keep On-ing

2006-09-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

13 September 2006

So I started this week in doubt. Last week was a little rougher than I would've liked and was preceded by a week that was not just a little rougher than I would've liked. 6th and 7th period with the ninth graders is interesting to say the least. In this din of pubescent drama, disrespect and just straight-up noise, as you may or may not imagine, I was less than thrilled to learn on Saturday we had to read a book whose "graphics," "charts" and "scenarios" had me less than thrilled when I flippantly tossed the book aside. To my surprise, the book repeated information that I imagine I've been getting all along in a way that made sense to me.

For instance, for much of the summer I was told something along these lines: "Your students WANT a structured, disciplined environment although they will rebel and act out against it to no end." To my ears, this justification for a borderline (or not so borderline) authoritarian classroom was thinly guised paternalism. I needed a better reason than someone telling me that deep-down, in their heart-of-hearts, my students craved what they said they hated.

In contrast, Payne's discussion of the three voices with which we can communicate with our students makes sense to me. In fact, her whole framing of discipline as instruction on the "hidden rules" of middle-class America makes sense to me. That is the sort of vocabulary I've been struggling to find as I've wanted to say that discipline and classroom management are forms of instruction as much as the content in the classroom. I immediately started using more "I" statements and personal justifications with my students in order to elaborate on my decisions. I'm not sure this has had any effect on the students yet, but I felt much more comfortable almost immediately. I could feel how it opens up a space for student input in management other than the obligatory "I wasn't talking" or "I'm not doing those copy lines" or "Get out of my face".

Payne's argument only got better as she links many of these discipline issues to the poverty our students live with. While I found a lot of the psycho-babble reductionist and sometimes ridiculous (the stages of development, etc), as a general pattern (which is all she purports to present) I appreciated her argument. In particular, I get a lot of hope from the chapter on relationships. She splits up our actions as teachers into two categories: deposits and withdrawals. Laughing at students' jokes, kindnesses and being open to feedback all win points here. Whether or not my actions actually effect my students in that sort of cumulative fashion, I can get a lot of hope from the thought.

Having just completed my fourth or fifth (who counts anymore anyway) reading of Gatsby, I'm reminded of my good friend (we're good friends by now, right?) Nick's admission: Everyone suspects himself (his word, not mine) of at least one cardinal virtue. I'm far from honest, but I like to think I'm patient.

I'll keep depositing in these other accounts until the bank finally foreclosed on my mortgage and just keep waiting. At the same time, I'll keep writing those checks (different kind) on the board and keep having 12-20 assigned to detention, but I'll also feel good about laughing at their jokes (even about me, if they're funny).

My Opening Gambit

2006-07-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

21 July 2006

I'm still working out all the details of this schedule, but it's what I've been thinking about so I figured I might as well make it into a blog.

The first three to four days I think I will dedicate mostly to class procedures and rules. In these classes, the students will decorate their work folder (which will contain their tests/quizzes/projects), rehearse all of the classroom procedures, and later I might use a journaling activity to demonstrate how I expect the class to run on a daily basis.

More specifically, in my math classes I want to talk about asking questions/giving answers in terms of problem solving. I want to let my students know upfront that I will not be giving them as many answers as they may be used to; Plato's Meno might help me focus this lesson on classroom structure. In Reading, I want to talk about rules in terms of Calvin Ball (although I may do this in all of my classes). I also might stretch this to five days and read either Du Bois or Booker T. Washington (an idea of Ms. Hill's) and use that to talk about the value of education. She reads Washington, but I'm a Du Bois man myself so I might find a relevant passage from his works.

After these four days, I'm planning to jump into some review. I'll give a diagnostic test (now that, hopefully, most of the role issues are taken care of) and plan some review accordingly. In math, it's a little easier to envision this in advance. I'll do a week to two weeks of review just to get people on the same page, then jump into the first lessons in my not-yet-developed curriculum. In Reading, I'll probably just jump into work that looks like the regular curriculum but assess them not so much as a means of documenting progress, but as a way of helping them learn what they need to do to meet my expectations.

After that, it'll hopefully be a matter of just unmooring the curricular ship and embarking on our adventure. I can't pick the crew, but, hopefully, I will have instilled my worthy shipmates with a sense of respect and responsibility for our humble sloop. Avoiding the early (and late) mutiny is a big priority and I'm downright nervous/anxious/scared about how that'll all work out. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

TEAM Self-Evaluation

2006-07-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

17 July 2006

I think a lot of the criticisms I have of this lesson are pretty similar to those of the lesson I taped at Holly Springs, which is understandable and a little discouraging. I still want my lessons to move at a quicker pace when I'm at the board. I need to get what I want said out there and stop dancing around what I need to say. The longer I'm up there, the more restless the students will get. I shouldn't be wasting any of the time I'm up at the board.

That said, I don't think I was up there for too long before the class split into groups. Obviously, group work in this setting is a whole different species than what I will have to face in the Delta, so it's hard to glean much from that either.

I have to do a better job of making sure all my directions and instructions are clear and given before I hand out any of the papers or allow the students to move into groups. In this case, I got away with it. In the real thing, I would've been floundering about repeating myself and wasting everyone's time. I'll work on that I suppose.

What I think a lot of this boils down to, and a lot of what I've been thinking about recently, is KISSing. Keeping It Simple, Silly/Stupid/Suffering-Succotash. I think I've come to accept that, yes, I can't do everything from the beginning. You're right (Ben and others, cough, Battery, cough) I won't be able to have 12" voices and group work and fun and whatever else I have envisioned in my little head. (I don't mean for this to steer too far from evaluation, but I think the video was so woefully unrealistic that watching it didn't really gain me much other than focusing these most recent thoughts).

So, maybe I will have to take it for the team here and be a little militant to begin with. I'll still make incessant jokes and smile but all while dishing out warnings and copying assignments like lollipops at the bank. What I can't do, is let go of the socratic/inductive bent in my teaching. I would get too bored and, ultimately, feel like I was lying to the kids about Math and English. So, I think my classes will all be about building. Building the math/reading basics that the kids probably don't really have yet while building a classroom climate where we can get work done. Maybe neither of those will never make it much into the hands of the students, but that'll be the implicit aim.

The MTC School

2006-07-15T13:34:00.000-07:00

15 July 2006

So Leeward and I had a bit of a discussion/day-dream session last night over meatloaf and a burger (separately, would I eat meatloaf?) at Ajax last night. We were pondering a comment Ben had mentioned in the past with respect to summer school, but that we have both thought of before and after Ben brought it up.

What if MTC had its own school?

When Ben brought this up he dismissed it as an impossibility. After all, schools don't just suddenly have openings for 20-30 teachers (and a principal). But, is a sudden influx of teachers into an already existing school the only way? Yes (and sort of no). Before we deal with these specifics, however, let's look at the vision itself. So, is a MTC School something we even would want?

Leeward and I, at the time, seemed to agree that yes, probably, it would be a good idea. Now, we were unabashedly excited about the prospect of working at such a school, but is it best for the students? Leeward brought up the good point that we would serve fewer students at a single school. I think I waved some funny math in his face at the time to dismiss this point, but its definitely true. Even a big school in the delta would probably only serve close to 800 students (say, 7-12). So, we'd have 30-40 teachers seeing 800 students everyday, whereas spread out in different schools these teachers would see (if we assume on average, 3 teachers per school seeing roughly the same kids but 120 of them), the same teachers would see anywhere from 1200-1600 as a conservative estimate. So, we'd see only half the students in our own school.

At the same time, think for a second how ridiculous this school would be. We would have a school full of energetic, committed individuals willing to put their all into after school programs, their teaching and these kids lives. The inter-staff interactions would be out of this world, as would everyone's support network. I'm not optimistic about making a lasting impact on the lives of my students. I'm going to have probably 80% ninth graders (although that also means I will have like 75% of the ninth graders twice a day. hahahaha, they're going to be soooo sick of me by the end of the year.) But, at this MTC School, if you get this kids in 7th grade and have them until 12th. Man, I think you'd have the opportunity to really do something. Not just give these kids an hour or two of sanity, but actually give them something.

Leeward and I discussed some other concerns. Would this school have more of an image of outsiders coming into the community and changing it? Moreover, would it have the added image of a largely white teaching force coming in and giving education to these poor African-American kids? I think it could, but I don't think it would have to. There's already a big population of MTCers living in Leland next year, and an even bigger population in the surrounding area. For the time being, I'll have to leave this question mostly open though. I have the least experience with community involvement and my image as a carpetbagger, so I'll have to way in on this later.

There were other concerns, but I'd rather just lay out my vision for this school. We can think about it in the mold of a teaching hospital. Right now, I picture the head of each department as an experienced teacher who acts as a mentor for the first- and second-years as well as a full- (or maybe half-) time teacher in his/her subject area. After the two year commitment MTC could encourage teachers to stay in the delta at other schools, but none of them could teach at the teacher's school for more than two. At the same time, since MTC now looks like it'll be 60 strong with two 30 person classes, we could still send 20-30 people into other parts of the delta who didn't want to work at the MTC school or just got picked to do so. This would alleviate some of the criticisms that the new program doesn't reach enough students.

But what about that Yes (and sort of no) answer to Ben's point that we'd have to take over a school by hoisting the pirate flag and sporting peg-legs? The answer is Yes because MS has one of the most pathetic charter school laws ever. The state only allows for 6 schools, and only has a single operating charter school which serves fewer that 380 students (k-6, in Merigold). In addition, all charter schools must be converted public schools and their approval is contingent on local school boards. It also looks like it only allows for a single charter school in the delta, which make the Merigold school the only legal one. So, MTC couldn't actually start its own charter school. But, if the law were to change, somehow, MTC might be able to get outside funding. Louisiana got $21 million dollars, according to the Heritage Foundation (although agreeing with the Heritage foundation on anything, for any reason, makes me very queasy), in order to improve their charter school movement. So, with the right political pressure, this too could change.

So, if it were to change, what do you think? This wouldn't be the first alternative, regional school to bus kids an hour or so to school. It seems like education reform down here might need something drastic and this seems pretty drastic to me.

Think about it. The Greater Delta Charter School: Enthusiastic for Success.

Self-Evaluation

2006-06-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

30 June 2006

Ok. So. Apparently I say, OK, So, a lot. I was sure that I, like pretty much every teacher I've ever had would have some annoying verbal tick. Ok, So, will have to do for now.

Ok So, what else? Watching myself made the advice of my second second-year all the more obvious. Sometimes I teach like college-radio. Dead-air is awful. It's just so boring and painful to watch. Seeing my own dead-air made me physically wretch. So, everything needs to be quicker and more energetic. I don't necessarily want to do more, just do the same and similar things more quickly and more often.

Ok, So, watching myself also convinced me even more that I want a classroom that uses tons of small group stuff. Concept tests, group problems, just lots of the students communicating with each other while I float and occasionally address them all. It's just so unrealistic to lecture or do examples for more than 10 minutes and even pretend that people are interested. Even if I have to go back and forth between groups working in twos and then going over an example, I think that would be preferable.

Ok, So, in the spirit of me talking less.

Management

2006-06-28T20:42:00.000-07:00

28 July 2006

Much of the focus of this month has been on management. How can we manage our students? How can we manage our classroom? How can we manage our lives? I've been thinking a lot about these issues. While Ben, our professor and many of the second years repeat again and again that we need to set up highly structured environment for our students. The rhetoric behind these claims characterizes the students as lacking any structure in their lives, indeed as students who crave some structure in their lives. On one level, I am willing to accept that the evidence behind these claims is true. After all, I don't have any experience with these students; Ben and the second years do. I am less inclined to accept the conclusion their draw from that evidence.

Just because students crave structure, does that mean that, as teachers, we should give (or impose) our notion of structure upon these students? Giving (or imposing) structure, after all, is our justification for the regimented procedures, rules, and, to varying degrees, silence in the classroom. In this model, as Ben as suggested, we use our status as a professional, to some extent, to justify why these students should obey our structure. In turn, we need these structures to foster a learning environment. In turn, we are instilling (one method of teaching, I suppose) a respect for this sort of structure in our students.

My issue with this method of management is that it never explicitly asks the students to own any sort of self-management. It's all based on some oddly objective "procedure" that displaces any agency over the structure itself. After all, it's not the teacher's fault, it's the all a matter of procedure. It even displaces the student from his/her own behavior. It's not the student, but the behavior that conflicts with the procedure. My vision of management would, instead, first work with the students to develop and then put that in place. Practically, this may involve setting out, very explicitly, MY procedures and then working with the students to adjust those procedures. I believe that if the students have a part in making their own classroom rules, they will be MUCH more willing to obey them and to suffer their own consequences.

In addition, I'm also of the camp that interesting work will do most of the management that I would want anyway. I envision a class with lots of group work and lots of inductive learning (even my vision of student-made procedures is inductive at heart). In summer school, almost all of my management problems have come on days when I've known my lessons weren't interesting enough, when I was spending too much time at the board and when I just wasn't giving the students enough to do. Ms. Monroe and Joe both commented that my class might be a little unruly, but I'm not convinced that the shouting out and the 12" voices are a problem. Maybe I'll change my mind, but if most of the talk in the class is about the subject, I think I'm winning. Students will always be disengaged at times. Who wasn't in high school? But "idle" talk between students is not necessarily unproductive. Not only can it help relieve some of the tension of having to be in school, but it can help establish the community that my classroom needs. And, if the work is interesting and challenges the students in ways that they think matter, then a culture of work will emerge, particularly with a healthy dose of encouragement from their crazy and energized teacher.

I think by showing my students this sort of respect, that is, a confidence that they can create healthy and productive social structures will help build trust within my classroom. Most of all, as I said, I think it will help build ownership in the classroom. Since my biggest rule is "Take responsibility for the classroom community," this ownership is essential.

I anticipate the students will be very opposed to this idea at first. Just like my students in summer school were really really frustrated when I first asked them to actually problem solve. But, like in summer school I think the honest I'm almost sweating out of my shirt catches on. While I'm still having tons of problems, one of the biggest successes for me is that many of my students at Holly Springs will tell me when they don't understand things I'm saying. Many will even interrupt me to say they don't understand. In fact, the other day, I was giving a particularly boring lesson and I think we had a good dialogue about why that was and what I could do better. After all, who knows better what's interesting to my students, than my students themselves. So, even in my failure, I was pretty happy that they were honest with me.

So, I guess I'll have some experimenting to do come August. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? I'm really very interested in two things: does anyone read this and, if so, what does anyone think of these ideas.

Induction to Induction

2006-06-23T14:53:00.000-07:00

23 June 2006

So we had the choice to try either an inductive lesson, a cooperative groups activity or a folding paper exercise. As much as I like folding paper, I decided to try another inductive lesson.

So, I was teaching solving one and two-step inequalities. We had already covered up through equations with only variables in them, so the solving part wasn't a problem. I just needed the class to realize that when you multiply by a negative on both sides of the inequality the inequality sign flips.

Generally, I set up a comparison. Side by side I had a list of equations: x >1, x>2, x>3 (labeled 1a, 2a, 3a) and their opposites (labeled 1b, 2b, 3b). I set up a table that gave x values and asked the students if each value satisfied the inequality. From those values, I asked the students to help me graph each on the board. By comparing the graphs from the a's and the b's, I asked the class to create a rule that would generalized this property. I asked what was different about the a's and the b's (eventually eeking it out of them that the only difference was that if you multiplied/divided one you'd get the other, but with the inequality flipped). It was really great that many actually did begin to see this rule.

I love this kind of lesson. I feel like the majority of my lessons may not be strictly inductive, but my most comfortable mode of instruction uses the parts of inductive teaching that encourage problem-solving, but, for expediency's sake, provide a bit more direction. Mentor Moe calls it Socratic and I'm not opposed to that label.

Speaking of Mentor Moe, I agreed with his two major comments. On the one hand, it was amazingly satisfying to see two of the kids on the right, much much quieter side of the room actively involved. Not only were they actively involved, they were the engine behind the induction. KR came up with the rule and TW, normally frustrated and somewhat bitter, was positive and engaged. On the flip side, the normally active students were somewhat less active. In fact, I'm sure the whole class did not follow the inductive logic.

Two ways to improve: 1) clearly and repeatedly state the problem that is driving the induction. In addition, from the beginning stress that we are making a rule and continue to come back to both the problem that necessitate the rule and the progress toward the rule itself. It's really not that difference from writing a good paper. Start off with a clear problem and continually link back to that problem in each paragraph. 2) Use an overhead or make a handout. I originally planned a handout, but I wanted to try it without one. But, I think all the erasing I had to do on the board was too cumbersome and wasteful. An overhead (which our classroom inexplicably lacks) would have been perfect. Just throw the template up there and reuse reuse reuse.

I'm planning on having a highly inductive/Socratic classroom. it might be interesting to have a couple of inductive sessions and then some practice workshops to hammer out skills where the class works in groups or alone on just dozens of examples. I think that would be a really interesting way to combine overall concepts, skills, inductive teaching and cooperative learning within a good classroom routine.

I guess we'll find out.

Sarcasm

2006-06-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

15 July 2006 (I know this is displayed right above this on the blog, but I need it for my own records).

So, what I've been thinking recently has to do with both a little of what I've read from Mentor Moe's blog from last summer and some feedback I got from him and my partner in first-year crime (whom i will call, Battery): sarcasm.

In my evaluations, Mentor Moe has complimented my use of humor as an effective disarming device with my students. On Wednesday, however, he mentioned that my sarcasm was beginning to blend too much in tone with something that the students might interpret as serious. Battery reinforced Mentor Moe's point when he said that he actually felt that I had become angry/annoyed during my lesson. To the contrary, I had a blast that day. It was the most fun lesson for me so far this summer. I mean, there's still tons to fix, like board organization, and presenting any semblance of written notes on the board for the students, but I felt like I was able to extract even just a small bit of interest and engagement in the connection between the abstractness of algebra and the concreteness of numbers: a hugely important point for anyone even thinking about math, ever.

Now, humor isn't something I use just to disarm the students (henceforth, my kids). For me, humor is just about the only philosophically stable way to approach our high school system. High school IS boring. The procedures and structures and tests we put these kids through ARE silly. I don't want to hide that. I don't want to lie to my kids. That would break TWO of my classroom rule: (Speak respectfully and Take responsibility for the classroom community). Humor allows me and my kids to recognize how stupid these structures can be while still realizing that we're going to have to use them. No you can't be late; no you can't disrupt my lecture; no you can't go to sleep. But, I also can't pretend that every moment of class will be intellectually and emotionally stimulating and engaging at all times.

That is to say, I cannot abandon humor as a teaching style, as a way of sustaining interest through the self-consciouslly boring lulls.

But, what do I do when I begin to press sensitive kids too much. Especially since part of what my humor wants to do is make my classroom intentionally non-serious (or, as a neologism, consciously dis-serious), this conflict between kids interpreting my lame, high-school teacher witticisms as serious threats, insults, or even comments is a formidable one. Obviously, I can't just say: I love you all; I will never be annoyed or angry at YOU. If they trusted me to begin with, this wouldn't be an issue. (I also can't decide if something to that effect is a worthwhile poster). I think this might just be something of which I have to become a better self-monitor. There will be students (like me when I was a student) whom I can press with sarcasm. There will be others I can't. In general, I need to keep my tone lighter. Always lighter. But, it's a dangerous line that I'll have to walk; but, I don't think it's any more dangerous than ones other teachers have to negotiate. Getting students interested IS dangerous. That's part of why it's worthwhile.

Questioning Strategies

2006-06-14T18:31:00.000-07:00

13 June 06

I used a mix of Concept Tests and Cold Calling in class today. I wrote a problem on the board, asked the students to work it out individually, then I cold called on a student to come up to the board (or dictate from their seat) and explain their method. It worked pretty well, in fact the concept tests worked much better than I anticipated. Many of the students actually did share their results, but with their friends across the room, rather than the partner I envisioned sitting next to them.

I needed a better protocol (really, any protocol) for picking partners for the concept test, but the cold calling was good for that context.

I'm going to try a similar method tomorrow, and will report about those results then.

14 June 06

Ok, so I forgot the index cards with which I was going to cold call. Instead I improvised a method where I spun the class list to choose someone at random. It didn't really work that well and it certainly didn't give the students the same sense of randomness that the stack of names does. I did do something like concept testing though where I had them come up with answers to questions I posed on the board and then discuss them with a partner,

I think cold calling, in general, might be more beneficial for me to make sure I'm calling on students equally and not missing quiet ones or picking on ones who are spacing out. I haven't really gotten many complaints for just picking names which I would need to displace onto a sense of randomness; in fact, I got more lip when I used the real cold calling, but maybe that was because it was the first time.

I think much of this questioning strategy experiment wasn't that new for me so I didn't discover that much. The partner thing surprised me because it worked better than I expected. It worked even better today when I had a real protocol. It will work even better next time when I actually enforce that protocol. More generally, questions and questioning plays such an enormous part in my classroom anyway that trying out new questioning strategies wasn't really something I had to do for this assignment. It's what I try to do everyday anyway.

Focus Paper Response

2006-06-11T10:55:00.000-07:00

11 June 2006

I read Mason's focus paper on John Dewey and his philosophy of education. I'm interested in the work Dewey and L. L. Nunn have done on progressive ideas of education so I was happy to see that one of last year's focus papers covered some of this material; in fact, before I saw that Mason had written on Dewey, I was going to write on Dewey myself.

Dewey saw a strong link between education, democratic citizenship and individual experience. Dewey wanted a system of education that took seriously the its implications in the everyday life and experience of its students. Therefore, Dewey saw the experience of the classroom itself as just as important as the material covered within it. The approach toward education, in my mind, shifts the structure of the classroom from a strictly vertical organization to a more horizontal one. Mason identifies the two main consequences of this emphasis in a Deweyian education as a fostering a democratic awareness and the habit of self-education. In addition, one aspect of Dewey's philosophy that Mason highlights that I hadn't really thought of was Dewey's willingness to praise the organization of traditional education while looking to improve that structure through more experiential methods.

Organization, as Dewey points out, seems so key here. Right now, I think that is by far the weakest part in my teaching. I've clashed, personally, with some of the rhetoric in class of the teacher as the boss of the classroom, functioning almost as dictator. I agree wholeheartedly with Dewey that the classroom needs to mimic the social and political structures we want to foster in our students. Therefore, I want the students running my classroom as much or more than I am. As a teacher, then, my role becomes mostly a model. What might a democratic leader look like? As a teacher I need to model the behavior of a effective and engaged equal. At the same time, I need to organize the path by which we can move through the material as a democratic unit. I want a tangental and free-flowing classroom, but I also need to establish the consequences for disrespect. Whether its giving more warnings, lines and detentions, I need to establish an organized and consistent set of expectations both for the material lesson as well as for classroom behavior. Those expectations are always up for discussion, but I need to spark that discussion.

One idea that i've been toying with is to set up positions in the classroom that shift every day or every week. They would be something like a sheriff and a deputy. I want the students to begin to feel responsible not only for their own actions but for the actions of the whole class as well. I'm interested to see if setting up a system of expectations with consequences for the students, themselves, to enforce might help raise the level of student ownership of the classroom.