Year Two, First Quarter over. Already?

This week we gave our first quarter benchmark assessments. My students did about as well as expected, I guess. A third of them were “Approaching Proficient” and two thirds were “Below.” They seemed to be disappointed, and as we were going over the test I pointed out that we hadn’t even addressed everything on the exam in class, and if they got certain questions right it had nothing to do with anything I had taught them, so kudos to them! I pointed out in a casual way that it is really is hard to teach them sometimes because I battle so with the talking and playing around and it cuts into teaching and learning time. Nothing accusatory, just saying. It was interested to note that today was a better day. Only an hour together, for one thing. Sometimes I think two hours in a row is too long to hold the attention of a seventh grader. I think we end up using fillers and don’t get that much more done than we would in an hour. I wonder how math and science and history are taught in only an hour. Why is English so much more important that it gets two? I get it for English Learners, but for the majority of kids it really seems like overkill. We are teaching them stuff that is of no interest or real relevance to their lives and wringing our hands when they aren’t proficient at the tests of it. Something is wrong and it seems like no one notices it. Of course that is only my opinion. It could be very important to understand that the object of a preposition is always a noun. But you’ll never convince me of that.

I think it is very important that kids learn to love to read, that they write thoughtfully and well. I think it is very important that they learn to read critically, deciding for themselves if they agree with an author’s point, and noticing the persuasive trickery that authors use. I think they need to know that there are books that can teach them about themselves, about others and the world and that they can be written in lovely and touching ways. But we are not giving them this. We skip around through the anthology, reading a mix of boring and interesting, but honestly, we don’t read anything that takes your breath away. Nothing that inspires creativity or thoughtfulness. Nor are we paced for thoughtfulness. We are paced for proficiency on an exam.

Yesterday we talked about adopting a reading program. Hmmm…should we choose Scholastic or Accelerated Reader? The kids are used to AR, and they have an online program so maybe we’ll just choose that one. When one teacher interjected with a question, “Excuse me, but I barely make it through the pacing guide as it is. How and when can I add a reading program?” She was told this has nothing to do with in-class activities. It is for at-home reading. The kids just take the reading tests at school apparently. And the grades from those tests should not comprise more than 10% of their grade. So now reading is not important enough to take time to do it at school and it is only done for rewards like points and other things? It used to involve prizes. Not exactly an intrinsic reward. Now there may not be money enough for prizes, I’m not sure. For myself, no extrinsic prize would motivate me to read something I didn’t want to read. I’d forego that over riding my skateboard or playing video games any day. A cute pencil or binder? Whatever.

I’m having my kids read for 15 minutes on Fridays and can’t quite get them all to do it. And that time would probably count as “downtime” if anyone in charge caught me doing it. The kids are only checking out books because I make them. So they check out “Serendipity” books or “Ripley’s Believe it or Not.” Great for four year olds, but not for seventh graders. When I try to interest them in a book they just say (as thought it is a allergy that can’t be helped), “I don’t like to read.” And they pull a face. This makes me sad, it really does. They are missing so much, and could easily do so for their entire lives. I feel like we’re headed fast down the wrong track and there’s nothing I can do about it. I hope the high school can deepen things for some of them.

So yeah. Next week begins a new quarter, and I’ll be back on track. Full of trickery to hold their attention for a few more minutes each day. I hope.

Year Two, Week 8: Planning matters.

(Eighth grade AVID students engrossed in a “silent Jigsaw puzzle competition” as a “Fun Friday” teambuilder activity. Happy campers, I might add…)

I can’t believe the first quarter is almost over. It ends in one more week. Recently the subject of discipline has come up in some teacher meetings, with some colleagues questioning the request by administration to send a referral with any student who is sent to the office, or to send it by the end of the period. People have bucked this request, saying they don’t have time to write six referrals as they are trying to teach, each of them saying “disrespectful.” I learned yesterday that a couple of colleagues have sent 30 referrals so far this year. I have found these revelations shocking and very discomforting. I don’t send referrals unless something huge has happened like last year when H. went after R. with a large pair of scissors. That seemed justified and I needed her to be out of the classroom. For good. Apart from those big events, it feels like I’m giving my power away when I send a student to the office. And if they are too busy to deal with my student and his or her issue promptly, then I have given away any chance of things getting better between that student and I beause my consequences mean nothing other than a break from the chaos.

I think another thing that has shocked me about the referrals is that it is so early in the year. I feel like I’m just getting started, just getting to know my students. I am just getting ready to make the first phone calls home for the year, and until I’ve done that I can’t in good conscience send them off to the office. Am I thinking backwards? Maybe, maybe not.

I will admit my classroom is pretty raucous at times. I am not always in complete control of things, but I credit the level of noise and on or off-taskness to my own quality of lesson planning. When my lessons are tightly planned, one thing transitioning into another, my classes are so much smoother. When I get loose so does my classroom. No big revelation there. So why, you might ask don’t I plan better to avoid so much of the annoyance? Good question. I like my weekends too much, my new computer too much? Yes and yes. But I also am a little frozen mentally right now. All the things I know to do, that I’m good at doing seem to be locked away for some reason that evades me. My goal is to access that part of my mind that used to be sharper than it is now. Better planning, better follow through.

Interesting enough, the last two times the Principal or another teacher have come into my room the kids were completely quiet and on task. In one instance they were writing, answering a survey I’d made up about what their families had taught them about how to behave in the world. The second time they were doing silent reading on a Friday. (Not everyone was actually reading, I’m sure but it was quiet and most of them were reading. I hope it catches on over time.) Notice that neither of those activities were standards based or part of the adopted curriculum? Yeah. Go figure. Anyway, I am dedicating myself to better lesson planning from here on out. Cause it matters. It really does, and I’m determined to actually plan something workable that uses that oh so hard, oh so disconnected from the real life of my students’ real lives adopted curriculum. I am. I will, and I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working. I will.

Year Two, Week five, or is it six: It’s a jumble.

We’ve made it through the first six weeks of school. Just like last year, my classes seem so loud and jumbly. If one side is quiet the other side is noisy, and if I get them quieted down the other side bursts out. I know it has to do with engagement and planning. Planning really engaging lessons. I swear I will go overboard in that regard this weekend, in preparation for next week. I have had appointments this week after school almost every day, so I’ve been unable to stay late. That has really cramped my style.

This has been such a long week. I’ve been giving the CELDT test to around 75 kids this week, so have had no prep any day. I am down to the last 15 or so who need one or two tests yet, which is a relief. Next week I’ll get those finished and then will begin to do all the finishing details so I can send them off. What a huge job this is. Last week there was an EL Facilitator meeting in which we were told that there is another job which has to be done by October 5 – we have to code all the core classes in two different ways in the data management system. The only time I’m able to do this is tomorrow after work. I’m so tired, and the idea of staying until 6:00 or so on another Friday night is daunting, but I can’t stay on Monday because I have an appointment with the Occupational Health clinic for the work injury I sustained a couple of weeks ago. So yeah, I’ll be there late tomorrow, again.

No one seems to understand all of the work involved with this ELF position. People worry that I don’t have enough to do to fill my release period every day. What they don’t know is that I not only fill it, I use my teacher prep for it as well, along with staying late every single day. I wish I could just hand out the list of required tasks to ease their worry about my having unfilled moments in my day. And once I get the CELDT tests sent off, and the coding done and the 22 Redesignations sent off to the district office and then to the parents, I will begin to set up the monitoring of the students who were redesignated within the last two years…and the list goes on and on.

Hm. No wonder my planning is less than stellar. I hope for a better next week. I swear I’ll be ready for it.

Here’s a tidbit, a tiny bite of my day:

Today my class came in quite noisily. I’d been out for a couple of days and they were behaving in a predictably squirrely manner. Donaldo kind of topped it off when he announced in a booming voice, “I’m a Phillipenis” Me: “You’re a what??” “A Philipenis.” Me: “Now your name is Philip?”
“No, I”m a Philipenis.” Me: “Donaldo, stop please.” “But you know, there’s a place called the Philippino.” Me: “But you’re not from there, Donaldo. I think you just want to say ‘penis’ really loud in class.” “Well, it is a place.” Me: “Yeah, but you aren’t really interested in it. You just want to say ‘penis.’ And now we’ve all heard you, so stop, please.” Donaldo: “Oh, okay.” So, yeah. Philipenis. Seventh grade.

New Posts? Where? When?

Well, it appears that I have not posted anything at all for a while, and I haven’t. Except last week when I was really frustrated and made the post private. And this week is difficult. I have a very painful leg, injured at work, and haven’t been there yet. But I will go tomorrow and I will persevere. With my Ibuprofen. And my strength of character. Right. I’ll be back with something else sooner than later.

Okay, maybe it’s not so bad…

Okay, today was better. Up until the moment they walked in I wanted to throw in the towel and quit teaching. But their little faces won me over again. It’s just so hard. There is so much to balance, so many personalities to fit into the mix. So, that’s all for now. I’m just saying…

Year 2, Week three: Here it comes…

Oh, I had such high hopes, good intentions. Today it feels like all was for naught. No matter what I do with my classes, no matter how much I slow it down and contextualize the material, they just don’t get it. I don’t know how to get in tune with where they are. I really don’t get how people can use those GUM books with the seventh graders. Are my students really that much lower than theirs? Do they just explain it better? Not notice that they still don’t get it? The thing is, if I just gave them a worksheet they would quietly do it. Wrong or right, ni modo. But they would do it. I know they don’t get what those worksheets are trying to accomplish, and even if they do for a couple of minutes get it, it wasn’t genuine getting it, so it’ll fade as they walk out the door.

Once again the loud ones, the hyperactive ones are dominating everything. Looking offended when I call them on their behavior. Tell me this is just one day and tomorrow everything will look up…

Year Two, Week Two: How do I really reach them?

Well. Seventh grade is just a high energy age. Now that I’m in my second year of teaching this difficult group, I realize the imperative of implementing and maintaining behavior modification techniques. Things like giving “row points” and tickets for doing something right, using Love and Logic, setting an alarm a few minutes before the bell rings to get them back under control and get the room back in order all seem to work to keep more of the control in my hands. I have decided that I will learn to do this well. I just don’t know how long it might take!

One thing I notice is that it takes them a long time to learn new things. My students are English Learners, but all are Intermediate to Advanced in their level, so I don’t see that the taking a long time is really connected to language. They just seem to need a lot of repetition and returning to the lesson. What I don’t understand is how the other ELA teachers use the McDougall GUM book and Vocab and Spelling books successfully. These books contain vocabulary that seems so difficult to me and it is completely decontextualized. It is not related to the stories in the anthology at all. The words are used in a sentence and from that one sentence kids are supposed to find the contextual clues to define it. But the words are hard and the sentences don’t contain a lot of information that is part of my students’ schema. Yet the other teachers are demanding that those books be ordered because they use them every day. The pretext for ordering them is that the kids need to learn the mechanics of English. I don’t disagree with this, but don’t see how this material leads to the learning of this important information. I wonder if I just haven’t caught on to something. If that’s the case I hope I get it soon.

Speaking of English Learners, this week I had an encounter that highlighted the opinion that many people have of ELD classes. One of my colleagues knew of a student who was in my class who really doesn’t know a second language. He was designated EL as a young child, and now must test out of that designation. It is out of my hands and no note from a family member can change it. He doesn’t have to be in an ELD class, but his test scores place him soundly there. He is an intermediate to early advanced student on the CELDT, and below basic on the CST. He is at or below the level of all the other students in my classes. This colleague accosted me on more than one occasion about him and asked in a very disparaging way if he HAS to stay in ELD classes, even though he doesn’t know two languages. I was unable to hide my offense at her attitude toward my class. I use the same curriculum and follow the same pacing guide as the other seventh grade English teachers. My kids are slower at learning the material, apparently than the other kids, but that is not due to anything I do. At least I don’t think it is. It seemed like her words were a demonstration of an attitude toward ELD classes that is somehow prevalent among many ELA teachers, as something less than, something that just doesn’t measure up to the level of mainstream English classes. Classes where they use McGUM worksheets daily to teach language mechanics. Hmmm. Maybe it doesn’t. And come to think of it, I see that as a good thing. I will continue to explore all this. Year two. Yeah!

A few new tricks…

Okay, I’ve begun my second year of teaching middle school, where the kids are cute and so much more. This year I’ve begun using a few new tricks to improve my classroom management. (I know, I sound like a first year teacher, not an 18th year one.) My room has a very nice feel to it, one that I want to maintain. This will only be possible if the students are taught to care for it. So, the new tricks aren’t exactly about that, but they are a little. For instance:

The art supplies are separated into kid-size doses and housed in tennis ball cans. Certain kids are assigned to get them and put them away. No one else. At the end of class a 6 minute timer goes off. Everyone stops what they are doing and waits for instructions. I tell them who will be putting materials away, and instruct them to get their rows in order. I have already written some points on the board for rows that worked well. Once everything is put away and the rows are neat, I get out my little book of questions. I ask for hands and will only give row points to people who raised their hands. At the end of the class the row with most points gets to first. Simple but the kids like it and they totally respond to my putting points on the board. I worried that this would be too difficult to maintain, but so far it’s a breeze.

So, that’s my new little tiny thing for the day that’s working so far. They get loud during class, but in those last minutes all is calm until I dismiss them. Plus they leave the classroom very tidy!

Year Two, Week 1: Love at first sight. Maybe.

Well, year two of teaching middle school has begun. Just like last year I teach 7th grade ELD and 8th grade AVID. My fingers are crossed that these kids are really as nice as they seem. They are loud at times, but also quite polite. I know it’s only been a week but I am daring to be hopeful. No further details yet…