Working up to the new school year…

I’m working up to a couple of new ideas for the school year which is beginning to loom on my horizon. (I know, more than just my horizon.) As soon as I have something more than this fuzzy shot to share I will. In the meantime I think I’m on hiatus from anything publicly teacher-oriented. So, see you soon.

What will we treasure enough to keep?

I was asked today how many more years I have to go until I can retire. I’ve not thought about it a lot, so had to do some calculating. After doing some advanced math, I realized that I will be eligible for retirement (25 years) in 2017. WHAT??? That sounds like Orwell’s “1984″ used to sound, or “2001, A Space Odyssey.” Like a year that exists only in some far off galaxy. Not a year to actually plan for! And yet, it is close enough that I will not have any of my current students’ children in my classroom before I retire. Judging by the what I’ve seen this year, that is a good thing.

Having said that, this kind of motivates me to set some goals. What do I want to accomplish in the next 8 years? (Can I even go there?) I know that I have to become more digitally astute if I’m to hold their attention, let alone teach them anything. They are not as easily engaged by printed text as their parents were. They thing “How R U 2day?” is actually English. They have definitely got different linguistic and educational needs than those who preceeded them.

In another vein, however, I have to make sure I teach them to love books. More than ever I need to create a print-rich environment for them. Kindles and computers and smartboards and blogs are all great, but there is still magic in opening a book and being pulled in by a good story. The smell of the paper and ink and the heft of a book, even the way the pages are cut are all part of the experience.

My oldest granddaughter, who is about to turn 10, has fallen love with reading this past year. She always loved books, but someone had to read them to her until this year. Suddenly she reminds me of myself when I was her age. She always carries a book, just in case she needs to read. She dog-ears the page to mark her place, just like I did. I no longer do that to my books, but at her age I thought nothing of it. Where did she get that? Is it a cell memory? You can’t dog-ear something digital, look at the pages to see where you left off. She dislikes books whose pages are not cut cleanly. I think they look romantic, but she likes them smooth and even.

Lately she has been asking me to help her figure out how to choose books she will like. There is safety in a series like Harry Potter or the Chronicles of Narnia, or even the Magic Fairy books. I’ve always chosen books by the author, knowing I could count on liking a second or third book. I love helping her pick, but also look forward to the time she has learned what she likes and is brave enough to try something new.

The first Saturday of each month the book warehouse is open and she never forgets to remind me of that day. We go in and she wanders the aisles, picking up books to check out. Once she has a pile of them chosen she sits on a bench and reads, oblivious to the passage of time. She is a solitary child and books are her friends. In these times, she could do worse. I’m thankful that she has found them. I wish more kids would.

Glory, glory hallelujah!

That’s it. I’ve finished my first year of teaching middle school. Even though it was my seventeenth year of teaching, it felt more like the very first one. I’ve learned a lot and have lots of ideas for how to make it better next year, I think. At least I have ideas for how to engage them more, to leave behind (as much as possible) the worksheets, and to teach the standards in a palatable way.

Next year I’ll have a SmartBoard, so my learning curve will go up again, but I’m eager to approach it. I want the kids who are in AVID rather than the coveted Leadership class to be so glad they are in AVID. We’ll approach that in a different way than this year as well. For one thing, we’ll train the 8th graders to be tutors for the seventh graders, and will make sure there are more leadership opportunities for all of them. Our year will be planned a little differently, for sure.

However, before thinking of any of that, I’ll cruise for a while. Just take care of my self and recuperate in mind, body and soul for a while. Then, bring it on again! I’ll be ready.

The last week of school

This photo is a big, messy jumble of sunflower faces. It’s not at all the best one I took at the sunflower field on Saturday, not by a long shot. But I chose it because that is exactly how my classroom is this week. Some kids are happily, diligently working on the project I assigned them. It involves writing and art and I thought they’d love it, and some do. But the rest of them are all a jumble just like this picture. They have either finished the project, forgoing the arty part, or they have not even begun to work on it, and seem surprised when I suggest that they do so. To verify that they really are not going to do it, I ask them, “So, you’re not doing this project?” The replies range from “Huh? What are we supposed to do? You didn’t tell me.” (Most of the others know what to do – how did you miss it?!?) to a simple “No.”

The people who have decided not to participate in the work are all students who are failing the seventh grade. No amount of project doing at this point would save them, and apparently they have realized that. It seems they were counting on Summer School to save them, to allow them to become eighth graders. Only (drum roll here) today the school district cancelled summer school for this year. That’s right, for all grade levels. “Yikes!! How will I pass seventh grade? Will I be in seventh grade again next year? This will be my third time to be retained!”

Oh, now they are worried! What they don’t realize is that they will not be retained because they are timing out. We just can’t have kids driving themselves to middle school, so they will be passed on. On to what? Their eventual dropping out? For many of them, yes. That is where they are headed and I can’t see any way to stop it. It makes me sad and angry.

Next to the last week: Sex Ed for the seventh graders

Oh my. This week the seventh graders had sex ed in their science classes. Even though they were warned not to ask questions about the subject outside of the science classroom, a few questions leaked out. In my colleague’s class, Rosie’s tutorial question for AVID was, “What is oral sex?” Marty answered, “You mean gold sex?” When their teacher asked a little further what he was referring to, he replied, “Oro sex, right? Gold sex.” (Yes he is a Spanish speaker.)

The same day, in my classroom, an eighth grader went to get some cups from the trunk of my car. When he returned, he pulled my keys out of his pocket and with them a condom. He looked at it in horror, and said, “That’s not mine. These are my uncle’s pants. I just put them on this mroning. That’s not mine.” And he left it in my hand as he slowly walked away. It was as though it was mine and had somehow been part of my keys all along. He got as far away from me as possible and just stood there staring at me. I managed not to laugh at all. I just said, “Hm. Not mine either. I’m going to put it in my desk drawer and see how long it takes one of the snoopy seventh graders to find it.” And there it sits to this moment.

How times have changed! When I was in the fifth grade the girls got “the movie” while the boys went to another room. We assumed they were getting one as well, but no one ever talked about it so I still don’t know if they did. Sex was never mentioned at all in an official way at school. There was definitely nothing about gold sex!

UPDATE: I took the condom out of my desk drawer. No one found it, and I decided the joke was on me, so I removed it.

Almost the last week…how time creeps by.

Oh, only five days left. Grades are due tomorrow which should make the last four days a little dodgy. We’ve been asked not to show movies the last days, to keep on teaching despite grades having been submitted already. The reason for all that evades me. I get turning in the 8th graders grades for promotion reasons, I do. But I don’t get it for the seventh graders. I and others have planned projects to last until almost the last minute (no movies, remember?), and it was suggested that we could change the grades if we want to, or just not grade that last work. That’ll really boost motivation and productivity in my already lackluster students, I can tell right now. We are all so burned out…and I have so much grading to do tonight.

UPDATE: I just went in to see about changing a grade, and the grade input place says that grades will open again in December. Hmm…may be too late for this year.

But I digress…

Here’s my latest effort in the NCWP Writing Retreat Without the Retreat. THis time Peter had the idea to play with digression as a genre. At first I didn’t even know what he was talking about, but then I did. And it was so fun, it’s kind of like you could just keep writing and never get to the point. So, it’s long, but oh well. Oh, and we had to use the word conceive somewhere in the piece. But I digress…

Now that testing is over, I’ve decided to have my students create a “Seventh Grade Memoir.” To kick it off, I had them draw a map of the past school year, which included anything they could conceive of that would make a good story. (Well, it was supposed to have happened, of course, not just be any old thing they could think of.) So they spent a day making these maps (half of which included the episode in which Holly chased Rudy around with the scissors. They said things like “Holly tried to kill Rudy with the scissors” or “I was so scared I ran and almost fell down trying to get away from her” (that one was Rudy, of course.)) When they each had finally made a map, I got ready to do this reflective essay with them that’s called cubing. I start it out with a cube that moves around, opening and closing and reconfiguring itself. I ask them what they know about a cube, but before they tell me it has six sides, which is the correct answer, I start opening and closing it and they get completely sidetracked by the coolness of it. They want to know where I got it and if they can please oh please play with it right now. So I tell them they may not and try to bring them back to the essay I have conceived. Only I haven’t said it is an essay cause that will totally scare them off and make them put their pencils down. So I just tell them to start.

Wait, I forgot to mention that between the map making and the cube writing, I had them do this thing I called “structured talk” except I kind of forgot the structure and just let them talk for a few minutes, telling the story they were going to write about. I walked around the room, listening to the stories and stopped to listen to Sal who was delightedly talking about the time he got hit in the face this year. He still seemed kind of surprised by it, which is understandable because he is one of the biggest kids in the seventh grade, which is actually also understandable since he is fifteen. The way he tells the story, he was in the bathroom, and the person in the stall next to him seemed to be having a hard time doing his business, so Sal asked him if he was okay. (I’m sure he was laughing when he said it, cause that’s how he is.) He left he bathroom then, and went and sat on a bench with some friends. When the kid walked by he hit Sal in the face. I am sure it wasn’t unprovoked, knowing Sal. But I digress.

After I decided they had talked enough I stopped them talking so they could begin writing. That is, I tried to stop them, but stopping a room full of seventh graders from talking is kind of like trying to put the bubbles back in a bottle of champagne. (Have you ever noticed that when you open the champagne really carefully with a towel over the top, hardly any bubbles come out, but when you just boisterously pop the cork, it comes out all over the place? I needed a really big towel in there, I must say.) So I finally got all but Sal quiet and I spoke to him, “Sal, it’s time.” He turned around, muttering, “Vergas!” (That is about the naughtiest word I can think of in Spanish. So naughty, I won’t translate it here, but if you know Spanish and hang around teenagers with loose mouths you know that I am being pretty daring to even print it here.) I acted super surprised and angry, saying, “SAL! Watch your mouth. That is very close to a going to the office word and you know it.” He looked up at me innocently, as his friends all tittered, and said, “What? I didn’t say anything bad.” I just looked at him and said “Can it. We both know what you said. Just stop it.” Honestly, I should have sent him to the office but nothing would have really happened except I’d have had to write that naughty word on a referral, translate it and type it into his permanent record. ( It’s amazing what all ends up in permanent records. Sometimes I’m looking for a test score or a Redesignation date and I see these discipline records ( I know they aren’t on the same tab in the system, but never mind. Sometimes that button just gets clicked) and I see these discipline records from like the fourth grade. Like, “Sal ate Janey’s lunch and then called her a *$#^&*.” I believe it, too, because I think he’s been saying those words since he was like three. I didn’t actually see that in his file, I’ve never even looked at it, but I can totally conceive of its presence there.))

Finally we got going on the essay that wasn’t called anything, and I started leading them through it. “First describe your story. Show it with your words.” dot dot dot “Great, next, associate it with something else you know. Say ‘This reminds me of…’ and then write what it reminds you of. The puzzled looks were really appearing by this point (All except on Sal’s face because he was eagerly writing his bathroom and face punch story). By the end of the class I had stories from each student, each of them a compendium of a bunch of different stories, none really connected to one another. I guess I need a different strategy and a lot more time before I try this with them again.

See what I mean about going on forever? Very fun to write.

Almost the next to the last week…

Oh my goodness, the kids are wired. Today we did some word games on the little whiteboards. That is such a cool thing – everyone is engaged and I can tell who’s not quite getting it and who is way smarter than I knew because they are usually really quiet and don’t volunteer answers out loud. Of course, I caught Daniel delightedly showing his drawing of a really tall penis to his friends, and had to take his board away for the day. I wasn’t surprised by that. I was more surprised it hadn’t happened sooner and more often. In the next class Pa Sia, grinning, occasionally wrote a word on her board that was just next to not okay, knowing that I was the only one in the room who could see it. Kind of a shared joke, except I couldn’t in good conscience join in. Neither did I get mad. Just gave her “the look” and a smile.

Actually, I think I should be playing whiteboard games everyday as it is the only activity I do that holds their attention right now, and even then I have to change it every few minutes or the boards stop going up. The games we did today were Compound Words (”The word is ‘life!’ Make it compound!”), Prefixes and suffixes, guess the word from the sentence I’m saying, and homynyms. Of course I act like a quiz show host the whole time. Maybe I need to start throwing peanuts. They’d prefer I threw hot Cheetos, but can you imagine the mess? All those Cheeto fingers, and ground in Cheetos. Oh, sounds like a normal day. The words “No Hot Cheetos in class” have little meaning, it seems. I wonder if they are addictive.

Two more weeks…then about a twenty minute break for the month of July and another group of brand new seventh graders will arrive…it swells my heart.

Is this blog one of those?

“alicemercerRT @pepepacha: Many teacher blogs are rants against stdt behaviors or families or systems. Let’s veer towards the positive & self reflective”

I found the above tweet this evening and thought, “Has she been reading my blog? Is that how my blog is?”

I’m going to read this whole thing and let you know what I think. Please feel free to tell me what you think. IS this one of those blogs? (Gulp)

Update: I just reread the whole thing and it isn’t one of those. I’m so paranoid about it that I forgot that I already worried about that and decided (thanks to my friend Peter who said it wasn’t) that it wasn’t. One of those. Whatever. I need to rein in this insecurity! Just ignore this post.

Three weeks left

I can’t believe we’re on the three week countdown. Now that the STAR testing is over I’m having more fun teaching. It helps that we know each other so well by now. We’re writing more, reading what we want to (what I want to), the grammar lessons continue but in a more fun way. My goal (one of them) for next year is to think about the fun ways earlier. And use them all year. This week I did a lesson about active and passive voice which I followed up with a kind of quiz show using whiteboards. It was fun. No reason I can’t use that kind of thing all year. I think I just felt too pressured to try anything like that earlier. Silly, yeah, but true.

The thing that amazes me is that the class that has been pretty rude all year is still just as rude. Now I see annoyance from a couple of them when I ask for their attention. Like I’m out of line! In some ways it’s getting worse without ever really having gotten better. I”m surprised by that because I’ve never had a class that I couldn’t eventually bring around. This group has had its moments of grace, but they’ve been few and far between. I have to think them over to see if I can figure out how to deal with such a group differently in the future.

Now I’m getting ready for summer school. I’m the principal of that this year and now that it’s kind of filling up, I’m looking for ways to make it fun. Thinking that more fun might equal fewer discipline issues. But that will be a later post.

Hope your school year is winding down in a satisfying manner. Sometimes just the fact of it winding down at all brings enough satisfaction!