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Last Day with Students

All year I look like one of those teachers that gets put away in the recharging closet overnight, only to come out ready to teach the next class the next day. Part of the job is to model appropriate behavior and attire for a professional environment.

The problem is that the kids have no idea that I'm modeling. They just think that's what teachers do.

So, on the last day of school (actually, second to last, because my students are going to be going through culmination tomorrow) I come in dressed for vacation.

This is a fairly strong style makeover. Last year (my first at this school) the secretary in the front office wanted to know who I was subbing for, and a good 50% of my students didn't recognize me until I actually called them by name.

2009 06 18 Comments (1)

Diameter tape?

Why did no one ever tell me these things existed?

This begs to be one of those "throw it out to the class, and let them figure it out" type of lessons.

2009 06 17 Comments (0)

Cameo

I'm showing the ubiquitous end of year math movie: Stand and Deliver. I haven't done this in years, and most of my kids have seen it, but they've been good, and I could use the down time.

It turns out, the movie is a lot more familiar this time around. The orange bulletin board in the office from the opening scene still looks like it still has the same construction paper on it, 20 years later. The commute passes al the same landmarks as mine, except in the opposite order. And the desk nearly dropping on Eddie Olmos's head happens right outside of my last year's classroom, and the chase scene after that goes right by where I broke up a fight earlier today.

It's too bad that the movie got turned into teacher porn. The real story probably has some valuable lessons...

2009 06 11 Comments (4)

Huh

The penultimate grades were due this morning, even though the entry window on our system goes through tomorrow (blame paranoid administrators who set early deadlines because they can't trust teachers to keep a real one).

Today I tested my kids on graphing point slope form (very old, and something they'd struggled with) and multiplying binomials (new, and I needed to get a test in).

They killed it. More perfect scores than I'd seen ever from them. Enough that enough of their grades changed and I promised to sneak in the changes (which is what will be mailed home) even though they won't match the paper record as of yesterday.

Why now, instead of 6 months ago?

2009 05 20 Comments (7)

Giving in

I suppose giving in is better than giving up.

And I think I did this in the wrong order.

State testing is done, and I have a bunch of kids who still want to graduate.

So I decided to just teach them the procedures, and relax on actual comprehension. If they can at least go through the motions, understanding might come later.

The big stupid surprise?

All of a sudden, I have classrooms of focused kids who are happily solving pages of problems. I'm waiting for one of them to complain that I hadn't taught this way all year.

I'm starting to think (albeit a bit late) that expecting these kids to step out of their comfort zone before they have any clue is too much. The problem, of course, is that as soon as they think they get it, they stop looking for deeper understanding. It's an anti chicken and egg problem - not which comes first, but how to make sure that the part that is supposed to come second actually happens.

At least I still have something to think about for the next time I teach this class.

2009 05 19 Comments (0)

Struggles

Ever since christmas break, I've been off of my stride.

The week before spring break, I finally felt like I wasn't tripping all over myself in every single class.

And I think most of the struggle had to do with me so deeply integrating the fourfold way into my lessons - every two variable equation represents an infinite number of ordered pairs which in turn may be drawn on a graph as a line, or later other curves. (The fourth way is via written explanation).

Somewhere over christmas break, my kids lost their line drawing skills. They got all the different forms confused, and I never managed to get them back on. This haunted them during the whole systems of equations problems, because they kept having that "what the hell am I
to do with this" response.

I tried to provide them with a map instead of a set of directions.

They didn't know how to read a map, and without directions they became completely lost.

In some ways I strongly believe in the discovery method of learning - of making my students learn by solving their own struggles, instead of them blindly following a teacher around.

But they'd completely unfamiliar with the concept, and I'm not sure how to teach them that, the content I'm supposed to teach, and remediate several years worth of missing skills all at the same time.

The good news is that I've had a few successes lately, and I've been having the urge to write them down.

2009 04 29 Comments (2)

Blood

Today in first period, a student came in tardy, his scalp dripping with blood dripping from over a dozen lacerations.

I gave him a Snoopy band aid.

2009 04 29 Comments (1)

Pi Day

It's been a month since I've posted.

I've been questioning my skills as a teacher, and going through serious blahs.

I'm still not through them, but when I'm feeling that way, I'm not inclined to think I've got a lot to say that the world wants to hear.

But, today is Pi Day.

I have a friend that works for the Exploratorium. She's a big advocate of Pi Day. I composed a nice big rant for her last year (I can't believe I didn't post it here1), only to find out that someone else did it better.

The sentiment still stands, though.

1 Oh yeah. I did. (back)

2009 03 14 Comments (3)

What’s wrong with this picture?

For your kids, if you're covering quartiles:

2009 02 13 Comments (4)

Educrush

As if the rubber band ball distraction or the thoughts on time and becoming an expert weren't enough, Kate totally cemented my educrush by coining the phrase Fox News math.

2009 02 11 Comments (1)