Thoughts on the Ending of Week 3 September 28, 2007

As of tomorrow afternoon, we will have been in school for 13 days.  This time next week, 10% of the school year will be over.

Not that I’m a math teacher or anything.

Here are some thoughts on those first 13 days of school.

Things I have Improved
As a teacher, I have gotten much better at many things.  One of those things is recognizing my own strengths and weaknesses as a teacher.  I do not need to be the primary “explainer” in my classroom.  Each of my students can be empowered as teachers.  If I’m working with a student who just isn’t getting it the way that I’m explaining it and someone near her gets it, I can ask that person to try to explain it more clearly.  More often than not, the student does and both students continue doing their work productively.

The next thing is that I have gotten much better about data and record keeping.  Much better.  I have always been organized, but this is ridiculous.  I have three ring binders for:

• Recording parent contacts
• Discipline forms
• Student Data
• Lesson Plans
• Curriculum Notes
• And much, much more.

I never have to go searching for anything anymore.  If a student gets out of line, I know where my detention letters are and my running list of students who have been assigned detention with me.   I have a Detention Wall outside my classroom door for posting the list of students who owe me time and what day that time is scheduled to be served.

It is making a difference in discipline.

I am also running a field trip for the entire school.  Seriously.  The entire school.  We’ll see how this works.

Things the District Still Sucks At

• Understanding that retaining a child one year does not mean the child should be socially promoted two years later.  I have had two struggling students bumped up to the 8th Grade because they are “over age” (14 in the 7th grade).  One of these students has expressed concern to me that the 8th grade work is too hard for her.  Of course it is.  She missed 7th grade.
• Understanding that special education students have IEPs and that IEPs are legal contracts that *must* be followed regardless of other issues within the school.
• Understanding that in order for teachers to create discipline in their classrooms, the school needs to back up the teachers.  If I assign a detention and receive parental permission to hold a student (in the form of a signed letter) I should not have to send my students out of the building at dismissal because of some perceived threat or fight.  These children owe me time and we both agree on that.  Let them serve their time; don’t fight it.  Especially when you keep telling me to assign detentions for misbehavior.  Assigning detentions does NOTHING if you never let me HOLD DETENTIONS.  Seriously.  I would think that this one wouldn’t need explanation.
• I cannot be in two places at once and you have no right to my prep time unless you are paying me extra for it.  I shouldn’t have to spend 10 minutes every day walking a class from Lunch to CAPA when they aren’t my responsibility during that time.  Yet, somehow, you schedule meetings on my prep time when I have to walk the kids.  Is this magic time?  Seriously, is it?  Because I can’t Apparate or Disapparate without splinching myself and N.E.W.T.s were not required for teacher credentialing.

Oh, and children are fundamentally insane.  So am I.  It works well.

The Real Day 9 of School September 25, 2007

Yesterday, my team and I had a meeting.  We are becoming the team that is getting the special ed inclusion class.  We will have to team lesson plan with the special education teacher because we are going to have a bunch of part-time special education students mainstreamed into one of our three classes.

Logistically, I feel a nightmare coming on.   The students move classrooms next Monday.

Day 7: Counting Up and Down the Seconds September 16, 2007

One of the on going problems in education is “how do you deal with the chatty class?” In my experience, there is always at least one — even in summer school, I had my silent class and my chatty class.

At first glance, it appears that the older teachers have a method for keeping their classes silent and it is a method that works consistently for them. However, the method of silencing the chatty class has to be consistent with the teaching methods of the teacher. Teacher DG’s method for silencing her students might not work for me because DG uses direct instruction and “kill and drill” practice methods whereas I use an inquiry based approach which requires students to ask occasional questions to one another and encourages groupwork cooperation. In a “kill and drill”/direct instruction model, silence from the students is doable because there is no reason that the students should need to ask one another any questions. The teacher is the focal point of the classroom. Essential to my instruction is the ability to communicate to the chatty class that there are appropriate times and places to have a conversation with a friend about the argument that is going on between two other friends and that my classroom instructional time is not that time or place. My students have not quite grasped the ability to differentiate between conversation types and the fact that there are appropriate conversations (which I ignore or involve myself with) and inappropriate conversations (which will earn the student a reprimand of some sort).

In cooperative endeavors, it would be nice to be able to adopt a Harry Potter system of “Houses” and “Points.” However, I am not a witch with the magical ability to award and remove points with the power of my words. And, unfortunately, there are more important things for me to keep track of during the day than points from students within groups.

On Wednesday, I started getting on the right track again with dealing with the chatty class but the ongoing issue is that of punishing the whole class for one or two people talking.

Here’s a situation: Class comes in, takes seats. One or two students start working on the “Do Now” on the board. Teacher re-directs class and praises the two students who got to work right away. A few more students begin working; a large group of students is still chatting aimlessly. Time starts being counted for after-school detention. More student fall silent but now there are five students who continue talking past time being counted.

It is five minutes into class and there are students who finished the “Do Now,” students who are almost done, students who are just starting, and students who haven’t started at all.

We have now, four categories of students within a whole class detention: 1) Those who start immediately and thus shouldn’t be subject to detention (but since they now have to wait for the other kids to finish the work, they are more inclined to start talking), 2) Those who started after a reminder of the procedures and are probably going to finish the work before I move on, 3) Those who started after I threatened time after school who will only be done if I sink more time into this activitiy, and 4) Those who will not be done at all because they have no interest in starting.

To my mind, Groups 1 and 2 do not deserve detention. They have been working hard and deserve to go home on time. Group 3 needs to stay detention for as long as it takes them to finish up the classroom work from the day (meaning not just the “Do Now” but the other tasks they ignored from the day as well). Group 4 needs to stay an extended detention because I need to have independent conversations with these students and figure out what is going on with them. These students will need to get parental permission to stay after school to complete their work during extra hours.

However, on a day to day basis, it is difficult to track and categorize these groups and make it clear to the student which group they are falling into at any given point. That way when Robert complains that Sabrina got to go home on time even though she was talking, I can make it clear that Sabrina got to go home because she was already done with her work when she started talking and she was refocused after I moved on to the next activity (instructional issue – I need additional math work for my students to do when they have finished a task).

In an elementary school, color charts (Red/Yellow/Green/Black) are often used to tell students which group they are in. Students colors can be moved over the course of the class period. However, this color chart model does not work as well when you see three sections of students and would constantly have to change over the name cards with each new class coming in. I never remember seeing a high school equivalent of this. An additional issue is that of embarrassing the student — how do you clearly communicate what category a student is in without causing misbehavior among the rest of the class by taunting, etc.

Applying psychology to adolescents is no easy task; I need to have something in place by the end of this week to effectively deal with these issues.