Back in Business
So I'm teaching this Video Technology class along with 5 Pre-AP English sections this year... check it out. It updates every weekend.
YouTube Channel from my kids
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Inauguration with the kids
So I happened to have my tutorial class (homeroom) during the inauguration, and during the week, some Social Studies classes had talked with the kids about how the process would work and how power would be transferred, what it would mean for the country, and all that.
I turned on the TV just about the time the Supreme Court Justices were showing up, and one of the kids asked, "Who are those people?"
"They're the Supreme Court Justices. The Chief Justice swears in the new president."
"Oh." - same student
"Why are they all old?" - another student
"They get to serve in their position for life once they are appointed."
"Is Judge Judy there?" - same student
*much laughter*
"No, she's not part of the Supreme Court. She just has a TV show." - me
"But she's old, and she's AWESOME!" - student
It made me laugh.
So I happened to have my tutorial class (homeroom) during the inauguration, and during the week, some Social Studies classes had talked with the kids about how the process would work and how power would be transferred, what it would mean for the country, and all that.
I turned on the TV just about the time the Supreme Court Justices were showing up, and one of the kids asked, "Who are those people?"
"They're the Supreme Court Justices. The Chief Justice swears in the new president."
"Oh." - same student
"Why are they all old?" - another student
"They get to serve in their position for life once they are appointed."
"Is Judge Judy there?" - same student
*much laughter*
"No, she's not part of the Supreme Court. She just has a TV show." - me
"But she's old, and she's AWESOME!" - student
It made me laugh.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Thursday - the day not quite as awesome as Friday
During tutorial today, one of my students jumped up from her chair and covered her mouth. With her mouth still covered, she hurriedly asked if she could go the bathroom.
"Are you going to throw-up?" - Me, going to offer the trash can if she couldn't make it.
"No"
"huh?"
"I'm not sick, I just need to use the restroom" - (hand is still covering her mouth)
"What happened?"
"Nothing..."
"Her pen popped" - third student
other kids just start to notice the conversation
"My pen popped in my mouth" - first student
"WHAT? (barely containing myself). How bad is it?"
"Bad" - hand still on mouth
"Alright, go ahead. But if I had a camera..." - me joking around
"Thanks!" she laughs and rushes off, with her hand still on her mouth.
When she came back, she STILL had blue ink on her face and in her mouth. I sent her to the nurse to get it checked out. She laughed about it... and then continued to use the pen for her work.
My kids are hilarious.
The best/worst fight ever
In my eighth period today, I had to call security on two kids that were going to get in a fight over, of all things... a bookmark.
I had just finished letting the kids pick out a free "Reading is Fundamental" book (school funded) and one of the students picked a pretty hefty book - which was cool because he's not that strong of a reader, but wanted the challenge. He asked if the book was good, and I told him it would be tough, but should be interesting, and so he smiled, and said he definitely wanted it. He then asked me for a bookmark, so I went to my desk to get one. While en route, one of the other kids (also a struggling reader) I guess felt jealous, and made fun of the first kid in Spanish. They both instantly got up and started to take off their coats like they were ready to rumble. I had to physically get in between the kids as my teacher's aide also jumped in between them, and I told her to get a security guard. The instigator tried to push his way through me, which was hilarious as he's probably just shy of 100 pounds. Yeah, you're not going to get anywhere against my frame. Within two minutes both of them were escorted away separately.
At least the kid with the book was allowed to come back and get his work, during which time I stepped outside and talked to him about the situation.
Yep. A pen explosion and a fight over a bookmark. Just about par for a school day.
During tutorial today, one of my students jumped up from her chair and covered her mouth. With her mouth still covered, she hurriedly asked if she could go the bathroom.
"Are you going to throw-up?" - Me, going to offer the trash can if she couldn't make it.
"No"
"huh?"
"I'm not sick, I just need to use the restroom" - (hand is still covering her mouth)
"What happened?"
"Nothing..."
"Her pen popped" - third student
other kids just start to notice the conversation
"My pen popped in my mouth" - first student
"WHAT? (barely containing myself). How bad is it?"
"Bad" - hand still on mouth
"Alright, go ahead. But if I had a camera..." - me joking around
"Thanks!" she laughs and rushes off, with her hand still on her mouth.
When she came back, she STILL had blue ink on her face and in her mouth. I sent her to the nurse to get it checked out. She laughed about it... and then continued to use the pen for her work.
My kids are hilarious.
The best/worst fight ever
In my eighth period today, I had to call security on two kids that were going to get in a fight over, of all things... a bookmark.
I had just finished letting the kids pick out a free "Reading is Fundamental" book (school funded) and one of the students picked a pretty hefty book - which was cool because he's not that strong of a reader, but wanted the challenge. He asked if the book was good, and I told him it would be tough, but should be interesting, and so he smiled, and said he definitely wanted it. He then asked me for a bookmark, so I went to my desk to get one. While en route, one of the other kids (also a struggling reader) I guess felt jealous, and made fun of the first kid in Spanish. They both instantly got up and started to take off their coats like they were ready to rumble. I had to physically get in between the kids as my teacher's aide also jumped in between them, and I told her to get a security guard. The instigator tried to push his way through me, which was hilarious as he's probably just shy of 100 pounds. Yeah, you're not going to get anywhere against my frame. Within two minutes both of them were escorted away separately.
At least the kid with the book was allowed to come back and get his work, during which time I stepped outside and talked to him about the situation.
Yep. A pen explosion and a fight over a bookmark. Just about par for a school day.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Tuesday Tuesday Today
Gold Day lived up to its name today. All of my classes surprisingly went off without a hitch. However, in my first class as students were shuffling in late, one of the groups complained that their team leader was gone on Friday and not in class presently. I told them they were a team (named after the absent girl), and they would have to pick up the slack. In response, one of my smart-aleck kids (a good kid though) promptly saw an opportunity to joke around, and said in a dead on impression of the absent girl "-----'s team! YAY!" Grumbles immediately came from the team with the missing member, and as if on cue, the girl walked in, and said "Hey team! I'm back! Didn't you miss me?" Smart-aleck kid says, "Yay! Go team!" Seeing as they are all friends, I didn't bring up the issue. It was also freakishly hilarious to witness.
I know my writing doesn't do it justice, especially trying to keep some anonymity, but I could barely contain my laughter.
The Ant War Continues
4:03 PM - I killed twelve ants today by hand. I've started to jab at them with pens or pencils during my planning period while I'm grading. I hope the kids don't question why there are random small marks of red or blue pen on their papers.
11:20AM - I think I found their home base. The ants seem to be coming from under the baseboard rubber strip, and conveniently congregated a few inches away from freedom where a bit of snack food had fallen from a child's backpack. I sprayed with abandon using Whiteboard Cleaner. They suffered.
Gold Day lived up to its name today. All of my classes surprisingly went off without a hitch. However, in my first class as students were shuffling in late, one of the groups complained that their team leader was gone on Friday and not in class presently. I told them they were a team (named after the absent girl), and they would have to pick up the slack. In response, one of my smart-aleck kids (a good kid though) promptly saw an opportunity to joke around, and said in a dead on impression of the absent girl "-----'s team! YAY!" Grumbles immediately came from the team with the missing member, and as if on cue, the girl walked in, and said "Hey team! I'm back! Didn't you miss me?" Smart-aleck kid says, "Yay! Go team!" Seeing as they are all friends, I didn't bring up the issue. It was also freakishly hilarious to witness.
I know my writing doesn't do it justice, especially trying to keep some anonymity, but I could barely contain my laughter.
The Ant War Continues
4:03 PM - I killed twelve ants today by hand. I've started to jab at them with pens or pencils during my planning period while I'm grading. I hope the kids don't question why there are random small marks of red or blue pen on their papers.
11:20AM - I think I found their home base. The ants seem to be coming from under the baseboard rubber strip, and conveniently congregated a few inches away from freedom where a bit of snack food had fallen from a child's backpack. I sprayed with abandon using Whiteboard Cleaner. They suffered.
Monday, December 08, 2008
Monday Funday
Today we had a fire drill. It was unannounced, and thus unprepared for. The kids did great, but I lost a few minutes of class time that I really could have used.
The kids are working on their video projects, but they are just in the preliminary stages, as no actually filming has yet accomplished.
Today, I found out that one of my Pre-AP groups that wanted to do a project about teen suicide and how it affects others (which could have been a very profound project) had a group member in it that had been affected personally by a relative's suicide. That group member originally did not like the project idea, but did not express his reasons why, and the rest of the group convinced him to do it. They were very polite in letting me know what happened today, (as the group found out today as well), and needless to say they have modified their movie goals/outline. At least they handled it like competent, intelligent adults.
The War on Ants
My teacher desk has ants - one or two at a time, but never that many during a day. The situation has gotten increasingly worse. I've killed them, used cleaning sprays, cleaned the desk, and even tried putting out piles of cayenne pepper as it's supposed to keep the ants away. (They stayed away from the piles, but congregated on everything else). I had to put in a work order to get the area sprayed professionally. My administrator's first RE: to the message while CC:ing others - "My office also has ant problems. Any room in the budget for an anteater?"
Yeah, he's that awesome. :) I feel like I should explain that he was indeed joking, and the work order was also submitted at the same time as the joke. Efficiency and a good attitude. It was the perfect way to end the week.
Today we had a fire drill. It was unannounced, and thus unprepared for. The kids did great, but I lost a few minutes of class time that I really could have used.
The kids are working on their video projects, but they are just in the preliminary stages, as no actually filming has yet accomplished.
Today, I found out that one of my Pre-AP groups that wanted to do a project about teen suicide and how it affects others (which could have been a very profound project) had a group member in it that had been affected personally by a relative's suicide. That group member originally did not like the project idea, but did not express his reasons why, and the rest of the group convinced him to do it. They were very polite in letting me know what happened today, (as the group found out today as well), and needless to say they have modified their movie goals/outline. At least they handled it like competent, intelligent adults.
The War on Ants
My teacher desk has ants - one or two at a time, but never that many during a day. The situation has gotten increasingly worse. I've killed them, used cleaning sprays, cleaned the desk, and even tried putting out piles of cayenne pepper as it's supposed to keep the ants away. (They stayed away from the piles, but congregated on everything else). I had to put in a work order to get the area sprayed professionally. My administrator's first RE: to the message while CC:ing others - "My office also has ant problems. Any room in the budget for an anteater?"
Yeah, he's that awesome. :) I feel like I should explain that he was indeed joking, and the work order was also submitted at the same time as the joke. Efficiency and a good attitude. It was the perfect way to end the week.
Blog what you can
So this blog experiment has officially been neglected. All of my concerted efforts to post regularly have failed, so I'll give it the old apathetic one-two. Here's some of what we were doing, as told by me to a colleague through an e-mail. Remember, if you're reading this, you're actually just reading an e-mail I sent to someone else. This is what my blog has become. :( The names have been deleted to protect some measure of anonymity.
E-mail is as follows - this was to a senior year English teacher
I completely understand the problems you had with the research paper, and the 2nd six weeks spilling over into the third, (ours was the same, as it was a shortened six weeks). Initially, the papers were supposed to be finished the first week of the 3rd six weeks, but I had to extend it into the second, and I still have kids coming in after-school to finish.
While I feel that the project itself failed miserably as only a few students came out with legitimate research papers, the skills and knowledge the students gained through the process should be more than beneficial to them as they reach the senior year paper. We pulled texts from other libraries as our own is woefully inadequate, but unfortunately we had to give the books back a week before the papers were due. As such, many of the kids did not have completed research, and our databases were not very 9th grade friendly for our topics (deforestation, endangered animals, global warming, alternative energy, oil spills, and chemical sprays/pesticides). I allowed the kids to use wikipedia for some of their papers solely because of the lack of resources. However, we spent several days learning how to properly cite information from a book or website using in-text citations. Almost all of my students were able to complete this aspect of the project, so at least in this, the project was a success. I did have a few that blatantly plagiarized though, and their grades suffered because of it. They have been given the opportunity to amend their papers and turn them back in for a better grade.
At least the project was a learning experience, and hopefully next year we’ll be teamed with social studies so that the papers can be a more cohesive team effort.
So this blog experiment has officially been neglected. All of my concerted efforts to post regularly have failed, so I'll give it the old apathetic one-two. Here's some of what we were doing, as told by me to a colleague through an e-mail. Remember, if you're reading this, you're actually just reading an e-mail I sent to someone else. This is what my blog has become. :( The names have been deleted to protect some measure of anonymity.
E-mail is as follows - this was to a senior year English teacher
I completely understand the problems you had with the research paper, and the 2nd six weeks spilling over into the third, (ours was the same, as it was a shortened six weeks). Initially, the papers were supposed to be finished the first week of the 3rd six weeks, but I had to extend it into the second, and I still have kids coming in after-school to finish.
While I feel that the project itself failed miserably as only a few students came out with legitimate research papers, the skills and knowledge the students gained through the process should be more than beneficial to them as they reach the senior year paper. We pulled texts from other libraries as our own is woefully inadequate, but unfortunately we had to give the books back a week before the papers were due. As such, many of the kids did not have completed research, and our databases were not very 9th grade friendly for our topics (deforestation, endangered animals, global warming, alternative energy, oil spills, and chemical sprays/pesticides). I allowed the kids to use wikipedia for some of their papers solely because of the lack of resources. However, we spent several days learning how to properly cite information from a book or website using in-text citations. Almost all of my students were able to complete this aspect of the project, so at least in this, the project was a success. I did have a few that blatantly plagiarized though, and their grades suffered because of it. They have been given the opportunity to amend their papers and turn them back in for a better grade.
At least the project was a learning experience, and hopefully next year we’ll be teamed with social studies so that the papers can be a more cohesive team effort.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
A Five week Six weeks
So our school has six separate grading periods, which are called "Six Weeks". Last year, this worked out perfectly, as each grading period had six weeks, with two of them having six weeks plus a few days here and there from holiday-shortened weeks. However, this last six weeks only had five weeks. It seems ridiculous, but I just spent several weeks telling students that our six weeks only had five weeks. For students struggling to read, I can only imagine how their minds dealt with such an abstract and inane concept. Clearly our establishment couldn't cope as progress reports reached parents the week of our finals testing, and as such parents were trying to drop students from classes in order to keep them from failing. It doesn't really help, but I guess they figure they should be doing something because their students are failing, and heaven forbid the kids actually try to make up work and bring up their grade the proper way.
Nevertheless, I had 6 new students the last week, and as such I need to figure out how the heck I'm going to calculate their grades. My common sense radar started blaring after I noticed 3 new students in one class, and promptly e-mailed the counselors asking for no more schedule changes to be made until next week. It's absolutely baffling how people expect the new teacher to get a kid up to speed and PASSING with 1-3 school days left in the grading period, testing being conducted, all while attempting to navigate the grading system and merge the student's new grades with their old teacher's. It's actually brilliant work on the part of the parents, as I'm sure most teachers just give the student a 70 so that they are passing. It backfires quite a bit though, as I know several teachers who refuse to give the student a passing grade, and they are forced to come to Saturday school to make-up their grade (something the kid would have been forced to do anyways).
Anyways, I should get back to grading. Wish me luck.
----
At least I'm conducting diagnostic tests tomorrow and Tuesday. That's right, I said "diagnostic testing", and it's almost halfway through the year. More on that story in my next post.
So our school has six separate grading periods, which are called "Six Weeks". Last year, this worked out perfectly, as each grading period had six weeks, with two of them having six weeks plus a few days here and there from holiday-shortened weeks. However, this last six weeks only had five weeks. It seems ridiculous, but I just spent several weeks telling students that our six weeks only had five weeks. For students struggling to read, I can only imagine how their minds dealt with such an abstract and inane concept. Clearly our establishment couldn't cope as progress reports reached parents the week of our finals testing, and as such parents were trying to drop students from classes in order to keep them from failing. It doesn't really help, but I guess they figure they should be doing something because their students are failing, and heaven forbid the kids actually try to make up work and bring up their grade the proper way.
Nevertheless, I had 6 new students the last week, and as such I need to figure out how the heck I'm going to calculate their grades. My common sense radar started blaring after I noticed 3 new students in one class, and promptly e-mailed the counselors asking for no more schedule changes to be made until next week. It's absolutely baffling how people expect the new teacher to get a kid up to speed and PASSING with 1-3 school days left in the grading period, testing being conducted, all while attempting to navigate the grading system and merge the student's new grades with their old teacher's. It's actually brilliant work on the part of the parents, as I'm sure most teachers just give the student a 70 so that they are passing. It backfires quite a bit though, as I know several teachers who refuse to give the student a passing grade, and they are forced to come to Saturday school to make-up their grade (something the kid would have been forced to do anyways).
Anyways, I should get back to grading. Wish me luck.
----
At least I'm conducting diagnostic tests tomorrow and Tuesday. That's right, I said "diagnostic testing", and it's almost halfway through the year. More on that story in my next post.
Sunday, November 02, 2008
A stressful time
Immediately after saying I would post twice a week, things decidedly got more hectic at school. Last week, I only taught one day of class as I was out sick on Monday and Tuesday with food poisoning (I lost ten pounds. Great diet, huh?). Wednesday and Thursday I was out for training so that I could create the NEW Todd website (yes, this is different than last year's). So that just left Friday, Halloween, as the one day of the week where I would be teaching. Needless to say, not much was accomplished and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get my kids ready for their six weeks exams AND get them to finish their 5 paragraph research essays. It's a stressful time.
I don't know how to really bring this up, so here it is
Also, on a more serious note, we lost one of our former students a few weeks ago in a shooting. This particular ex-student (he had withdrawn) was riding bikes with one of my students when they got into a fight with some OTHER students from my school. A gun was pulled and the ex-student was shot in the head and killed. I didn't really know the victim, although I had broken up a fight that he was getting into a week before he was killed. Regardless of who this boy was and what kind of person he was, he didn't deserve to die.
My student that was with him has since withdrawn from school, and I doubt I'll ever see him again. He was having lots of behavior problems and I had met with his mom several times to discuss it with her and the principal. I had even called his mom the night of the shooting. It's a shame, because I really don't know how this is going to affect the rest of his life. He wasn't in a good place before, and I'm sure seeing his friend shot and killed traumatized him. At least his mom cares - maybe she can help him come out of this and turn his life around so he doesn't end up like his friend.
Since the victim and the killers (4 students were arrested) were students or former students, just about everyone on campus was connected somehow to the event. It was an absolute mess that week at school, as we weren't aware of family or friendship ties, news media was covering the shooting, and a text message threat was sent out to coincide with the funeral and promised retribution against the killers and their family. Unfortunately, one of the killers' sisters is a great student: a cheerleader, honor student, very well-put-together person. Because her brother was an idiot, her life was turned upside down and she had to worry about her own life. Luckily, nothing happened, and a cadre of police officers and vehicles was there to make sure of it.
Ugh. I'm sorry. I'm just not really in a typing mood tonight. Hopefully just getting this post out will allow me to write more about the event and my thoughts later.
Here's a few news links about the shooting.
4 Juveniles Detained
Residential Reaction
Calling all commenters!!
Since this blog is specifically on the internet to serve as an account of my life as a teacher and share it with all of you, I'm sure you all would like me to update more often. However, I'm finding myself very lackadaisical in this pursuit, partly because it often seems like I'm typing only for myself. Please, please comment. I don't care if your comments are insightful, but if you just post something, then I can start a discussion WITH all of you, and my blog will seem like less of a chore and more of a way to stay in touch with everyone.
Immediately after saying I would post twice a week, things decidedly got more hectic at school. Last week, I only taught one day of class as I was out sick on Monday and Tuesday with food poisoning (I lost ten pounds. Great diet, huh?). Wednesday and Thursday I was out for training so that I could create the NEW Todd website (yes, this is different than last year's). So that just left Friday, Halloween, as the one day of the week where I would be teaching. Needless to say, not much was accomplished and I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to get my kids ready for their six weeks exams AND get them to finish their 5 paragraph research essays. It's a stressful time.
I don't know how to really bring this up, so here it is
Also, on a more serious note, we lost one of our former students a few weeks ago in a shooting. This particular ex-student (he had withdrawn) was riding bikes with one of my students when they got into a fight with some OTHER students from my school. A gun was pulled and the ex-student was shot in the head and killed. I didn't really know the victim, although I had broken up a fight that he was getting into a week before he was killed. Regardless of who this boy was and what kind of person he was, he didn't deserve to die.
My student that was with him has since withdrawn from school, and I doubt I'll ever see him again. He was having lots of behavior problems and I had met with his mom several times to discuss it with her and the principal. I had even called his mom the night of the shooting. It's a shame, because I really don't know how this is going to affect the rest of his life. He wasn't in a good place before, and I'm sure seeing his friend shot and killed traumatized him. At least his mom cares - maybe she can help him come out of this and turn his life around so he doesn't end up like his friend.
Since the victim and the killers (4 students were arrested) were students or former students, just about everyone on campus was connected somehow to the event. It was an absolute mess that week at school, as we weren't aware of family or friendship ties, news media was covering the shooting, and a text message threat was sent out to coincide with the funeral and promised retribution against the killers and their family. Unfortunately, one of the killers' sisters is a great student: a cheerleader, honor student, very well-put-together person. Because her brother was an idiot, her life was turned upside down and she had to worry about her own life. Luckily, nothing happened, and a cadre of police officers and vehicles was there to make sure of it.
Ugh. I'm sorry. I'm just not really in a typing mood tonight. Hopefully just getting this post out will allow me to write more about the event and my thoughts later.
Here's a few news links about the shooting.
4 Juveniles Detained
Residential Reaction
Calling all commenters!!
Since this blog is specifically on the internet to serve as an account of my life as a teacher and share it with all of you, I'm sure you all would like me to update more often. However, I'm finding myself very lackadaisical in this pursuit, partly because it often seems like I'm typing only for myself. Please, please comment. I don't care if your comments are insightful, but if you just post something, then I can start a discussion WITH all of you, and my blog will seem like less of a chore and more of a way to stay in touch with everyone.
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