So, Paul, What Did You Do Yesterday?

I got up Friday morning at 6:00 a.m., ate breakfast, took a shower, got my stuff together and left the house at 7:00 a.m. I got to school right at 7:30 a.m. and immediately went to my meeting with Mr. Ward, the principal.

We were done with our meeting at 8:00 a.m., just enough time for me to run back to The Fishbowl and log 20 computers in to the network as "techlab." Kids start coming into the classroom at 8:10 a.m. I have three straight classes from 8:15 a.m. until 12:39 p.m.

It is then lunchtime. I get together with John Cochrane, one of my fellow teachers, and we head over to the cafeteria for Chimichangas. These are known to be one of the best meals served at the school, so the place is packed. Teachers get a double helping of everything, so by the time I am done eating, I am stuffed.

I head back to my room. I have an electronic stack of writing papers to grade, as well as syllabi signature slips to note in my electronic gradebook. I work on this until 2:48 p.m. I then have "Homeroom" duty with Mr. Donaldson in the room across the hall. Homeroom is sort of a studyhall. The kids watch "Channel One," a 10 minute news program for schools, on TV, then they have 18 minutes to study. Most of them doodle and talk. At 3:22 p.m., class and school are out for the weekend.

I head back to The Fishbowl to grade more stuff. A couple of kids want to come in and use the computers. Two want to try "Blokus" online. Another group of young women want to look at their Senior Pictures on the computer. I work on grading for about an hour. I kick all of the kids out at 4:30 p.m., so that I can get some real work done. Then I work on reading ahead in the AutoCAD book and trying some of the practice problems until about 5:30 p.m.

Then John comes over. He wants to head to the local Subway-In-A-Gas-Station to get some dinner. We do and we wait in line for almost 20 minutes and then give up. The older ladies that are preparing sandwiches at the shop are taking almost 8 minutes to make each sandwich and we are 7th in line. We run into a Middle School Teacher on the way out the door. He is heading to a restraurant in town and says he can bring us some sandwiches.

I head back to the Fishbowl for a minute. I gather all of my stuff and take it out to the car and grab my coat. John and I head to the football field. We are the announcing crew for this evening's big football game against the Wiggins Tigers. We start plugging the machinery in and gathering all of our information at 6:30 p.m. Announcing starts nine minutes before the 7:00 p.m. kickoff.

John is excited to do the announcing, me much less so. We agree that I will do the spotting and he will announce. Spotter gathers all of the necessary information for the announcer to say into the microphone. I have to figure out who carried or caught the ball on each play and who made the tackle, what the penalties are, and so forth. I tell them to John and he says them to the crowd.

It is hard work, you have to be attentive at all times to the game and watch for numbers and compare them to player rosters, etc. It is fun, though, and I enjoy myself.

The Highland Huskies do very well, winning the game 34-6. There was some last second razzle-dazzle trickery at the end of the first half, where the Tigers thought we were just kneeling the ball down to run out the clock with 5 seconds left. The QB pitched the ball to the Running Back, who throws a long pass across the field to a Receiver, wide open for a touchdown. The QB and the RB are both in my classes. Kind of cool to have that connection.

Game is over at around 9:30 p.m. We muscle all of the equipment back to the school office to lock up, then I hit the road and get home at 10:10 p.m. I am asleep by 10:30 p.m.

Just another 15 hour work day!

Friday. Game Day!

Today, we spent about 2/3 of the class periods working. Kids in the even period blocks are working well for me and getting some great stuff done. Most of them are working through an entire period, without a break and without lots of prompting. The last 1/3 of the class periods, we spent playing. This amounted to about 25 minutes or so, but I think that it went well.

In the first two classes, because they are a little bigger, we primarily played Blokus, a Tetris-type abstract shape placement game. In the game, players try to get their all their pieces placed onto a board, following some simple rules. The player who gets most of their pieces on the board, wins. The kids seemed to like it. You can actually play it online. If you are interested, check The Blokus Website. Follow the "Direct Play" link and "Play as Guest." I even have some kids coming by after school to try the game online.

Sixth Period is a very small class, with only 13 kids, so I broke out a bunch of games. One group was playing Blokus, two kids were playing Dvonn, two other kids were playing Batik and two more were playing Zertz. All of these are rather simple abstract games, but they will challenge the brain and got the kids thinking and talking. I enjoyed it.

Oh, and Highland High has their first home football game against Wiggins tonight. We should beat them pretty soundly. After all, they only have about 220 kids in their school and we have 246! I get to help with announcing. I think that I will be the "spotter." More about that later.

Mr. Ward Visits The Fishbowl

Well, I made it through my second week at Highland High School. I need a break! Fortunately, I talked with my principal, Mr. Randy Ward and he has arranged it so that I can have Monday off! Yahooo! (It's Labor Day...)

As I mentioned yesterday, Mr. Ward was in my classroom for the Fourth Period yesterday. Of course, it was my toughest class with my hardest student. She got irritated and threw a bit of a fit, saying that everything I was teaching was stupid and that she WASN'T going to do anything more in my class!

I talked with her for awhile in the hallway and she eventually came back into the classroom, but still struggled for the rest of the day.

I was amused that later in the same day, she and another student came back to my classroom, wanting to know if they could type something up on my computers. Of course, she made sure that it wasn't HER that needed help, she was just along to be with her friend. She almost seemed to crack a slight smile when I said, "Good thing I like you...." and let them work on the machines. Don't know if I am making progress or not...

In meeting with Mr. Ward this morning, he had mostly good things to say about my class. He liked the assignments and the projects that we were working on and thought that my interactions with the kids was good and that I was a natural teacher. Yeah!

He thought that I gave too much attention to my difficult student and that he would have just cut her off, but that's OK.

I need to work on my differentiation. Yeah, I knew that. Doesn't mean it's easy.

What the heck is differentiation?

Different kids in the classroom learn and progress at different speeds. A good teacher will accomodate that somehow. This is even more pronounced in a computer class, as there are some kids that just don't have the skills of the rest of the class. I need to figure out a way to make my class pertinent and meaningful for them, as well as stimulating for the rest of the class.

Not easy....

She said, "This is Stupid!" and rolled her eyes...

I continue to do my writing assignments in each class today. They appear to be going well. Kids are writing and staying quiet during the exercise and I am seeing some good stuff out of it.

Today is the day that my principal, Mr. Ward, was going to drop in on a class. Of course, he comes in on the toughest of my 6 classes, Period 4. This class is completely full, without a spare computer. I have one kid working on my computer, because I need the last class computer for overhead presentations. Also, there are a number of kids in the class that need extra help, either because they are behind, don't learn as quickly as others or because they don't like being here.

I have learned that, for the most part, kids like my class. It is mostly fun, at this point and some of the kids really enjoy getting in there and figuring stuff out and making new things.

Some kids hate my class. I don't really think that it is me, or the class, they just don't like much of anything at this point and I happen to be in the way.

I have a couple of these in Period 4. Interestingly enough, they are both females. One of them in particular is vocal about her feelings. I had to talk to her today out in the hallway, because she was getting loud about how stupid things were. Of course, my principal is sitting back taking notes. They always come visit during the toughest classes.

I tried to talk with her about sticking with it and working with me. She didn't give me any quarter. I actually like her a lot, as she has fire. She's just being very difficult right now. I didn't get any agreements out of her at all, but maybe I made some small progress, somehow.

On a brighter note, one student that I have that has missed a number of days came in during my plan period. I spent about 20-25 minutes working with her on the basics of Graphic Design and got her started on her project and she did VERY well, getting a ton of stuff done in a short period of time. That almost helps balance out the other failures. Almost.

I am interested to hear my Principal's comments later today.

Just a Quick Post from the Guy Working His Ass Off....

Hi, sorry to be so late here.

I have been working my ass off recently. They don't tell you in "Teacher School," but this is a lot of work!

The kids are now headlong into their new assignment, the emulation of a webpage. Most of the kids really seem to be enjoying it and are working very hard. Some of them are doing great work.

Today, though, was writing day. I showed each class a piece of graphic art and had them write a short essay on it. What did it look like? What do you think that artist's meaning was in creating the artwork? Did you like or not and why? For the most part, the kids have taken fairly well to the writing and some seem to have enjoyed it. I have been grading these assignments for the last two hours. Grading isn't easy!

We write tomorrow, as well.

In one of my classes, my principal, Mr. Ward, will be spending the class time with us. Mostly to see how well I do with the kids and the class. No real pressure, I don't think. I am hoping that he will like our writing assignments, as he is the one that told me to do them!

Must run, it is 6:45 p.m. and I am still at school!

Johnny Doesn't Want to Read

The last class period, I spent a lot of time doing overhead demonstrations for the kids on a number of skills in Macromedia Fireworks. The classes all roared along famously. Today, in the interest of appealing to Multiple Intelligences (the theory that different people learn best in different ways, seeing, doing, reading, etc.) I tried giving the kids a worksheet of sorts with some new tricks and tips on it.

Didn't go nearly as well.

I am constantly surprised at how little interest kids have in reading nowadays. When I was younger and had a question about something, my parents (hi, mom!) would usually say one thing, "Go look it up!" We had a library of books at home and if I had a question regarding something, I was supposed to go read about it. I still like to read about stuff when I am learning. Kids today don't do this. They really seem to struggle in following written directions. It seems like they get impatient if the information doesn't flow right into their brain. At the slightest hint of confusion, they seem to throw up their hands (literally) and quit.

This is frustrating for me. I will keep trying and see if things improve...

Anyway, back to the first class...

I was hoping that the kids would cruise through the two worksheet assignments in about 30-45 minutes or so and still have time to work on their first big assignment, the Webpage Emulation, for 45 minutes. Nobody got close. Only during the last 5-10 minutes did I get a chance to pass out the Emulation assignment sheet and get kids busy on selecting a webpage to emulate.

Maybe it will get better as the day goes on...

Ellipses are signs of a puzzled mind......

It's Piglet Time!

It is now Monday. My second week in school. Things are, for the most part, going rather well. I guess. I mean, who knows at this point?

I have decided to do a "Circle Up" on Mondays in all of my classrooms. Of course, this means that each class will only get to Circle Up once every other week, which is fine.

For those of you who don't know what "Circle Up" is, I learned this tool/technique in Project Promise. It is essentially a circle in which we discuss things pertinent to the group. I have the kids circle up on the floor near the door, the only space available in the room. We only circled up for about 8-10 minutes today. The idea of Circle Up is that in the Circle, kids can say what they would like to say. There is an artifact involved. At Project Promise, we had this weird stick that we all made together. I decided to incorporate the Circle Up this morning and was looking for a good artifact to use in the Circle. Fortunately, my stuffed Classic Piglet was sitting right there on the shelf.

The idea is that when you have the Talking Piece (aka Piglet) you have the floor and you can speak. Everyone else listens. When you are done, you can pass Piglet to somebody else and they can talk. This is a way to help develop community in the classroom, get kids talking and listening to each other and allow kids voices to be heard. Today was rather simple, all we talked about was "How was your weekend?" I also threwn in a little "Who had a crappy weekend?" For the most part, kids seemed to enjoy the exercise and laughed some when appropriate. Using Piglet seems to help, as well, as kids can laugh and throw him around abit.

Down the line, we will use Circle Up/Piglet Time to talk about issues in the classroom, in the school or personal issues as they might arise.

I think that it will go well.

Musings on The First Week

It is now Sunday afternoon. I have been thinking about the first week and the many weeks to come. I think that, on the whole, things went fairly well. Could be better, could be worse.

Good Things That Happened The First Week:

• The Werewolf Game seemed to go over pretty well. I heard from a couple of teachers that kids were talking about it in other classes. It also helped me learn some names, which is good.
• The "Rules of the Fishbowl" Lecture was effective, I think. I was pretty empassioned about my rules and I think that the kids got the message. I have already seen that some kids listened and paid attention, as hardly anyone even bothers to ask about using a pass in my classroom and kids have apologized for bringing backpacks into the room.
• The classroom management that I have done so far has been effective. I have already talked to one kid in the hallway and he has really settled down for me. I moved two different kids in two different classes and did not have any further problems with them the rest of the class period. When I move a kid, I am very quiet and pleasant, but VERY insistent. It seems to work.
• Having someone run the overhead projector for me worked like magic and I will continue to do so for the near future, until something changes.
• The Reading-Pointing exercise was also a major winner, in my book. I know that the kids hated it, but it really got them reading and involved in my syllabus.
• The music and the atmosphere in the room seems to work well. There is a sort of a calmness to the Lab, which is not easily disturbed.

Things That I Need to Work On:

• I continue to suck at names. Doing the seating charts at the end of the week really helped and I hope to get most names down within the next week or so.
• Lesson Plans. I need to formalize my lesson planning and get it so that I can put together my planning thoughts in an easily completed and easily accessible format. I think this would be helpful.
• Content. I am stuck with the inevitable feeling that I don't know enough about my subjects. This is clear in AutoCAD, where I will spend the first year or so only a week or two ahead of my students. However, it is also apparent in the Web Design Class, as I have to teach it for a Full Year. I am not sure I have all of the material and knowledge that I need to pull this off at this time. I guess other new teachers have the same problem, though.
• Passes. I need to get together a Hall Pass artifact of some sort. This needs to be something that is readily identifiable as Mr. B.'s Hall Pass, but not easily destroyed or lost. One kid suggested a Cinder Block. I thought that was an excellent idea, but I don't think that it would go over very well.
• This Saturday, we have a home football game. I was asked to be the Public Address announcer for these games long ago. Since that time, another fellow first year teacher, John Cochrane, has indicated some interest in the task. I need to clear up whether or not that is going to happen and figure out what I am doing there.
• Organization. I have gone through all of the IEPs and 504 Plans (Individualized Plans for kids that have learning or physical challenges) but I am not sure I can fully incorporate them into my teaching yet. I do have them all organized in a notebook, along with my class rosters and seating charts, so that is a start. I need to figure out a filing system for papers, announcements, etc. before they completely take over my desk.
• I need to figure out how I want kids to learn and record things like vocabulary and so forth. I might have them start an ongoing electronic notebook where they can keep track of definitions and shortcuts that we talk about. Maybe that will work, I don't know...
  

I have been thinking, though, how damn lucky I am to be where I am. I love the school. I really like the small size and the fact that you really can get to know everyone. I also like the fact that I am one of 17-18 teachers in the building. It makes me feel important, instead of like a first year nobody. I also love my Fishbowl Laboratory. It is nice and spacious and is well laid out, so that I can see all monitors at all times. I also like the two classes that I am teaching. Only have two class preps is a godsend, at this point, because I think that I will be able to stay on top of things without killing myself. Also, I like what I am teaching, which helps to keep up the interest level on the part of the kids, I think.

Anyway, enough end of the week reflecting for now. I need to go do some lesson planning...