I Have a Good 5th Period.

Today, I actually had a great experience in 5th Period. Most of the time, the 5th Period kids are whiny and complaining about working. They don't ever want to and they are vocal about it. Very irritating.

Last class period, I was away from my class for the District Technology Committee meeting. I left an assignment for the 5th Period kids to complete. It was a walkthrough of a project, step by step, showing how to create a relatively difficult figure in AutoCAD. I was not sure how well the kids would do with the project. I suspected that it wouldn't turn out well.

Come Tuesday, not only was I not there, and I had a tough assignment for the kids to complete, there was also a number of different activities going on that took kids out of my class, like Pre-SAT tests, picture retakes, etc. Most of the kids didn't get my project done or even worked on.

I wasn't surprised.

Thursday in class, I tried to show the kids how to get through the project. I wasn't telling them anything that they couldn't get out of the walkthrough that was handed out on Tuesday, but they were still struggling. One young lady in particular was really frustrated, as she often is. She likes to try things for about two minutes and then frustration kicks in and she starts to push things around, throw her chair back and tell the world how much she hates whatever it is she's working on and put her head down on the desk.

Usually, if I can spend about 3-4 minutes working with her, she starts to say, "Oh, wait, I get it! That's easy, let me do the next one!"

She did this on Thursday, which was really cool. The cooler thing, though, was that she finished the project and began to help the young lady next to her. The really neat thing was that the person she was helping was getting frustrated and saying, "I don't get it!" Our hero was patient and helpful and said, "Well, let's try it again, I'll see if I can show you what you did wrong."

Really, really cool.

I was smiling and smiling the rest of the afternoon.

A Long, Long Week.

Mr. B., whereya been, man!

Oh, it has been a really, really long week. Grades for the end of the quarter were due this week. For normal teachers, this is probably not that much of an issue. For me, it was a problem.

Here's why.

When I meet with Sue Ann, the Curriculum Coordinator and New Teacher Head Coach for the District, she always chastises me for working too much. "If you work everyday until 7:00 p.m., you will burn out and quit in two years!" she says. So I try to take her rather seriously and attempt to leave the building during the week by 4:00 or 4:30 at least twice per week. The problem with this is that I have to let something go sometimes. For the most part, I have a couple of choices when deciding where to cut the fat. Either I cut back on the lesson planning or I cut back on the grading. Well, I have these hoards of kids coming through the door each day, thirsting for knowledge, so I can't really cut back on lesson planning.

I have been cutting back on the grading.

Just a little bit.

At the start of the semester, I was pretty diligent about my grading. Things would be graded within a day or so, complete with full rubrics and comments, etc. Grading took hours, hours and more hours. Each project was taking me 4-5 hours to grade. It was killing me.

I started doing some in-class grading, wherein I get out a copy of the blank rubric and have kids grade their own. I have been letting a couple of the writing grades go, giving them "completion grades" instead of letter grades. I can't grade 20 hours per week. I just can't.

That being said, grades were due this week. I stayed really late (past 9:00 p.m.) on a few evenings to get the grades done. Now they are.

Thank goodness.

I Attend the District Technology Curriculum Meeting.

On Tuesday, I spent the morning over at the Administration Building, working with Sue Ann, the Staff Development Coordinator, Sam Pagni, the Tech Teacher/Art Teacher at the Middle School and Bob Carrier, the Tech Teacher at the Elementary School. We are the members of the District Technology Team.

What we are doing is planning the direction that we would like the district to take over the next 5-10 years with regards to Technology. Currently, the district has a rather haphazard approach to the subject. Bob teaches what he thinks is appropriate, Sam teaches what she thinks is appropriate and I teach what they tell me to. We are working on building a single K-12 curriculum that will outline exactly what we want kids to learn each year at Weld RE-9 School District.

An important piece of this will be the end product. We will be deciding what it is that we want kids to know about technology when they graduate from Highland High School. This will help us figure out what we want to teach kids in their high school years. This will tell us what they need to know when they get out of middle school, etc.

I am excited about the process, mostly because it sounds like the district is serious about it and Sam and Bob are enthusiastic about the subject.

Hopefully, over the next couple of years, good things will come out of it.

Unfortunately, in the meantime, the two classes that I had to miss while at the conference blew up in my absence. 1st Period, the kids had a practice test, in which they could help each other, and a real test, in which they couldn't. Ms. Bashus, the substitute, indicated that a couple of kids were cheating during the real test. Grrr.

In 5th Period, I left Ms. Bashus with a handout for the Tech I kids. The handout walked them through the creation of a fairly complicated figure, step by step. She indicates that the kids cried and whined a ton about the assignment. Sounds like that wasn't successful, either. Grrr.

On the other side of the room in 5th Period, the Tech II class was supposed to finalize their Tower Project and all of the drawings therein. Ms. Bashus said that a number of kids were goofing off all period and were playing games. Grrr.

Being away from the classroom and having a substitute is MUCH more work than being there and doing it yourself....

A Project Promise 16 Reunion.

After much emailing and discussion, a number of the members of Project Promise 16 got together on Friday Afternoon.

Project Promise is the Career Transition Teacher Licensing program that I went through at Colorado State University last year that allowed me to become a teacher. This was one of the first social gatherings I had been to with my cohort since our graduation.

It was great to see everyone. In attendance was Carolyn, Robert, Abby, Sara, Stephen, Dave S. (and Jill), Keith, Jay and myself. Most of the rest of our group is scattered out about the state of Colorado and couldn't come to Fort Collins on such a short time schedule.

For the most part, we all seem to have the same opinions about our first year of teaching:

• Teaching is tough. They don't really tell you in teaching school how hard it is, or nobody would ever become a teacher.
• Grading is a true pain in the ass. To adequately and accurately grade student materials would likely take more hours than there are in a day. This is one of the reasons that teachers long ago invented Multiple Choice Questions, to make their lives easier.
• Students, by and large, are great. Unless they are being monsters, in which case, they aren't.
• Parents can be more of a problem than the kids.
• Paychecks are a wonderful, wonderful thing.

In hearing stories from my cohort members, I am more and more thankful that I am where I am. My experience at Highland High School has been a great one so far. I feel wanted, supported and respected, and this makes all of the other problems seem not really so bad. Thank goodness I came to a tiny school. I think that it has made all of the difference.

I Wing It On Friday

Some days, you just want to change things up a little bit. Friday was such a day. It was my 1st, 5th and 7th Period class schedule, which historically, has been a little harder to impliment than the even period days.

First period was already taken care of, the students had their trade show, an exercise which I have been completing with each class wherein groups of two students learn all about one command and then teach that command to everyone else in the class. The activity went fairly well, but it was nothing to write home about. It is sometimes very hard to keep control in such class activities without raising your voice. I think that I raised my voice once or twice.

Fifth Period, a Technology Class in which I have not always been an award winning teacher and in which the students are not always Rhodes Scholars, I did a little one class exercise talking about the meaning of Technology. It is a Technology class, after all. We came up with a decent working definition of the term, then discussed technological problems and solutions throughout history. Then the kids did a short writing regarding the problems that they have in their lives that use "New Technology" as a solution. It might not have been the most perfect lesson of all time, but I do think that most of the kids now have a decent idea of the meaning of the term technology.

In 7th Period, to compensate for the uninspiring products that I received in a recent writing assignment regarding Graphic Design, we did a short Graphic Design exercise. First, we talked about Logos. I showed some, we talked about them, how they are used, what they look like, etc. Then, we broke into groups and invented companies with names and products. Then, we wrote a quick "Request for Bid" statement that outlined what our new company was looking for in the development of a new logo. Then, the group next to ours got our Bid Statement and their group members had to come up with some pencil sketches of new logos for our company. (Meanwhile, of course, we are doing the same for the group on the other side of us.) We would then make suggestions and changes, as needed, and approve one logo for final production.

Then, the team would head back and create the new logos using Fireworks, our Graphic Arts Program.

For the most part, the kids did well and produced some interesting logos. At least it was rather light hearted and fun.

Mr. Ward Visits My Classroom.

It is Thursday, My "Good" Day. I have Web Design and two Tech classes today. 2nd Period is the Web Design and the kids are working on finishing a project. As our writing assignment for the week, I decided to give the kids a little research project. They hate it, but I am OK with that.

We did a little bit of background discussion regarding Graphic Design and then I set the kids loose to pick a famous Graphic Designer and put together a little paper and presentation regarding that person. This is not something to finish in one class period, but something that we can use to fill the gaps in our days. Hopefully, a kid or two will also learn something about Graphic Art and decide that it is pretty cool.

4th Period is one of my better Tech classes. They are currently working on the "Plotting Technology" project, where they have to dimensionally sketch and then plot a piece of technology. I am pleasantly pleased at the work that I see the kids producing. Problem is, as with all of my projects, some kids complete work early and others are still working. Argh. What to do, what to do.

In 6th Period, arguably my best class, because of the motivated kids and the small class size, 11, Mr. Ward, my principal, stopped in to observe the class. He wants to see how I am doing with my first year teaching and with things like Classroom Management, Lesson Planning, etc. We are in Day Two of "The Paper Tower" project, where kids have to build a paper tower and plot their design of their tower in AutoCAD. Mr. Ward only stayed for about 10 minutes or so, then left. I don't think that he worries too much about my classroom management, as for the most part, I keep the kids at a slightly less than chaotic level. He also told me later that he really liked the project that we were working on and that he thought it was a great one for the class. Yeah!

After school, I get to stay late and grade stuff. That will be awesome!

They don't tell you in teacher school what a complete pain in the ass grading is. If they did, nobody would ever become a teacher.

We Start Building Towers and Drawing Mice.

I know, I haven't been blogging much recently.

Sorry.

I am trying not to let school run my life each and every day. Most days, it does, but not EVERY day. I only worked for about 2 hours over the weekend and I only stayed until 7:00 p.m. on Monday. Tuesday, I had to leave early to take care of some school business and today, I was out of school by 4:30 p.m.

Tomorrow, I stay late to do some grading.

In a couple of my AutoCAD classes, I have started doing some project work, which I vastly prefer to book stuff. In the 4th Period, where kids try pretty hard and usually get some good stuff done, I started a "Plotting Technology" Project. I spent some time the other day digging a bunch of old junk out of some of the remaining filing cabinet drawers in the Tech Lab that the kids could draw in AutoCAD. I found two remote controls, a handy vac for keyboards, two old digital cameras, some printer stands, some computer mice, a micrometer, a joystick from an old videogame, stuff like that. Kids have to create a dimensioned sketch of their item and then plot the piece in AutoCAD.

The kids seem to be doing fairly well at the job, for the most part. At least it isn't doing problems out of the book.

In my 5th Period Tech II class and my 6th Period Tech class, which are both fairly advanced, I am hauling out a lesson plan that I developed last year. Kids divide into groups of two and must design a tower, using only three sheets of paper and five inches of tape. Then, the teams must use AutoCAD to create a dimensioned construction diagram and final model drawing. Teams will be judged on the height of their tower, the amount of paper left over and the quality of the AutoCAD drawings.

Kids must decide whether to go for a tall tower and use most of their materials or whether to just clear the minimum height required and have a bunch of materials left over. Some of the groups are doing very well, with two of them getting towers as high as 50 inches while only using 3/4 of a sheet of paper.

In 1st Period today, we had our Trade Show scheduled, where kids were going to have their booths set up to teach each other a number of different AutoCAD commands and so forth. I have been doing this in each class and it has worked well, for the most part. Today, the juniors were all out taking the PSAT test, so half of my class was unexpectedly missing. I split the class into boys and girls and we played AutoCAD Pictionary. Unlike the last time that I tried this activity, with 5th Period, this time it went well and was a lot of fun. The kids seemed to get into it and the guys were winning and cheering and doing the wave. It was nice to see some enthusiasm for a change.

Anyway, enough for now, I need to go make dinner.

Friday, Another 15 Hour Day. Yahoo!

The alarm seemed to go off at 6:50 a.m., although it may have actually been set for 6:15 a.m. I just don't remember the snooze going off.

I had a meeting at 7:40 a.m. It takes 25 minutes to get to school. You do the math. I was rushing to get out the door on time.

I had my meeting and got back to the classroom with just enough time to turn on and log in all of the computers before a hoard of students hungering for knowledge came streaming in the door.

We worked for about 2/3s of the class period, as we usually do on Fridays. Then, we take the rest of the class off (about 30 minutes or so) to play games. It was fun, for the most part. I still have trouble with some of the kids, even in my best classes, getting squirrelly. 15 and 16 year old young men sometimes just act immature. Not much I appear to be able to do about it.

After my three morning classes, I had a quick lunch of chimichangas, one of the very best offerings at our school cafeteria. Then, I headed out to the local park adjacent to the school grounds for lunch duty. My job is to keep an eye on the kids and make sure nothing untoward goes on. Then I wave everyone in for the last period class at the appropriate time.

I had planning period in the last block of the day, followed by my personal favorite, Homeroom. Then, I had a meeting with a struggling kid after school, followed by a meeting with the kids of the Tech II class to discuss options for our electric car project and some fund raising/sponsorship ideas. By that time, it was pushing 5:00 p.m. I met Shannon and the kids at the pizza parlor up the street for a quick dinner. John Cochran, the Social Sciences teacher up the hall and my compadre in the announcer's booth at the football games, met us for dinner. I was bouyed by hearing one of my students in the pizza place telling his friends, "That's Mr. B. He's my Tech teacher. He's awesome!" That make most of the long day worth it!

Then, it was off to the game. We played hard, but got our hats handed to us by the local rival Eaton Reds, 41-12. It is getting pretty cold out there in the booth in the late evenings.

Game let out at about 9:45 p.m. By 10:00p.m., I was in my car on the way home.

Geez, what a long, long day.