Terrible Day/Great Day

On Wednesday, I woke up at 5:45 to start working, arrived at school at 6:45 and did not leave until 6:45 pm, drove home and kept grading/planning until 11:00 when I promptly went to bed.

On Thursday, I was pretty darn exhausted. My lessons SUCKED because even after working for 16 hours on Wednesday, I still wasn't prepared enough to do a great job. AP Stats sucked because the kids were all confused and I wasn't doing a great job of un-confusing them, and my two geometry classes sucked because class behavior was pretty terrible and I was in a tired, foul mood and not doing a great job of fixing anything.

And then, at the end of the day on Thursday, I realized that my iPhone had been stolen.

I closed my classroom door and cried hysterically for about 15 minutes. Then I walked down to the office to report it, promising myself that I was done crying, and ended up crying in my Principal's office too.

It's not about the money (although those phones are ridiculously expensive and this is the second time it's been stolen). It's about the fact that I worked SIXTEEN HOURS the previous day to prepare lessons for my students, and one child pretty much ruined it. The fact is that I know that one of my students stole my phone and that completely SUCKS.

Also, that iPhone is not just my phone - it's my alarm clock in the morning, it's my camera with pictures of my family on it, it's my radio when I'm driving (since I haven't had a car radio for 3 years because it was ... stolen), it's my bookshelf with about 12 books on the kindle app, it's my minesweeper-relaxation method, it's my instant-look-up-on-the-internet whatever I need to look up (example, how old is Dionne Warwick? Answer: 68 years old), my main way to tweet, my email checker on the run, my GPS when I'm driving somewhere unfamiliar. I love it.

After I realized my precious (uh.. LOTR reference, deal with it) was stolen, etc. I refused to do any work for the rest of the day. This, of course, meant that I got up at 4 am on Friday to frantically prepare lessons.

But then, Friday was awesome. I mean, truly, amazingly, everything-went-right awesome. First of all, when I woke up I thought it was Thursday. While I was eating breakfast I realized it was, in fact, Friday. I cannot even BEGIN to describe how amazing that realization felt. I actually did a little happy dance.

Before school starts I always have a bunch of boys in my classroom hanging out after they've stashed their football gear in my closets (lockers have not yet been issued). I told them that my phone had been stolen and they were absolutely irate and empathetic. In fact, I ended up telling all of my classes, including the class that I'm pretty sure it was stolen during. Again, students were upset about it.

I had been feeling so down and victimized and just plain shitty and then these awesome kids made me feel so much better. Not only that, but the atmosphere of my crazier classes improved. Right now, my sophomores are still checking me out, gauging if I really care about them or if I'm just there collecting a paycheck. There's no real relationship there yet. They don't know that I work my butt off for them - they don't know that I really and truly care about them, like my juniors and seniors are well aware. And I don't know them - I don't know who I can tease mercilessly and who I need to be very gentle with.

But this cell phone issue has helped to build a bit of a bridge between us. I was honest about being upset about my missing cell phone. I told them about my family and the pictures that were on the phone. I told them about my guinea pig. I even told them about working 16 hours the day before. The tone of my 10th grade classes changed. And if this is something that is sustainable throughout the school year - if I've reached out and made that connection at the end of week 2?

Totally worth $400.

I'm SMART!

Don't be mad at me. Please. Try not to be jealous. You see, the thing is... I have a SMART board in my classroom.

And I love love love love love love love it. Even better is that so far my students love it almost as much as me. I cannot tell you how amazing it is do try out some new feature on it (super nonchalantly like I know what the heck I'm doing) and have kids go oohhh!! or even (once) start clapping. CLAPPING. Insane.

My students will say, "Ms. Twine, this board is sooo cool!" and I'm all "I KNOW, RIGHT?!"

Best part? Kids are literally BEGGING to come up to the board and do work on it. Like, "Please please please let me do #6 on the board Ms. Twine, PLEASE." They are, in fact, arguing about who gets to do the next problem on the board.

Today, as I was lecturing and writing notes on the board for the kiddos, a student raised his hand to ask a question.

"Can I please do the first problem on the board?"

I hadn't even given out the problems yet.

First Day! So sleepy!

I promised myself that I would post today (and more frequently) but I am just so. darn. exhausted. that I don't know how much this will make sense. Or if I will spell words correctly. Bare (bear?) with me please.

Why am I exhausted? Why thank you for asking! I will tell you:

Reason #1. It was the first day of school. My body is not used to standing and moving and having my brain work nonstop from about 7:15 am to 4:30. My feet kill even though I changed out of my completely adorable peep toe pumps into my super ugly "teacher flats" within 1 hour.

Reason #2. I am overloaded. I am teaching 3 different classes: AP Statistics, Honors Geometry, and Geometry. This means 3 lesson plans each day, 15 per week. Also, I volunteered to do this so can't really complain. I DON'T CARE. I AM HAVING A PITY PARTY. SHUT UP.

Reason #3. I have two other non-teacher duties: the coordinator of our AP grant and mentor teacher of the math department. I actually will not at all complain about either of those things because I really want to and like doing them. But they are another reason for exhaustion when I also have 3 preps.

Gah. I give up for today. I'm too tired and I need to watch the newest episode Mad Men, which just finished downloading.

I will write about actual teaching/students tomorrow (maybe).

Funniest thing said today:

Me: So, I've color coded everything about this class. Your folders are green, your objectives and topics are written in green on the whiteboard, the agenda for this class is written under the green geometry sign, when you leave class you return your green folders in the green crate, and of course, anything written in green on the calendar pertains to you. Oh, also, turn in work under the green Geometry sign.

Student: Dang miss. I can't even imagine what your house looks like.

This is mostly funny because my house is a MESS. A gigantic tornado of papers/clothes I try on and then don't wear. Also, within about 2 days these students will realize that I'm not actually organized (when I can't find their classwork... or my keys... or my pen which I just had... or my phone..or my brain). Fake it til you make it.

I'm sorry this doesn't make sense. Sleepy time now.

Teacher Appreciation

The Internet inexplicably stopped working at my house last week and won't be fixed until next week, so I haven't posted much. So here's a quick update before I run off to Hopkins.

Tonight is my last graduate school class! I graduate on May 21st. This is very exciting.

This week is teacher appreciation week. This means that students fill out "certificates of appreciation" and give them to teachers. My favorite "Thanks you for..." notes include:

Thank you for . . .

"Being the best AP Statistics teacher ever. You taught me so many great lessons, plus you restored my faith in all white people." HA!

"Never quitting like Mr. ___ did and always inspiring us with [SmallestTwinelicious] and your incredible swagger . . . its contagious. LOL."

"Trying to be funny and teaching us the value of math!" (I love the "trying" to be funny)

And, get ready for the tears:

"Just being yourself when you teach me. You show me that you really care about me going to college. You are by far the best teacher that I have ever had."

Needless to say, I feel appreciated.

Caesar Cipher Search (five times fast...)

I've been getting a lot of hits from people google-ing "Caesar cipher." For that reason, and also because it's so cool, I'd like to direct you to the University of Southampton's National Cipher Challenge. The "teacher's pack" is full of lesson plans, worksheets, and a printable cipher wheel.

Check it out: http://www.cipher.maths.soton.ac.uk/rules.html

Stats test approaching quickly...

The AP Statistics test is May 5th – that’s two Tuesday’s from now, which means there are only SIX days left of review to get the kiddos ready for the exam.

Last Wednesday and Thursday I gave the boys a full-length practice test. My reasoning for this was partly to determine which concepts we needed to focus on for review, and partly to motivate the students. I thought that by showing them how their scores before reviewing, they would understand how hard we needed to work in the next two weeks to review. Nose to the grindstone and all that.

They don’t give a shit.

Sorry for the profanity Mom. In theory, my kids do care – after the practice exam they talked about how hard they were going to work and they gave me a list of specific concepts that they wanted to review in the coming weeks.

But when push comes to shove, they just aren’t willing to do the work.

For example, last night I gave them 38 multiple-choice problems to do – all about designing surveys and experiments. I gave them 30 minutes in class to start, and then they had to finish the rest for homework.

Ahh, homework. This is the problem - they won’t do it.

In addition to answering each question, I also asked them to write either green, yellow, or red for each problem – green indicating “yes I’m definitely right,” yellow indicating “I’m not totally sure but I eliminated some answer choices” and red “I’m really not sure that I’m right.” I even handed out crayons and markers for the students to use to mark their papers if they chose to. I wanted to get an idea of how confident my students are about their answers, and if their confidence matches up to correct answers. (Note: I totally stole this idea from another teacher blog and I cannot for the life of me remember which one or find it – If anyone knows please tell me so I can give the teacher credit.)

Today I collected the problems. Not one student had finished. In fact, several students had clearly just worked on it in class and then done none of it for homework. Two students had clearly just randomly picked answers. Only three students followed the red/yellow/green directions.

Gah.

And then there’s the opposite side of the spectrum. I have four geometry students – one of whom I don’t even teach, who spent their lunch periods yesterday and today working on difficult trig identity problems for the FUN of it – who ASKED me to give them different, harder “problem of the day” questions with trig identities. So yeah, they’re awesome.

Caesar Cipher

There were three days left before Spring Break and I had just finished a unit in geometry, so rather than start anything new, I decided to teach my geometry kids some cryptography.

Of course this went well, since every kid (and most adults, I would assume) think basic cryptography is cool. We made cipher wheels and talked about the enigma machine and I got the most rapt attention I have EVER received while teaching.

After teaching simple Caesar ciphers (where you basically just shift the alphabet), I challenged the kids to write sentences and told them that I could break any of their codes (there are only 25 possibilities for Caesar ciphers - they're really easy to break - and I told them this, but the kids think I am AWESOME). Messages included:

-Yay! Spring Break is almost here!

-Ms. Twine is crazy

-First period is the best math class

-Math is my favorite subject

And then, I found an anonymous note left on my desk.

Y TUSYTUT JE JQAU IJQJI

Which is, decoded: I decided to take stats.

I have no idea who wrote it, but someone in my fifth period geometry class has decided to take my AP Stats class next year. AND THEY TOLD ME IN CODE. I don’t think it gets cuter than that.