The Smallest Twine

Graphing Stories and My Many Boyfriends

2011-11-10T15:19:00.000-08:00

Today I taught the graphing stories lesson to four classes, and it was incredibly interesting to see how each class reacted to the lesson. It was actually a shockingly complete failure in one class, and a rousing success in another - and I'm really struggling to see why. The other two classes were as I expected. Let's start with the not so successful class.

FAIL

I have a class that is usually pretty chill, and I love them for it, since they come in immediately after a very, very chatty bunch and it's nice to have a class that follows along, is usually excited when things are interesting, and is just generally receptive to what I throw at them. But, not today. For some reason lots of kids just immediately shut down when we started looking at the graphing videos.

It started with the "warm up," which was fairly easy question that mostly involved reading a sentence and using common sense. Of my other three classes, 90+% of students answered the problem correctly.

"Did she teach this yesterday?"

"I wasn't here yesterday, so I can't do this."

"I don't know how to do that!"

So, I stopped them mid freak-out and told them to calm down. I read the problem aloud and most of the kiddos ended up getting it correct with good explanations for their answers. I told them that they're wasting a lot of time freaking out instead of actually being persistent and figuring things out.

And then we started the graphing stories lesson.

"I don't get this."

"This is stupid."

"This is retarded" (gah!!)

"I hate this. This is hard."

"Why are we even doing this? When will I use this in real life?"

It wasn't going well. I intervened by doing more modeling than I had done for the previous classes. They claimed they didn't understand anything I was writing on the board. Just a total disaster.

SUCCESS!

My last period is extremely chatty, and it's the class that I have to be on guard for with classroom management. After a disastrous class before lunch, I was really worried about teaching the lesson to my very silly class.

However, they were completely enthralled, and incredibly skilled at creating the graphs. It was like a miracle.

And why were they so enthralled? Partly because of my amazing teaching and because of Dan's amazing lesson, but probably more so because they became obsessed with proving that I am dating and/or married to Dan Meyer. Evidence? There is a woman with brown hair on the couch of the ladder video. AND MS. MCKENNA HAS BROWN HAIR! So they started teasing me.

"I like that shirt he's wearing. Did you buy it for him Ms. McKenna?"
"Why is he running away from the camera? What mean thing did you say to him?"
"Did you tell him that he's running on empty?"

After constant denials, I finally just admitted that yes, I am married to Dan Meyer.

At which point they decided that that couldn't possibly be true, and I'm in fact dating the 9th grade social studies teacher.

I'm still not sure why the lesson was such a complete failure in that other class. I think it comes back to math confidence and I'm just not sure how to deal with it.

Film Elective

2011-11-08T19:11:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow I start teaching a Film elective that will meet for 1.5 hours each week. I'm super excited about it because I absolutely loved the film class that I took in college (taught by this guy, Nick Davis, who memorized pretty much all of our names before the 1st class by perusing our ID pictures - this was a big class of about 75 students, so super impressive). I'm selfishly using this elective as an opportunity to revisit what I learned in that intro class in college, and to continue to learn more about film.

So, I have 16 kids who signed up for the class. 13 boys and just 3 girls (which surprised me), and the majority of the students are 10th grade boys that I teach in Geometry. I think it will be cool to have a group of kids who chose to be in the elective - talk about instant intrinsic motivation just based on interest!

My plan of attack for the first day is a brief survey of what types of movies the kids consider to be "good," what their favorite genre of movie is, their favorite film, and their favorite director. Then, we'll watch A Trip to the Moon and a scene from Broken Blossoms, and begin discussing shot scale and introduce some vocab.

Finally, I'm going to put kids in groups of four to create two-minute long silent films.

I'm excited!

You're killing me, Smalls

2011-11-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

I wasn't organized enough to create a survey or multiple choice questionnaire. However, I did ask my students to write whatever came to mind, positive and/or negative about 1st quarter math. I kind of like that I didn't use a more formal survey, since kids were able to think, without any guidance from my questioning, of what they thought were positives and negatives of both my instruction and their own learning in class.

Some of my favorite positive comments include:

You are pretty
You have pretty hair
Ms. McKenna is awesome

Uh... I know these don't have anything to do with my teaching ability, however, these were my favorite comments because I am extremely vain.

Other things that the kids really like include the fact that we sing this song almost every day, that "math is fun now" (woo!!), and that they can re-take assessments if they need to (although many more kids need to be taking advantage of that).

The more critical comments were interesting to me because they indicate that a lot of kids think that I'm moving too fast through material (ok, fine - I'll agree) and that I should grade homework (disagree so hard).

In particular, this comment really killed me:

"For second quarter, I think you should start to grade homework because I do all of it for nothing because you don't grade it. And I also think you shouldn't give so many tests. I think we should get them every other week."

This comment makes my cold, tiny heart hurt a bit.

I think that most of those who read my blog know that I'm an avid SBGer (Standards Based Grading, yo). Or, maybe you don't know that since I blog once every 10 months or so, so no one reads this thing anyway. Except, I read it sometimes. And I know that I'm an avid SBGer. So there, my statement is true.

Homework should be used as practice and a way to give feedback. When kids complain about not getting "credit" for homework, I explain that they will get credit when they show a "complete understanding" on their assessment. I give one or two assessments each week - never more than 20 minutes in length - and the usually assess 1-3 learning targets. So, this kiddo wants me to grade practice, and then give fewer opportunities to assess knowledge after practice and feedback.

You're killing me, Smalls.

Also, at the end of each assessment the kids get to draw a random picture that I make up at the top of my head before I've consumed an entire serving of caffeine in the morning. Sometimes I'm jealous that the kids get to draw a picture of a tap dancing spider with a top hat, or a lizard taking over the world, or a fish eating a lion. Who wouldn't want to do that once or twice a week?

Now go read these:

BMoreSchools

Maryland Math Madness

Epiphany in Baltimore

Surviving the System

FAKE POST

2011-11-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

I did not post on Saturday, November 5th. Some things I did instead:

Slept for 12 hours
Read a romance novel
Lazed around
Watched TV
Went out for Thai Food
Went to Idle Hour

But thanks to the magic of blogger, I can pretend that I posted on Nov. 5th.

Take that NaBloPoMo!

I don't think that NaBloPoMo is supposed to be my evil nemesis, and yet, that's how I feel.

Friday

2011-11-04T18:10:00.001-07:00

Grades were due today and I stayed at work until 6:30.

I'm watching Exit Through the Gift Shop, drinking a glass of malbec, and trapped in a wikipedia black hole of street art.

So, go read this instead. The blogger, Erin, is an amazing scientist, yoga teacher, and friend.

And yes, I realize that I fail at NaBloPoMo.

I will be better tomorrow.

NaBloPoMo fail

2011-11-03T19:51:00.000-07:00

BLOG POST!!

Sorry, that's all I've got.

Video Scavenger Hunt

2011-11-02T18:42:00.000-07:00

In addition to teaching math, I also have an advisory group (we call it POD) that meets for about 1.5 hours every day. Ideally, every advisory is with their advisor from 9th grade until they graduate, but I inherited a 10th grade POD from a teacher who moved on to full time graduate school.

To make a deliberate effort that our 9th and 10th graders are getting to know each other (which can be difficult, since they're taught on completely different floors), once a week, some of the 9th and 10th grade pods trade half of their kids so that we have mixed grade groups. And then we have SO MUCH FUN.

Two weeks ago we did a video scavenger hunt. For an hour, this group of 15 kids who don't know each other very well (and me, of course) ran around the school, ran outside, and generally giggled our heads off as we raced to complete (and catch on video) as many of the items on the scavenger hunt list as possible. I was worried that the kids would think that it was lame, but they threw themselves into it pretty immediately.

We finally screened all four groups' videos today, and it was hilarious to watch the kids' different takes on the Maury Show and Cops - because of course those were some of our first choices on the list. I also learned that I'm pretty much the worst videographer in the world.

My team won by a landslide. So that makes it even better.

Here's the video scavenger hunt list in case you're interested! It was mostly created by my amazing art teacher colleague. I think I contributed The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song idea and that's about it.

Video Scavenger Hunt

And don't forget to check out my fellow Bmore bloggers participating in NaBloPoMo

BMoreSchools

Maryland Math Madness

Epiphany in Baltimore

Surviving the System

Confidence in Math

2011-11-01T18:05:00.001-07:00

On the first day at my new school this year, I met 90 awesome kids. I did my introductory thing – rapped the McKennalicious rap, proselytized about the amazingness of math and how much great stuff we’ll do all year, and got to know the kids a bit too.

I ended the day feeling great and really positive about the year. And then I found myself cornered by two, very, very anxious students.

“We just want to let you know that we really love you and you seem really awesome so we’re so sorry that we’re really awful at math.”

“Hold on,” I said. “I’m sure you’re not terrible at math and…”

“YES WE ARE. WE ARE SO TERRIBLE AND WE’RE SORRY!”

And then they literally ran away.

It was really intense.

So, we’re two months in now, and those girls who cornered me? Not at all bad at math. In fact, they’re both pretty darn good.

So what is it about this super low confidence in math skills? Is confidence what separates successful students from lower performing students (in math specifically – but perhaps other subjects too?)

How much time do kids who think that they’re bad at math waste just freaking out
about how bad they are, instead of persevering with the confidence that even though they might not get a concept quite yet, they’ll get it in time?

I see this low confidence every day. When kids flat out tell me they’re bad, when I see full and CORRECT answers on assessments completely crossed out or erased because of some fear of being wrong. I have students who would rather leave a question completely blank than write down anything they’re not 100% sure of.

I have a few students who, when I ask why they aren’t taking notes or writing down the example problems we’re working out, answer “because I don’t get it.” Sometimes I think that’s just a cop out, but in the instances that’s true - students are completely putting a wall up to learning because they don’t immediately understand, which means that learning the topic must be completely impossible.

Am I a terrible teacher if students don’t immediately understand a somewhat complicated concept? Am I not breaking it down enough? Sometimes that is definitely the case. Sometimes though, I think my awesome days of instruction aren’t given a chance because of a wall that’s been built up over years. The foundation of that wall (uh oh, metaphor gone crazy alert) can often be found in students’ parents, who had terrible experiences with math. It’s so frustrating to hear parents say, often in front of their kids, that they “just aren’t good” at math, and neither is their kiddo.

I’m not at all blaming parents here – it’s just that there’s this messed up idea that seems to be so acceptable, that people are either good or bad at math and that that’s all there is to it.

I’m pretty sure I’m rambling here. I missed out on my coffee this morning, so I’ve been a bit off kilter all day. I almost didn’t do this first post of NaBloPoMo – but then I realized that giving up on day one was a bit pathetic. Get ready, Internet! You're in for a month of incoherence and exhaustion! (fact, it just took me 3 attempts to spell exhaustion correctly)

For something a little more coherent and worth while, please check out:

BMoreSchools

Maryland Math Madness

Epiphany in Baltimore

Surviving the System

I arrived at it independently!!

2011-09-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

Pete Campbell - Mad Men: “You know what? I have good ideas. In fact, I used to carry around a notebook and a pen, just to keep track. Direct marketing? I thought of that. It turned out it already existed, but I arrived at it independently.”

About two years ago, though most of my classroom management was OK, I was having a lot of trouble getting kids to transition from being in the hallway to being in math class. I mean, they were physically in the classroom - but I couldn’t get them to engage in actual class stuff, i.e. the “warm up” (or Do Now, or Drill, or whatever the heck you want to call it) without a bunch of cajoling, and I found this to be extremely frustrating.

When I say extremely frustrating, what I really mean is that I felt like I was trying to herd evil cats. EVIL cats, not regular ones. Way worse.

So, I tried a bunch of things and none of them worked. Bribing children with candy (ugh - gross), collecting and grading warm ups (ugh - the SBGer in me wants to vom), threatening to kill children (not really! That’s ridiculous! Threats? Me!?)

And then, one day, I just started pointing out what kids were doing right.

“I see that Davonte has his notebook out and has started the Do Now.”

“I see that Chelsea is looking at yesterday’s notes to help her with the warm up.”

“Chris has his pencil in hand and has begun working.”

And that was it. Seriously. I was kind of freaked out. All of a sudden all of my usual hyperactive 10th graders were quietly working. Yes, there was that one kid who looked at me, dramatically pointing to his notebook and mouthing “Tavon is working” - but then he actually started the warm up in a timely fashion. For the first time all year.

Obviously I was convinced it was a fluke. Or that it would only work once. Turns out, not only did it work in all the rest of my classes - it worked almost EVERY DAY in ALL OF MY CLASSES for the REST OF THE YEAR. Yes, those caps were necessary.

On the third day I had my math teacher colleagues peaking into my room, frantically whispering

“how did you do this?”
“they’ve been like this for three days?”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ve never seen that child do anything.”
“You deserve to be teacher of the year. For every year. Forever.”

I felt like a god. Like the student whisperer. Or something.

Perhaps it wasn’t so dramatic as this.

Well, it turns out this is just called behavior narration and I didn’t make it up at all. I mean I thought of it - it turned out that it already existed, but I arrived at it independently. (Thanks, Pete).

And what I love about it is that in addition to helping kids transition from being with their friends in the hall to being in math class and doing some math (yay!), it doesn’t make me feel like a crappy human being - like the yelling/cajoling/threatening (jk! I would never do that!) always did.

At the end of the day (or the beginning of class...) saying "I see that Ayanna is beginning right away" is just much better for my soul than FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE SIT DOWN AND START DOING SOMETHING THAT JUST LOOKS LIKE YOU'RE DOING MATH. YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE TO ACTUALLY DO IT. JUST PRETEND.

Kobe vs. LeBron Boxplots

2011-02-07T19:37:00.000-08:00

This semester I'm teaching an HSA Algebra/Data Analysis for the first time. It's also the first time that I've taught 9th graders, and so far, the girls are super mature and the boys are a mixture of wise beyond their years and super wiggly.

I overheard some of these wiggly boys talking smack to each other about the Miami Heat vs. the Celtics on Friday, so today their "Do Now" assignment was to create boxplots comparing LeBron James' and Paul Pierce's points per game for the last 10 games. As soon as the boys walked in they were excited, but they said they'd rather compare LeBron and Kobe. So, (thank you Internet!) I quickly hopped on ESPN's website and replaced all of Paul Pierce's data with Kobe's.

The kids were totally into it, my totally disinterested/too-cool-for-school boy actually changed seats from his usual spot in the back to a spot closer to the front (!!!)

After constructing their boxplots (each and every child, without prodding), the boys continued their trash talking. However, they were now overheard comparing the median PPG (!!!) and discussing how even though LeBron's median was higher, Kobe was more consistent (smaller IQR).

It was definitely one of those moments when I wanted to run out in the hall just to find someone else to witness the amazingness.

AP Exam Results

2010-07-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

I spent about an hour of my day today obsessively refreshing the CollegeBoard’s AP Score reporting site until I was lucky enough to slip through the overload of teachers, presumably doing the same thing as me (if my Twitter and Facebook friends are a representative sample).

I was excited because I was sure that my students had done well. I was sure that at least of few of my students would have passing scores and even crossed my fingers for a 4 (or even a 5!) from my most talented child. Finally I got through, so I paused the episode of Mad Men that I was watching to wait for my extremely slow Internet connection to load the page (I can’t complain – free internet via the computer store I live above).

And not one of my 13 students passed the exam.

Not one.

Of my 13 students, 11 earned 1’s and 2 earned 2’s.

There are, of course, a lot of factors that I can blame beside myself.

“These kids” have never been challenged before -- Honors classes were only implemented this year, and it is VERY difficult to successfully differentiate instruction with levels that range from I-don’t-understand-the-difference-between-a-rectangle-and-a-square! and Can-I-stay-in-your-room-at-lunch-and-do-extra-trig-identity-problems?

“These kids” don’t know how to study because they’ve literally never had to study before, breezing through classes that are not at all challenging.

“These kids” have never had to do more that 30 minutes of homework in a night.

“These kids” are under-prepared – who knows what they even learned in middle school? And we all know that the 9th grade HSA Algebra class is a joke (or at least it was two years ago)!

“These kids” have poor literacy skills, which are extremely important in AP Statistics – in fact, there is more reading and writing than computation!

But, the truth is that it’s my job to get “these kids” to understand AP Statistics and to be able to communicate that understanding. And I was not successful this year. I need to make some drastic changes, because my lack of success is absolutely not acceptable. My job is to take the kids from where they are to a passing score on the AP exam.

Standards based grading, though I was at first reluctant to use it in my AP class, may be a part of what I do to make sure that students understand the content. Quarterly projects where students must communicate their knowledge orally might be helpful. I clearly need to read some books about literacy and incorporate strategies in my classroom.

This is how I will spend the rest of my summer – preparing for a brand new year. The status quo isn’t sufficient.

Bright spot. Jaime Escalante did not get the results that we watch in Stand and Deliver in a year or two. He first had to become department head and create a pipeline in which students experienced rigorous math curriculum beginning in middle school. It took him 8 years to get all those students to pass.

Now, I'm not Escalante. But, I'm a good teacher. I can be a better teacher. I can guide "these kids" to become "those kids" who triumphed against the odds.

Strawberry Cream Cheese

2010-01-11T17:26:00.000-08:00

I have a very specific plan for AP Statistics, which involves finishing the entire curriculum before Spring Break so that we can just review, review, review for 4 weeks afterward until THE BIG DAY - May 4th.

So, as you can imagine, I'm not a huge fan of snow days. They mess up my detailed schedule and they make me all curmudgeony and complainy and generally not fun to be around. Aside: It is awesome being a math teacher and getting to make up words sometimes. However, my kids think I make up lots of words that are actual words - like causation. They're pretty convinced I made that up and I cannot convince them otherwise.

Anyway, tomorrow a lot of the students at my school are taking the Algebra HSA, so non-test-taking students don't have to show up until 11:30. Because I'm evil, I'm forcing my Stats kids to come in at 9 am for two hours of Stats. Whine, whine, groan, groan mad faces, etc.

Then I told them I'm going to bring them breakfast. Faces lit up a little bit, and they seemed like they actually might show up. A student asked if I could bring strawberry cream cheese for the bagels. Sure, why not. I mean, I think the stuff is gross (just look at it! gah!) But if that's what they want then fine.

And they cheered. Seriously. I think I can get them to do anything if I bribe them with strawberry cream cheese.

Of course, now I have to go plan two hours of statistics - and wake up early to buy a LOT of donuts and bagels (and strawberry cream cheese, of course).

McKennalicious

2010-01-09T18:25:00.000-08:00

Now that I've de-anonymized the blog, I think it's time that I share with you the lyrics of one of my many math songs.

McKennalicious was the first one that I wrote, and it is less about math than about what a great teacher I am. The kids know all the words, and it's been heard in the hallways - I think they love it even more than they love Mr. Sweeney's slope rida (which we sing more than weekly). That being said, here's McKennalicious (to the tune of Fergilicious - obvs)

McKennalicious definition make kids learn like crazy
They always say the know me comin' to me call me Jackie
I'm the M to the C-K E the N N A
And can't no other teacher teach math like me
McKennalicous

My brain stay vicious
I be up on the calculator workin' on statistics, dotplots and inference
Histograms and boxplots
And kids be linin' down the block just to learn the math I got

I ain't tryna round up drama little mama I'm just really good at math
And I know I'm comin' off just a little bit conceited and I keep on repeatin' how I'm really good at teachin'
But I'm tryna tell - that I don't treat students like clientele
Cuz they say I'm McKennalicious.

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T09:09:00.000-08:00

Last year I kept my New Years Resolution. I wasn't aware that anyone in the WORLD kept their resolution, but apparently I'm living proof. Of course, my resolution was just to steer clear of celebrity websites (perez, tmz, etc.) so that I would stop wasting so much time keeping up with the lives of people I don't know. I can't say that I used that saved time doing anything particularly meaningful - but at least I can no longer wax poetic on the travails of various celebutantes.

My resolutions this year are much more prone to failure, and are split into two categories - personal and professional, and I've made them all quantifiable. My personal goals include working out 3 times/week, drinking tea instead of coffee, and blogging more often (yay! I blogged today!). My professional goals are to learn more math (I'm taking Linear Algebra at UMBC this spring!), keeping up with grading, and generally manning-up and self-pitying/complaining less.

I'm still in Massachusetts at the moment, so my New Year at home in Baltimore won't start until Sunday. We'll see how many of the resolutions I can keep this year. Bring it on 2010!

Terrible Day/Great Day

2009-09-12T06:04:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-09-01T17:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-08-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-06T13:00:00.000-07:00

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...)

2009-04-24T16:13:00.001-07:00

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...

2009-04-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

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 just don't care.

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

2009-04-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

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.

Get Off My Lawn!

2009-04-09T08:39:00.000-07:00

Though it’s spring break this week, I just can’t get myself to calm down and take time off.

For example, on Saturday I went out to dinner at my favorite restaurant, Alexander’s Tavern (Tip: Order the Macaroni and Cheese from the kids menu – that plus a gin and tonic = absolute heaven). I walked past Max’s on the way home and saw what looked to be a fight brewing outside and I almost ALMOST walked right over there to tell those people to stop fighting and I was ready to break it up. And then I became sane again and remembered that I was not in school. And also that the last time I broke up a fight I ended up on the ground.

I also almost ALMOST told a kid at the mall yesterday to take off his hat.

Someday soon sanity is not going to prevail and I’m going to get myself in trouble.

Nearing the End

2009-03-28T14:34:00.000-07:00

Today I gave my portfolio presentation at Hopkins. The portfolio is the graduation requirement - so all I need to do now is finish the two classes I'm taking and I'll be DONE.

I cannot properly express how nice it will be to just teach.

In fact, even though I know I want to go back to school to get my masters in Statistics, I'm waiting a year just so that I can have one, glorious year of JUST TEACHING.

Also, maybe blogging a little bit more often?

Seven Reasons Why Today Sucked

2009-03-13T13:09:00.000-07:00

1. I woke up really early to drive a friend to the airport before work. Before leaving, I printed out some worksheets and my lesson plans for today, since I am out of ink at school. I forgot the worksheets at home.

2. Realized I had forgotten worksheets at home when I arrived at school an hour after leaving my house. Drove home to get them. When I got home, I remembered to take out the recycling. But then I forgot the worksheets at home for a second time.

3. Got to school and made this realization. Shook the ink cartridge and got the last dregs of ink out of it. Printed out my worksheet and saw that I had only 9% of my battery power left on my laptop. Went to get my laptop charger from my bag and realized I had left it at home.

4. During my planning period, I went home (again) to get the charger. Also went to CVS to get ink. Got a parking ticket.

5. Lunch period. As usual I have about 10 kids in my classroom hanging out because they don’t want to go to the cafeteria. Two boys get in a fight, and I see boys punching each other for the first time at school (also, maybe in my life?) I break it up and get knocked down in the process.

6. Another crappy thing happens during 6th period that I can’t write about because it would be TMI, even for an anonymous blog.

7. At the end of the day I’m called down to the office. I had forgotten to go to my pre-observation meeting.

So yeah, today sucked. I drove home completely ready to get in an accident. I mean, the day isn’t over. There’s plenty of time for this to be an eight or nine reasons why today sucked post.

Pi Day

2009-03-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure you are all aware, Saturday is March 14. That's Pi Day.

Pi happens to be my favorite number. If I ever get a tattoo, pi is something I might consider (after, of course, an elephant swallowed by a boa constrictor). I can recite it out to 3.14159265358979323 but that's it. I'm not very good. Last year I held a pi recitation contest and I bought the student who won it a burrito from Chipotle. He didn't like pie.

But if YOU like pie (and pi), the Maryland Science Center is hosting a Pi Day event from noon to 4 on Saturday, complete with a scavenger hunt, a pie eating contest, a hula hoop contest, a pi recitation contest, and most importantly, PIE (Dangerously Delicious pies to be exact.)

While I cannot attend said Pi Day event, I will be there in spirit, wearing my pi shirt.

Quality Control

2009-03-12T17:10:00.000-07:00

Please check out the newest post at the Challenge to Care blog. A friend of mine is very, very angry about her situation at Mervo and has expressed that better than I can summarize. She doesn't pull any punches.

Write the Coordinates, Change the Signs, PLOT EM

2009-03-11T17:59:00.000-07:00

The last two days have been pretty great.

In geometry we're learning about transformations - sliding, rotating, and reflecting figures on the coordinate plane. 180 degree rotations are difficult for some students -- you have to write down the coordinates of your points, change all the signs (so negative to positive or positive to negative), and plot the new points. Or, as I say "write the coordinates, change the signs, and PLOT EM." While I say (um, yell) PLOT EM, I kick my leg up really high in the air. The kids think this is really funny and will pretend they need me to tell them how to do a rotation so that I'll kick and yell. And you can bet that they all know how to do rotations now. I've even gotten some kids to yell plot 'em - but no leg kicks yet.

This craziness has pointed out how out of shape I am since my hamstring is pretty achy now. Dang, when did I get old?

Also, I needed to video tape something in one of my classes today for my graduate-school-final-project-of-death. I taped what I needed to tape (it only took about 3 minutes), and then shut off the camera. Later that day, I watched the tape.

I can't tell you how much I wish I could post a clip of this video for you all to see - but I'm trying to keep myself and my students as anonymous as possible.

Smallest Twine: "Davon, can you move your seat so that you're not sitting in front of the camera?"

Davon: "Ok"

Andrew: "Oh, that's a camera?"

And then, Andrew proceeded to shake his booty in front of the camera for a full 15 seconds, complete with musical accompaniment. And I didn't notice. And there were NINE students in the room.

I think I'll begin class tomorrow with a little video viewing.

Cell Phone Results

2009-03-09T11:28:00.000-07:00

Sara over at Inside Ed just wrote about students texting in class, so I figured I should tell you all the results of my texting experiment. In a word: meh.

Results varied by class. First period was not so into texting their answers. This makes sense since a lot of the students don’t have phones (so why would it be fun?) A few kids seemed into it and asked to do it again, but if not everyone can participate, it’s not worth doing.

In fifth period I had more student interest. Unfortunately, I was almost foiled by a girl who first tried to claim that as soon as they took out their phones I was going to confiscate them (really? Am I that evil?) When that was unsuccessful, she told everyone that I was trying to get their phone numbers (to do what with? Prank call?)

It was pretty cool that as soon as a student voted for an answer choice the bar graph adjusted to show their vote. But, the kids were too into the texting, and not enough into the math part. It ended up being a huge distraction, and pretty much just took up too much time.

When we use technology in the classroom it can’t just be for the sake of using technology (which is what this was). Instead, I have to make sure that either students are learning how to learn technology or the technology actually enhances the lesson in some way. The texting experiment probably took away from the lesson.

One unexpected result was that cell phone usage in class actually DECREASED. When we were done texting, I told them that they’d met their cell phone in the class quota for the day, and that they needed to be put away. And they were.

Using Cell Phones to My Advantage

2009-03-03T16:42:00.000-08:00

Recently I was complaining (big surprise) about how I don't know any students who own a homework planner - so the kids never know when there is a test or when assignments are due.

The AP English teacher at my school remarked that he lets his AP kids take out their cell phones so that they can put the info into their calendars. He said something about using the technology, instead of banning it like crazy (but he said this much, much more eloquently - English teacher, after all).

This was an epiphany to me. USING CELL PHONES?? FOR LEARNING?? That's insane ... insanely awesome. IF you can do it right. I'm not sure that I really can, but I am very willing to try it.

So, I'm going to do an experiment tomorrow. My students will text in the answer to a multiple choice question at the beginning of class. I'm using polleverywhere.com to do this - and I can embed the LIVE poll into a powerpoint. I've posted a screenshot below. Also, please don't text in a vote! I need to have a blank slate tomorrow!

Potential problems:

-Not every kid has a cell phone (believe it or not). You can vote by computer, but you can only vote once, so I could only have one kid vote via my laptop in the back of the room.

-It costs money to send text messages. How do I feel about students (ok, students' parents) spending money to answer a question in class?

-If I show the live results, students may be more likely to vote for the more "popular," though not necessarily correct, answer. This happens anyway when I ask "how many people voted for 'A'" and kids look around first before they put their hands up. Potentially though, if I wait until after everyone has voted to show the results, kids could truly vote the way they feel without worrying about being judged, which would be very, very cool.

I'll tell you how it goes.

Rigorous Classes and Blob's Park - These subjects are not related.

2009-02-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

This Tuesday I missed school to attend the College Board Middle States Regional Forum. It was pretty nice outside so I decided to walk from Fells Point to the Renaissance Hotel, which made me wish that I could walk to work every day. The morning workshop/lecture was called "Rigor without Rigor Mortis," and the speaker made some pretty good points about making classes more rigorous (which is one of the education world's favorite words of the moment). The big thing that she talked about was providing support when you amp up how challenging your courses are.

What she didn't talk about -- which is my biggest problem, is motivating students to take advantage of the support.

Case in point: On Monday my geometry students took a quiz. Only 10 students achieved more than an 80%. Bad. So I reviewed the answers to the quiz on Wednesday and I am offering a "retake" of the quiz tomorrow during lunch. I told students that I would be available every day during lunch and after school to answer any questions. When I asked students how many students would come to these sessions, about 2/3 of the class's hands shot up. And how many students have actually shown up for help?

Zero.

Seriously.

I talked to my fifth period class today about aspiration vs. perspiration. They all aspire to do well, but so few of them are actually willing to put in the effort to achieve their goals. It seemed like students were listening (really! I swear!) But still, no one showed up after school. We'll see how many show up to retake the quiz tomorrow. I have high hopes, though I know I shouldn't.

In other recent news, a few weeks ago I had a great time at a polka/beer hall in Jessup. You can read all about Blob's Park (I'm not even kidding, that is actually the name of the place) here at my friend's totally cool food and wine blog. The best part of Blob's Park (seriously, that name is so weird) is that elderly gentlemen ask the ladies to dance. I danced with two such gentlemen and had a great time. So all you Baltimorons should check it out.

Urban Reform + The Office = Awesome

2009-01-29T17:05:00.000-08:00

My first year of teaching was a study in classroom management, culture shock, becoming comfortable in an authoritative role, and the act of desperately throwing things at the proverbial wall to see if they stuck. Certainly, during the first half of the year, my day-to-day focus was survival.

In my second year, my focus has been the curriculum of my new AP Stats class, as well as improving (greatly, I hope) upon my skills as a geometry teacher. While I cannot say that my classroom management skills are perfect, “controlling” my classes is no longer something that I think about during every waking moment – or often at all. I no longer feel the need to vent for hours to my boyfriend, my parents, or, let’s face it, anyone who would even pretend to listen, about the stresses of my day.

I’ve even branched out beyond my classroom – thinking a lot about the math department as a whole – successfully pushing to change Geometry and Algebra II to full year, rather than semester long classes, and spending a lot of time brainstorming ways to improve my school’s new AP program.

Up to now though, my department has really been the extent of my educational thoughts. Of course, I read the Baltimore Sun and the NYTimes and Detention Slip (ahem), for updates about education as a whole, and I greatly enjoy reading other blogger’s input about major issues going on in Baltimore. But, for the most part, I’ve never felt informed enough about these issues to express my own opinions.

Which is part of the reason why I am so, so glad to be taking an urban school reform course this semester. Now I'll get to go all Hermione Granger on everyone and tell you all what is RIGHT!

I think I may have just officially announced what a nerd I am -- full disclosure: I love Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, the Dune novels, His Dark Materials, regularly wear a math t-shirt, Shakespeare t-shirt, and evolution t-shirt, majored in chemistry, play kakuro fairly obsessively, and calculate how to get more pizza at Iggie's when on a date (split the 14 inch pizza rather than getting individual 8 incher. This is not to be more romantic but rather to eat more delicious pizza. Also, order the Alice).

Now, enough about nerdiness. Let's get back to the important topic of Urban Reform. I am very excited that not only will I be learning about reform in urban schools, I will also get to blog about it -- and not just here! I’m sure a lot of you already know about The Challenge to Care in Charm City blog, and will be happy to know that it’s starting up again for the spring semester. I think the first post is supposed to be up next Monday.

So, Thursday is shaping up to be my favorite day of the week this spring. My Urban Reform class is on Thursday nights and so is The Office. Enough said.

Hello again, friends.

2009-01-24T14:32:00.000-08:00

I have no excuse for my longish absence from posting – only that there was nothing much (school-wise, not historically – obviously) to write about.

Last week was a three-day week of half-days due to midterms. I can happily say that as of yesterday at about 11:30 a.m. I was completely done with grading both midterms and the second quarter, and had even filled out the bubble sheet on which we report grades. Bragging about this fact made some of my colleagues call me names. I’m OK with that because they’re just jealous – and seriously, I am NEVER on top of grading – EVER. I get to brag if it’s the only time this decade that I’m going to be on top of things.

The Geometry kids did pretty much as expected on the midterm – students who pay attention and try did well and students who don’t pay attention or never come to school failed. There were no trick questions – just very straightforward problems to complete – so every single child was capable of passing the test.

Meanwhile, the AP Stats test was very, very hard – by far, I’m sure, the hardest test they’ve ever taken. There was a tough multiple-choice section, which the boys really struggled with (I say boys not because the girls did better – for some reason there are zero girls in my AP Stats class). The average grade on that section was about a 35%, so clearly I did some scaling. They also had four free-response questions to complete, which were real problems from previous AP exams, and I was OK with how they did on those – and actually very impressed with a few students. The top-scoring student is a student who has never gotten the top score on any tests or quizzes in the class, and I was SO excited to tell him. I think I was more excited for him than he was for himself.

Now I’m planning as much as I can ahead of time for AP Stats before graduate classes start up again next week and suck all the energy out of me. I have a brand new grading system for the second semester of Statistics, which I’m excited to implement and that I really hope will get the students to DO THEIR HOMEWORK -- FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

This semester, homework will be worth 20% of their grade, and it includes problems from the textbook as well as chapter outlines. I am absolutely sure that only two of my nine students ever read the textbook, and they all need to be reading it. I use Bock, Velleman, and De Veaux’s Stats: Modeling the World, and it is absolutely the best math textbook I’ve ever seen – very friendly and readable. The kids need a second look at the material, after I've introduced it, for it to really sink in. They also need to get used to learning from a textbook.

Also this semester, I am going to allow students to retake their tests (a different version, of course) if they are unhappy with their performance, but the maximum grade that they can receive on the retake is their homework average. So if only 70% of homework is done – the best grade they can get on the retake is a 70%.

We’ll see. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to teaching this class again next year, knowing what I know now.

The Learning Curve

2009-01-04T13:34:00.000-08:00

The learning curve for my AP Stats students has been incredibly steep. In the past, they've breezed though classes, never studying and always getting the A that's so important to them. They finished all their work and even their homework with 15 minutes to spare in the class period. Nothing was particularly difficult, or required any real effort. They've never had to ask for extra help, and rarely ask questions during class, because they always understand everything immediately. Their classes are filled with students on multiple levels in which their teachers are expected to "differentiate" instruction to students who are on a third grade reading level while also reaching the gifted and talented (i.e. the teachers are asked to do the impossible). They have always been the smartest kids in the class. Math classes were especially easy for these kids who are so good at memorizing and applying simple algorithms.

And then came AP stats. None of them studied for the first quiz. They all failed it. One student studied for the second test. All but one failed (hmmm.. coincidence? I think not.) They were expected to write about concepts, in full sentences and (gasp) paragraphs! They were angry that we weren't doing "regular" math, the math that they'd always done -- memorizing and applying algorithms. Instead they had to think and explain concepts with which even I sometimes struggle.

I was (and still am) barely a chapter ahead of them. The week long AP summer institute that I attended has been a GREAT help -- thank you, thank you, Michael Allwood. It reviewed some of the statistics that I was rusty on. And to be honest, it taught me some statistics that I never learned in the one statistics class that I took in college. (Have I mentioned that I didn't major in math?) I learned a lot of secrets about the test that the AP test readers are in on, and that has helped me to focus my instruction.

I jumped in way too fast with my kids. I expected, from day one, that they knew how to study (or even that they should study! gah!), how to take good notes, how to read a textbook, how to do homework every night, how to work together in a study group, how to organize their time, how to pay attention for 60 minutes, how to be in a class with only the top kids, etc. etc. It was a lot to expect of them -- and it wasn't wrong of me to expect it. But, now I know that next year I have a lot of extra-curricular concepts to teach to my students as we go.

We lost six students in the first two or three weeks. Students who are absolutely capable of doing the work but who realized that it would be work. I have promises from a few that they'll take it next year and I sincerely hope that they do.

For the most part, my AP Stats kids have improved incredibly since the beginning of the year. They are more apt to complete their homework, they ask intelligent questions, and they just seem to "get it." They hunkered down to get their winter break packet done immediately, and I even got a text message half way through break from a student asking me to email him another copy since he lost his and could I email him another one. Another e-mail from a student who I emailed the packet to since was absent on the day I passed it out says:

Ms. [Smallest Twine} I aint doin this...

Just kiddin, I dont have Microsoft Word. I have WordPerfect. So, i cant download the file b/c i dont have the program that u used.

ima still try and hopefully...hopefully, ms [smallest twine] it'll come up...Merry belated Christmas

Oh, i just thought of something. i can go to the library and print it out there.

Do you see why I love these kids?

Two days before Christmas complaining

2008-12-23T09:00:00.001-08:00

I got to school late today (well, late for me, not actually late) because I was exhausted from staying up late making a packet for my AP students to complete over the break. Don't worry, it's not that bad -- and it's all review for the midterm. I'm not THAT evil.

As soon as I got to school I tried to print out the packet. My printer was working fine and then, suddenly, in the middle of the last page, it stopped working. And then a cockroach crawled out of my printer. Please let me repeat. A COCKROACH CRAWLED OUT OF MY PRINTER.

Then it crawled back in. I had a student kill it -- but he was unsuccessful in getting the thing back OUT of my printer. So I have a dead cockroach in my printer. Eh, at least it works.

Then, I went downstairs to make copies of said winter break packet only to find that someone had jammed the copier and then just left it like that (bastard). At this point I have about 8 minutes until first period. I unjammed the copier, made my copies in record time, and then sprinted back up to my classroom. Good thing I had sneakers on.

And then only 3 students showed up to 1st period -- there are 33 on roll.

Six students (out of nine) showed up to AP Stats.

Four out of 33 students showed up to 5th period.

So I saw 13 students today. The geometry classes were a complete waste -- kids just did make up work or worked on an activity from the show Numb3rs. At least Stats was successful -- I sold the kids on doing the packet and they wanted to get right to work on it.

I'll leave here today at exactly 3:05, run home to pack, and then a long drive to Massachusetts. If we hadn't had "school" today, I'd be home by now.

Some good things...

2008-12-12T09:04:00.001-08:00

On Monday, a student screaming, yelling, and jumping around like crazy because he earned a total of 1602 on his HSAs. For those of you not from Baltimore – the HSAs are the exams that students must pass (or achieve a total score of 1602) in order to graduate from high school. The tests are in Algebra I/Data Analysis, English II, Biology, and Government. Most of our seniors have not fulfilled the HSA requirement, so a lot of them are working their butts off to pass or to complete the “bridge projects” which can give them more points. But don’t get me started on how they should’ve been working hard before senior year….

Last Friday, I did not teach statistics. Instead, we had a class meeting during which I expressed what I expect from the kids, and they expressed what they expect from me. What I want them to do: homework, take notes, ask questions, read the book. What they want me to do: more practice with multiple choice questions, more practice in general (although I explained that the homework, which up to now they haven’t done, is supposed to be that practice), and more fun activities. We also decided that students who do not turn in the homework will not receive the test scale. This is a really big deal, since the scale I use can dramatically increase a student’s grade. I’m hoping that the scale is enough of an incentive for students to do all the homework.

This week there has been a huge improvement in engagement, and everyone passed the test on Thursday! Very, very, exciting.

And most importantly,

I AM DONE WITH HOPKINS CLASSES UNTIL JANUARY.

Cheating Part III

2008-12-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

As you may recall, the three students who copied each other on the take-home quiz had to write essays. Two of the students wrote very lovely essays that showed their remorse, and that perhaps they had learned their lessons. And then, three weeks late, I received the third essay.

"Copying or cheating is morally wrong but everyone has their reason, my peers and I are the same. I copied because I feel as though I was not being taught to the best of my teacher's ability. When we ask for help, the first thing I hear is 'ask your classmates.' If I don't know, what makes you think they know? I'm not saying that my explanation excuses action, but it should be known."

I literally, don't know what to say to this. I'm sorry, but did he just tell me that his cheating is MY FAULT? Because I'm not trying hard enough? Because I try to make the kids work together and teach each other something? I cannot POSSIBLY have read that correctly.

He later goes on to say that he didn't really cheat.

"Now, correct me if I'm wrong - the answers weren't exactly the same. It would not be for me to talk myself out of this because no matter what I say I'm wrong. So I'm saying that I am sorry."

Oh OK -- he's sorry. Sorry that it was my fault that I didn't work hard enough and am so lazy that I don't answer questions and make kids work together so he was forced to cheat.

This is a GOOD kid -- who, this week, has made some progress in getting homework done and actually trying to understand the material. He's a smart kid, a stubborn kid -- he's the kid who I have previously written about who drives me crazy with his constant arguments.

In other words, blah.

Thanksgiving "break"

2008-11-28T10:05:00.000-08:00

I would like to jump on the complaining-about-not-having-the-day-before-Thanksgiving-off train. I wrote three office referrals on Wednesday because the kids were all kinds of wound up about the impending holiday. I left work at exactly 3:10, ran home to pack and left Baltimore at about 4:45. I arrived at the Cape (Cod, that is) at about 3 am. I am exhausted. I need to do some major lesson planning for the coming weeks. The first part of my Hopkins portfolio is due on Monday (resume, professional goals, educational philosophy).

BUT, Monday is also the day that I can upgrade to an iPhone. So, it's all good.

On how I went insane...again.

2008-11-24T13:33:00.000-08:00

During 5th period today I inexplicably started teaching with a southern accent. We were working with 30-60-90 triangles, and I kept saying "tahhmes the square root of thray." That's supposed to be times the square root of three. Have I mentioned that I'm from Massachusetts and went to college in Connecticut? I stopped myself mid-twang, and asked the kids "am I speaking with a southern accent?" They all silently nodded at me with wide eyes. My students are never silent. I think they were afraid of my obvious insanity.

In other news, I had a very funny/eye-opening conversation with my "literacy" class about race. My favorite part of the conversation:

Student 1: "So, you know how all white people . . ."

Me: "Wait, stop that sentence right there. What is wrong with what you just said?"

Student 1: "Oh, I'm sorry Ms. Smallest Twine. You know how all Caucasian people . . ."

The conversation was pretty much 20 minutes of "this is what all white people do" and "this is how all black people act." I kept interrupting them, attempting to point out their crazy generalizations.

Me: "Guys, you're saying that ALL white people act that way. I don't act that way."

Student 1: "That's because you're black, Ms. Smallest Twine."

I rolled up my sleeve so that the light reflected off of my skin, blinding everyone in the room. Really? Really, kids?

Busy Busy Busy

2008-11-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

It's been quite a week - and tomorrow should be interesting as well.

1. Monday and Tuesday and the first half of Wednesday were FABULOUS days -- I did not yell once, I was happy at all times, the students were wonderful and engaged and did all of their work with minimal complaint -- not only that, but they seemed INTO it. Thank you distance and midpoint formulas!

2. On Tuesday I had my formal observation -- and it was literally the best lesson that I have ever taught. I introduced my stats kids to randomness and simulations and they were positively tickled to have their names on the worksheet. For example: Simulation 1: Devante "The Best Player Ever" Smith has a 92% free shot success rate. How many free shots do you expect him to make in a row? Tickled! The 9 boys in my class were giggling and looking ahead at the rest of the problems to see if their name was in it and what weird, terribly uncreative nickname I had come up with for them.

3. Today was not as fun in that same stats class. I have a student who argues with EVERYTHING that I say -- I think just for the sake of arguing. Sometimes the other kids tell him to shut up (which tends to cause an argument -- so, this is not helpful), and sometimes they chime in (also not helpful). It eats up so much time because usually I'm just trying to make a point. For example, today I introduced different types of sample survey bias. One type of bias is called response bias, and as an example, I asked them "If a person came up to you and said: This restaurant is know for having the best food in the world -- it's fabulous and everyone loves it. Should the restaurant hire a different chef? What would you say?" You can see that the wording of the survey question suggests that the "correct" answer is no, they shouldn't hire a new chef. So, I'm using this as a quick example and hope to move on quickly to the next type of bias. BUT NO -- it turns into "I would say yes because they should try something new and what if I don't like really good food and only like bad food and blah blah blah argue argue argue waste time etc." And then I want to kill myself.

Earlier in the lesson I had been explaining how you can just take a sample of something to test it -- for example, to test a pot of soup, you don't eat the whole soup, you just eat a bite -- since a spoonful is representative of the whole pot. I would say that half the class disagreed with me on this and insisted that each spoonful of soup tastes COMPLETELY different and that the bottom tastes better than the top. So I'm all "well the soup is stirred very well so all the ingredients are totally random within the pot" (which is actually an important concept) and they still insist that the bottom tastes better. They may just be screwing with me -- or trying to waste time. Either way I'm very frustrated.

4. Tomorrow the kids have a basketball tournament between grades during the last two periods of the day. I hate this. Not because I'm mean and not because I don't think that it's a good idea. I think it's wonderful to have school wide activities like this. What I don't like is that students are required to pay a dollar to get in. In the middle of a school day. To go to a school activity. In a school where most kids qualify for free lunch. Students who do not have the $1 to pay have to stay in their classes. With their teachers. Who are supposed to do what with them? Because I sure as hell can't teach a lesson with most kids missing. Also, I want to watch the tournament, not stay in my classroom with a bunch of disappointed and bored kids.

5. I will be bringing in a whole bunch of $1 bills tomorrow

Cheating Part II

2008-11-11T15:24:00.000-08:00

I had "the talk" with my students today. My department chair and I pulled them out of their 6th period study hall to meet with them. They had to wait a few minutes while I got the 6th period class that I was teaching settled, and I didn't tell them why we were meeting -- so by the time we got into the room the kids were a little bit nervous. Good.

I started off by telling them that there was incontrovertible evidence of cheating on the last page of the test. All three students left the last question blank; all three students wrote very similar, incorrectly calculated answers. Two of the boys (who are best friends and are two of my absolute favorite students) looked SO guilty. The other boy started off with an immediate and loud denial, but my IST cut him off and he didn't say anything for the rest of the meeting. The boys didn't make eye contact with me at all throughout the meeting, and again, they looked really really guilty.

I hit all my major talking points -- I'm disappointed in you, if you did this in college you could potentially be kicked out for at least a semester, you've lost a lot of my trust and respect (which can be earned back -- silver linings, people), you're getting zeros, you need to write two page essays on academic honesty. You're lucky you're not seniors asking for college recommendations right now because I could not write them. You obviously think that I'm stupid because you thought I wouldn't notice. I work my butt off for this class and this is the lazy response I get. And.... you made me cry. That was the one that made them look really really guilty.

So yes, I was very harsh -- and probably the meanest that I've ever been to these boys. But, nothing I said was anything but the truth and I love these kids and want them to learn this very important lesson NOW, before they get to college and potentially face much, much worse consequences for cheating.

To make myself feel better I called twenty students' homes -- mostly positive phone calls. There's nothing like the happiness of a parent (or grandparent, or aunt's, or whoever's) voice when you tell them that their kids is awesome (in more professional words, of course...or not, whatever).

Cheating

2008-11-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

On Friday I handed out a take-home-quiz to my AP Statistics students. We had a 15 minute discussion about the rules of take-home quizzes, including what was acceptable for this quiz (using the book= yes, talking to anyone about it = no). I told them stories about my days on the academic honor council at my school -- including stories about students getting kicked out for 1.5 years for cheating. We even discussed the University of Virginia's honor code.

Today I collected the quizzes -- well I collected 4 out of 9 of them -- one student "lost" his, another student had left it in my classroom on Friday, one was absent on Friday and two were absent today -- so kind of a mess. During my last period prep I graded them.

Three out of the four quizzes that I read had near identical answers to the last 3 problems. Identical WRONG and INCOMPLETE answers. It seems not only did the students talk about the quiz with someone else, they blatantly copied. So actually, maybe they did follow the rules I laid out by not talking and just copying. GREAT. Also, they apparently think so little of me and my brains that they thought they'd get away with it.

I was very very close to tears -- in fact, I still am. This is the downfall of having close relationships with students (which is usually a good thing!) I am so profoundly disappointed in them and to be honest, pretty hurt by their lack of respect toward me and toward the class that I am working my ass off to make successful.

I talked to my principal after school and we decided that I would a) give them zeros b) make them retake it (although-- I still want to give them 0's so I'm not sure how that works) c) have them write an essay about a specific honor code and d) call their parents. I'm also going to meet with them, hopefully with my academic dean present, and try to convey to them the seriousness of this. These are kids who I would have LOVED to write recommendations for for college, and at this point, if they asked me within the next few months, I would have to tell them no -- they've lost my trust and a lot of my respect.

This sucks.

In case you were wondering...

2008-10-31T15:12:00.000-07:00

This, my friends, is what happens when a student gets SO excited that he knows the answer to a question (specifically, a question whose correct answer will earn him a mini Snickers bar) that he jumps out of his chair and knocks over his desk onto your foot.

Just in case you were wondering.

P.S. X-Rays show that my foot is not broken.

Why technology sucks (or maybe it's just me...)

2008-10-22T15:21:00.001-07:00

Some days are disasters. Today was one of those days.

Last night I spent a few hours creating a game of Jeopardy on powerpoint, to be shown via my LCD projector. I made said game on my macbook (this mention of my computer is important, I promise -- I am not Kanye West blogging about typing away on my Mac Air).

At school, I realized that I didn’t have the adaptor cord that connects my Mac to the LCD projector. In fact, I have no idea where it is and haven’t seen it all year. That’s fine – I also have a regular old PC laptop (thanks Baltimore City), which connects to the projector. So I emailed the powerpoint to myself and was ready to go. Ha. I wish it was that easy.

All the figures and pictures that I had put in the powerpoint wouldn’t show up – instead, they showed some message about Quicktime and a decompressor. A quick Google search (I did a google) told me that even if I downloaded those things the pictures still wouldn’t show up. GREAT. At this point it was about 8:08 am. First period starts at 8:15 am.

I ended up taking screen shots of EVERY SLIDE (which DO translate from Mac to PC). But that took a while, and I did it while reviewing the review packet that students had done for homework (watch me teach! Watch me juggle ten things at once!) While I’m reviewing the packet and fixing Jeopardy, one of the assistant principal walks in, apparently to make sure that I’ve made sure that students are in uniform -- which I am diligent about (to the point that students really complain about how crazy I am) EVERY DAY except, of course, today – because I’m teaching and fixing my computer AT THE SAME TIME.

Hello again!

2008-10-09T08:07:00.000-07:00

I can’t believe that I haven’t posted yet in October! Can you tell that things are a little crazy?

Last weekend was the Fells Point Festival, and as resident of Fells Point… well, I didn’t get much work done. I had to be chauffeured by a friend to my Saturday Hopkins class because I was NOT moving my car.

This weekend I’m off to a fancy-schmancy black-tie wedding in Philly and the weekend after that my parents are coming to town. I’m super excited for both of those events, but they leave me with little time to do some major planning and some major sitting on my butt, watching movies, and playing kakuro (yes, I’m a nerd…deal).

I’m not going to write about teaching today (and yes, I’m aware that that’s the point of this blog) because I know that anything I write will be negative. I’m frustrated – with my administration, with my students, and with myself.

Oh! I thought of something positive! Today I told my students that I would NOT help them with their math classwork. Usually I run around like crazy helping the kids out with the problems, but I think that they rely way to much on me, and instead of figuring things out for themselves, their first response is to ask me (and only me, no other student) for help. I thought things went pretty well, and the kids seemed to "get it!"

Real life students!

2008-09-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

My geometry students are performing phenomenally well. As I look around after I’ve assigned a problem, I see a real classroom – almost every child working hard on getting the answer – asking each other how they got their answers, and then listening alertly as I go over the problem, or even better, listening alertly and politely as another student goes to the board and reviews the problem.

Last year, I cried after I graded the first unit test. The test was easy and yet, so many students failed it. This year, the test was significantly more difficult – with algebra problems that the students had to set up and solve – and covered more content. And yet, only 5 students, out of the 31 who took it, failed. And those students have very spotty attendance. In my first period class, five students earned a 99%.

There are a number of things that are different this year – I have a year of teaching (and classroom management!) under my belt, we’re on a semester schedule, so I have the kids for 60 minutes every day instead of 80 minutes every other day, I’m giving them partially filled in Cornell notes – which include the geometry figures already on the page so we don’t waste time drawing them, I’m assigning homework every night, I have a system for passing out/turning in papers that saves time, and I’m teaching study skills (like the Cornell notes and flashcards). But it’s definitely not just me and my amazing teaching skills (though I’d love to take all the credit).

Our students just seem more like students this year. They are doing their homework (for the most part) and they are really engaged and interested in doing well. I have had kids at coach class during lunch and after school every day. Attendance is much better (although 1st period continues to be a problem). They are studying for their quizzes and tests. When we played Geometry Jeopardy, they told me that the questions that I made up were too easy and that I had to make them harder next time.

I’ve raised my expectations and the students are not only rising to meet them, they’re asking me to raise them even more. Damn, maybe the first test will make me cry this year too – but I’ll take that kind of crying.

My Positive Post

2008-09-17T16:49:00.000-07:00

Things that went well today (since this is a positive post):

1. My AP told me that my classroom looks much better this year. (Last year I got in "trouble" for having a messy room. Let's be honest, it regularly looks like a bomb has gone off in my room -- but we're learning) I've been trying hard to keep things organized which is a very real struggle for me and my scattered brain.

2. The seating assignment for my 5th period class went pretty well and there was minimal complaining. I was impressed.

3. I quit my job as HSA Recovery Program Coordinator b/c it was just too much. So far this year, I have felt like I have been stretched thin -- doing a lot, but not very well. I feel better already.

4. I scrapped the ridiculous story that I was supposed to read to my students during their literacy period -- that's right, I teach 40 minutes of "literacy" every day. I reached my breaking point with the poorly planned literacy curriculum. Instead, I'm reading them Richard Connell's "The Most Dangerous Game." Some of them my students had read it before, but they still wanted to hear it. We're finishing it tomorrow. And don't get me started on how this is a literacy class but they have yet to really read or write much at all. (This doesn't count as being negative -- shut up.) I'm thinking of doing Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" next.

Ok -- just one negative thing. Back-to-school night was tonight and I only met one parent (who was lovely -- see! positive!). But it was disappointing to only meet one parent.

Also, I sang my version of Fergilicious to my kids ("I be up on the calculator working on statistics...") They now think I'm really really really crazy.

Why am I writing right now? I should be working!

2008-09-16T14:58:00.000-07:00

I'm too tired to come up with a clever title to this post (although... have I ever come up with a clever title?)

I feel completely overwhelmed and it doesn't seem like it's going to let up anytime soon. I should not have signed up to teach a Kaplan SAT prep course on weekends because it is sucking away all my time. I should not have agreed to be the HSA Recovery program coordinator, because even though I pretty much just input data, I don't have time to do it and it needs to get done. Also, there's the whole graduate school thing -- and I'm a week late on my assignments.

The AP Stats class takes a lot of time to prepare -- and even though I'm doing a better job, my students are just not getting it. I've decided to restructure some of their assignments -- I'm no longer just telling them to do the reading, I'm making them answer questions about the reading . I've never written questions about readings before (an English teacher I am not -- although I was an English major...) and I'm hoping that that will make a difference in their understanding for this chapter.

I lost my temper for the first time this year. I can only be calm so many times when I ask a student to stop talking, she acknowledges me, and then turns to talk again. I made a seating chart -- all hell may break loose tomorrow.

Ahhhh, venting does not make me feel better, it only makes me feel more stressed out. I would like to write a well written post but it seems that I never have the time... or the energy.

I even had to cancel a dinner out with a friend and she was going to pay for it. SHE WAS GOING TO PAY FOR IT AND I CANCELED. See, this is extreme.

Also, I need to lose a few pounds, but when the heck am I supposed to work out?

I am officially done complaining. My next post will be positive. I promise.

Crazy Day

2008-09-12T13:37:00.000-07:00

Today was not a usual day at school. At the end of 2nd period, there was a "fire drill" announcement. Turns out it wasn't actually a fire drill -- it was a gas leak in the building. We stood outside with the kids for a little more than hour (all during my planning period -- I really have the worst luck!), then the kids went to lunch, and then school resumed as usual.

I was expecting my kids to be totally off the wall when they came to 5th period. Instead, we got right down to work, and even the kid who came in saying "I ain't doing any work today," later told me "I changed my mind" and handed in a perfect worksheet. I was impressed. In fact, I'd say that my kids worked even better today than usual -- my 5th period tends to be a little crazy, in part because it is right after lunch.

I tried something new today, and I was really happy with how it worked. I wanted my students to review finding missing angles, so I created three worksheets, each harder than the last one (I think this is called a "tiered" assignment -- but whatever). I told the kids that when they finished the first worksheet, they had to bring it to me at my desk, I would check it, and if everything was right they would get a 100 and then move on to the next worksheet. If they had mistakes they had to fix them to earn the 100.

The kids were really into it, and they wanted to get at least two 100's for the day (no one got the third possible 100 -- the last worksheet was very difficult -- and it kept those upper level kids really engaged). I think all but one student got at least one 100, so I was really happy with that.

Also, I picked up something from Artscape this summer that I think helped the process. There was a booth with a trash can and a recycling can in front of it that had a bunch of young men in suits standing around it. Every time a passerby correctly recycled something, the guys would start cheering like crazy. We stood there for a while, waiting for a friend to meet us, so I got to see this happen a bunch of times -- and the guys' enthusiasm never faded.

So every time a student handed me a worksheet that earned a 100% -- I would yell (I mean, really yell) "WE GOT A 100!!! WOOOOOO!!!" I think the kids thought it was fun -- and they are now sure that I'm insane.

AP means Advanced Placement...

2008-09-09T14:58:00.000-07:00

My AP Stats class is improving, but not fast enough. I've talked to the AP Bio teacher (who has many of the same students) and we're having the same problems -- kids are not doing the work, but they sure are complaining about it.

Their first quiz was so bad that I didn't even grade it because it would have been demoralizing for me to put scores like 18 and 23%. I told them that they have to come to coach class, learn the material, and then retake it. Number of students who have retaken the quiz so far? Zero. I think that not writing the grades on the quiz was a mistake -- if they had seen how dismally they performed, maybe that would have been more shocking than me just telling them that it was awful. I know for next time.

The second quiz, which I just finished grading, was a small improvement on the first, with 3 out of the 14 students passing, and a few more pretty close to passing. Of course, one student DID get an 18%, and clearly had absolutely no concept of what was going on. Otherwise, I could tell that even the students who failed at least somewhat understood the concepts -- it's just that they're execution was poor.

The thing that got me upset though, was that after the quiz I asked how many students did NOT study (and you'll remember that after the last quiz, 13/14 students admitted to not studying), and still, 8 or 9 students raised their hands to indicate that they hadn't bothered.

I talked to my assistant principal, and we're going to meet with all the AP students this Friday to try to talk some sense into them. They're not rising to our expectations, even though they are perfectly capable. Hopefully the meeting will have an impact. I'm also going to start calling parents tomorrow. Cross your fingers.

More complaining! YAY!

2008-09-04T15:00:00.000-07:00

Sorry for my lack of posting – I’m trying to get myself together and have not yet figured out how to work less than 12 hour days (although maybe I’m not the only one). I was in my school building for 11 hours yesterday – from 7 am to 6 pm, then went to Hopkins from 6:45-8:45, then went home and graded for a bit. I’m complaining, it’s true, but I have to admit that I loved almost every moment of the very busy day (minus the grading). But I would also have liked to watch the convention speeches – but I just don’t have the time. I have a mentor this year, and I asked to help me not work as much – we’ll see how that goes. Also, starting next week, I’ll have another planning period to get some work done.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m teaching AP Statistics. This is the first year that my school has offered AP classes and our students do NOT understand the rigor, workload, and difficulty that are an integral part of Advanced Placement classes. My students are complaining that they have to bring their textbook home and back to school everyday, that they have homework (and reading!) to do every night, that they have to take a lot of notes and long term projects, etc. etc. Part of me wants to say, “Welcome to High School!” I sometimes really wish that I could bring my students into my Massachusetts, pretty-normal, suburban high school so that they could see what I did when I was their age (damn, I’m getting old – “when I was your age… blah blah blah complain”). It’s so frustrating that they don’t even KNOW that a lot of their education has sucked.

They all failed their first quiz pretty miserably. When I asked how many of them had studied for the quiz, one hand went up (out of 15 students). That one student got a 60% (ok, so not all of the kids failed, but close enough). The rest admitted that they hadn’t studied. When I asked how many students were used to not studying and still getting A’s – all hands went up. When I asked how many kids now understand that that won’t fly in an AP course, all hands were reluctantly raised. I hope that means I’ll see a change. I should also admit that I think that part of the terrible grades was my not-so-great teaching last week; this week has been much better.

I’m very worried. While about 60% of Americans pass the AP Statistics exam, only 25% of Black Americans pass. Read that again, seriously, because it is ridiculous and beyond appalling. I would love for all of my students to pass the exam, but even more, I want my students to experience the type of workload and expectations that they are likely to see in college and that they SHOULD have seen throughout high school. My school is moving in the right direction, and I’m really glad to be a part of the movement.

Finally, I would like to say that I hit ALL THE GREEN LIGHTS on the way to school again today. I am awesome.

P.S. I promise to write a positive post soon :) I really am very happy, though you probably can't tell. I really heart my students.

The difference one year makes.

2008-08-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

What a difference a year of teaching makes. I wrote my first referral yesterday and it was nothing like the first referral that I wrote last year. Last year, I wrote up Shakira (obviously I am going to use fake names here) because she refused to change her seat when I asked her to. I thought that I had to make a stand and show that I wouldn’t back down and be really firm and mean, etc. Little did I know, that the seat I asked (no, told) Shakira to move to was next to a girl that she had fought with the previous week (I found this out toward the end of the year, when Shakira and I were on much better terms.)

Well, Shakira refused to go to the office – made a big scene, cursed at me, slammed the door, came back in, etc. I had no idea what to do, and got lucky that my principal happened to be out in the hall. Have I mentioned that I didn’t have a phone in my classroom last year? And that I still don’t have one this year…

This year, I’m pretty sure that most students in the class didn't even noticed when I sent a student to the office (not that he actually WENT there…)

I’m a better teacher – my geometry lessons so far pretty much kick ass. My AP Stats class on the other hand… not as good. I don’t have enough time in the day to prepare everything that I need to. I’m up by 5:45 am and then working non-stop until 10 or 11, when I fall into bed. The AP Stats material is difficult and I just need more time to create good, meaningful and engaging lessons for the students. They seem pretty confused so far – which has to be my fault. Hopefully, this weekend I’ll be able to plan out the entire week and make all the worksheets/handouts/etc. that I need so that I’m not killing myself next week.

Anyway, here are my favorite parts of the week:

1. Making EVERY GREEN LIGHT on the way to school today. I’ve never done that. It was awesome.

2. Eating lunch today with a student who wanted extra help. I brought him in some pita bread and hummus to try and he LOVED it. (He had warned me yesterday that I should also bring him a bag of chips too, just in case he didn’t like hummus.)

3. “Ms. Smallest Twine, do you know that you look like Ricki Lake? … when she’s skinny though . . . not fat Ricki Lake.” Ummmm.. thanks? Also, I don’t think I look like Ricki Lake – at least, no one has ever told me that. I am, however, a white woman with brown hair. Ahh, if only the kids knew who Norma Shearer was – because that’s who I look like.

4. Student: “You cut your hair!”
Me: “I did! What do you think?”
Student: “Eh, it’s OK.”

I had forgotten how much kids look at you all day – and how much ownership they take in how you look because you are their teacher. Last year, I was asked several times if I had a “hot date” because I wore my hair in a ponytail instead of a bun. This also happened the day I wore a skirt. Thanks kids, for letting me know that I’ve let myself go.

Zzzzzz... and Happy Birthday to me!

2008-08-27T13:53:00.001-07:00

I'm still exhausted. This year has gotten to a MUCH better start than last year with classroom management and pedagogy. A LOT better.

Like Teach Baltimore, and Baltimore Diary, I had a visit from Alonso yesterday, which made my heart stop beating for a second. (Seriously, is that man EVERYWHERE -- or does he just like bloggers?) He was with just my principal who introduced him to my class and talked to him about how I'm teaching AP Statistics this year, so it wasn't very threatening. I even babbled something about pi to him.

My kids are ADORABLE. I bet they wouldn't like to be described that way, but they really are. I've been so impressed by how hard they're working , and I even had a student come to coach class today and it's the first week, so that's impressive. Of course, it's Day 3, so I can expect a bit more trouble to come, but we've started very very well.

Also, it's my birthday today. I am officially 24 years old, which is exciting -- but my birthday today will NOT be that exciting. I have Hopkins classes tonight until 8:45. I guess I can hope that we get out early.

That's all I have for now. I need to get better at posting on school days but, as I mentioned, I'm EXHAUSTED.

First day

2008-08-26T03:48:00.001-07:00

The first day of school was exhausting. How exhausting? Let’s just say that I fell asleep at 6 pm last night and woke up at 6:15 this morning.

More later. Too tired to type.

Dancing Queen

2008-08-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

I’ve been complaining a lot on this blog and I haven’t adequately expressed how excited I am about this year. I’m excited to:

-finish setting up my classroom, which is going to be awesome now that I kind of know what I want and what I’m doing.

-get my class lists! How many kids will I have? Do I have enough desks? Which of my kids will be in AP Stats (that’s what I really really really want to know).

-do a really awesome first day of school activity with my AP Stats students.

-meet my new Geometry students and make them like (or even love) math.

Two students came to visit me today while I was working on my classroom. I was listening to my favorite part of Nina Gordon’s “Bad Way” and was really dancing like crazy around the room. Hands in the air, stomping my feet, spinning around, etc. All of a sudden I thought, “I hope no one walks in the room” because I had my eyes closed (I was really into dancing). I opened my eyes and saw one of my students standing in the doorway laughing. No one had even been in my hallway all day, and then as soon as I started dancing… I really have terrible luck.

But this means I got embarrassment out of the way for the year, right? RIGHT?

Morgan State, Getting Little Done, and IKEA

2008-08-21T15:55:00.000-07:00

I’m getting frustrated because once again, I got very little done in my classroom. The day began at Morgan State, where we listened to a fairly interesting talk about student/teacher relationships. To me, the interesting (and shocking) part was the statistics, especially about the over-representation of Black students in special ed, and the under-representation of Black students in gifted/ AP classes. Have I mentioned how excited I am to teach AP Statistics this year?

I was whispering to my awesome friend about the statistics when a teacher sitting behind me shushed me pretty rudely. I think there are polite ways to tell someone that they’re being loud (especially because we had NO idea), and she was not polite. Since she arrived late and left early, I was a little bit annoyed that she was rude to me when clearly she didn’t care enough to stay for the whole thing.

To me, the best part of the talk was the “questions” time. I have questions in quotes because I’m not sure that anyone actually asked questions. Instead they used the time to preach their own opinions, and several “question-askers” got some pretty rousing applause. That was fun.

After a pit-stop to Dunkin Donuts (where I got my iced French vanilla coffee with extra cream and extra sugar – mmmm), we made it back to school where awesome friend and I tried to put up the dry-erase boards that I bought at Home Depot. We used Liquid Nails to attach them to the wall, since I don’t have the tools to drill into concrete. This was kind of a disaster, because we had to lean against the dry-erase boards for 20-30 minutes until the adhesive dried. Ms. Awesome’s dry-erase board kept sliding even after 30 minutes, so we finally put a file cabinet under it to keep it from falling. We’ll cross our fingers that everything is still on the wall tomorrow.

And that’s pretty much all I got done before I left at 3 pm to help Ms. Awesome buy furniture for her new place and now I’m off to help build some IKEA furniture. Which, by the way, I am really good at. It’s one of my best talents. Yes, I’m an awesome friend.

Day 2... and I need better titles.

2008-08-20T18:43:00.000-07:00

I finally got to spend a whole day in my classroom… and I got very little done. Here’s how to have one day go by more quickly than you would imagine:

8:00. Arrive at school. Lug in a whole lot of crap from your car. Feel like you’re dying because you are out of shape.

8:45. Awesome friend arrives and helps you lug stuff in. Sit around to talk and listen to good music. Do no work during this time.

9:30 – 11:15. Departmental meeting. Talk A LOT because you have A LOT of opinions. Then wish you could make yourself and others stop talking because this meeting is almost 2 hours long! When will it end? Continue talking anyway because don’t know how to shut up.

11:15-11:45. Machete way through storage closet. Search for Geometry books and other hidden gems. Find very little, sweat a lot (storage closet is not air conditioned).

11:45-12:00. Paper and border one bulletin board.

12:00-12:15. Need music immediately. Go through entire library of songs to make an awesome preparing-the-room playlist.

12:15-1:30. Go to Subway (mmmm Veggie Patty). Come back and eat food with colleagues and catch up some more.

1:30-2:15. Paper other bulletin board. Make a list of things to get done instead of actually getting things done. Work on syllabus.

2:15. Principal and Asst. Principal ask what you are doing from 3-5 pm. Say, “whatever you want me to do!” Laugh at self for agreeing to do everything, but don’t actually mind.

2:15-2:30. Pack up.

2:30-3:00. Drive to Digital Harbor

3:00-5:00. Go to a meeting dressed in a bright green “Ithaca is Gorges” t-shirt, capri pants, and flip flops while all others are business casual.

That’s just the regular day. Then I went to Home Depot to buy tile-board to use as a dry erase board. I had it cut into two pieces. One of the pieces didn’t fit in my car, so I had to slightly-shame-facedly go back in to get it cut smaller.

Then I went to Pasta Mista for dinner. Ahhh, it was a good day.

First day back to work...

2008-08-19T18:35:00.000-07:00

Teachers reported back to work today. I wanted to get right to my classroom to work on it and to finalize my syllabi and to do a million other things that I’ve been working on all summer but that all of a sudden need to actually be DONE. But, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow to dig in because our first day back was a long, off-site, day of professional development.

The day was supposed to set the tone for the school year – we all agreed with each other that we love our kids and that we want them to be loved, etc., etc., and we learned a bit about the changes to this school year.

#1. No more A/B day schedule – i.e. no more me teaching 175 students. YES!
#2. My arch-nemesis no longer works at our school! YES!

Arch-nemesis is a little strong, since she had no idea that I thought that she was a terrible excuse for a teacher and didn’t care about students AT ALL. Why didn’t she know? Because I’m a terrible excuse for a person who stands up for herself and I let her walk all over me. Blech. But! Because she’s gone, I’m not even going to complain about her . . . anymore. She can’t hurt our students with her idiocy anymore!

I actually spent a lot of the day whispering and catching up with an awesome friend who was out of state all summer. And then, suddenly the day was over and I headed back home to work on those syllabi and watch an episode (or two… ok, or three) of Law and Order SVU on Netflix’s “watch instantly.” Which, like Facebook, is going to be the end of my productivity.

Tomorrow we get to spend the WHOLE day (minus a departmental meeting, which I think will be fun, anyway) in our classrooms. Then, Thursday begins with a talk at Morgan for all Baltimore high school teachers. The parking situation there should be interesting, to say the least.

My Kryptonite

2008-08-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

Besides school supplies, do you know what else I like to spend my money on? Shoes. Mmmmmmm shoes. Shoes, you are my kryptonite. You are my one and only true love. Unfortunately, as a teacher, having to do the whole walking around and teaching thing all day means that I have to wear comfortable shoes. Which, for much of last year, meant wearing some pretty ugly shoes that were very comfy, and which cost only $8 at a DSW sale. Mmmmm sales, I do love a sale.

I wore ugly shoes UNTIL I discovered a cute brand of shoes that are actually comfortable. So, I wanted to share this with all the shoe loving female teachers of the world (female, because Jessica Simpson doesn’t make shoes for men). Yes, you read that right. The Smallest Twine is hereby endorsing Jessica Simpson brand shoes. Did I feel shame writing that last sentence? Perhaps a twinge. I’m aware that it’s ridiculous. But I am also aware of how ridiculously comfortable those shoes are.

See this cute shoe?
I wore these out dancing for HOURS at a bachelorette party two weeks ago. And my feet did not hurt the next morning. I didn’t even know that was possible.

See these babies below?
I will be wearing these teaching this year. I already own them in brown and they don’t require band-aids or crying.

So, I’ve come out of the shoe-closet. I wear Jessica Simpson shoes loudly and proudly. I mean, sometimes they really are a little loud because those blue ones click. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY I AM VERY PROUD. And I am willing to share that with the world. So there.

Show me the money! (yes, this title embarrasses me)

2008-08-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently a lot of cities/states reimburse their teachers for classroom supplies every year. Teachers in Florida, for example, are upset that their allotment has decreased to $200, when last year it was $269. I think that teachers in New York City are being reimbursed for $150 worth of supplies this year (again, a decrease from last year).

So far, I’ve spent about $230 on school supplies, and I’m going out shopping again tonight, where I will probably double that amount. How much with Baltimore reimburse me? That’s right, $0.

To be honest, I’m not that bitter about it. I live and breathe teaching, and since I don’t have a family or anyone/thing to take care of (besides, of course, my cute cute cute guinea pig, Hamlet), I don’t really have a lot to spend money on. I mean, I’m trying to save up to buy a house, and I should probably start saving for a new car (a Honda Fit, please?). So yeah, maybe I’m a little bit bitter -- because I DO live and breathe teaching, but I also am trying (please note the trying there) to have a life too. I want my classroom to be a great environment for my kids, and I try to use DonorsChoose as much as possible to make that happen, but it would be really nice if Maryland cared enough about education to give teachers some money to work with. I can’t even imagine how much money English teachers spend setting up a classroom library.

Last year, when I signed on to teach in Baltimore, new teachers were told that we were going to be given $200 for classroom supplies. That never happened. At least we finally got the laptops which were promised, and then un-promised, and then finally re-promised and given to us in April. Of course, this was after I bought my MacBook (but I can’t regret that… because once you go Mac you never go back… it’s true).

Anyway, I went to my classroom today to drop off some stuff that I bought and to get a head start on setting up my room. Setting up a room takes approximately FOREVER, or at least it did last year. I made a list (of course) for myself of all the things I need to get done, and it takes up an entire sheet of 8.5x11 paper, and I write small! Blech. I don’t know why I’m complaining though, I’m secretly really excited about this. I AM SO EXCITED TO START MY SECOND YEAR! AHH!!

Mmmmm lists

2008-08-14T17:05:00.001-07:00

Just a quick update -- in list form (my favorite!)

1. My DonorsChoose proposal has been fully funded! I'm beyond excited. More about this later.
2. I'm taking two CLEP exams tomorrow (College Math and College Algebra). Hopkins is making me take these to get my masters degree since I didn't major in math.
3. I went to the Barnes and Noble in Towson to buy a study book for above tests, balked at the $35 price tag, and bought that Twilight book that everyone is insane about instead.
4. I then spent the day reading said book instead of studying for the tests.
5. I've decided this was a GREAT decision on my part. I'm not worried about the tests, only worried about how soon I can buy and then devour (haha, the books are about vampires, i'm funny) the rest of the books in the series.

Also, true story about me and books: In general, if I buy what I consider to be a "trashy" book -- aka, Twilight, a romance novel, science fiction, whatever, I feel compelled to also buy something that gives my brain some credit. Why? I think it's because I'm a book snob/english lit major and would TOTALLY judge someone buying a trashy book. But today, I womanned up and just bought the trashy book. And tomorrow, when I buy the next three trashy books in the series, I will do the same. Actually, that's taking it a little far. Nevermind.

P.S.

2008-08-12T12:48:00.000-07:00

In my complaining post below, I forgot to mention that my skin currently looks like red and white tie dye. Let's just say that I'm not the best at applying sunscreen. Did you know that you can get a sunburn in your belly button? True story.

The plan

2008-08-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Teaching 2.5 hours of SAT prep after being up until 3 am at a bachelorette party, waking up at 7 am to drive 3 hours home, preparing for the class and then going right there to find that there is no board space, just a small easel with chart paper and magic markers and 15 kids in the class? Not the best day ever.

However, the kids did laugh at all (ok, most) of my hilarious jokes, so that made it better. I try to make my SAT classes as fun as possible because I know how miserable the kids are to be there – forced by their parents to lose a precious 2.5 weekend hours to take a class – during the summer (ugh!) It’s much different that the GRE classes that I teach, where the students are paying for the expensive class themselves and are highly motivated to do well/do all the homework.

Lately I’ve been thinking about having fun in the classroom. Harry Wong talks a lot about starting the year by procedur-ing students to death (my words obviously, not his). You’re supposed to spend the whole first day teaching the students all the rules and procedures of the classroom, and then you’re supposed to repeat all this throughout the first few weeks. He scares new teachers, telling them “What happens on the first days of school will be an accurate indicator of your success for the rest of the school year.” AHHHHH!!!! Like I’m not under enough pressure, right?

Anyway, you’re not supposed to do anything fun the first days because it gives kids the wrong idea or something. I completely bought into this my first year because I was scared to death of not being in control of my classroom. Really, I bought into everything that people told me, because I wanted something, ANYTHING to cling to.

Now that I have a year of teaching under my belt, I have a plan – but it’s my own plan that has to do with my students. Baltimore has a major attendance problem. I want my kids to want to come to school. I want them to leave on the first day and think that their math class was their favorite class – and I want them to keep that attitude throughout the year. Of course I don’t want discipline problems in my classroom, and of course I want there to be certain procedures that we follow, but I don’t think you need to shove that down kids’ throats the first day of school. Especially in high school, when students are shuffling from one class to another to hear teacher after teacher drone on about rules and procedures.

My plan this year is to give my kids a brief overview of the course and go over my one big rule (respecting yourself and others). But then we’re going to do an activity. As things come up, then I’ll introduce the procedures (what to do if you need a pass, calculator usage, etc), but I want to start off with an engaging activity so that kids are into being there.

So, that’s my plan. You know what my other plan is? To never, ever, sign up to teach an SAT prep class on a day after a bachelorette party. Ever.

The BTU embarrasses me... there, I said it

2008-08-08T06:33:00.000-07:00

I should point out that I don’t know a lot about Baltimore’s political system, or about the ins and outs of BCPSS’s structure. But not knowing much about something has never stopped me in the past from forming an opinion!

The Baltimore Teacher’s Union embarrasses me. I am embarrassed that Marietta English represents me as a teacher. Guess what? While I may not agree with every decision that our CEO, Dr. Alonso, makes, I truly believe that his only motivation is to fix this system for our students. Marietta English and Jimmy Gittings? Their motivations are highly, highly questionable to me.

Every BTU bulletin that I got this year was so childish in nature. I wish I had some now to quote, but I usually threw them out because I couldn’t stand to look at them. The tone would basically be – Dr. Alonso is a mean jerkface and we hate him, but we said some really mean things to him, so we got him good!!11!1! LOLz

Alonso seems like a class act and the union folk seem like little brats that only care about themselves. I read about the union unprofessionally bashing Alonso all the time, but I’ve never read an unkind word said by Alonso.

While reading Sara Neufeld’s newest post on Inside Ed, I kept getting more and more frustrated and angry (this is not difficult task though, I get worked up very easily). I wish I had listened to the WEAA interview so that I could write about this from a more informed standpoint, but reading the quotes that Neufeld picked out got me angry enough.

Here’s a bit of it (but you should go read the whole thing here):

Saying it "hurt me to my heart" when Alonso was named CEO instead of Charlene Cooper Boston, Gittings gave her and Bonnie Copeland credit for the recent increase in test scores. "I am not going to sit idly back and have someone else take the glory from these two ladies and their administration," he said.

Guess what Gittings? No one gives a crap about your heart or your feelings. You know what I care about? The students. Also, I have never heard Alonso take credit for the test score increase, and I’m pretty sure I’ve read every article about it. In fact, I just went back and reread some articles to make sure.

All this political stuff is getting in the way of Alonso making a very needed and real change to BCPSS. I truly believe that anyone who gets in his way (and that isn’t to say that people shouldn’t question his ideas, or suggest new/better ideas) doesn’t care about our students, and only cares about their own butt.

Well, after getting all that off my chest, I’m off to a weekend long bachelorette party on the Jersey Shore. I’ve never been there, but if it’s anything like I’ve heard about, I’m in for a ridiculous time.

Job Fair

2008-08-07T12:26:00.001-07:00

At my first (and thankfully, only) job fair, before BCTR’s summer institute and therefore, before I knew anything about teaching, I learned a lot about education jargon. That doesn’t mean that I walked away knowing what any of it meant, but at least I then knew that it existed.

My first interview was with a woman who used lots of acronyms – VSC, IEP, HSA, HITS – and lots of weird words – differentiated instruction, drill, exit ticket, data driven instruction, higher order thinking skills. Now, of course, these words and acronyms have very obvious meanings to me (although I still think that some of them are BS). But at the time . . . well, it was like I was being interviewed in another language. I faked it the best I could, but it was not an auspicious start to the day.

I still find it incredibly annoying when people (who are usually NOT teachers) start going on and on with the edu-speak. A woman from North Ave once asked me a question that, although I fully understood all the words in the question, I STILL have no idea what she was actually asking me. No idea. I couldn’t even begin to come up with a response. Thankfully, my AP walked in at that moment and answered the question for me. She probably saw the deer-in-headlights look on my face. I’m not exactly an expert at hiding my emotions. Even hearing the answer to the question did not help me understand what the question was in the first place.

Luckily, the first interviewer at the job fair was the only one who went overboard with the acronyms. Even so, it didn’t get any better after that. I felt like I was perpetually waiting in line for interviews and when it was finally my turn I was awkwardly and uncomfortably interrogated by the school’s AP or IST asking, “what do you mean BCTR will only allow you to teach math? But you didn’t even major in math!” (Also, how’s that for some more education jargon? IST’s are Instructional Support Teachers – like department chairs). By the end, I was stressed, miserable, wearing uncomfortable shoes, and feeling very much ready to go home.

Then, a very nice woman, whose table at the job fair was a bit away from all the ruckus, invited me over to talk about her school. She was extremely friendly (I mean, she waved me over to talk to her! No lines!) and we had a wonderful conversation about how you have to care about kids to teach and she told me some stories about teaching. It wasn’t an interview but just a laid back chat that was interesting and completely non-threatening. She told me a bit about the school that she worked at. At the end, I asked her what she did at the school.

“Oh, I’m the principal.”

So, that’s where I ended up working. The miserable day ended on an upswing.

Of course, I then got lost getting from the job fair in Federal Hill to my apartment in Butcher’s Hill. It took me an hour to get home. Shut up.

Teaching is My Girlfriend, Teaching is My Boyfriend

2008-08-06T13:06:00.000-07:00

Teaching consumes my life. It is what I do for a job, what I go to graduate school for, what I dream about in my sleep, what I think about when I zone out, what I often read about, and what I write about (clearly). I’m not sure what my motive for this blog is – self-absorption? I think there must be some of that in every blogger. Part of it is that for a chunk of my first year of teaching I felt a little alone in my struggles. There’s also the fact that I kind of hate a lot of teacher movies (not including Chalk, of course).

As part of the Baltimore City Teaching Residency (BCTR! Wooo!), I definitely had people to turn to who understood my struggles. During the first month of teaching, I overheard a girl at Hopkins admit that she had cried in front of her students. My best-teacher-friend and I turned to each other and cringed together in empathy because that was our greatest nightmare.

But, I also had conversations with first year teachers who claimed that they had no classroom management problems. I am obviously very upfront and open about my problems, so when I share them, I think it’s pretty crappy to pretend that your life is perfect. I would say “blaaahhhhhhhh I had a terrible day and I said this crazy thing and my kids did this out of control thing and kept asking me how old I am and didn’t believe me for some reason when I told them I was 77 and then I called my mom and cried.” Or, you know, something to that effect. To which, I once heard, and I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP. “Oh, that’s so weird because my kids never ask me how old I am or act out of control but they do tell me all the time that I look like Justin Timberlake and/or Hugh Jackman.”

I was later asked to help this person out with their classroom management and then this person left teaching. SO IT’S NOT LIKE THINGS WERE PEACHY.

So yeah, I like to be upfront about my struggles, and my ideas, and everything because I know that it sucks to be lied to about how teaching really is. You know how it’s not? It’s not like in the movies or in a lot of the lamer books. Movies and books about teaching in urban environments are so often of the vein – young white teacher swoops into the rough/scary city to save the (minority) inner city kids – teaching them a lot about math/English/whatever, and learning a lot about herself in the process. BARF. Oh, and that teacher “struggles” at the beginning, but by the end of the year they’re a freaking teacher of the year and amazing and the really bad kid who was in a gang has completely changed and it’s all because of the teacher! Yayy!! Yeah, not like that. It's less than that. And it's more than that.

Also, Stand and Deliver? That teacher was a total perv and I can’t get anyone to agree with me on that.

Chalk

2008-08-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

If you haven’t seen the movie Chalk yet – you need to get on that. If you have Netflix you can watch it instantly on the “watch now” thingy. It’s a mockumentary about teaching . . . and it is awesome. Clearly, I should not be a professional movie reviewer. Here’s the trailer:

I love when Mr. Lowry yells at his students because it reminds me of me. I am totally ineffective when I yell, and I sound ridiculous to boot. My voice gets kind of high pitched and I can never think of good things to yell so I really just sound stupid. I think I yelled a lot in the first two months of teaching – to be honest, I was kind of out of control (just like my students, since I was doing such a crappy job of keeping the class in order). I also cried once or twice, but (THANK GOD) that never happened in front of my students.

Whenever my Hopkins supervisor (who I'm kind of obsessed with – he’s an amazing and supportive guy) came to observe me, I would (pretend to) be very calm and I never yelled. He always complemented me on that and said that it made me an effective “classroom manager”. So, I stopped yelling even when he wasn’t around, and lo and behold, he was right – it made me more effective.

Although, when that kid threw a marker at me toward the end of the year . . . yeah, I yelled.

YouTube Math = Awesome

2008-08-04T12:20:00.000-07:00

DonorsChoose is kind of amazing. So far, I’ve gotten a class set of MIRAs (a cool geometry tool) and an 8 x 4 foot dry erase board donated to my classroom. The proposal writing is made very simple by the template that the website has set up for you, and the DonorsChoose people are very accommodating (I had to extend my “feedback deadline” twice since it took about two months to get that dry erase board up on my wall – don’t even get me started).

Too late, I’ve started. So, my dry erase board arrived very quickly. I gathered some students to help me bring it up to my classroom. And then there it sat. For two months. Any time I needed something from my closet (so, several times a day), I had to slide that monstrous box to one side, and the slide it back again. I wrote note after passive aggressive note to the person-who-said-they-probably-couldn’t-get-it-up-until-summer. The notes went something like this:

Hi M. ------- ☺

It’s been a week since we last spoke, and I was wondering what the status is with getting the dry erase board up. My students are really excited about using it, and I think it will make a big difference in their achievement!

Thanks!!

Ms. ------ ☺

Smiley faces, exclamation marks, student achievement – I laid it on thick. Annnnnd got precisely nothing done. Then I started pleading with my principal to help me out, and that wonderfully, amazing woman got it up for me in no time. I learned a lot about teaching – when nice-ing someone to death is fruitless, get backup.

And now for my next DonorsChoose project. I’m trying to get a digital camcorder for my classroom so that my students can make math YouTube videos like this calculus one:

Ok, so probably not that awesome, I really think that it will be the COOLEST THING IN THE WORLD and that the kids will be way into it, and they’ll obviously learn a lot. Feel free to donate five bucks (or . . . one million dollars? ← that was said like Dr. Evil, obviously). Am I shamelessly trying to get you to donate? YES. Am I OK with that? DOUBLE YES

Here is my proposal, which you will donate to if you want to be a good person and raise student achievement!! :) :) :) Do you see those smiley faces? Those exclamation marks? The reference to student achievement? The passive aggressiveness? I'm good. Also, if I don't get what I want I'm going to tell on you to my principal!

3.14159265358979323 et cetera....

2008-08-02T17:23:00.000-07:00

I’m working on making a very long poster to wrap around my room – it’s pi to a whole lot of decimal places.

I have 95 feet of the poster done so far, which includes 510 decimals. I have more to go, though I’m not sure how much since I never measured the dimensions of my classroom.

Last year on pi day (March 14 – get it?), I held a contest where students recited pi out to as many decimals as they could remember. The prize was a $40 gift certificate to the mall – so kids were pretty into it. I also offered five thousand dollars (although I might have offered 1 million dollars to one class) if they could break the world record. According to Wikipedia the current record is 67,890 digits, which is pretty unbelievable.

One of my favorite students (yeah, yeah I know I’m not supposed to have favorites) won -- but he didn’t want the gift certificate. Instead, he asked if I could get him a burrito from Chipotle. YES! Food? Chipotle? Do you see why I love this kid? So we had a nice Chipotle celebratory lunch. Mmmmm Chipotle… although I really prefer Burritos En Fuego. Oh Burritos en Fuego, how I wish you were open later than 7 pm. I think that if I do the pi day contest again next year I'll keep the burrito lunch as the prize.

I need to up my pi game though. I can only remember 3.14159265358979323 – that’s pathetic for a math teacher, regardless of the fact that I was not a math major.

HIV in America -- Statistics

2008-08-01T07:54:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer, I took a course called "Teaching Social Justice in the Secondary Classroom" (or some variation of that), and as part of the class, I had to create a curriculum project that incorporates some aspect of social justice. Math teachers always get a little screwed in classes like these -- English/History and even Science teachers might find this project difficult only because there are so many ways that they can apply social justice in the classroom. Whereas math teachers -- well, it can be tough -- we have to be extra creative. And if I was still teaching just geometry, I would probably be in a bit of trouble.

And it's not about just completing the project to get the grade. In fact, my favorite professor told us that if we weren't going to actually use the project, then he would rather we just didn't pass in anything at all. Actually, I could write an entire blog post about how well this professor inspired us to do our best work.

I came up with a project where my AP Stats students will read an article about HIV in America from CNN.com, use the Internet to research HIV statistics, and then create "public service announcement" posters which include tables, graphs, pie charts, etc. to describe the information that they learn -- all to be posted in the common areas of the school. The project lets the students choose the most appropriate graphical displays for the data that they find most interesting, and lets them (obviously) learn about the HIV statistics in American, specifically among African Americans.

In theory, I am really excited about this project -- I think it will spark some really interesting discussions and the students will gain valuable skills in representing data.

But I'm also worried that a lot of my students have enough negativity pushed on them everyday, and that this might just be depressing -- that maybe we should look at the positive. Similarly, I think that looking at Baltimore crime statistics may be interesting and relevant, but maybe school should be a "safe space" away from all that. I'm torn.

My Invention

2008-07-31T17:33:00.000-07:00

I'm supposed to start every class period with a warm up, or drill, or whatever your school system calls the first five or so minutes of class where the kids come in and do a problem. I write the problem on the board before class, and then the kids are supposed to copy it down in their notes and then answer it. Do you know how long it takes some kids to copy a problem? I don't know if my students are just trying to waste time or if they just really care about their handwriting, but it takes approximately forever for students to copy the problem. Nevermind them starting to actually work on answering it.

I know that a lot of teachers hand out the warm up on a worksheet, but I can't bear the thought of killing a million trees. So I've come up with a compromise. The warm up will be printed on a little slip of paper that the students must then glue into their notebook. I figure (really, I hope, I pray) that this will be quicker than copying. But then, I started thinking about the logistics of this. Now there are going to be gluesticks all over the room and I'm going to slip on one like a banana peel and crack my head open, and students will throw them at each other (OK! So I'm imagining the worst, whatever!)

So I came up with a handy invention -- a little pocket at every desk for a glue stick and a red pen (so they can correct their drill -- kids like correcting their own work). Here's a picture of my prototype:Pretty nifty! It's made out of felt, and pipecleaners, costs about 15 cents to make, and is awesome (that's the most important part). It attaches to the metal part of the desk in between the legs. Also, in that picture my right hand makes me look like I'm a raptor and not a human. (Which I am by the way). Also also, I need to work on not putting so many parentheses in my writing (but I have so many asides to make!)

Grabbing Kids by their Brains

2008-07-31T14:37:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading LouAnne Johnson's Teaching Outside the Box: How to Grab Your Students by Their Brains, and I was very impressed. The teaching books that I've read so far -- Harry Wong's The First Days of School, which I received from BCPSS along when he spoke to new teachers last year at the New Teacher Institute, and Rafe Esquith's Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, have struck me as largely self-promoting and belittling of other teaching methods.

Teaching Outside the Box includes very realistic, simple, and relevant ideas for classroom management, organization, and even dress. The movie Dangerous Minds is based on one of Johnson's previous books, so she has taught in urban high schools, and she discusses what to do when students say the things that they really say in classrooms. Her chapter on discipline was especially important to me because I really want to do a better job this year than last year in that regard. By the end of the year I had pretty good control of my classroom, but I think that was mostly due to the kids just plain liking me (not that that's a bad thing!) I still didn't really have a plan for what to do when serious things happened -- like when a student called me a bitch toward the end of the year -- which in my mind was a big deal, although some of my colleagues (not necessarily at my school) seem to be cursed at every day. Also, did you know that I never used the word "cursing" until I came to Baltimore? I always said "swearing" or "swear words" but my kids told me that that's when you use the lord name's in vain or some such -- like, swear to god. But I'm from good old, liberal, lapsed Catholic, Massachusetts, so what do I know?

Reading Johnson's book, I felt that I could really identify with her. She writes that in her first year of teaching " I joked around a lot because I wanted the kids to like me, to think of me as an older friend." I knew going in to teaching that that attitude was not a good one to have, but it's hard to change your attitude, even when you know it stinks. Luckily, a year of teaching and getting to know these kids has taught me that I'm not doing any one favors when I try to be a friend. I can help students when I'm the teacher, a mentor, a person who cares about them. After a year of teaching, I've matured a lot and realize that it's not really about me and if the students like me and think I'm cool (because let's face it, I'm not -- although I do have a song about myself to the tune of Fergilicious). Instead, it's about caring about the kids, showing them that I care, and teaching them a whole lot of math and problem solving skills.

Planner Day -- The most wonderful time of the year

2008-07-30T15:59:00.000-07:00

Today I bought my new monthly/weekly planner for the 2008-2009 academic school year. If you know me, then you know that this is my favorite day of the year. (Followed closely by Thanksgiving, which may seem strange for a pseudo-vegetarian, but I love love love mashed potatoes and stuffing and sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce. LOVE.) I got to color-code entries (maroon for school stuff, blue for Kaplan stuff, pink for Hopkins stuff, and purple for "fun" stuff). See! It's exciting!

The new planner reminded me that teachers report back to work on August 19, which is in only 20 days, which is less than 3 weeks, which is also known as way too soon. I don't feel that I've had a true break this summer, what with two weeks of graduate classes, a week at an AP Institute, teaching SAT and GRE classes for Kaplan, and prepping like mad for the upcoming school year. Yeah, you could say that I'm pretty busy.

I've also had two separate nightmares about the first day of school. In both, I can't get the students to pay attention to anything. In the first one, I would finally get the class under control and then a random student would walk in the room to purposely disrupt everything and I would have to start all over getting everyone settled... repeat... repeat...repeat...wake up in a cold sweat.

But I'm excited about the first day of school -- really excited -- so I'm not sure why I'm apparently really freaked out about it as well. I've been excited about the first day of school since August 27th of last year -- the first day of my first year of teaching (and incidentally and perhaps ironically, my birthday). I ended that day thinking, "well, I sure did mess that up -- can't wait to try that again next year!" Actually, that's pretty representative of my feelings toward my entire first year of teaching.