Week's worth of postings

4-3-08

Yet another test today. Middle school teaching is great- assigning the test today effectively provided me with a day long planning period. I've got my grading completely up to date, with the exception of today's test, and it's on a scantron so grading will be effortless. I've used the time thus far to plan tomorrow, Monday, and I believe I'll complete the bellwork for all of next week before the day is out. I'm stressing my planning on applying mathematical concepts we're studying to "real-world" sort of scenarios. I'm also trying to lighten the atmosphere a little by breaking up the monotony with a little activity, etc. I want my students to have more independence. I do not want to spend my whole day asking so and so to sit down, stay on task, etc. I want to talk a little at first, set an activity in motion, and then step back and work on planning the following week.

4-7-08

Time is continuing to fly past. This job is really pretty easy now that I am more comfortable with it. My second coop teacher has taught me a lot about how to manage a class in a less labor intensive way than the last one did. Grades are posted online so students can track their progress daily, quizzes are mostly computerized and done on the student's time in a two week window, etc. Next week will be TCAPs- meaning I have no planning to do. That's such a wonderful thing.

I assigned homework today, to much weeping and gnashing of teeth. My coop teacher told me not to do it. I thought maybe I'd learn something from trying it. We'll see.

4-8

Did a little coin toss probability thing today. In general, I think it was a good thing for my class. But there was one problem. One ugly, nasty problem. I did not expect flipping a coin 100 times, working with the data, doing a bellwork problem, etc. would get done so quickly. Idle hands in the classroom spell disciplinary problems, and classroom management happens to be my weakest area. So I spent a little too much time screaming all day. From now on, I need a backup plan for every single activity. Some sort of quiz, test, etc.

4-14

TWO WEEKS LEFT! TCAPS start tomorrow- this week is going to be really, really annoying. I loathe trying to manage and control behavior all day, and that sounds like what i get to do. So I'll only get one week of fun stuff to do afterwards. I hesitate now to do anything that they claimed to be interested in, because I don't know if I believe they could behave themselves long enough for me to get it done. I'll give it a swing on the first day or two and see.

Saddest Student Story EVER

From 3-31
Today I was talking to one of my Sudanese students about her life. Since I've known a lot of Sudanese immigrants, I know there's always an amazing story to be had if you ask the right questions. The long and short of it is: When she was born, her tribe threw her out on a rocky hill for the lions to eat because something was wrong with her. So that night her mother snuck out and got her, and ran away. She ran right into the wars in southern Sudan/central africa, and grew up in refugee camps.
Now she's moved here to a horrible town in TN that must seem like paradise. I have absolutely unlimited patience for this child because I am so happy that she is alive, and she is so happy to learn. But she knows nothing of the material that's required of her. And it's not like she can get testing in Dinka to see if she qualifies for special services...
Still I have spent time after school with her daily going over material, and going all the way back to where her knowledge begins to try and scaffold her up. That's so much of what tutoring work really is- going to material lower than is available and making sure that a solid foundation exists for new knowledge. That's hard to do when your education didn't even begin until you were 12.

April Fool's Day

So, only 4 weeks left- already. As soon as I get into a placement that feels like it might be teaching me something, it'll be done. I taught most of the day today- Monday I just felt too rusty and unprepared. Things went pretty well- though I still feel mostly clueless about how to discipline this age group. We got a smartboard- a bluetooth device that lets me write on the computer screen wirelessly. So far I can see it helping a lot with classroom management, because I no longer have to interact physically with the board to get things done. I simply walk toward a disciplinary issue and it fades away most of the time.
The discipline system at this school is so dumb. It's in four stages like they typically are. 1)warning 2)educational assignment 3)detention 4)removal to the dean. There's one glaring problem: it doesn't restart, at all. So while I need to be issuing warnings or detentions, I can only go to the next step or higher- not lower. It makes no sense, and it leaves me feeling powerless most of the time.