My Favorite Class

I haven’t been here in a while.  Sorry, nobody.

 

Hey, it’s a new year!  I’m making a yearbook.  My co-teacher and I finally got a schedule where we can function smoothly.  One of my darling freshmen misspelled the word “I” in his first essay.

 

But what I wanted to bring up today is my planning period.  The past two years, my planning period was a brief respite from the kids.  For fifty minutes, I didn’t have to be “on.”  I could take a breath and plan my next lesson.

 

This year, I’ve got planning during 1st period.  It’s got its ups and downs:

 

Ups!

No administrative duties.  A lot of administrative drudgery has to get done during 1st period.  Other teachers are handing out computer login passwords, cross-referencing their list with the kids who don’t have permission forms.  I’m peacefully listening to Man…or Astroman? alone in my room.

 

I can hear the announcements.  I’ve got yearbook responsibilities this year, so just about everything said in the morning applies to me in some way: club meetings, sports games, etc.  It’s nice to just back and follow along on my calendar.

 

Downs!

Prime learnin’ time lost.  Kids are sleepy in the morning.  1st period is generally 10-20% calmer than other classes.  The sugar from the Pop-Tarts hasn’t kicked in (this is why I envy those with planning at the end of the day.  As a rule, it’s the worst class.  To not have one at all would be divine).

 

No break in the day.  Planning, even one during 2nd period like I had last year, is a checkpoint in the day.  While my time with the kids starts later now, it’s a marathon dash until 3:25.

 

When my schedule was created last year, the idea was that 1st period planning would offer me some time to handle yearbook duties immediately before the Yearbook class 2nd and 3rd periods (we’re on a wacky new schedule where some classes last 2 periods, while others only last one).  This is certainly true (you wouldn’t believe how many seniors’ parents leave me messages throughout the day), and I’m grateful it got set up this way.  However, I’m missing the days I had some time between classes to breathe and reassess my course of action.

Film Club 09

Last year, I proposed a Film Appreciation Club to my principal.  Between a regime change and an adjustment to our school schedule, I didn’t get it rolling until October as an Friday-after-school activity.

 

The vibe was extremely casual.  Attendance ranged everywhere from 4 to 20 students.  We typically watched half a movie one week and finished it the next. I didn’t have much of goal outside of showing interesting movies to kids and trying to point out just why they’re interesting.

 

We had our last meeting today.  With my doing yearbook next year, I’m not sure I’ll be able to make the committment to the club next year, but I’ve sure had a good time so far.  Here’s a list of the movies (that I can remember, at least) we’ve watched together:

 

• The Thing (1982)
• Barton Fink
• The Set-Up
• Project Grizzly
• Sullivan’s Travels
• Do the Right Thing
• Dr. Strangelove
• Bottle Rocket
• Sweet and Lowdown
• The Apartment
• La Strada
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• A Fish Called Wanda

A Letter to My Students

Dear [failing student],

 

I like you.  From the bottom of my heart, with all the sincerity I can muster, I like you.  Being around you is mentally stimulating, and I’d like to think you too are enjoying your time here.  You make me laugh and see the world from a new perspective; I’m attempting to do the same for you.  I really do treasure our time together.

 

But I will fail you.  I will fail you so hard.

 

I won’t be happy about it.  My boss won’t like it much, either (passing students=good teacher).  Your parents certainly won’t be happy about it.  But when the year ends in three weeks, and your grade’s still south of a 70, I will keep it there.

 

You see, while we were joking around and having a good time, I was doing a little thing called “teaching.”  You might not have noticed.  I believe you were busy [on your cell phone / fixing your makeup / sleeping / chatting with friends (who are also failing) / playing sudoku / doing math homework / staring at the wall].

 

Regardless, I assigned work.  I know schoolwork usually sucks, and you’re super busy with [sports, band, ROTC, family, court dates, uploading sexy photos of yourself to MySpace], so I tried to make it as painless as possible.  I allowed you to read a book of your own choice (freedom!).  I asked you to research information about the jobs you’d like to have in the future (relevance!).  I urged you to write about your own life (the world revolves around you!).

 

When the due dates for all of these assignments came up, I was disappointed to see you hadn’t done them.  I empathized with your valid excuses, but your zeroes will remain until you turn something in.

 

Was I too nice?  Did you enjoy class so much that you forgot we had some work to do?Did my laid back persona have you assume you could pass my class with no effort?  I can recommend a good hard-ass of a teacher if my methods confuse you.  Otherwise, I’ll see you in a few years when you have to retake my class

 

Your friend teacher,

Sonny Harding

Such a Gay Post

Is this a growing concern for anybody else?

Stupid Stupid Laptops

I’m technologically adept–mostly.  For the past few days, however, my PC patience has been tried.

 

My school has a few “mobile computer labs”: wheeled carts filled with laptops.  They’re supposed to be an easy way to get computers in the hands of our students, and they do a great job of that.  What the students are able to actually do with them, however, is another case, making for a pretty stressful day.

 

Each class has the same problems in the same order:

1.) Some kids don’t know their passwords, requiring a trip to the IT guy, who’s always hard to track down

2.) Half of the laptops can’t get on the server.  Students flip out.

3.) Student flash drives met with hardware installation prompts that never seem to go away.  Can’t save work and take it home.

4.) Every popular email site is blocked by the county.

5.) Handful of computers freeze up when trying to save work.

 

Look, I know my school is extremely lucky to even have computers.  I know teachers whose technology consists of an overhead projector that’s shared among the entire department.  I feel bad whining about it, but it’s just such a frustrating ordeal, more trouble than it’s worth.  90% of my time is spent fiddling with ethernet cables, switching out computers, and assuring students that patience is a virtue best shared with a Windows machine.  I don’t have a lot of time to , you know, teach.

Canonnnnn

9th grade is a pretty canonical year for a Literature class.  Maybe it’s an attempt to hook ‘em with the good stuff early on (you know, like drug dealers) but as far as required reading goes, high school freshmen get some choice product: The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, and the motherlode, To Kill a Mockingbird.

 

It’s unusual, but I’ve encountered all three of these works in the past few school days and thought I’d share a little with you, the reader.  Yes, you.  The only person who reads this thing.

 

The Odyssey

Last semester, my fourth period finished The Odyssey way ahead of my other classes (it’s longer because of lunch, but I’m also convinced they’re just a better batch of kids).  To stall them from moving to something else, and to indulge my own sensibilities, I had them make their own movie version of the epic.  With a little guidance from me, they crafted a really clever abbreviated version of the whole story, using a newscaster as a bridge between key events.

 

They divided the work up as evenly as they could.  Two girls wrote the script.  A team a boys learned how to work a video camera.  Others made cue cards, brought in props, or memorized lines.  One girl’s only job was to quiet everyone down before shooting scenes.  Some students took a less involved role, but it really felt like a team effort.

 

When I showed the class the finished project (editing the video was the only thing I did all on my own, and it took forever), everyone flipped out.  They laughed at themselves on screen, cheered and applauded when it was over.  I was proud that we managed to make a movie, but equally impressed that they got so much out of the source material.

 

[I'd post the video here, but I'm gonna respect my kids' privacy and not share their cuteness with anyone]

 

Romeo and Juliet

This is definitely the hardest text to teach freshmen.  I’ve only done it once so far, but I feel like I’ll be seeing the same confused, frustrated faces on students for years to come.  The language is so dense and confusing, it’s hard to convince the kids of its value.  I hear about super-teachers getting their students to love Shakespeare, getting them to perform it, and I’m amazed.  Maybe they have more of a passion for the works than I do, but I was lucky to get through the thing with my students and have them at least partially understand the plot.

 

To Kill a Mockingbird

One of my favorite books.  Honestly.  I’m in the middle of a couple of other novels right now, but when I started to re-read TKaM to prepare for class, all other books just seem like horse vomit now.  The themes are so pervasive and well developed.  The voice is perfect.  The plot comes together flawlessly.  I totally understand why Harper Lee never wrote another book; you can’t improve upon perfection.

 

Naturally, I’m a bit more excited to teach this one than Shakespeare, and I think my enthusiasm will show in the lessons.  Today I asked them if I had mentioned that this is the best book ever written and I got “only like 5 times so far.”  It’s long, so I hope I can squeeze in some of the things I want to explore with it.  I’ll keep you posted, hopefully.

Running the Zoo

From The Element by Ken Robinson, mentioned over at Will Richardson’s blog, Web-logged:

 

The key to this transformation is not to standardize education but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of the each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions (238). The curriculum should be personalized. Learning happens in the  minds and souls of individuals–not in the databases of multiple-choice tests (248).

 

The young, fearless, hopelessly optimistic part of my soul is naturally shouting “Hooray!” at this notion.  The sooner public education acknowledges that students are not interchangeable robots, the better.  Students should definitely follow their passions and strengths.  A high school diploma could represent a culminating mastery of a particular field rather than the bland cookie-cutter, vanilla, meat and potatoes (food metaphors!) education it does now.

 

Giving this idea of personalized education a little more thought, however, I get skeptical.  Real skeptical.  Here are my issues:

 

1. We already have personalized education — It’s called college

So students should be allowed, after receiving a ground-level familiarity with the world’s knowledge, to further investigate those fields that most interest them?  Um, that’s what I did in college.  I took a handful of “core” classes, then went down a road that seemed best suited for me.  That road (English, then Teaching) had its own avenues of discovery that I could pick and choose from.  I didn’t care about Shakespeare, so I never took him (suffering for it now, as I fret over starting R&J next week).  I did have an interest in Film Studies, so I loaded my schedule with that.

 

College is where society has apparently drawn the line between everybody-learn-this and everybody-go-learn-something.  It’s the age/educational level where one is trusted to wisely individualize his learning.  Maybe society drew the line there for good reason?  This brings me to…

 

2. Kids are Dumb

I mean that in the nicest way possible, but it’s true.  I can’t imagine any of my students taking seriously the challenge to discover and pursue their own passions.  Even my immensely bright angels, whom I know will go on to greatness in their lives, would likely squander an opportunity like this.  I have future engineers and architects in my class, but instead of taking Drafting or Physics, they’d be fighting for a spot in the Video Game Design class we’d inevitably have to offer.

 

And I have no idea what my precious dunderheads would do in such a situation.  A few would admirably throw their eggs into a respectable basket: automotives, electrical engineering, etc.  Most would track down the path of least resistance.  What’s to stop a kid from dedicating his educational career to weight training or pottery?  Which brings me to…

 

3. It’s a step backwards on an escalator

If a school or district were to uproot the current system and start over, concentrating on a student’s personal freedom to learn whatever, I’ve got a feeling bureacracy would crush any good intentions in just a few years.  We’d start optimistic.  It would be chaotic but exactly what students had been supposedly needing all this time.

 

Then, the educational pendulum would start to swing back the other way.  We’d add benchmarks and standards.  ”Study whatever you want, little Cody!  But you’re going to need three years of math and science courses, too, OK?”

 

In the spirit of giving each child a foundation in imperative knowledge, each class would have to go back on that whole self-discovery thing. “Freedom is the key around here, but we’ve had a meeting and determined that you should all at least read The Odyssey, Romeo and Juliet, and To Kill a Mockingbird.”

 

Suddenly, that time students spent at school following their own interests gets relegated to whatever space they can manage in their schedules.  Those classes become electives.  And we’re right back where we started.

Me and My Cell Phones and Their Cell Phones

I don’t believe in ADD (Exhibit A).  But I do have a pretty  low attention span.  And ever since the iPhone put the internet in my pocket, I can’t go 5 unstimulated minutes without checking something: my email, Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader, etc.

 

I’m ashamed of this for a few reasons.  I’m certainly a worse driver when I’m tweeting behind the wheel, but it’s mostly an issue of etiquette.  I should be able to hold a conversation with people nearby or entertain myself with my actual surroundings.  Interacting with the real world is a constant act of discovery; playing with my phone is just a comfortable time-wasting habit.

 

The kids are, naturally, worse about this kind of thing than I am.  Unlike me, they’re addicted to texting, and they have no qualms about doing it in class.  Thirty perfectly conscious and kind of interesting people sitting around them, and they have to have a digital, broken-English dialogue with a kid in some other class.

 

My point is I realize why they do it.  They’re bored.  They’re feeling the same thing I feel when I’m shopping with Maria, or stopped at a red light, or in any of the dozens of other instances where I pull out my iPhone for a quick look at CNN.com.

 

So what, if anything, should be done?  How does a teacher with a cell phone addiction reprimand students for being addicted to their cell phones?  I mostly fall back on the school’s official policy: no cell phones out during school hours.  I’m pretty lenient, usually asking students to put it away and only writing up the repeat offenders (recidivism!).

 

Part of me wants to be understanding, hence the leniency.  Another part knows that these people will only figure out social norms by being punished for breaking them.  Maturity has its natural elements, certainly–judgment skills aren’t physically maxed out for males until their twenties–but I’ve got a role  in preparing kids for a real world, complete with momentary spurts of the day where it’s just not OK to check your stupid Twitter account.  I’ve got it (mostly) figured out; so should they.

I know the sucker

This year, my school switched to giving students a half-credit for passing a semester instead of a full credit for passing the entire year. I like the chance it gives failing students to start fresh halfway through the year, rather than get so far behind and give up completely by December. With grades due tomorrow, though come the same conflicting feelings I had last year about grading.

I told myself I’d be stricter this year; no more hand-holding and grade-bending to help students achieve. No more assignments turned in months late the last day of the semester. I told myself all this, but here I am, grading last-minute slacker work instead of watching 30 Rock and trying to figure out ways to pass a handful of students who came so very close. I can stick to the grades before me, or I can bump a few numbers here and there until the student’s grade hits 70.

There seem to be two philosophies:

1. The hard-ass
A student deserves whatever grade he gets. I assign reasonable work and assess it fairly. Those who choose not to do the work are making a conscious decision and should accept its outcomes. A 69 is a failing grade, end of discussion. Maybe it’ll teach him a lesson about the consequences of his actions.

2. The practical softie
There are more important things in the world than my Literature class. Some of these things got in the way of the student’s performance during the semester. It’s callous and impractical to demand 100% commitment from a student with a dying mother, probation hearings, motherhood, miscarriages, or severe anger issues (all of which I’ve dealt with this year). Some of those things more important than my Literature class await the student in the future, but only if I make a numerical compromise to move him along. What’s the harm?

Both sides have ardent defenders. Like most teachers, I talk a lot of “hard-ass” but turn into a softie once grades are due. The process has some severe consequences. Essentially, it’s lying. For the four or five students I’ve nudged up a bit, they’re getting credit they didn’t technically earn. Also, I think it teaches a poor lesson for personal responsibility to all students. I know the kids I helped out are aware that they shouldn’t have passed. I know they’ll tell their friends. In turn, I’ll likely have more of these slackers in June, hoping I’ll exempt a few zeroes here and there until their grades are right.

My administration always says to do “what’s best for kids,” and I’m a tad conflicted on what philosophy really is best. I think about Pepe (name changed to something ridiculous for anonymity), a 17 year-old student of mine who’s still technically a freshman. He can’t write a decent paragraph to save his life, but his passion in life is automotive repair. And he’s good at it. He’s worked on my car numerous times; he’s a star student in the automotive class. See, Pepe doesn’t need me. Sure, he absolutely needs basic literacy skills, but his true genius lies elsewhere. Who am I to say, “No, you’re not going anywhere until you meet this educational benchmark”?

Top Things of 2008

Preface A: Not exactly a teacher-related post.

Preface B: This idea began here. Donna Bowman blogs every day despite seeming very busy. She’s an inspiration that way.

My favorite things of 2008 (the ones I could think of, at least), in no particular order:

Reading
I’ve gotten more of it done in 2008 than ever before. I make my 4th period read for 25 minutes every day. They’re really waiting out the extra time built in for lunch, but I’m noticing a difference between them and my other classes. I usually read with them, having gotten through Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise, Nick Hornby’s Slam, and Michael Chabon’s Summerland already. Adding in the stuff I get to read at home, I’m a regular bibliowhore (that’s the right word, right?).

Hockey Video Games
I’ve recently upgraded to NHL 08 for the XBox 360, but the bulk of my year was spent pounding out a season on NHL 2K6. I wouldn’t say it consumed my life, but I managed to connect a few lessons in class to what was happening with my precious Thrashers (mostly how I should likely be doing something else with my time).

Ruby
She’s the best dog in the world. Any hour of the day, she only wants to cuddle.

Monster Truck Shows
My oldest and most wonderful friend buys me a ticket every year. You can go ironically and giggle at the fact you’re there. You can go as a cultural study of what happens when 60,000 rednecks are in the same building. Or you can go watch big loud trucks smash things. Sometimes rednecks are just on to something great.

The Trouble with Tom by Paul Collins
I devour everything Paul Collins writes. His ability to dig up the most interesting and unusual tidbits about (mostly) the 19th century and weave those tidbits into compelling narrative is unparalleled. I’m amazed he’s not more well known. His textbook on community writing, Community Writing, is also worth a purchase.

Having a Masters Degree
Last year was rough as a new teacher, and the extremely low pay of a newbie didn’t make it any better. I’d look at my paycheck every month and wonder why I put up with all the stress when I could make the same amount at my former job that I enjoyed quite a bit. With the Masters, though, my salary seems much more in line with the effort I’m putting in. Plus, I get wacky-looking sleeves on my graduation robe now!

Lost
It seems like it was on forever ago, making easy to forget just how awesome the entire season was. It’s lovely seeing the creators racing towards their already-set finale two seasons from now, especially when other shows I loved this year didn’t have such a simple advantage (Pushing Daisies, the world didn’t deserve you).

“Deep Blue” by Dan Potthast
I’ve enjoyed Dan’s music for years. I managed to get a copy of his only-available-at-shows, recorded-in-a-closet album Eat the Planet from a friend cooler than I am. This is the best song on it, and it’s not on his MySpace page.

We Versus the Shark
I originally only had one song by my best friend’s band on here but, as I thought a little harder, they did a lot of things I enjoyed this year. Their entire album Dirty Versions is solid start to finish, worth the B+ the AV Club gave it. They also put out a cover song every month and let listeners pay whatever they wanted for it. I recommend their Ben Folds Five cover. Live, they’re still loud and awesome, despite losing their prettiest band member. Their Nirvana cover set was thrilling, and I don’t even like Nirvana that much.

King of the Hill Reruns
Someone should have told me this show was freakin’ brilliant sooner. Now, I’m pleased that I’ve always got some incredibly smart, level-headed, character-based cartoons to catch up with on my DVR. I still adore The Simpsons with everything I’ve got, but KotH rivals it quite often on the laugh factor.

Wall-E

The Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios
Super detailed. Offers so many tiny jokes and superfan allusions, it’s just as much of a treat to wait in the delightful line as it is to actually get in the thing and have it shake you around for two minutes. I’ll miss Back to the Future, but this thing is wonderful. If you get to the park early, you get to eat a breakfast buffet with the Simpsons. Yes, they have pink donuts with sprinkles.

The Perks of Teaching
Did you go to work between Dec 23 and January 4th? I sure didn’t. Teaching is difficult, and society’s nice enough to recognize that with freebies and what not. Whether it’s my generous time off, the best retirement program around, my discount at Barnes & Noble, or the automotive class replacing the O2 sensor in my car for free, teaching pays in quite a few ways.

iPhone
The iPhone has changed my life for the better. Basically, I’m never ever bored. I can play Risk or Scrabble any time the mood strikes. My Google Reader account is at my fingertips. Facebook or MySpace can be checked in the timespan of a long traffic light. I can read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense or get directions to Gatlingburg absolutely whenever I please. It’s worth every penny.

Brilliant Kids
I care about all of my students. I’d say I genuinely enjoy being around 90% of them. But there are about 5 or 6, I’d say, that are truly fascinating and brilliant human beings. I’m always thrilled to see what they write in their journals
or in an essay. They’re smarter than me; they know it; they still propitiate me by turning in creative work for the dumb assignments I give them. While others complain about how today’s kids are lazy and dumb, I look confidently at my few geniuses and feel better about the future.