Sketchpad

I like to bring my work home with me, and to dreamland and beyond; some of my best dreams have involved accomplishing something gargantuan, like obtaining a passing grade in physical chemistry, or finishing grading every piece of student work piled in my classroom. I'm the kind of guy that compulsively makes to-do lists, and recognizes achievement by scribbling out finished assignments with a sneer and whispered curse words under my breath.

To keep myself writing and writing in here, I need to give myself something easier to violently cross out on my list.

So I'll just write about what's been working in the classroom lately and what's not.

* Negatives never work. I have to be positive. They respond well to positives. I get more attention when I compliment those doing what I say than hectoring those that do not.

* Furthering that point: negatives drain me to death. Focusing on good behavior makes the day go so much faster, and I get to see more smiles than monkey-poo faces.

* They can get sooo competitive that the whining can be incessant. I think that's still a good thing, though.

* Focusing on the positives also gives me some enjoyment: I sometimes literally ignore the negatives. Oh, so a student has the answer and likes to repeatedly blurt it out? Ignore. Look right through him. Answer another student with her hand raised patiently. Drives the first kid NUTS.

* Teaching English Learners (ELs) is all about motivation. There are so many kids that are designated "ELs" when they've been living in the states going to school here their entire lives, but they just don't care to try. Gotta change that.

* I'm so fucking tired. I use the word "fucking" with severe emphasis. But I do get enjoyment out of it, more now than before. Again, the positives.

* Collecting data was not my cup of rum when I started, but now it's slightly an obsession. I really get a kick out of seeing the kid's numbers, and seeing how they change with respect to the material and to my ability to communicate that material.

* Variables suck. Don't teach independent and dependent variables. No one cares.

* Make all online profiles and information private and only accessible to friends. I'm still kind of failing at this one, as you can imagine.

Boo

For Halloween I think I'm going to wear the freshly cut skin of a corpulent student, specks of fat and blood the only adhesive keeping it snug around my shoulders.

Is that creepy enough for the season?

In all seriousness, I've no idea what I'm doing for Halloween, again. Old, old, old!

What the Sub Told Me

"Don't ever call me again for these classes."

- Angry note from the substitute

My mentors jokingly call this "job security".

Not losing hope. I can do this. I can do this.

Updates

The trick is to never drink coffee until that one special day, and then the rest of the day you feel like you've popped some uppers.

I was a little too excited yesterday shopping at the nearby teaching store, purchasing gold star stickers.

I spent more time yesterday in 2nd period responding to student misbehavior than teaching them something useful.

Most of my kids still don't understand what carbohydrates do.

Another day of weekend training hopefully will translate in me knowing what I'm doing. Hopefully!

Biology Rap

You won't see my kids doing this. Because I would hurt them. I KID I KID!



One video comment grates in my mind:

"Love it! I'm a bio teacher and I will show this to my students! They will love your impression of urban kids!"

Spot on impressions of those silly urban kids. It's true, all students in urban schools actually breakdance to class, with their heavy gold jewelry clanging loudly around their necks. I'm so glad that there are teachers out there who continue to reinforce negative perceptions and stereotypes of urban students, because this divide is yet another healthy aspect of our society.

Do your worst

"Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes. You must look into that storm and shout as you did in Rome. Do your worst, for I will do mine!"

-The Count of Monte Cristo

Must get better.

Must get better. Must get better. Must get better.

Challenges to Closing the Achievement Gap:
Lack of access to fully qualified teachers

Schools in high-poverty urban areas with large minority enrollments tend to have the least qualified and/or least experienced teachers (Ingersoll, 2002). The Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning (CFTL) found that poor, high minority urban schools have less access to teachers with the appropriate qualifications than affluent, suburban schools. Such schools also have three times more uncertified teachers, are less likely to have teachers with graduate degrees, have larger class sizes, and are more likely to assign teachers to courses for which they have not been formally prepared (CTFL, 2003).

A study by the Educational Testing Service (ETS) produced similar findings:

* 26 percent of Latino eighth-graders had math teachers who lacked certification and at least a minor in math, compared to 17 percent of white students;
* 27 percent of Latino fourth-graders did not have the same teacher at the beginning and end of the year, compared to 18 percent of white children; and
* 25 percent of Latino 12th-graders experience teacher absenteeism every day, compared to 11 percent of white students (ETS, 2003).

Exacerbating the problem is the lack of teachers who are trained and certified to work with English language learners. Nationwide, less than 3 percent of teachers of English language learners have received formal preparation and certification to work with them. Only 27 percent of these teachers report feeling adequately prepared to teach these students (NCES, 2001; President's Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, 2000; Urban Institute, 2000).

Strategies

Sometimes discussing behavior plans with students feels like negotiating with terrorists.

"Do this or I'll keep goofing off!" "Do that or I'll never do my work!"

"We've hijacked the motivated kid's chance to learn and we won't give it back unless our demands are met!"

Does having a good classroom management plan mean knowing when to stick to your guns and when to accept yellow-bellied defeat?

Nostalgia again

Throughout my college career I was a bit of a nomad, moving from dorm to dorm nearly every semester. I saved my computer boxes and kept them in pristine condition for each move, the panoply of choice for hardware on the go.

Watching them be ripped apart, cardboard side by cardboard side, their purpose expired, is another sordid reminder that I am done with a much cherished part of my life thus far.

Confession

I am 22 years old and my mother still makes and packs my lunch to eat at school.