This year I'm going to change someone's life for the better. It might be a student or it might be my own life. Either way come the first day of school I'm dialed in to be an Effective Teacher day 1.
I'm sure all teachers know about Formal Observations. For all the rest of you it's the time when your administration stops by your room for 30-60 minutes and evaluates your teaching. For some it's pretty stressful. For others it's just another day in the classroom.
No matter how you deal with the evaluation there is a factor you can't control, students. They may do exactly like they do any other day OR they may do exactly as they do any other day. As a teacher there is no worse feeling as watching your evaluation start to fade away as little Johnny and Sally stage a coup.
So here's my question; how do you prepare your class for the observation? There seems to be 3 schools of thought.
1) Tell them that this is an observation for THEM and that they administration wants to see that each of them is ready for X grade next year. Point out that they need to be on their very best behavior to show Mr./Ms. Principal that they're ready for the next grade.
2) Tell them that this observation is for you the teacher and it could bode well or bad for you if the kids don't do their best.
3) Just let the chips fall where they will. Don't make a big deal out of it. Act as if this is a surprise to you and pray the shock will remain through the entire session.
I can see the merit and the ill with all three of these tactics. I'll tell you what I did when I see how it goes tomorrow.
In the mean time let me go workout so I can relax and be ready for show time.
This week was so draining. I don't want to drone on and on about how this week was a BEAST. You don't want to hear that.
What I will say is this, no question this week built my faith. I have been working on building margin in my life. Even with this week beating me up I didn't get to my limits. I know this week coming, I'm going to be pushed more than last week. Thankfully, I've already planned for it and I feel grace to do it. I can see that consistent on going improvement will yield huge results.
To give balance I've found it really tough to plan/think LONG term about my lessons and class learning. I talked about in in my Avengers post aout making the lessons catchy to get the kids excited about the next lesson. I've had some success in my re-growing veggies lessons in science, but not so much in my other lessons. Just need to work on this for sure.
I have an evaluation this week and I feel good about it. I picked up some great skills at a workshop a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, I've been kicking it hard so Monday will be the best teaching anyone has seen cause I've been doling out the best daily.
Crossfit this week was strong. I didn't make it to Crossfit South Cobb everyday, but I was able to sneak into Basement Crossfit and keep my goals in line. I've been juicing well. It's not hard now at all. I'm down nearly 13 pounds. I hope to be able to plant our garden next week or the following week.
This week was tough. It was very draining. To call it what it was, I was at my Whit's End by this afternoon. Thankfully that's where I'm supposed to be.
Honestly, I think I rely on my own insight/wisdom to much. James 1:5 gives very clear directions on what to do when you need wisdom. Sadly, we "try" to long and never actually ask God for wisdom on a matter. We think we are supposed to have the solution and that asking is somehow not good.
All this week I've been coming to grips with the fact that I don't know what to do to help these students get excited about learning. Yes, I have a lot of ideas and I have access to some great thinkers, but if James 1:5 is to be trusted I need to ask God a lot more than I have been doing.
Yesterday I started asking God and expecting to receive some insight on Room 157's residents. I certainly made some inroads and next week I'll see more. I know that I made some major changes to make this last 9-10 weeks of school better and more powerful than those before.
Like I said in another post, the House must work in order for other things to work. I do believe that. However, I'm charged with the task of helping these kids. If God's word is true then I have the access to the Resource to make a difference even with no support at home. Ok, off to enjoy my weekend. You do the same.
The Crossfit challenge ends next week and I certainly think I'm on track. I have 6 more days of my green juice fast. Overall I'm down quite a bit of weight and I'm certainly doing well in my workouts. Can't wait to report back on my win in the challenge.
I'm through with homework. I'm not sure where I fall in the ranks of the on going war over homework, but I'm sure I made someone mad with that statement. I've worked a lot of angles with HW and I'm surprised how few really panned out. My new school does the weekly homework. It's a culture thing and I thought it was on point.
The problem is my student's don't care about homework and I have a very limited amount of time on Friday to check it and give feedback on what's missing or what wasn't done correctly or if the student needs help. It tends to just pile up. And if you know a teacher you know that we're great at making piles of paper and not so much as getting those piles dwindled down.
Here's the problem. I am really flustered that my students just blew off the history project we did as a 2nd grade. It was cute and I envisioned each year being able to use these as teaching tools for the next class. When I tell you after 3 weeks of planning and a lot of conjolingmy class only turned in 2 projects, I was fit to be tied. Yeah, I was disappointed in the kids. *I sincerely don't think they realize how important education is. But even more I was just to through with the parents. I called, wrote notes, emailed and text. The result was 2 projects on time.
If I were sane I wouldn't be shocked. I usually get 4-5 COMPLETE homework packets a week. Mix in there 4-5 that are imcomplete and you have my class is consistent. The next two days after the projects were due, I got 2 more. One looked like it had been done on the bus, in the dark, but he was bold to turn it in.
So, I'm thinking about doing something different. I'm going to stop doing homework. I'm going to go back to a book in a bag and nothing else. The kids really responded well to the book in the bag. But since it was something they were doing before I came to this school I didn't invest in it and let it slip away.
What tends to happen is at the end of the day I read a book to the class or we watch a reading story. This that cool down time usually 15 minutes or so. I know for a fact that their homework isn't that long so I could have them breakout out their "end of class work" and do their particular days homework as an end of the day project, know it's done, give support to those that need help and keep it moving. Sending this home and getting a montage of half done work isn't working at all.
I know I need to read up more on this debate. I used to believe in homework and really make a lot of noise about it. Now I'm not sure that's the best way to get things done cause right now very little is getting done.
March 7th is the end of our crossfit challenge. I feel good, but I'm certainly not eating everything as I should/could. I got 10 days to clean it up. Juicing is certainly helping me. I feel strong and haven't had an iced coffee in two months. *Even though as I'm writing this I'm debating getting one just to break up the eating. Stronger than ever, I expect to win this challenge. 3,2,1...Go!
I'd like to propose some crowd sourcing for a problem I have in my classroom. I've always thought that getting as many ideas would create the best solution to a problem. Feel free to post another blog, article or a reading that adds to the discussion and let's see what kind of solutions we get. Let the good ideas flow.
Problem: Students aren't turing in weekly homework.
Details: Every Monday the students get a homework sheet with the weekly homework outlined for them. They're asked to turn in the work on Friday. Notes home to parents don't get answered and phone calls have been less than responsive. It makes no never mind in my book if homework is graded or just busy work it's value is the reinforcement of the skills taught in class. Keep in mind that of the 7-8 students that regularly do their homework 2 look like they did it on the bus on their way to school.
Question: What would you do? How do you get students to put more effort into their weekly homework? Do your kids do homework?
I have some ideas, but I'd love to get as many original ideas from you all as possible. By the way, my 1st grader does her homework gleefully. My wife and I check it and initial it every night.
School year is great. I do have some other issues that I'd like to crowd source, but this one is probably the biggest waste of my time.
Tomorrow starts another semester working with a great bunch of kids. Our next phase of our journey begins soon. I know that I have the skills needed to help them progress on and become the citizens that they were intended to be. Tomorrow we go at our goals with a new drive and passion. Tomorrow we move from 2nd graders to Rising 3rd graders. There are great things in store for us, tomorrow.
Today, however, I'm going to get my last mid day nap.
I'm heart broken for the parents, communities and children of CT.
I'm not interested in prayer in schools.
What?! Every Christian with a bible is ranting "God has been removed from schools and that's why we're...." Yes, I've heard that argument and I've even made it a couple of times. However it's wrong and it's not very smart. There is a talk show host who went as far as to say the reason this horrible event happened is because God has been taken out of schools.
What most people are asking for is a teacher-lead, school-lead time of prayer during a time of the day. 30 seconds during announcements, before lunch or something like that.
Putting prayer in school is opening a box to so many other things that teachers will have to tend to. I'm surprised no one has said it. We're already, Parents, Coaches, Advisers, Counselors, Teachers, Nurses and Referees. Now you want us to be Pastors, Priests and Rabbis?
Let me just wave a magic wand and "put prayer in school". Can't you see/hear all the howls from some parents because "you prayed in Jesus' name, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit".
...or You prayed in the NIV, but we only accept the KJV.
How about this one, ...We're Southern Baptist and you're a Mormon teacher, What Jesus are you talking about?
These are just a few, a very small few complaints out of the bag of insane complaints we'd hear. Let's not even talk about the fact that now America is a sort of kind of Christian. So many assume we're talking about praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Ok, but what about when America becomes a majority non-Christian nation? Think you'll be ok with us praying to another god that you don't think is God?
Ok, people, we're tasked with such a weighty chore that adding one more layer is going to only add more strain to the profession. I challenge that there isn't one profession that has so much heaped on it from all sides as teaching. If you know of one, please let me know.
For quite some time teaching has been the surrogate parent of the community. I know a lot of folk aren't going to like this, but you're welcome to comment. We've become EVERYTHING to these kids and it's made really, seriously...LAZY PARENTS. Yes, I did call most of us lazy. We drop our children off at school with very little and want a college bound, scholar in return. This might be shocking, but it's not going to happen. Neither is prayer in school.
If you want prayer in school send Prayers to school. Send kids who cherish the honor of speaking to an ever loving, God. Drop off a child who are confident in themselves, because they know that no matter what they're accepted by God and that He thinks they're pretty neat. Send students who much rather quote Be Attitudes than cop and attitude. We'd welcome students who rather than pick on each other and name call understand that everybody needs love and acceptance and they've found that in God. How do we get that, Jason?
This is going to REALLY make some people mad, so feel free to log off. In order to get the kind of student I'm talking about many parents need to parent and pastor their OWN kids. You're going to have to put prayer, God and all that in your home. Put it in your heart and in your kids hearts. I can tell you that the Love of God is absent from my community. I can see it in the words my kids use with each other and adults. It's obvious in the MIA status of support at home. I as a teacher am not going to do it for you. Sorry, but it ain't going to happen. What I will do is pray silently that you get a clue that these are your kids, your future and that you need to make the most of it.
I choose to make my wife and my faith a center of our girls' growth. If you don't that's on you. I simply believe it's much easier for you to raise your child than for your child's teacher or school to do it for you.
I found a way to bring my favorite workout to the classroom and I didn't even need to lace up my inov8s!
Tabata work outs can be summed up as 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. A goal is to not to slip below your first level of work. So if I do 8 push ups in 20 seconds I'd want to keep that pace the entire 8 founds. It sounds pretty simple, but it's not. It's so useful that it's easy to think it's not as hard as it is. I'm sure there's one out there, but I cant think of a exercise you can't do as a tabta.
Today I had my students do their regularly scheduled math drill as a tabta. I was pleasantly surprised how much they liked it. I had a 60 question single digit addition and subtraction page for them. I explained the "game" to them extensively on the front end. They picked up on it pretty well. I projected a huge tabata timer on the board. It chimed at the different rest/work intervals. They loved it.
I didn't make them keep score, but I will in the future.
Some spent the 10 seconds of rest looking over their previous questions to fix them when the 20 seconds of work started.
I need to do a benchmark drill to see help them plot some growth.
No going back over answers until they've finished every question.
Afterwards I asked the class write to me about their first tabata experience. Pretty positive for my class. They don't usually like anything new save for the overly dramatic and disruptive.
10 liked it and want to do their regular math drills like this
2 would rather do the regular 2 minute drill
I'm thinking that I could use this format for writing spelling and vocabulary words. I'm thinking that when their reading really gets better they could read 20 seconds rest 10. I'd enjoy seeing them write as much as they can and then rest and so on.
I bet I'll have them rascals out doing tabata sprints next time we get the wiggles, trust.
I think I've told you how much I like grilling. Since getting my Big Green Egg for Father's day I've cooked some great meals. It's a relaxing and enjoyable experience for me. By no stretch of the imagination am I a chef. I'm a weekend warrior at the best description. Mainly because I'm using others recipes, ideas and techniques. I'm not creating my own. I'm having a grand time, but I'm not waiting for a call from Food Network.
What could I do to get them to enjoy the academic process and even grow to the place where they're creating new projects and so on? Right now they're just consumers. They sit in the seat and wait to be fed information that they may or may not take fully. My task is to get them to move from the dining room and get into the kitchen. Then once there I need to get them excited about the kitchen so much that they want to create new dishes and meals.
My family raves about my creations. In my daughters and wife's eye I'm the best. Their involvement makes it easy to plan and grill. This is what makes the entire thing enjoyable for me.
How can I get my students and their families into education as such?
Add the fact that my student who was going to present for our class is absent.
Sprinkle in some low 50's degree weather outside.
The recipe for a funny event.
9:34 am I have to QUICKLY prep new students to present on our science fair project because the student I wanted to present is absent. Sure, no sweat.
I have to still teach the rest of my class, but hey. I just didn't know I had 2 minutes to get my presentation ready. Ummm, boy it's hot in here.
9:37 I'm rushing to get these kids ready. I notice that they could use a little lotion on their hands and faces. It's cold and cold weather plays ashy games with little brown kids. So, being always ready I reach in the closet to give them some lotion, or what I thought was lotion. I give each kid a little dollop on their hands and I run back to my group.
9:37:43 I notice that the presenting kids are having a bear of a time rubbing this "lotion" in and it's starting to foam. One joker is rubbing it in on his face. I mean their going to town!
9:38 The lady comes to my door asking for my students to come to the media center for the presentation. I run back to my closet to see what I gave them. BABY WASH! Why do I have a small bottle of baby wash in my closet! For the love of Pete!
Thankfully, I play it off and give the kids a wet wipe to "spruce themselves up for their Blue Ribbon".
9:41 I quietly laugh at myself, because this could only happen to me.
At that point I should have grabbed my bag and taken a mental health day. It only got more and more crazy after this. Praise God!
About to get my Crossfit WOD and I'll catch you soon.
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