Today was the last day in my To Kill a Mockingbird unit. My students have been working on their essays for TKAM over the past month, and they turned in their final essays today, which are worth a pretty significant chunk of points. As they turned in their essays, it was almost as if you could feel the entire room relax. After I had collected all the papers, I took a few minutes to congratulate my students on finishing their essays. I told them that they had worked really hard for a long time, and that now, hopefully, they had turned in something that they could really be proud of. A few of my students responded to this by saying things like "I actually kind of liked writing that essay." or "I'm so excited for you to read my essay." It was so nice to reflect with them after they finished the process of writing their papers. It was also nice to see that some of the students who were initially apathetic or nervous about the essay were able to see that they had improved, and that maybe writing an essay can be a worthwhile and even fun activity. After all, I keep telling my students that writing an argumentative essay is just like arguing with someone, except that no one can argue back!
Toward the end of class, I reminded my students that we're going to be reading Romeo & Juliet next. At first, my announcement was met with a lot of ugly sounds - groans, moans, and a few "Do we have tos?" Now, I would say that my students have made this sound pretty much every time I've introduced a new project/story. Many of the kids who had just told me that they enjoyed writing their TKAM essay or enjoyed reading TKAM made those same ugly noises when I told them three months ago that we were going to read TKAM. It's almost like they have that first bad reaction because they think they're supposed to immediately dislike anything related to school. I pointed out to my students that they made the same sounds when I introduced TKAM and that most of them ended up enjoying the book and getting a lot out of it. I asked them to keep an open mind about R&J, and told them that they will likely be pleasantly surprised at the end of the R&J unit like they were with the TKAM unit.
I feel like I spend a lot of time in my classroom communicating the value of what I'm teaching to my students. And I also know that a lot of my students listen to me and eventually try to be more open-minded. My goal, however, is that one day, my students will be open-minded right from the start. There shouldn't be an attitude that everything to do with school is boring or pointless. I'm not sure where it comes from, but a lot of my students come into my classroom already possessing that attitude. I'm going to spend the rest of the year trying to rid my current students of that attitude as much as possible.
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Thursday, March 19, 2015
A Typical Teacher Day
I've been catching up on some edublogs, and I came across a post on sweattoinspire.com in which Todd Bloch, a #miched educator, shared what a typical day is like for him as a teacher. At the end of the post, he challenges other teachers to share what their typical days are like, so here's a typical day for me:
5:00am
Wake up and start getting ready for the day. Make sure I pack a lunch because there is no time during my lunch period to leave the building on a normal school day. Also pack a snack because lunch is so early and short, my stomach is grumbling by the end of the school day.
6:00am
Leave for school. I carpool almost every day with another teacher who lives close to me. Carpooling is great for a few reasons. 1) It cuts down on gas costs, which leaves more money from my starting-teacher's salary to pay for things like student loans. 2) Carpooling helps me stay awake when it's my turn to drive because it makes the drive more interesting because 3) our carpooling discussions are like therapy, planning, and brainstorming all rolled into one. Some of my best ideas for lesson have come from carpool conversations.
6:38am
This is what time we get to school. Every day. Pretty much no matter when we leave. It's like we've discovered a wormhole or something. We aren't really required to be at school until first hour starts at 7:11, but we have to get there at least a half hour early to get ready because once that first bell rings, THERE IS NO TIME.
6:38-7:11
About a half hour to get everything ready for the day - make any copies, sort materials, excavate my desk from the layer of miscellaneous papers from the day before, check in with any colleagues about plans for the day if necessary, answer questions for NHS kids who stop by to sign up for activities (I am the NHS sponsor at our school), chat with the group of students that like to hang out in my classroom before school every day, write the new objectives for the day on the board, and, oh yeah, run to the bathroom really fast before I'm not able to go once class starts.
7:11-9:00am
Teach my first two hours of the day. Most classes at our school have around 30 students - I am lucky that a couple of mine are smaller, but four of my six classes are completely full with 30 kids and sometimes an extra directed study student. In my classroom, we always get started right away, and once we start, we don't stop until the bell rings. My friends who are not teachers tell me about how they sometimes have to prepare a presentation for work. I'm sure that those presentations are very important and that they're different from what I do in my classroom, but teaching is kind of like preparing two or three presentations every day (or more, depending on how many preps you have) and then presenting it six times.
9:00-9:57am
Prep Time! Plan for the rest of the day or the next day...or maybe even the day after that if I'm really on top of everything and have been working a lot at home. Prep Time can also turn into Meeting With the Principal Time or Return Parent Phone Calls/Emails Time or Sub for Another Teacher Time or several other things, sometimes with little or no notice.
10:00-10:32am
Teach half of fourth hour, which is split by lunch. Kids get pretty excited and hungry around this time of the day.
10:32-11:02am
Half hour scheduled for lunch. Lunch actually starts whenever all of the students are gone from my classroom - after I answer any questions or sort out any issues from the first half of class.
11:02-11:29am
Teach the other half of fourth hour. Kids are either pretty excited or sleepy around this time of day...something to do with just having scarfed down weird combinations of foods in record time.
11:34am-2:20pm
Teach three more classes. This year, I alternate subjects each hour, so I teach German, then English, then German, then English again, and so on. It's a great brain exercise switching languages every hour every day. Also, sometimes "teaching" involves a lot more than what I expected it to before I actually started teaching. Like telling a student that the middle of the classroom is not the best place to reapply deodorant. Or having to help a student get his glasses untangled from his hair (I have no idea how this happened).
2:21pm
Breathe. And go to the bathroom.
2:22-3:00pm or 3:30pm or 4:00pm or 4:30pm (depending on the day)
Grade and/or get ready for the next day. Depending on the day of the week, there could also be staff meetings or professional development or Tea Club or NHS meetings/activities or tutoring or giving a student a make-up test or meeting with colleagues to talk about planning. Right now, I'm lucky that I can usually stay as late as I need to. A lot of teachers have to leave by a certain time each day (to pick up children and things like that), but that means that a lot of them are doing more work at home. This year, I leave school around 4:00 most days.
On the way home
Think and talk about the day with my carpool buddy.
At home
Do any prep or grading that I didn't finish at school. I've learned that I'm never really done with everything for this job. Even if I had every day of the year planned at the beginning of September, there would always be work to do - rethinking plans, making things better, integrating new tools/ideas/requirements and of course, grading. This year, I average about 1.5 hours of work at home per night. This varies widely though, depending on the time of year, the units I'm teaching, and the amount of Netflix I watch while entering grades.
10:00pm
Go to bed and get ready to do it all over again in the morning.
I don't mean for this post to sound negative. I really do feel it is an accurate description of what I do most days, and I know that some people are not aware of what it can be like to be a teacher. I really do love my job. I don't mind being busy, and I absolutely love the time when I'm actually teaching. I feel like being around the kids gives me energy to get through these crazy days, even if I am sometimes exhausted when I get home. And I look forward to seeing the kids again every day when I'm walking into school at 6:38am.
5:00am
Wake up and start getting ready for the day. Make sure I pack a lunch because there is no time during my lunch period to leave the building on a normal school day. Also pack a snack because lunch is so early and short, my stomach is grumbling by the end of the school day.
6:00am
Leave for school. I carpool almost every day with another teacher who lives close to me. Carpooling is great for a few reasons. 1) It cuts down on gas costs, which leaves more money from my starting-teacher's salary to pay for things like student loans. 2) Carpooling helps me stay awake when it's my turn to drive because it makes the drive more interesting because 3) our carpooling discussions are like therapy, planning, and brainstorming all rolled into one. Some of my best ideas for lesson have come from carpool conversations.
6:38am
This is what time we get to school. Every day. Pretty much no matter when we leave. It's like we've discovered a wormhole or something. We aren't really required to be at school until first hour starts at 7:11, but we have to get there at least a half hour early to get ready because once that first bell rings, THERE IS NO TIME.
6:38-7:11
About a half hour to get everything ready for the day - make any copies, sort materials, excavate my desk from the layer of miscellaneous papers from the day before, check in with any colleagues about plans for the day if necessary, answer questions for NHS kids who stop by to sign up for activities (I am the NHS sponsor at our school), chat with the group of students that like to hang out in my classroom before school every day, write the new objectives for the day on the board, and, oh yeah, run to the bathroom really fast before I'm not able to go once class starts.
7:11-9:00am
Teach my first two hours of the day. Most classes at our school have around 30 students - I am lucky that a couple of mine are smaller, but four of my six classes are completely full with 30 kids and sometimes an extra directed study student. In my classroom, we always get started right away, and once we start, we don't stop until the bell rings. My friends who are not teachers tell me about how they sometimes have to prepare a presentation for work. I'm sure that those presentations are very important and that they're different from what I do in my classroom, but teaching is kind of like preparing two or three presentations every day (or more, depending on how many preps you have) and then presenting it six times.
9:00-9:57am
Prep Time! Plan for the rest of the day or the next day...or maybe even the day after that if I'm really on top of everything and have been working a lot at home. Prep Time can also turn into Meeting With the Principal Time or Return Parent Phone Calls/Emails Time or Sub for Another Teacher Time or several other things, sometimes with little or no notice.
10:00-10:32am
Teach half of fourth hour, which is split by lunch. Kids get pretty excited and hungry around this time of the day.
10:32-11:02am
Half hour scheduled for lunch. Lunch actually starts whenever all of the students are gone from my classroom - after I answer any questions or sort out any issues from the first half of class.
11:02-11:29am
Teach the other half of fourth hour. Kids are either pretty excited or sleepy around this time of day...something to do with just having scarfed down weird combinations of foods in record time.
11:34am-2:20pm
Teach three more classes. This year, I alternate subjects each hour, so I teach German, then English, then German, then English again, and so on. It's a great brain exercise switching languages every hour every day. Also, sometimes "teaching" involves a lot more than what I expected it to before I actually started teaching. Like telling a student that the middle of the classroom is not the best place to reapply deodorant. Or having to help a student get his glasses untangled from his hair (I have no idea how this happened).
2:21pm
Breathe. And go to the bathroom.
2:22-3:00pm or 3:30pm or 4:00pm or 4:30pm (depending on the day)
Grade and/or get ready for the next day. Depending on the day of the week, there could also be staff meetings or professional development or Tea Club or NHS meetings/activities or tutoring or giving a student a make-up test or meeting with colleagues to talk about planning. Right now, I'm lucky that I can usually stay as late as I need to. A lot of teachers have to leave by a certain time each day (to pick up children and things like that), but that means that a lot of them are doing more work at home. This year, I leave school around 4:00 most days.
On the way home
Think and talk about the day with my carpool buddy.
At home
Do any prep or grading that I didn't finish at school. I've learned that I'm never really done with everything for this job. Even if I had every day of the year planned at the beginning of September, there would always be work to do - rethinking plans, making things better, integrating new tools/ideas/requirements and of course, grading. This year, I average about 1.5 hours of work at home per night. This varies widely though, depending on the time of year, the units I'm teaching, and the amount of Netflix I watch while entering grades.
10:00pm
Go to bed and get ready to do it all over again in the morning.
I don't mean for this post to sound negative. I really do feel it is an accurate description of what I do most days, and I know that some people are not aware of what it can be like to be a teacher. I really do love my job. I don't mind being busy, and I absolutely love the time when I'm actually teaching. I feel like being around the kids gives me energy to get through these crazy days, even if I am sometimes exhausted when I get home. And I look forward to seeing the kids again every day when I'm walking into school at 6:38am.
Wednesday, March 18, 2015
Sharing is Caring
Today, I had the opportunity to present about technology tools to my colleagues at a professional development session. It was awesome. One of my colleagues (@ElaineMantinan) and I were able to discuss and show how to use some really great educational technology tools - Google Drive, Kahoot, Padlet, Quizlet, and Twitter.
I was particularly excited about this opportunity because I feel that these tools have changed the way I teach for the better, and today was my chance to share that with a bigger group of people. I firmly believe that if you find something that works well and helps your students, you should share it. Professional development should involve an open exchange of ideas and should be about everyone working together to make everyone better. Today I was glad to have a chance to be a part of that.
I was particularly excited about this opportunity because I feel that these tools have changed the way I teach for the better, and today was my chance to share that with a bigger group of people. I firmly believe that if you find something that works well and helps your students, you should share it. Professional development should involve an open exchange of ideas and should be about everyone working together to make everyone better. Today I was glad to have a chance to be a part of that.
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