Motivate!

Today after hours of grading we showed the kids their midterm grades, many many of which were under 50%. What amazed me about this was how eager they were to see their grades, even those that hadn't tried at all or left three-quarters of their tests blank. They expect to somehow perform alchemy... turning the leadenness of their participation and work ethic into the gold of a passing grade. Or something like that.
Here's the thing: I am growing really really fond of my kids. Even the "bad" ones. I really like them and am beginning to see the good in most of them. I am definitely definitely favoring the boys because i find them more pliable and earnest and less self-possessed and shut off from me. I find them all, gender regardless, charming despite myself. This will probably come back and slap me in the face but for now it's making my daily grind less of a grind. That having been said, I am trying to teach them Shakespeare's sonnet 138 tomorrow, and I'm scared! Very, very, scared.

On we march

At last, the end of this bootcampy summer is in sight. Knowing that there are only two more weeks left is NOT making it any easier. Instead, it's making our experience feel just like a gauntlet we have to run.
Today at last I feel like I connected with some of my kids over poetry. I think some of them might actually like me--or at least not hate me. Some of them were amazed that I knew anything about hip-hop at all; one in particular, who is one of those teacher's best friend/worst enemy types (he might have ADHD) was amazed that I knew anything at all about "his" culture-- in fact, popular hip-hop has become a commodified, global culture but that's another story. He is a prime example of someone who uses his status as a member or a margainalized/oppressed social group to hold himself back. He has so many demons so very very visible. I really want to sit down and have a heart to heart with him but I'm a little scared of him too. Anyhow, good day today might be followed by a bad day tomorrow, but at least I have something to sustain me.

adieu!

Trooping on

The past two days have witnessed my first planned lesson at My school, a lesson about "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" by Ernest Hemmingway, which I have to say is one of the more beautiful stories I've ever read. It has some awesome lines, such as "He did not wish to be unjust. He was only in a hurry." And the phrase "All those who need a light for the night." Hemmingway's understatement indicates an incredibly deep current beneath the surface and I want to chuck a Robin Williams and shout out "Dive, my children! Dive beneath the surface!" Perhaps such urges towards eccentricity will let themselves unfurl when the classroom is my own.
I noticed that the students who were involved in reading the story grew very invested in it-- and became invested in themselves and their classroom behavior. Even though the behavior problems were numerous today, there are those cracks of light, those students who get personally invested, those students who you see getting it. It's those students who have to motivate me every morning, even when I miss my daily coffee jolt.

The Woes of a Fellow

I am way behind in my work. Even though certain members of the NYCTF community tease me about it and I embrace my scatterbrainedness and inability to turn in a psych paper on time, the truth is that this is the hardest summer of my life. My boyfriend and I are long distance for the first time, I have a new job and a new home on the east side, and of course, my entire family is dealing with a serious, tragic and sudden loss.
It's those punky kids at HS that keep me going-- because maybe, maybe I will get through to one or two of them each day. Tomorrow I am teaching a lesson on good old Hemingway; the story is "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." My AP said he doubted the story would "go over" with my students. I feel like I have to prove something-- something about universal themes, spare prose, and loneliness. Something about what emphasizing the world's best literature can do.

A demain.

Content before form, Ladies and Gs

I wholeheartedly agree with the brilliant Jame McKenzie, whose warning against the scourge of Power Pointlessness are so a propos. Just as technologically stratospheric title pages with font changes, graphics, and pithy quotations were used in high school to distract the eye from a mediocre paper, so can zippy, zappy, ringy and zingy Power Point Presentations (my version of PPPs) distract the audience from the actual content of the presentation. Especially when they are punky high school kids, who get distracted by the word "village" (we were learning what a village was and they thought it was Greenwich Village and Greenwich Village only) much less a spiraling-outward transition between two PPP slides. McKenzie's many ideas for clarifying and simplifying presentations are useful--keep it classy, he says. And he reminds us that we should be never substituting text with effects, rather augmenting it. Clip art should be instructive if it's there at all, and if its decorative, it should be given a position that indicates so. Not front and center. What matters is the "depth and complexity" of what we have to say.

In other words, McKenzie puts the emphasis on good, ole-fashioned presentation-making skills. Maintain eye-contact. Use notes as little as possible. Keep an eye on the class and use learning probes to make sure they're keeping up. Speak with authority and energy. Your power-point presentation is in essence just a neater, more thorough, and imminently more transportable way of putting notes on the blackboard. Would you, the instructor, read off from the notes you had scribbled on the board?
Rarely, methinks.
Thank you, Jamie McKenzie, to rededicating us all to moderation in our usage of PPPs.

Troubles

Yesterday was an amazing day in the classroom. After an unsettled first class, Mr. N. and I really had our second period students sitting quietly and paying attention. We were teaching them the editing tools.
I had about 2/3 of their names memorized, and felt like I had an individual rapport with more than half of the students in the class already. I had a core group of them calling me "Ms. S" instead of "Miss" and even though the lesson was dry and might not have made a huge impact, I felt truly triumphant and praised them at the end of class.
Today I walked in to discover that my class had completely switched, and I had to spend an hour and a half handing out new programs in the auditorium. I ran into a few of my students who greeted me with an eager "Hey Miss S" and when I told them I wasn't their teacher anymore, one said, "Oh no... you the best." A teeny tiny triumph mixed with the most intense defeat I've felt since this program started. How can we keep going when every small victory is undermined by bureauocracy. But even worse, how about the fact that the students had built up a relationship with Me, Mr. N and Mr. K... and saw three more adults walk out of their lives for no good reason?
My class today was bigger, rowdier, and less sweet than yesterday's. Although I made some headway with one or two students, I was tired and frustrated. I hope I can bring some fresh optimism into school tomorrow. I understand how deep I'm going to have to dig for positivity as this experience goes on.

WORD GAMES!

Those of us children of baby boomers discovered the information age through educational games: Oregon Trail, Carmen Sandiego, and my favorite How the West Was One plus Three Times Seven (yep, that was a math game) stretched our minds and provided us with fun. So it was a pleasure to open Yahooligans! treasure trove of wordgames. It's a simple, colorful site, with link after link to anagrams, crossword puzzles, word-finding puzzles and hangman games. These range from really simple to very challenging, and they certainly strech one's mind. The anagrams (finding words with the letters from other words) I found were the least useful games for the computer, as they really require a pencil to move the letters around, or at least a larger view of the word than was provided.
My personal favorite was the New York Times' mini-crossword puzzle. It wasn't a cinch the way I thought it would be (despite the crossword puzzle tutorial I've been receiving lately from the fellow proprietors of lowdiha.blogspot.com) and if you have javascript, it ingeniously lets you erase squares so you don't have those horrible smudges that crossword-puzzles often end up with.
The two caveats I would offer teachers are to play close attention to the varying levels of these word games, and also ask how conducive some of them are to literacy. I think many of these games certainly do build comfort with words, but many of them also stretch the mind in a more mathematical way and are better used as enrichment than curriculum.

The Boys and Girls of Summer, continued

How to teach the fundamental skill of applying oneself to students who have resisted learning said skill for three years of high school? And what about this whole differentiated learning thing? It's harder than it looks- half of my class today was filled with a bunch of bright students who had passed their regents or in one case, kicked out of the test for carrying a cellphone! They were doing creative writing projects on their own and wanted to engage. I taught one, who was writing about a "twin" who's not your blood relative, the meaning of "kindred spirits." He laughed at my handwriting but added the term to the essay. I explained that he was writing about a theme that many famous writers tackled, and he seemed really pleased.

The other half of the classroom was filled with "how do I write an essay?" or "what's an outline?"-- kids stealing each others' stuff, throwing things, and being unable to focus.

It was good to see the challenges I'll be facing firsthand.

To Be Continued...

Summer Summer Summer Time

This blog presents a good opportunity to type up my "field notes," and to try and relate them to technology. Today I sat in on Mr. B's bridge program English class for students just entering high school. They were an exceptionally quiet and intelligent bunch of kids, but their reading was very slow for ninth graders. I am really interested in using the web to find some resources on how to use more simply written pieces of great literature to teach-- instead of these somewhat maudlin (although sometimes effective) textbooks that are essentially full of children's stories. Today I saw all of the things I've been learning about come into play-- particularly the shyness of some of these students and the amazing benefits of positive reinforcement.

Mr. B was an excellent, experienced classroom manager and disciplinarian. He got silence and obedience from his students. I felt, though, that he wasn't as kind as he could have been. I believe that many veteran teachers have given up on a whole class of "bad" kids, but in 9th grade I think it's too early to give up! Teachers feel that they "know" how kids are and they're going to show them who's boss. But I saw that even in my three hours of observation, younger people have their own wisdom that is in so many ways superior to the intelligence we jaded grown-ups claim. Why not respect them for it and try to teach them what we know?

I've found out a wee bit more about technology at Truman; I noticed a Dell desktop in my classroom and also heard from Mr. B that he was planning to teach his students some word-processing skills. I think that there are two or three computer labs in the school and I know the teacher's lounge has some Macs. I've also hear the English dept. has 2 or three laptop projectors, but that's among almost 30 staff members. What I've been stewing over today is the issue of my students word-processing their papers. If they don't have computers, it's going to be so much more of a hassle for them to do it. I worry for them! I do feel like it's my responsibility as an Engligh teacher to give them some basics--e-mail for one, and Microsoft Word. So we'll see.
That's all for now.

Summer School...

I'm very nervous about starting out at summer school tomorrow... in addition to my usual fears, this week I've been dealing with the death of a very close friend (my twin brother's college roommate). This tragedy has thrown off my motivation and concentration and to be honest, really desire a few weeks off to regroup. But at the same time thinking about Paul's life has rededicated me to education and particulary to working with young people and young men especially, who get such short-shrift from society.
Tomorrow I will have to embrace chaos, something that once excited me and now makes me nervous. I will have to go with the flow and keep my eyes open for everything from discipline in the classroom to new uses of technology. I will have to be able to laugh and take everything, from the line in front of the metal detectors to my inability to find my way around, in stride.
My blogging will be more specific to the work I'm doing and my techology plan tomorrow! For now, I just wanted to get those thoughts out. I hope that lasting peace can be with us all on this July 4th, full of such uncertainty for the future of our nation and the world.