1.5
education and teaching
End of the Break
The break is over: the kids go back tomorrow, with E starting his second semester in middle school and L beginning her last semester as a junior. Two facts that are hard to comprehend: the Boy is 11; the Girl just turned 17. One more hard-to-believe fact: the school year is half over now.
I went back to school today for a teacher’s workday. Walking down the halls this morning I had the realization that we only have a matter of months before the end-of-year testing kicks in, and few of my on-level kids are ready for it. Granted, they’ve made progress this first semester, but there’s still so much more to do. One of the frustrations I have with all this testing is that it’s heartlessly uniform in its expectations: growth doesn’t matter; improvement doesn’t register — everyone has to reach the same place at the same time. The kids who go from struggling to write a paragraph with more than three sentences to writing fully-formed Schaffer paragraphs that make a claim, provide evidence, and explain that evidence will still get a “Not Met” score at the end of the year even though they’ve grown more than the English Honors kids who will score “Exceeds Expectations.” The kids who had so many emotional issues that sitting in a class and focusing for more than a few moments who grow to the point that they can remain focused for ten minutes at a time and work collaboratively with their peers without getting off-topic for a full five minutes — they’ll still “fail” despite all the evidence I could provide to the contrary.
School Oplatek and Holiday Party
That Time of Year
We always have some kind of decorating competition in school around Christmas -- door decorating, hall decorating, tree decorating. And there's always a group of kids who are so very eager to do the work.
It's also this time of year that we often start Romeo and Juliet. I've about completed the whole first act in a single week. We could have pulled it off if it weren't for today's quiz...
Basketball 2023
Cheering for my students -- few things are better.
December Friday
Today was our annual trip to the district's vocational school to give our soon-to-be-high-schoolers an overview of what's available to them there: everything from cosmetology to firefighting, from diesel engine repair to culinary arts, from mechatronics to nail tech. It's quite an impressive variety.
Once I got back home, I saw that the inevitable has begun: our poor widowed neighbor has moved out of her house and family and friends have already started on the house -- they took down the back deck that looked to be made of nothing but rotten boards.
"Wonder what kind of neighbors we'll get," will become a common topic of discussion, I'm sure -- not that we have any say in the matter.
For dinner, Babcia made placki ziemniaczane with mushroom sauce -- utter heaven.
And after dinner, a walk with the dog while the rest of the family went to church, a walk that included a street I haven't been on in ages. I'd forgotten about the holiday scene they create.
Eighth-Grade Meeting
Imagine
An imaginary email:
Thank you for attending the Q2 Student Progress Monitoring meeting with Bob Smith from the district office. As we prepare to engage in the Q3 Student Progress Monitoring process, please discuss and have one person from your collaborative team respond to this email no later than 4pm on Thursday. Please Cc: Bob Smith when you respond.
- Question 1: What is the title of your current unit of study and what date do you anticipate finishing this unit?
- Question 2: What is the title of your next unit of study and what date do you anticipate beginning this unit?
Let me know if you have any questions/concerns.
An imaginary response:
Thank you for your email thanking me for my attendance at the mandatory meeting. I appreciate the chance to sit with my colleagues and hear from someone at the district office how to do my job. Since I'm completely unfamiliar with monitoring student progress having taught only 24 years now, I appreciated the refresher of the basic ideas with which only the rawest of new teachers are unfamiliar. However, given the amount of time it took to fill out the forms your method required, I think I will have to politely decline further participation. I trust the district office will understand that my experience should suffice.
Games
Playing to Learn
Educational technology has come a long way in the last ten years. We've gone from simple programs like Google Docs to interactive learning games like Kahoot and Gimkit.
I use these, but I'm of mixed feelings on the topic.
On the one hand, they do get students engaged. When you're using learning to earn snowballs to pelt your classmates (see below), you're going to forget to some degree that you're learning/practicing.
On the other hand, gamifying learning seems to run the opposite risk: kids are more interested in the game and less interested in the learning, and they're willing to take risks (i.e., click somewhat randomly) to speed the process. And also, does everything have to be a game?
Still, it got some kids who are usually less than enthusiastic about school to engage to some degree for a few minutes. That's a win.