Matching Tracksuits

education and teaching

Fire

Wednesday 30 August 2023

This year I’m trying a new starter: Write Into the Day. Basically, it’s a short writing exercise that is intended to get their minds in a literary space. I’ve tinkered with it, changed a few things, altered how we share, but so far, I’ve left the core idea alone: write a few sentences about a given prompt.

Last week, one of the prompts was this: “What lights that fire in you to give it your all?” When I was reading the responses this weekend, I found this one:

Mr Scott because he wants me to be my best in school so everytime he talks to me in the hallway about how much brain cells I have. After we finish talking in the hallway and when I go to my class I’m ready to learn so He always fires me up every time in class so Mr scott fires me and I give it all I have.

These kids kill me: it takes the smallest thing sometimes. This boy was telling me early in the year that he couldn’t do any better because he “only has two brain cells.”

“What are you talking about? You’ve got something like 120 billion brain cells, and they all work just fine as far as I can tell.”

The next day I saw him, I’d done some calculations, and I told him, “You know if all your brain cells were one second each, you’d have 3,800 years worth of seconds!”

“Really?!” He couldn’t believe it.

The smallest things…

Fight

Thursday 17 August 2023

The Boy told me about it the moment I walked into the house. “There was a fight at school today. A big fight.” Apparently, two boys got into it during lunch, and it happened right in front of the Boy.

“Were you scared?” I asked.

“Yes!” he replied without hesitation or self-awareness of the fact that such a response would definitely mark him at some schools among some kids. One of those involved was someone E knows, and he was a little worried about what was happening to his friend and a little worried about what might happen him.

“I’m definitely in middle school now,” he concluded.

Tuesday School Thoughts

Tuesday 15 August 2023

On the one hand, I’m responsible for teaching them to read and write better. That’s my bottom-line assignment at work. Traditionally, that’s all a teacher has ever been expected to do: teach the course material.

Yet some of my students fall under the rubric “at-risk” in one form or another. They can’t stay focused for more than five minutes (at best) or five seconds (literally, at worst). They can’t keep up with their materials until the next day (at best) or the next minute (at worst). They can’t accept “no” as an answer, and they take everything personally and turn things into battles that have no business being fights to begin with. They come in without materials — no pencil, no paper, no nothing.

These are the kids whose behavior, quite honestly, disrupts the learning of anyone and everyone else in the room. They are black holes for attention: their every second is a new event horizon to resist. Interactions with them can be quicksand, pulling everyone in and restricting movement completely. Working with them for five minutes can be utterly exhausting; working with them for a whole class period can have one questioning one’s sanity.

Yet what option do we have as teachers? No one else is teaching these kids (only a few — perhaps 7-10%, and not even that many who are so demanding and high-maintenance) these skills. At least it seems no one else is teaching them the skills. And someone has to teach these kids the basics of how to interact successfully with the world.

But it’s so exhausting…

New Faces

Tuesday 8 August 2023

At this point, I barely know any of their names. They have 4 new names to learn; I have almost 120 new names to learn. Still, we’re getting to know each other, learning what makes each other tick…

A good first day at school.

School Year’s Eve

Monday 7 August 2023

Tomorrow, I begin my twenty-fifth year teaching, my sixteenth with Greenville County Schools. Am I ready? I’ve reviewed and signed all my IEPs and 504 plans. I’ve worked with other eighth-grade teachers to create this week’s lesson plans (and of course, the administration tweaked the lesson plan template, as they do every single year). I’ve spoken to teachers and administrators about which students I need to focus on early in order to form a good relationship so that when things sour, I have that good relationship to appeal to. I’ve spoken to my co-teacher in my inclusion class about what we’ll be doing and had a fruitful discussion about how we will work together. I’ve watched (almost) all my safety training videos (the same ones, year after year after year after year after year…). I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do, and I still don’t feel ready for tomorrow.

Part of that is because of what I’ve heard about this year’s group of kids. “They’re the toughest bunch we’ve ever had” was the common assessment of most seventh-grade teachers. I’m not looking forward to a year like that. Yet they always mature some over the summer, so I’m hopeful that will mitigate things a bit.

The Boy, though, feels even less prepared than I do. “I just want to go back to elementary school” has been his mantra. New starts always make him nervous, but K pointed out to him all the new things he’s thrived in this summer: a new scouting troop; summer camp with a different scouting troop; band camp with a group of strangers. Still, he’s reticent. I can understand that.

The Girl is just ready to go. She’s got so many AP classes this year that it’s troubling (seven out of her eight classes are AP: four the first semester, three the second semester), but she’s stubborn and resilient. She’ll make it.

K is not looking forward to the morning rush, but she and I will slip back into it.

Only the animals are calm about it…

Staff

Friday 4 August 2023

Here’s a picture of our entire school staff — teachers, custodians, counselors, paraprofessionals, administrators, and cafeteria workers.

And here are all the people who were working here when I first started teaching at the school:

I am, in short, the seventh-longest serving teacher at the school at this point.

Books

Thursday 3 August 2023

This is my new reading/focus corner. All those books? Mostly provided by the generosity of the state’s education department. But the state has also said all books I have students read have to be vetted. By three teachers. So I don’t know if it applies to these books or not. If so, I’ll hang a sign on the bookshelf:

Books for Decoration Only Due to State Documentation Requirements

Coming faces

Wednesday 31 May 2023

I spent the day in a sixth-grade classroom covering for a teacher wanted to go on today’s eighth-grade field trip. I met about 100 young men and ladies who are about to move into the seventh grade, students who will eventually turn out to be my students. I started each session taking roll and asking them about first impressions.

“What is a first impression?” I asked, and some really didn’t know. They’d heard of it, but they didn’t really know what it was or how we create those critical impressions that serve as the initial foundation for all future interactions.

“Are you making a first impression?” I asked Jose when I called his name.

“What are you doing that is creating a first impression,” I asked Sara ask I continued down the roster.

“What first impression have you presented to me?” I asked James when I got to his name.

“That’s making an impression,” I said to Nadia, pointing to her foot that bobbing up and down. She looked down then stopped immediately. “I’m not saying it’s a bad impression — I’m just pointing out that it is contributing to the first impression you’re creating.”

These are the basic social-emotional skills and awarenesses that so many kids are completely clueless about. They’re not aware of the simple fact that they are communicating with every single thing they do. They’re not aware that even when they think that no one is watching, that no one is drawing conclusions from how they walk, how they talk, how they interact with their friends — when they think they’re completely invisible.

Comments for the 2022-2023 School Year

Saturday 27 May 2023

This year’s entries:

  • I know you’ve heard the rumors of how bad Mr. Scott is but trust me there are worse teachers out there.
  • Mr. Scott is not working against you, in fact he is here to help you. It may seem horrible and never ending now, but it will help you in the long run.
  • In conclusion, I know Mr. Scott seems intimidating and scary but trust me he will be there for you because he wants you to be the greatest writer you can be.
  • The next one-hundred eighty days are about to be life-changing! If you are reading this you are lucky enough to have the hardest but most useful teacher of eighth grade. Mr. Scott has by far been my favorite teacher because of his challenging assignments, cheery attitude, and desire for you to think independently.
  • Although it may seem like Mr. Scott is just trying to make your life impossible, he doest do all of this to be mean, he just wants you to learn. I know right now you’re probably thinking that Mr. Scott is the worst and there is no possible way you can do this class. Please just trust me when I say, this class will make you so much better at writing, reading, and at the end of the year you will see how much you improved in just a couple of months. I have learned so much and become such a better writer and I know you will too.
  • This school year you will have the misfortune of getting Mr. Scott’s English 1 Class. This class will push you to your very limits and make you want to break something at least three times a week. It is a class of very high standards and a lot of work that will eventually prepare you for your highschool years. The work you have will make it difficult to want to do but in the end you will become a better reader and writer because of it.
  • [T]hroughout the beginning this class may seem like it is never going to end but as you get through the year you will notice that each unit feels shorter and shorter. It may even seem as if it is getting easier, but it is all just a sign of how much you have grown within the year.
  • Mr.Scott is the hardest teacher I’ve ever had. He will make you cry at some point this year.
  • Mr.Scott’s class is challenging but will help you do great in the long run. You will have to thank Mr.Scott for keeping his class tough and everything else he taught you.
  • This class will greatly prepare you for English 2, however, it will be a tough year and there may be some tears.
  • This class has many qualities such as hilarious, complex, and depressing, but it’s definitely one you will never forget in comparison to any other English classes you have ever and will ever take.
  • Welcome to Mr. Scott’s class. The place where I shed many tears, stressed so much I almost went bald, and learned more than I could have ever imagined. This class will most likely be one of the hardest you ever take. So now, go ahead and prepare yourself for some of the hardest and most work you will ever receive from any teacher. Go ahead and prepare yourself for countless late nights, wasted boxes of tissues and piles of papers. Finally, go ahead and prepare yourself for the longest year of your life.
  • Mr.Scott may come across as a harsh grader however he is preparing you. Next year when you walk into English 2 honors it will be a breeze.
  • This class is both one of the most stressful, and beneficial that you have taken, or will take for the rest of your time at Hughes. In English 1 Honors, you might face difficulties like being organized, staying focused, or keeping up with the writing assignments and projects.
  • Mr. Scott may seem like an innocent, and nice English teacher, but he will always make sure that his students are having a terrible time. […] Mr.Scott’s class is just pure evil.
  • If you are thinking that this year will be easy-going because it is your last year here, you are gravely mistaken and this class is the reason why. This class will be the hardest class you have ever taken, and there will be many times when you wish that you would have been in the other class. […] This class will be extremely difficult, but the result will be worth all of the hard work.
  • Overall, Mr. Scott is not a mean teacher, but his class is one of the worst things you’ll experience this year.
  • Mr. Scott’s class is definitely a difficult class, but afterwards you will find yourself writing much better paragraphs and noticing things in passages that you never would have seen before.
  • This class will challenge you to think outside of the box and may stress you out sometimes. But ultimately if you pace yourself, pay attention, and ask questions you will end the school year with good grades and new amazing knowledge.
  • Welcome to one of the hardest classes you have taken in middle school. You might be thinking that this class will be a breeze like English classes in the previous years, but Mr. Scott’s class is no joke. […] He will push you to your absolute max, and him doing this can cause a lot of stress, confusion, frustration, and maybe some crying. Aside from this, his class will definitely construct you into a better student, writer, worker, and reader.
  • After a few months, you might think that you want to drop out of this class but once you are finishing up the school year, you will realize how far you’ve come and you might even start to like English. At the end of this journey, you will even start to like Mr.Scott and realize how much his class has helped you one way or another.

End of Year

Thursday 25 May 2023

As the school year comes to an end, so does the rigor…

This Year’s Letters

Tuesday 23 May 2023

  • I know you’ve heard the rumors of how bad Mr. Scott is but trust me there are worse teachers out there.
  • Welcome to Mr. Scott’s class. The place where I shed many tears, stressed so much I almost went bald, and learned more than I could have ever imagined. This class will most likely be one of the hardest you ever take. So now, go ahead and prepare yourself for some of the hardest and most work you will ever receive from any teacher. Go ahead and prepare yourself for countless late nights, wasted boxes of tissues and piles of papers. Finally, go ahead and prepare yourself for the longest year of your life.
  • Overall, Mr. Scott is not a mean teacher, but his class is one of the worst things you’ll experience this year.
  • Mr. Scott may seem like an innocent, and nice English teacher, but he will always make sure that his students are having a terrible time. […] Mr.Scott’s class is just pure evil.
  • Welcome to one of the hardest classes you have taken in middle school. You might be thinking that this class will be a breeze like English classes in the previous years, but Mr. Scott’s class is no joke. […] He will push you to your absolute max, and him doing this can cause a lot of stress, confusion, frustration, and maybe some crying. Aside from this, his class will definitely construct you into a better student, writer, worker, and reader.

Eight-Grade Dance

Friday 19 May 2023

One of the real joys of the year is the eighth-grade formal dance. To see these kids out of uniform, being silly, having fun — without a care in the world. It’s a beautiful thing.

By the Numbers

Monday 15 May 2023

When students don’t hand in work for an assignment, we enter a special code into the grade book to indicate that: NHI. “Not Handed In.” Some students have not a single NHI in the whole grade book; others have a few more than zero.

That’s how it always is; the breakdown is always according to class. It’s always predictable:

The on-level classes are a different story. And the inclusion class, which includes a lot of special education students, is a category all by itself. That class alone, which has 27 students who represent 24% of all my students, has 46.29% of all the NHIs. Their NHI/student ratio is almost double the average for the whole group of 112 students whom I teach. One student alone, I calculated, is responsible for almost 5% of the NHIs herself.

P4 and P5 are honors classes. They have relatively few NHIs. Out of about 1300 grades (assignments times students for a given class), they each have in the 70-80 range. That’s about 5% of all assignments not turned in. That’s relatively high, I think, but they are middle schoolers. The bulk of the NHIs in those classes are from boys who don’t really want to be in the class to begin with.

How many of these students will fail the class? None. Not a single one. Even the student who had 40+ NHIs out of 64 assignments. She will pass the class by about one point.

Why?

Because in the district’s wisdom, NHIs don’t count as 0; they count as 50. In other words, students do nothing and get 50% of the credit. What do they need to pass? 60%. So students can literally do three or four assignments per quarter and pass by the skin of their cliches.

“That’s all fine and good,” outside critics might say, “but what about when they get a job? What is that teaching them for a work ethic?” Forget about when they get a job; the 50 floor ends when they enter high school. So we’ve taught them that it’s possible to skip most assignments and still pass, and then they’ll get to high school and find their 60 in middle school translates to a 32 or so in high school.

Who thought this was a good idea?

We teachers like to joke that we should stop doing any work and demand 50% of our salary. “If the students can do it, we should be able to as well.”

The truth of the matter is, though, that even if we didn’t have this floor and gave students the grades they really earned, we wouldn’t hold them back. Kids get socially promoted all the time, and they know that it’s a district (or is it state?) policy that students can only fail once before eighth grade.

“You can’t fail me. I’ve already been held back. You can’t do anything to me,” I’ve heard from students.

What about high school? If you fail a class once, will they be reluctant to fail you again? Do they socially promote students? I really don’t know. I tell students they don’t, but for all I know, they might.

And this is yet another reason the education system in our state is broken almost beyond repair…

Our Team

Thursday 11 May 2023

One of the sweetest girls on our team drew a dry-erase marker portrait of the four of us.

It’s that time of year when I’m of two minds: on the one hand, I’m tired of these kids. I’m ready for new, fresh blood. I know the ins and outs of each kid (sort of); I know what makes them tick; I know how they’re going to react to this or that. And I’m ready for a new batch.

On the other hand, I love most of these kids. Every year, I think, “This is the greatest group of kids I’ve ever worked with. There’s no way next year can be better.” And it usually is. And so I’ll miss them, and a part of me doesn’t want to see them go.

But just a slightly bigger part does…

Time to move on, kiddos.