Bragging. Sheer bragging.

Reasons why I love my job:

I have a slew of kiddos who just want "projects" that can "help me." So what did my kiddos do? Clean out my entire file cabinet, make files for each of my current students, and then FILE all of the papers that were in giant piles on my desk.

Why thank you, dear children, for doing my job for me.

And reasons why I teach:

One of my loves (who I taught for 2 years) came to me yesterday and told me that he would not get to play in the soccer tournament on Saturday. I asked why, and he told me that he wasn't going to finish his Social Studies project in time. I asked why, and he said he just didn't have enough time on the computers. So I told him that I would stay after school on Wednesday and he could use my computer.

So today, he showed up at my door at 3:30. He sat down at one of the student computer and worked. He's always been a little squirrely, but when he gets into the zone, he'll sit in concentration and chew on his tongue. He's doing this as my little helpers are filing my stuff, and he calls out to me, "Yeah, they help you, but I'm still your favorite." And then smiles his little grin.

So when he finishes his project at 5:15, (after much googling on our parts), he looks at me, smiles, and says, "Thanks, Ms. L, for staying after school with me."

I. LITERALLY. DIE. OF. JOY.

My only concern

This article seems great.

Nice turnaround.

But the only thing that sticks with me is that the Introduction to Algebra II class is doing, in the NY Times, a math problem that we teach sixth graders.

WE. TEACH. SIXTH. GRADERS.

So something has gone terribly wrong. Either in that Algebra II class or the sixth grade in Arizona.

What I make

It's gone viral.

But it is SO true.

I make a difference. Do you?

The most important thing about space...

Is that robots go there, obviously.

Take this writing from a paragraph I graded today:

"Earth and Neptune are alike. Earth has life and Neptune doesn't because people send robots."

Obviously. I never thought about it that way, kiddo.

Boys who read.

This article talks about how to get boys to read.

It traces the disparity between boys and girls back to 1992, the major introduction of electronic media (ie. video games.)

Here is what the argument boils down to: "The secret to raising boys who read, I submit, is pretty simple—keep electronic media, especially video games and recreational Internet, under control (that is to say, almost completely absent). Then fill your shelves with good books."

Duh. Thank you, captain obvious.

Fear of god...or math

So one of my student's little sister got hit by a car today when she was riding to school.

She's fine, just a few scratches, but we were scared for a while.

His family picked him and his older sister up to go to the hospital shortly after school started. He didn't come back, but I saw the older sister WALK by me after school today.

Me: "Angry girl, how is your sister?"
Angry: "She's doing better. She has some scrapes."
Me: "So did you not go home with your brother?"
Angry: "Yes, I went home.
But I had to come back for Ivy's advanced math class."

OH MY GOD I LITERALLY DIED.

Of course my super colleague put the fear of god in her students eyes. Apparently, they took it seriously. Angry wasn't in the hospital (her sister was) so she better get her butt into math class.

AMAZING. Good job, super colleague.

Shift happens.

I love this idea.

For high school.

Can we please do this more often?

Amazing

So one of my besties found this article for me.

I loves it.

I especially love when people find things that remind them of me.

Assessment needs to change. NEEDS. TO. CHANGE.

I want to be the one who changes it.

The Education Issue

NY Times Sunday Magazine is all about Education and Technology this week.

Check it out here.

If you don't want to read everything, try these:

A school that teaches through video games (obviously never employing me, the girl who HATES video games of any kind.)

An interview with Arne Duncan, who, in my opinion, needs to be more feisty. (How is he going to get anything done without feist?)

Textbooks on the ipad (or a dream come true? You decide. I have my opinions.)

So many good articles today!

In a perfect world...

In a perfect world....

This wouldn't have happened.


But because it did, in my perfect world.....

Rhee will exit gracefully and end up in a place ready to hire me to be her second in command.

It could work.

Burger toppings?

We were walking to music today, and my kiddos were being slow in the back of the line. I started telling the kids, "catch up, catch up!"

One of them said, "mustard, Ms. L, mustard!"

Another one yells out, "Mayonnaise!"

A third: "Lettuce."

I go, "Okay, smarties! Tomato!"

Another boy tells me, "Cinnamon!" He said this with a huge smile on his face...

I look at him with tons of questions in my eyes.

"Honey, why would you say cinnamon is a burger topping?"

"Ms. L, we were talking about it this morning."

"Darling, the only thing we were talking about this morning were synonyms, not cinnamon."

Clickers of joy.

I have, in fact, figured out how to use our school's CPS Remotes.

Remember in those huge science lecture classes at Northwestern, where you had to click in answers on your remote, and it was the way they took attendance?

Well, my kiddos have clickers now, too. And you know what it does? AUTOMATIC FUCKING GRADING.

I can see instantly who got the question right, who got it wrong, what percent of the kiddos got it right and wrong, what ANSWERS they chose instead of the correct answer...

Basically I am a happy data analyst because my data collection, after we get used to using these, is going to be SO MUCH FASTER AND EASIER.

Beautifully written

This piece is beautifully written.

And this one phrase basically encompasses my teaching philosophy: "The highest compliment you can pay a child is to be demanding."

How true. How true.

An open letter

Here is a letter that I wish I could write to my school district.

Dear School District,

It has come to my attention that the more incompetent a person is, the more responsibility and leadership you give to them.

It would behoove you to actually understand what leaders of teachers should know and be able to do, and then hire people who a) can do that and b) can actually function with groups of adults.

Please stop hiring people who are a clusterfuck of stupidity. Please stop hiring people who do not know WHAT THE FUCK THEY ARE DOING.

And if you cannot do that, please stop putting people in coaching positions who have no idea how to coach teachers. Ask us. We will tell you who we want to coach us. We will tell you what we need.

And if you cannot do that, please just stop making me listen to these people. Because I may, in fact, stab their fucking eyes out with a fucking fork.

Sincerely,
Miss L


I had a "training" today about coteaching. I wanted someone to sit us down and show us what to do using videos and models. I would like exemplars in this "co-teaching" world. I have seen reading exemplars, math exemplars, writing exemplars, models of what to do and what not to do in my time as a teacher.

Did we do any of that?

FUCK NO WE DIDN'T.

At one point, I got so frustrated I started to cry. The "leader" of the training pissed me off on so many different levels, I finally stopped talking and defending my opinion. She honestly is the most useless person I have ever met.

Pig Heaven

Do you know why I am in pig heaven?

Oriental Trading Company.

I'm working on picking out fantastic prizes for our monthly math homework book....

Please see this page. Immediately.

If you didn't just click on that link, shame on you. You have no idea why I'm so fucking excited, do you?






THAT IS A WHOLE 112 different types of RUBBER DUCKIES.

I'm leaning toward the 80's ducks, the Rockstar ducks, or the Biker ducks.

Debate Worthy?

The NY Times have a heated debate going on right now about Assessing a Teacher's Value.

So interesting.

For example, things I've never thought of:
"The reasons are simple. Test score gains are caused by many variables in addition to the teacher: students’ learning and language background, attendance, supports at home, previous and current teachers, tutors, curriculum materials, class sizes and other school resources. Out-of-school time matters too. Summer learning loss accounts for more than half the achievement differential between high- and low-income students. Thus, researchers have found that the very same teacher looks more “effective” when she is teaching more advantaged students -- and less effective when she teaches more students who are low-income, new English learners, or who have special education needs."

Hmmm...so many variables that cannot help a teacher when they are having just a value-added evaluation...

So many interesting opinions. I'm glad we've begun this discussion.

Those radios can be heard round the world...

Two of my naughties have been in-school suspended for a few days. They threw rocks at each other in front of our ISS teacher, and then they were ninja-kicking each other in the stomach in line walking to the library.

The ISS teacher was pissed. So she put them in ISS.

My feelings about one particular naughty, we'll call him ADD, are mixed at best. He's a fricken genius, but literally the most annoying human being I have EVER met. It boils down to him having diagnosed ADHD and a mother who refuses to medicate. The kid REFUSES to pay attention to anything, and legitimately does the opposite of everything you tell him to. And destroys property. And drives me fricken nuts. And they tell me that I just need to "deal with it." "Use your strategies." "He cannot be that bad..." Etc.

When I was in the office today, I heard the radio. The radio basically connects "the man" with each other....you know, when they want to find someone? Who knows. But from the radio, I hear from the ISS teacher: "ADD is driving me FRICKEN NUTS. I CANNOT HANDLE HIM RIGHT NOW!"

And I yell, with a big fat smile on my face, to the whole office who heard the radio, "Welcome to my life, PEOPLE! Welcome to MY LIFE!"

Holy. Crap.

What have I gotten into? When I ask this, I mean:

SHIT MY KIDS CANNOT READ.

My fabulous, amazing, wonderful, etc., coteacher just finished our BRI scores for the class. This gives us a general idea of what grade level they are reading at.

They should come to my room at 5th and leave at 6th or above.

Well...
I have 13 kids at or above grade level right now.

I have 11 kids reading at a 2nd or 3rd grade level right now.

I have 3 kids reading significantly (pre-primer or 1st grade) below grade level right now.


Crap. Crap. Why would we give these kids to me, a novice reading teacher? WHY?

Main idea?

In science class, we're learning about the planets.

It is very hard to keep a straight face when you have to say Uranus at least 12,000 times a day. Or answer questions with a straight face because you, in fact, have the humor of a seventh grade boy at times. (Thank the lord these kids are 5th graders and don't understand why this is so funny.)

But, well, sometimes, things just surprise you. And you cannot help but laugh. One of my smarties, named Jesus, was finding the main idea and 3 supporting details for the main idea about Uranus from the reading he was doing. (2 pages in a space book.) Since this is an actual book and not a stupid paragraph constructed by the powers that be, the main idea is implied.

Here is what Jesus turned in.



Yes. That says, "It sucks to live in Uranus." The details? "It has no land." "It is a gas planet." "You have to wait for a long time for your birthday."

I had to call a teacher in the middle of class and read it to him. We've been laughing ever since.

And my reply? "Yes, Jesus, I'm sure it sucks to live in Uranus."

Heard my calling...

So the NY Times is in my brain. Seriously.

Or, I'm just entering into my WTF should I do with my life phase at exactly the right time.

Major overhaul of assessment in this country? Yes, please.

Imagine who gets to WORK with all of this data and COMPARE it to the past results and DETERMINE if the assessements are valid, efficient, reliable, and fair. (TFA acronym, anyone? Yes, I just VERF'd it.)

I. die. of. joy.

I also need my doctorate immediately.

A Thought on Equity

So, I'm not going to rant long. I've realized in the past month that my job makes me infinitely happier than I was last year...so my rants are less substantive and more, "where's the time? Why can my kids not form a sentence? How do I teach fifth graders to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators when we cannot divide and/or distinguish between factors and multiples?"

So, small rant. About equity. Now, I know all schools are different. But within a school, I'm gonna go right out and say that all teachers should have similar workloads. This means that we should be teaching similar numbers of students, in a similar number of classes, for the same amount of time.

If some rooms have 3 or so more kids than others, that is different. If some rooms have gifted kids, that is different. This is not what I want to rant about.

I'm ranting about certain people on my campus who are teaching significantly less class than I am. Instead of 40 minutes of prep, this person can be seen in the copy room on MY PREP because SHE ONLY TEACHS 3 blocks instead of 4.

Wait, WTF?

You're teaching 80 minutes less than I am a day. So you get 40 minutes of prep, and another 80 minutes (2 additional preps) A DAY?

Shut the front door.

This. Is. Not. Fair.

There is NOTHING fucking fair about this. I'm not saying I should teach less. I actually wish I could have my kids for more time. I'm saying if you get extra prep time in a day, so should I.

Its been eating at me since there is currently 1 working copy machine, and I have to share it with YOU during my prep even though you shouldn't be there.