It's Official

They have finally stopped pulling the punches and Borman Middle School is officially closing at the end of the year. Declining enrollment, employer sanctions laws that are hostile to illegal immigrants, and horrid test scores for the last 6-8 years were the reasons cited, which are all fair. They are actually planning on reopening it next year with a new name as a K-8 school, along with several other schools in the district in the same situation. (This means that, instead of the current 12 6th grades, there will be 5.) I have to say, after all the things that have gone on this year, I'm actually relieved to have a final end in sight.

They promised jobs to highly qualified teachers with seniority somewhere in the district, and would give preference to people who want to stay at Borman. Based on those things, I could probably stay at Borman, and would definitely have a job somewhere in the district. However, after the way Borman has been treated, and seeing the progression of the school the past four years, and after a lot of hard thinking, I'm planning on applying at another district for next year. Part of me feels like a failure, and the superintendent told us that the test scores and school closing did not mean we were bad teachers or a failure. However, it seems to me that somewhere along the line, someone did fail. It may not have been one single person, or one single decision, but something has gone horribly awry if more than half of the schools in the district are now underperforming. Something is not right. That is a major reason for me leaving the district. It would be awfully tempting to say that it's just hard to teach kids in poverty who are learning English at the same time, and that's why our test scores are low. However, the district right next to us, with the same population of kids, has all of their schools performing AND is winning awards. Clearly, somewhere along the line, someone or something failed.

And, since I hate failing in any way, I'm going to go somewhere where they are being successful at teaching students. (My kids would kill me for starting a sentence with "and.") Again, a big part of me feels like I've failed the kids I am teaching, but I also wonder if I just haven't been given the right tools to do the given job. If I kept on in this district, I have a feeling I would burn out sooner rather than later, due to frustration at constant failure. So, I think I'm doing the right thing for me and my future students.

Hopefully, THAT makes me a good teacher.

They're learning!

Yay! They're learning something! The longer I'm a teacher, the more I realize that the earlier you start something, and the more often you do it, the better students get at it. I know, this sounds like a "duh" moment, but it's true. Allow me several "for instances." [And yes, I know, none of the following things will be on our standardized test, but I think they are victories nonetheless :-).]

For example, I have been making a big deal with my kids about saying the word "library" correctly. I have quite a few every year who want to say "libary," which annoys the heck out of me. So, several times this year, I made them all say it correctly before they went in the library door. Now, when I say it fast, they think I'm saying it wrong and constantly correct me. :-) They're learning!

Another vocabulary example: I have also been attempting to get my students to use academic English in their writing, as opposed to conversational English. Heretofore, I really didn't think this was a distinction that 6th graders who are learning English would be able to make, and so I didn't address it, but this year I've been trying. The result: I was describing a science lab paper the kids would need for a project and I described it as a "worksheet thingy." At this point, at least 3 kids pointed out to me that it was not proper to say something like that and I should be more specific. :-) They're learning!

A non-academic example: I have always told my kids to pick up trash on the playground when they see it, and I always make sure they see me picking up trash as well. However, this year I have been pushing it, and I tell them most days to pick up trash as we're walking inside. On Friday, when I went out to pick the kids up after lunch, one kid was walking toward me with at least 3 cans in his hand. Two other kids saw him and immediately ran off to find trash. As we were walking inside, another girl went off to the track to pick up some blowing garbage. Yay! They're learning! We can make a difference, even if it's just in the little things.

Lesson learned: Start early, repeat often.

Google it!

Today my students were working on a daily math review, and there was a question about what the commutative property was. I didn't learn what that was until I was 16, so I didn't expect them to know the answer, and they didn't. Personally, I can never remember the difference between commutative and associative properties, and so I went to my computer while they were working on the problems and googled it. As I was doing this, one of my kids came up to ask how to do the commutative property problem. As he asked, he looked at my screen, and I just imagined he was putting 2 and 2 together to see that I was looking up something I was about to try and teach them!! (I don't know that's what he was thinking, but it wouldn't be altogether surprising.) I told him to skip the problem and go back to his seat :-) So, I continued googling, found my answer in the expected 5 seconds or less, and went on to explain to the class what it was. I'm not really sure that this qualifies as good teaching, but it least gave me an answer to tell them :-) Lesson learned? When in doubt, Google it!

[By the way, in case you were wondering what the commutative property is, it is the rule that states that 6 + 3 = 3 + 6.]

Coud This Be True??

If you've read my blog before, you may recall that a while ago I said I was waiting for one good thing to happen to make up for all the crazy bad stuff. As an update, there is still lots of crazy things going on at my school (our principal got fired and we have countless random "interim" people all around instead, we were told all teachers in 6th grade must literally be teaching the same page on the same day, etc.) These things are all incredibly frustrating and annoying.

In the face of all of these things, I am forced to focus on the little things :-) One encouraging thing is that we have been given a reasonable lesson plan format to follow, which is significantly less detailed. This effectively has given me my Saturdays back, as I was spending the entire day doing lesson plans. Another good thing is that my other team member has returned from maternity leave and I no longer have to "take care" of the sub next door and do two teachers' worth of work. These things are great, on an organizational level.

On an educational level though, I was greatly encouraged this week when I happened to hear two comments from kids that made me feel like perhaps I am making progress. I was talking to my student who is always full of questions (usually academic, always non-stop). The girl sitting next to him said that she was in his class last year and that his talking drove the teacher nuts. I asked if his behavior was any better this year, and they both agreed that it was somewhat better than it was last year. This may sound like an incredibly minor thing, but this means that something I'm doing is making a modicum of difference! (I know that may not necessarily be the case, but I will gladly take credit!! :-))

The other comment I heard came from a situation where a new student was teasing another student about something 6th graderish (name, hair, height, I don't know). One of my other, shall we say, "outgoing" students then yells across the room, "Hey! Leave him alone! We don't tease people in here, right, Mrs. Shetler?" This literally warms my heart. We have had numerous conversations about teasing people (especially about their names), and how we should absolutely not be doing that. (And yes, in my room, we always use the imperial "we," :-)). While there is still PLENTY of teasing that goes on, evidently my point has gotten across!

Perhaps I am becoming a better teacher yet...

Cooking with 6th Graders

Parent-teacher conferences are this week. In another valiant attempt to include food and/or cooking in class, I decided to have the kids make no-bake cookies to serve to parents at conferences. I could get away with this because the language arts standards we were addressing the last few weeks were about functional text (reading schedules, charts, signs, recipes, etc.) The first battle was finding a recipe that was truly no-bake AND no-heat. (Most no-bake recipes involve melting various concoctions on the stove.) So, I sent my good friend, and passionate recipe-searcher, Liz Brinkman on a mission to find a real-deal, no heat cookie recipe. This is what she came up with.

The first big task was getting the kids to understand what all of the ingredients were.
"It says honey. Can I bring syrup instead?" .....Not really the same thing.
"Do I have to put in the peanut butter? What if I don't have crunchy?" Yes you have to have peanut butter, and no it doesn't matter what kind.
"What is non-fat evaporated milk powder? Is that like baby formula?" Same idea, but DON'T bring baby formula. Look for powdered milk.
"Where do I find a coconut?" PLEASE don't bring a whole coconut. We're looking for shredded coconut; the kind that's in little bits.

After that task was navigated on Friday, and everyone had divided up the ingredients to bring in, I promptly forgot to remind them to bring it all in on Tuesday. So about half the kids actually had the ingredients on Tuesday. Thanks to some awesome parents, and a bunch of kids who had plenty to share, we ended up with enough of everything to make the recipe (7 groups made it, actually). Having enough ingredients was a victory in and of itself.

Once we're actually ready to begin assembling the cookies, and I've handed out the mixing bowls, spoons, and measuring cups, this is the first thing I see: kids banging the bowls with the spoons and putting the bowls on their head. In the words of Seth Myers and Amy Poehler on Weekend Update, "REALLY?!?" Some days it's like teaching 3 year olds... Then I had to triply review that if we need 2/3 of a cup of honey, you need to put in 2 of the 1/3 cups. Even after going over it several times and making them repeat it back to me, I still caught several trying to put it in the half cup. (It's amazing how much kids DON'T figure out on their own...)

We did run short of honey, but this was generally remedied by adding more peanut butter. (My whole room smelled like peanut butter and honey--it was great!) After getting everything generally mixed together right (although I did have a good contingent dump the coconut into the mix, even though the balls were supposed to be rolled in it--"add more peanut butter!!") we finally got everything put away into plastic bags and safely stored in the lounge fridge. I did have to beat a couple teachers off with a stick at lunch the next day, but they turned out great. My floor was completely covered in graham cracker crumbs, but it was easily vaccuumed.

It turned out to be a lot of fun for me and the kids, and it wasn't even very disastrous! Maybe that's what good teaching is like: having "fly by the seat of your pants" fun, and even learning something in the meantime!

Yellow Pages vs Websites

I was planning my 700 hours worth of lesson plans yesterday. (My kids are starting to learn that I exaggerate a lot.) This planning for every subject is ridiculously time-consuming, not to mention the outrageous lesson plan format we have to follow. ANYWAY, beside the point. This week in Language Arts (English, for you old school people), my kids are studying functional text, which includes things like recipes, directions, schedules, signs, phone books, etc.

As I was on my hands and knees yanking the phone book out of its resting place at the bottom of my closet, where it cushions my glassware and boosts up an occasional child, a thought came to me. What is the point of the phone book? When do I ever use it? Clearly, not much. However, I suppose it can still be of use if a person is looking for a plumber or a roofer and doesn't know one. Hence, I will still teach my kids how to use the yellow pages.

However, once a person does know what specific company, restaurant, or organization they want information on, the group's website is much more useful. For that reason, this week we will be locating information on a website as well (which is a totally different skill than using MySpace). I know this may seem like a bit of a no-brainer, but the state standards out there would probably say that I shouldn't be wasting my time on things that aren't going to be on the standardized test at the end of the year. In my humble opinion though, (imho in text speak), it is a necessary life skill that I use all the time. Like I say, though it may be looked down upon by some, I think that is one small thing that contributes toward being a good teacher (even though it may not boost my students' test scores). :-)

Wordle

Wow, this is a fun, marginally useless website!! www.wordle.net 

If you have time to kill, give this a shot. I pasted in the words from my blog, and this is what came up. The words that are written most often are bigger :-)