I am feeling brilliant!

Which of course means this may fall completely flat.

I gave a test (average score: 32. I have to move on. The state test is looming on the horizon.

So, the recovery - that word that makes me cringe and the reason they do nothing, because they'll recover it later - will be another test. Using the same questions I have given on previous tests. But I will fill in the test - with their answers and work.

Their job is to tell me if the answer is correct (25%) and why it is or isn't (75%). "because" is not a reason.

Could work.

On catch up work

On shrewdnessofapes.blogspot.com afantaske said...

I would tell each of the students that they can make up ALL of their late assignments by taking the test (chapter test, unit test, whatever). And the score on the test would be used for each of the back assignments and quizzes leading up to the evaluation. Oh, and there would be a choice of three periods (days) that they would have to make it up. Otherwise it would be a zero (along with the other work of course). 20 years of teaching tells me that the students who are clueless will fail - the teacher only has one thing to grade (yeah) and the student is released from the self-created pressure OR the student will pass because he/she already knows the material but has played these games in the past.. and obviously didn't learn the 'intended lesson'. Long and short, I have one paper to grade, the student thinks they one upped me (until they get the grade) and administration is happy that the matter has been settled.

Use teaching time to teach the willing while giving the others a chance to reform.

I love it.

It's all in the definition

SassyChic refuses to work in my class or do any recovery, usually with attitude. I did an assignment this week which about a third really GOT and the rest really didn't. So, I gave the second group a second day - with explanations - to redo the work. SassyChic dumped her assignment on my desk with the comment "Here's your work" about 2 minutes after I gave it to them to do.

I said - so you don't want to do the work?

Later she stopped by my door and we had this conversation:
SassyChic: Did you call my mother?
Me: Yes
SC: what did you tell her?
Me: That you refused to do my work.
SC: I didn't refuse.
Me: You dumped it on my desk and said you wouldn't do it. That's my definition of refuse.
SC: You need a new dictionary.
Me: What do you call it?
SC: I didn't do it.
Me: OK
SC: I didn't understand it.
Me: So, dumping it on my desk, saying you won't do it means that you need help? We'll talk next week.

And I need a new dictionary?

Silliness and grumpiness

I have been way too grumpy this year. We have a new curriculum that has me scrambling daily trying to find the target I am teaching toward. There is no textbook. You don't teach to the book, but it sure helps to provide structure and problems. So, I have to find or create worksheets everyday, because the don't want to copy anything off the board - and my students don't do that very well anyway.

I did say they were in high school, didn't I?

I have 2-5 in every class who do not want to be in school and really don't care what they do to interfere with everything. So they talk loudly. They throw things. They wander around the room. And I get louder. And grumpier.

I had an epiphany this week. I am doing all of the work, except for the few who want to learn. And I decided, for the ones I mentioned above who don't care, I will worry about their grade the first day of preplanning.

We have time set aside every week to recover their grade. To relearn, not do grade recovery. And then to recover the grade. I have made it too easy - in effect grade recovery. So, I have told them that this is how we are recovering this semester.

• Starters. I didn't let them recover these, just gave them a 60. This is a quiz grade every 2 weeks to raise their grade. Should be an easy 100 as it is on the board, but as I said above, they don't copy well. Recovery is now "Here's a sheet with the 10 things we did for starters - work them on your own sheet of paper and turn them in."
• I have one young man who will write down NOTHING. I have told him I will not sign a bathroom pass unless he writes down the day's starter. Friday's was 5 numbers. Not working them out, just 5 numbers. (2*5*29*31 and 7!) and he wouldn't do it. Documentation time.
• Recovery for a test or quiz is this: go back to your notebook (I gave them one and write notes on the board that they have to copy. I keep 2 notebooks of these notes that they can copy as well, because this is a test grade at the end of the semester. And I write the notes as I would have as a student - probably a college student not a high school freshman, but still.)
• I had them glue cool pages in their books 1st semester - we are doing more writing, less gluing this semester.
  

I am writing more up and shipping them out. In this endeavor, their vocabulary never lets me down.

And there have been some instant rewards. One student can be a pain, but she makes me laugh, and I have been returning the favor. I had a rash of desks being turned over. I'd turn around, and 1 or 2 desks would be flipped. I thought one particular boy was doing it but I couldn't catch him. The one day, while I was working with him at the board, I turned around and 4 desks were flipped over and only 2 girls could have done it - and I KNEW which one it was - she had just left for the bathroom. I straightened the desks - and flipped hers - rather than doing a write up. She came back - and laughed!! And no more desk have gone on their side.

Yesterday, during a test, while I was watching the kids, I look up to see her holding a notebook in front of her, peering at me over the top, just her eyes visible. I reached behind me and got a bathroom pass(about an eighth of a sheet of recycled paper for them to write on as a pass), held it in front of my face, and peered at her over the top. (OK, juvenile and distracting). She laughed - and no one else got it.

A boy who has been a pain - bright but disruptive - asked me earlier this week if he could spend his class time in another class - he had said he was moving this week (and he did) so I agreed. He came in his last day, walked across the room, and hugged me.

A boy from last year - my first student from the earliest posts - came to see me this week and I chewed him out for the behavior that I hear about in his other classes - and he hugged me.

But the kicker is a girl who argues and talks constantly in my class. I have an upcoming meeting with her mother, and I could hear her saying she couldn't wait (she keeps telling me her mother will take care of me - ok). I asked her how she'd done on another teacher's test the day before - she hadn't finished it. Did she have any questions, so we worked a page of problems. She still had 20 minutes after my test (which tells me how she did on mine) so she went to ask the teacher if she could finish the test. Teacher had already graded them, students had to come in that morning to finish. "I couldn't hear because there was too much talking and I missed it - now I have to recover and it'll be hard" This is my point about her talking - she causes other people to miss things. Life is all about payback, but I think I am done with grumpy.

Let's reward those who do nothing

I have a student who hasn't done anything since October. He does write his name on the paper - but that's it. Since I grade hard - and know that I do - I have built in grades that allow the students to copy off the board and come close to passing, so they don't give up. Had this student done that, he'd be passing going into the final.

Instead, he sits there and tells me he hates school, his teachers wouldn't teach him, he doesn't understand - but he won't even copy the answers off the board.

I just told his mother that if he passes my exam tomorrow, I will pass him for the semester. I will even put that in writing and hand it to him when he comes in. What I didn't tell her is I am already planning on curving the grades (49 problems, 1 point each). All he has to do is answer 19 problems correctly - and we have done 24 of them in class this week.

We'll see what he gets. Guess I have to do this for about a half dozen others. But if I know (and I do) that I will be recovering the grades anyway, I may as well.

Just Say Yes week

Exams are next week. This should prove to be educational (and revealing) for my students. We have allowed them to recover everything - the district policy is that exams are not recoverable. My next unit is on probability. Does anyone want to give me the odds that I will be recovering my exams?

I ran into the mother of one of my children's elementary school friends - haven't seen her in 15 years. At that point, she was talking about starting a school, because she wasn't happy about the school our children attended (neither was I). Since I am certified to teach a lot of subjects now (and wasn't certified for anything then) I mentioned it - the funding is there, she just couldn't figure out how to do it. You never know.

Overheard in my classroom this week:
1) I need to raise my grade in your class (says a student that I have tried to do recovery for 3 months) but I want to do it other than doing math. My response: no. Do the math or keep the grade.

2) (student who is failing my class and does NOTHING except write his name on the paper) Sign my form to exempt your final. My response: no.

And this was Just Say Yes week.....

Teaching for mastery

Thomas Sowell writes:

Some of us were raised to believe that reality is inescapable. But that just shows how far behind the times we are. Today, reality is optional. At the very least, it can be postponed.

Kids in school are not learning? Not a problem. Just promote them on to the next grade anyway. Call it "compassion," so as not to hurt their "self-esteem."

Can't meet college admissions standards after they graduate from high school? Denounce those standards as just arbitrary barriers to favor the privileged, and demand that exceptions be made.

Can't do math or science after they are in college? Denounce those courses for their rigidity and insensitivity, and create softer courses that the students can pass to get their degrees.

Once they are out in the real world, people with diplomas and degrees-- but with no real education-- can hit a wall. But by then the day of reckoning has been postponed for 15 or more years. Of course, the reckoning itself can last the rest of their lives.

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2008/12/17/postponing_reality

In our district we do grade recovery. Constantly. The students have learned that deadlines mean little - so when we come up against a real deadline (like the end of a semester) they don't believe it.

And if they only do grade recovery, we are not teaching for mastery and they never learn the material.