The inmates are running the asylum but savor this thought

The inmates are running the asylum but savor this thought God loves you - even when the world is melting (or maybe that is when he loves you the most)


On level seniors want a recipe card math course - one where every step is written out by me and they do not have to think or practice. And the administration sees nothing wrong with their request.


It's sad. I used to really like math.

Pictionary with Geometry

Lsquared posted a thoughtful comment on my last post. As i do, I went to see if she/he has a blog (no) but I did see a pointer to this blog. I like the idea of pictionary with geometry. Have to think how, if I can use this with trig.

Out of touch 2

I wrote about feeling out of touch earlier this school year.

I walked into a room this week to talk with a teacher I rarely see. It was the end of the day and another teacher was talking about one of her students. Apparently the student lives with his father and father's girlfriend. And father's ex-girlfriend lives there also because she cannot afford to move out. And the night before the ex-girlfriend was in a fight with the dad, throwing and breaking things.

The first teacher said "How can we expect kids to learn under these circumstance? They live in chaos, they don't eat right. They get no parental support." And the second teacher comment that her description sounded like second teacher's homelife growing up. She said she didn't do well in school or care at that point.

And I feel out of touch.

I think education is a key to open the door to escape your circumstances.

I grew up comfortably middle class. I started working at 16 and haven't stopped but I was raised with that as an expectation - as well as that I would get an education and keep learning.

I work hard to break down the math into bite-size pieces. I link it to what they are supposed to have learned before. I reteach what they are supposed to have already learned. I ask that they 1) not talk while I am teaching and 2) practice the math in class. I give up on assigning homework - very few do it and it is just another fight.
I am teaching Algebra 2 and Precalculus. How do you learn this without doing something?

Instead they gripe that I don't teach, I have to give them something to raise their grade (the grade they earned because they work the problems for the first time on a test).

Okay - they have a lousy homelife. Their parents belittle them, kick them out, set bad examples and give no structure. So, you pack my classes to the brim with people who have already failed the course, set it on block (so we do 2 hours a day for a semester instead of 1 hour a day for a year), give me no resources except what I can find for myself, do not give me common planning so we can share the load, expect me to teach to a test that by law I cannot see and yet counts for a quarter of their grade - and then wonder why this is a struggle every day.

Maybe I am not the one out of touch.

Note: I just looked in the gradebook for something else and noticed a student I hadn't seen all week is marked as transferred. I have lost 19 kids in 2 classes and 2 others have announced they are dropping out - they just haven't yet. I am not liking this year.

Different perceptions about "the woman who raised that monster"

Suzy DeYoung, a woman who lives in Newton, CT, has an insightful article about perception. If we see Adam Lanza as a monster - we let him off the hook for his actions. If we see him as mentally ill - and take a lesson from the behavior he exhibited before the attack, we might save someone else.

Six Word Saturday: Zombies

Zombies are coming! The end's near!


For more Six Word Saturday participants, click here.

It is getting close to Thanksgiving.

I am trying to wrap up the semester by the time we leave for break so that I can spend the time we come back (when they have their high stakes testing) preparing them for the test.

I have told these students at least once a week that I prepare them for the tests, I provide ways for them to raise their grade, and that I have no intention this year of turning myself inside out at the last minute so that they can pass when they have done nothing this semester.

I have a lot of repeater classes. A wise teacher told me last year thst there is a reason they are repeaters.

No kidding.

Dear student:

If you are on your phone while I am going over something I tell you that you will see again on a test, it is your choice.

If you choose to be absent when a test is scheduled, it is your choice. (If you are spending it in school detention because you refuse to get to class on time or drop certain words from your vocabulary, it is your choice.)

If you decide to sleep in my class or talk about sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll while I am teaching, this does not make me a lousy teacher. This makes you a lousy student. And it is your choice.

I have done what I need to do. There is no magic ring that will allow you to do one tiny thing and pass. I just hope I do not have to try to teach you the same things again.

And that is my choice.

So, now I start calling parents and emailing the same assignments I have been handing out for 3 and a half months.

And I know I am not alone. Math Teacher Mambo describes a Calculus student doing exactly the same thing.

You can't fix stupid, the administrator version

I was selling tickets for an event at our theater this week - you know one of those extra duties as assigned things they stick in your contract.

A group of parents were there to volunteer - parents that we see at the school all of the time because there is not much parent involvement. There has always been a list we work off of so that a parent gives us a name and we let them in if their name is on the list.

New administration didn't like the idea of a list so instead a certain number of tickets (determined by the admin) are given to the teacher in charge to dole out to the parents. Well, these parents had not gotten their tickets because the teacher in charge hadn't picked them up and we were told to tell the parents to buy a ticket so they could volunteer.

Right.

So the parents asked to speak the admin who dithered around and blamed the teacher for not getting the tickets. Dithered some more. Talked to another AP. Dithered some more. The principal came by. I explained the issue. He never acknowledged the parents. He talked to the AP. Wandered over and talked to somebody else (totally unrelated to this) and walked back past me and never acknowledged the parents.

Did I mention there is not a lot of parental involvement in this school?

AP comes back, sighs deeply and says he will go get more tickets from the office and disappears for about 10 minutes. While the parents wait.

Then he carefully hands out the tickets and leaves.

There were several solutions that were so much better. Wonder if we will see those parents volunteering again.

Six Word Saturday

An extra hour this weekend - reward!


For more Six Word Saturday participants, click here.