The Teaching Community

Middle Level Read Alouds
Hey! For the person who presented at NCTE about middle level read alouds. You're famous! http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/book_whisperer/2009/11/

(I'm sorry to say I couldn't attend that session because I had to catch my plane early Sunday morning)

Supply teachers
Does your school have a policy on prepping for supply/sub teachers? Have you ever left no work for a relief teacher?

What do you do to prep for days when you are away?

If a student is horrible to the sub and the teacher or other students tell you about it, how do you deal with it?

~~Brought to you by one fairly frustrated relief teacher

Update on Bathroom Mommy
So, Bathroom Mommy came to parent conferences last night.

This is what I wrote up for my assistant principal, the student's guidance counselor, and my department head post-meeting:

"Good Morning All,

I just wanted to make you aware of a conversation I had last night with [STUDENT]'s mother. She said that her son had "politely raised his hand and asked to go to the bathroom" and that I had said No!" and laughed at him. I assured her that I would never deny a student a trip to the bathroom and that I would never laugh at a student. I may ask them to wait 5 minutes, however. She then said, "I told him that if it ever happens again, to just say 'excuse me' and get up and go and then text mom and [she] would call the principal." I nodded politely, handed her my card, told her once again that I did not recall the situation and that I would never laugh at a student, and to contact me with any further questions.

We ended the meeting on seemingly good terms, but the comment about calling the principal surprised me. Thus, I wanted to make you aware of it." (END OF EMAIL)

You have got to be KIDDING me, honey. The kids aren't allowed to have their phones on them during SCHOOL HOURS. Luckily for me, the assistant principal, whom I adore, wrote her back that, under no circumstances, was this acceptable and basically told her that her son was lying. (Which is true, this incident never happened!!!)

Also, what the hell lesson is she teaching her 9th grader?!?!?! That mommy's gonna deal with his professors when he's in college? She has 2 other kids too. Can't wait.

*sigh*

Parents these days!

TeacherInsight online interview??
EDIT: I decided not to worry about it all night, so I just did it. It only took 24 minutes though they said it could take 35-40. It wasn't bad, the vast majority of questions were quite normal/obvious, but there were a few weird ones.

Hi everyone! I have a question. I just submitted online applications for substitute teacher and instructional assistant positions to my local school system, and now I am being instructed to take a Gallup TeacherInsight online interview! Has anyone done this? I have done basic Google-research and I've read a lot of negative comments. It sounds like a psychological profile test, right? I am usually pretty good at those, I've practiced with many different retail ones. Does anyone have any advice? I am trying to decide if I can fit it in before I go to bed tonight or if I should wait until the morning.

Current Mood: confused

parent meeting tomorrow
( Any takers to give some advice? PLEASE... )

Edit: I'm leaving this public for now but I'm going to change it to F/O after a day or two. You can't be too careful these days. ;)

Oyate: Books by and about Native Americans
Since Thanksgiving is right around the corner, I wanted to share this resource with you: www.oyate.org

From their website:

Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us. For Indian children, it is as important as it has ever been for them to know who they are and what they come from. For all children, it is time to know and acknowledge the truths of history. Only then will they come to have the understanding and respect for each other that now, more than ever, will be necessary for life to continue.

I highly recommend you check out their catalog here. They have great books for children through adults arranged by grade level.

Also, you may want to visit their resources section they have some important and thought-provoking information on Thanksgiving myths and realities.

ETA: You may also want to check out the blog American Indians in Children's Literature. It is also syndicated on LJ here.

You've got to be kidding me!
Dear Parent,

My name and email is on every single piece of paper I send home. Ever.

So WHY the HECK did you call the Assistant Principal and the Guidance Counselor to ask them to "investigate" a complaint that I denied your (9th grade!) son a trip to the bathroom?!

First of all, this never did happen and never would happen, but:

1) All students have 8 minutes of passing time between classes during which they are supposed to use the bathroom.

2) Your son does not have an IEP/504/medical condition that would require him unrestricted use of the bathroom.

3) I may have asked him to wait 5 minutes until we finished an exercise or I may have been talking to another student and answered "no" to that student's question and your son thought I was talking to him?

It obviously wasn't that much of an emergency, since he didn't ask me again!

Your son is NOT SHY. He loves to talk. To everyone. He can advocate for himself. This isn't middle school.

Hope to see you at parent conferences tonight so that we can clarify all of this!

~Your Son's Latin Teacher

The last post regarding yearbook production really got my gears rolling. This year is the first year that our middle school will actually have all 3 grades operating and since I finally feel like this new school is a "real school" I'd really like to do a yearbook for/with the kids this year. I will probably end up in the same boat as the last poster and wind up doing this pretty much alone, but I'd definitely like to give it a shot.

With that said, teachers that run their yearbooks - what are your favorite web resources? I was on the newspaper in high school and we shunned the yearbook kids, so I have no points of reference for something like this (that's what I get!). I'd love to get my hands on some samples other schools have done, although I assume these wouldn't be as easy as our old newspaper swaps since yearbooks are so pricey, but I'd like to see what kind of things our small school (125 students) could highlight in a yearbook. Where does your inspiration come from?

Thanks in advance!

Okay, sorry for the second post of the day, but I'm curious about this and I have been for a long time.

I learned about logical and natural consequences over the summer, but I have trouble actually coming up with them.

I know if a student throws paper, they should pick the paper up. In the cafeteria if a student sits on the table, I have him wipe down where he sat because the whole point is that it's gross for you to sit where people are eating. However, I have trouble coming up with logical consequences for other behavior: talking when you don't have the floor, saying mean or negative things, getting a disrespectful attitude, not bringing your materials to class, etc. My top five misbehaviors in class are:

1) Not bringing materials to class
2) Talking while someone is presenting, reading, or while I am teaching
3) Saying mean or negative things to me or each other.
4) Copping an attitude when I am trying to correct misbehavior and/or getting into a power struggle.
5) Sleeping

With the sleeping thing, I have students stand if they are sleeping, but I think my students have just realized that they will only have to stand to get out of trouble.

Can you help me with logical consequences or give me a resource to use? I teach high school so I don't have recess, and I don't have a big enough room or a back table to separate students from everyone else. I also do not agree with sending students out in the hallway.

As a first year teacher, I am trying to resolve problems first before I send them to the administrator. Plus, I'm usually not happy with the consequences when I rely on outside hands (not that administrators are bad...I just frown upon losing that control). Suggestions or resources?

Teaching Bob Dylan's lyrics...
I'm about to teach Literature for the very first time for five transition classes and I've got the scope to do whatever I want. I've decided to interpret Bob Dylan lyrics since it's a good quick introduction to Literature and poetry analysis...

Because there are a tonne of fantastic Dylan songs and lyrics, I'm having a bit of trouble deciding what to choose.

Some advice would be great. What three-to-five Bob Dylan songs should I choose to analyse and why?

Thanks so much in advance. Cross-posted.

~Paul~

( Description behind cut... )

Do you have any ideas of what I can do to motivate my students to keep up with their work so that they will not fail my class?

( My second issue... )

If you follow this kind of system, what consequences do you give if they've used up their three or however many passes and they still have to go to the bathroom?

NCTE Philadelphia
Hello teachers, from the National Council of Teachers of English Convention in Philadelphia! If you EVER have to opportunity to go, TAKE IT because this is totally awesome! I've already seen Junot Diaz, Walter Dean Myers, and Gordon Korman. So incredible!

Provocative Victory for Student Empowerment -

Calgary family negotiates homework ban -

ALGARY (CBC) - A Calgary family concerned about their children's homework load has signed a contract with their school to eliminate the problem altogether.

Tom and Shelli Milley have signed a formal "no homework" contract with their children's school.

"With two children in school there was just an inordinate amount of homework coming home and a lot of it was busy work," said Tom Milley.

The family has signed what is called a differentiated homework plan with their children's Catholic school. Their daughter, Brittany, and son, Spencer now in grades five and seven won't have to bring work home. Instead, they'll be marked only on work they do in the classroom. (Yahoo.ca)

cf. Alfie Kohn, The Homework Myth

Current Mood: pensive

Two things:

1. I just want to vent and possibly find some commiseration (though advice is also welcome!) Does anyone else feel like their 2nd year teaching (or teaching a subject/grade) is more of a trainwreck than the first? Trainwreck is a little strong... things are going all right. The first year just went so well, despite being full of tons of planning. This year I feel like the hard part is changing things in a way that still keeps us on track timewise (which matters because my LA class is so integrated with other subjects) and staying fresh on the material. I almost feel like I need to replan everything in order to get the same level of familiarity with my plans, but of course I don't want to do THAT! So I'm reading through them and re-arranging them and often realize, "Eek, I've forgotten X or Y, and it needs to be done before Thanksgiving Break," or, "OH NO I deleted Z, which was important for the project coming up," etc. Any words of encouragement about the second year seeming harder than the first (and less put together)?

2. Anyone else teach at a school with a project-based curriculum? Whereabouts are you?

Teaching Comics
Howdy folks. I'm a new member to the community. I've been teaching for about five years in urban schools (Boston, Brooklyn, and most recently, southern Ohio). I've also been drawing journal comics for the past eight years: one comic a day, everyday about whatever is going on in my life.

As an experiment, I am taking the 2009-2010 school year and rendering it in comic form. I thought some teachers here might be interested in checking them out!

( Some examples of teaching comics from the past three months )

If you're interested in more, I post four comics a week both here on LJ my website. Love to get some feedback from other educators!

Computer Modifications
I have a student who struggles with writing. He has trouble spacing letters (both between words and even between letters in words. He can barely print properly, and with his spelling, it can be disaster to read if he's not attempting to write neatly. I can usually read his writing when he takes the time. Today when meeting with some of my reading specialists, one of them mentioned a psychological evaluation from last year on the student where it was suggested that a laptop be made available to the student to help him with communicating his ideas. I had no idea this existed, as it wasn't with his IEP when I started in the classroom.

So I want to try it with him. I just got two spare laptops from the principal for student use in the classroom since I didn't have any computers prior. I called him over before dismissal today to see what he could type for me. I had him type a few sentences. "My name is J. I am 13 years old. My favorite color is blue." He was interested and I told him that tomorrow we would try it with his morning journal entry instead of writing it on paper.

What I really want to see is if he will be any more motivated to communicate his ideas. He just hates writing. We were working on paraphrasing yesterday, and he can demonstrate the skill orally, but when asked to do it in written form, he will work, stop, and start when prompted.

Has anyone tried this with a student? How successful was it? For reference, my student is a 13 year old 5th grader.

Also, randomly funny bit from a student at lunch to her friend:

Student: You're spazzing like an armadillo!
Me: Do you know what an armadillo spazzing looks like?
Student: No... I know what an armadillo looks like though!

Going over long A sounds in class, one of my students says "Wake and Bake Miss Johnson. Wake and Bake." I'm hoping at 7 he has not a clue what this means.

math games
I teach first grade and I've recently started doing math centers with my students. I have four groups of students that rotate through four different centers. One is always a center working with me on our newest skill. Another is always on the computers working with a program called Fast Math.

I'm looking for ideas for the two independent centers so that I can switch them up so the kids don't get bored. Currently we're working on one digit addition and subtraction. Most of my students understand how to add and they're getting there on subtraction. I want some games and activities to help them memorize the facts.

Centers I already have:
dry erase addition and subtraction mats
flashcards (and I usually have them write the facts from the cards on dry erase boards)
adding with dominoes
a making tens game with a tens frame and beans for counting
rolling dice and adding the numbers they come up with

Does anyone know of any other easy math games that first graders would be able to play independently for about 15 minutes at a time? Ideally they shouldn't take too much prep or clean up time, and I'm not really interested in worksheets because our copies are severely limited at my school.

I've tried searching online, but I'm mostly finding interactive online games, and that's not what I'm looking for.

It happened a month ago. She died in her sleep on Saturday morning. She died from a heart attack caused by the rare heart disease. We found out from Facebook, the ultimate tool of unnecessary news, the way we found during the summer that her cousin, our former graduate, was murdered at the random party. She just turned seventeen, entered her senior year, was applying to college.

We worked throughout the weekend trying to prepare the building to the influx of grief stricken immature twelfth graders. The troops of grief counselors and loads of comfort foods along with organized crisis center were able to soften the loss. At the end of the day on Monday, after students were released home, my colleagues received the first chance to express their feelings.
Faculty meeting turned into spiritual act where people just started counting the deaths that occurred in the school's fifteen years history: the teacher who died in his classroom in 2000, the 9th grader who drowned in the Bronx River, the 10th grader who died of kidney cancer in 2004 and another from brain tumor in 2007. The beloved teacher died from pancreatic in June. Since the beginning of 2009 at least twenty colleagues lost a family member. And we are not counting murdered "drop-outs" and countless bullet wounds.

Her funeral was on the following Friday. But on Wednesday before I attended another funeral: guidance counselor's husband who went missing since April, was found dead in the basement of the deserted building. I still stubbornly do not believe that we are cursed. But so tired of living in the atmosphere of loss, all these years.

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