The Second First Day

At the end of the school day yesterday, I went up to the new teacher’s classroom to see how her day had been. She’d had a amazing first day. I was so happy to see that she had such a good first day, remembering my own first experience as a classroom teacher. The chaos, the crying, the falling asleep at 4:30. My principal caught me in the hallway as I exited the new teacher’s classroom, “How was your day?”

I stopped and turned on my heel, huge smile on my face. I said very loudly, “It was so good. It’s amazing what happens when you actually know what you’re doing!”

He squinted his eyes then smiled and laughed, agreeing with me. I sped-walked down the hall, and there may have been a spring in my step.

As childish and unprofessional as it sounds, there truly is something to having experienced the first day and survived. I knew what to expect out of my students. I knew most of them from previous years so that also helped. I knew how much time it would take us to get through each activity. I knew how to act, what to say, how to say it, what to do when that one kid from my last hour class during student teaching inevitably decided he was too good and too cool for my class (which took approximately fifteen minutes and let me tell you, his football coach will be getting an EAR-FULL from me if things don’t change). I have never professed to be perfect and I never will, but knowing truly is half the battle.

All that to say, yesterday was one for the history books; I felt like a real teacher.

I am Ms. K. Hear me roar.

MK

Stand back, I am a pro-fessional.

Eighth grade was my favorite year of school. As far as my middle school friends and sports were concerned, that year meant we were top dogs. We were the smart ones. The ones who had survived the most awkward years of life. It was good to be on top. And then freshman year came and we were still so far away from college, still so close to middle school, and so much more awkward than we ever realized. Both freshman year of high school and college were a little rough for me. I don’t do well when I’m the newb. I like to know what I’m doing and smoothly transition — but that rarely happens. So of course, last year was not my favorite year of my professional life. Though it is the only year I have to my credit… But this year, the second year here at Bethel, it’ll be way different. I’m certainly not top dog, but at least I know how to use the copier and how to call parents!

After a fantastic summer of living and learning and traveling and loving, I’m back in the Dungeon. It’s good to be back for many reasons. Most of them consist of the fact that this isn’t my first rodeo. In a few short days, I will be starting my second year as a classroom teacher. I am both terrified and excited.

The summer has given me perspective on my role as a teacher. I’m constantly thinking about how I am perceived as a teacher and how I can do things different. But having so much time off has really given me time to step back and think about how I want my classroom to be, what I want my students to learn, and how I’m going to do it. The first year of teacher truly is survival. It’s about making it through the day and doing your best as far as getting kids learning is concerned. It’s rough, to say the least. But with a little help from my roommate, a great staff and administration, and many prayers from my “faithful” readers, I made it. And my students truly did excel last year. But it’s time to get down to business and really bring it this year.

I sat down for about an hour yesterday to re-write some lesson plans (because the H drive, my personal spot on the network, crashed over the summer I have had to start over on a few things). And let me tell you, all those teachery things came back. It was second nature to determine what activities my students need, what concepts they’ll need to work on, how many whole class and small group activities I’ll need… It just came back and I know that what I’m doing this year will be both smooth and beneficial for everyone involved. My lesson plans even look completely different: there’s no script. There’s no frivolous words. Just a list of what needs to happen, where I can find it, and how I can do it. Done and done.

I spent two hours with the new English teacher yesterday. She’s 23 and just graduated from UCO. She’s a mom but still: she’s a newb in the classroom. I already love her to death. She’s funny and loud and ready to get down to business. But she’s also terrified and has no idea where to start. We spent a lot of time talking about the first day and what to include on the syllabus and how to organize time in the classroom. I do not pretend to completely know what I’m doing, but talking to someone who was basically me at this time last year is so refreshing. I have learned stuff. And I’m past the freakout stage. I really hope that I can help the new teacher to not make the same mistakes I made last year. I spent most of my first semester treading water while kids dunked me under. And it was not pleasant for anyone. I am hoping she doesn’t do the same.

My room may still be a hideous yellow and white, there may be mold growing in the corner, and my dry-erase boards WILL NOT COME CLEAN, but you know what… It’s good to be back in Wildcat country. It’s good to be starting my second year.

Here’s to being a professional for once!

The Class Runs Itself (mostly)

Today we’re doing a study guide for our Unit 1 test tomorrow.

I’ll be honest… I spent last night watching TV. I had work to do — and I did some. I started making the test for tomorrow. But honestly, I just wasn’t feeling preparing an entire study guide for this kids. They need to do some of this work.

So then I remembered… Meetings.

I learned this really cool technique at a C3 workshop last summer. I love it. It gets the kids moving around, gives them time limits, and they actually assemble the study guide and discuss the issues all by themselves. If they took notes and paid attention: they’ll do great. I’m also making the study guide a grade.

I’ve attached the Meeting Template. It’s got my instructions for today. I use e.ggtimer to keep track of things. I post it on my ProBoard so the kids know how to pace themselves. I usually do 10-15 minutes for each, depending on how much time we have. But today I’m doing 15-10-5-10. They’ll start off by choosing partners for each of those times — not repeats. At the 12 meeting, they’ll sit with their partner and follow the instructions. For the 3 meeting, the same, and so on. They love it. And I just get to walk around and watch and answer questions as we go.

I love Common Core. Not only do I feel like I can come up with engaging activities on the fly, but I can also get them engaged in a meaningful way. I’m also saving paper which is a shortage these days!

Here’s to a good day.

MK

Laminated Poster-Boards and Post-Its

God bless them both. As Common Core makes its stake, I need more resources. I need to get the kids off the pro-board and onto their desks — but how?!

In our economy, I cannot simply go and buy 10 pads of giant post-its, a new slew of markers, a bunch of little post-its, and some new posters for my class. Instead: I have to come up with all that stuff on the cheap-side.

Which is difficult!

I started last semester with using scrapped paper (chopped up into small pieces) as my “exit tickets” and for other activities in the class that required a little bit of feedback, vs an entire sheet of notebook paper that I would inevitably have to grade.

Toward the end of the semester I started utilizing post-its. We made individual predictions and posted them on the whiteboard. We made tweets from main characters. We did all sorts of things. And the kids ATE IT UP. They love post-its: I mean who doesn’t?

Heading into this semester, I figured I’d get right to it and ask students to bring a set of post-its as required materials. We used them immediately. Yesterday we used them when making a 20 words (no more, no less) summary of the article “In Praise of the F Word.”

Today, I pegged the students into working groups by writing their names on the post-its. Not only did they know where they were going, but they had a medium on which to write their assignment (as a group). I had them agree on the 3 main ideas (and most of them were spot on!) and re-write them on the post-it (that I will use as a grade for them today).

As an exit ticket, I will have the students write their name on another post-it and then write two things they learned today. A common response was, “Well, I don’t know: I forgot.” And I smiled and shook my head, “That’s the point: look back at your notes, think!” And then they got it. Closure is so crucial. Especially when I have block schedule. An hour and a half is a lot of time and material to cover.

Post-its are great, but so is cheap poster-board. I originally purchased the board for a time-line I’m going to create in my room, but as the first day came, I knew I’d need it for other things.

I’ve used three boards to make mock-index cards with MLA citation templates for display in my room.

I bought a pack that had 4 fluorescent boards in it — which class with my color scheme so badly I can’t even explain it. I sent them up to the librarian to laminate. By yesterday morning, they were done and cut out.

Today, we used the boards for concept mapping in groups. I can’t afford giant post-its and markers but I have 10 dry-erase markers and now 4 “white-boards” for groups so… solved that problem.

We will use both the post-its (purchsed in mass quantities by a multitude) and the reusable boards throughout the semester. I’m so unbelievably excited. I know it’s just two small things but I have to be on my game and these little tricks help so much.

Today was another Common Core success, thanks to Sherry, the librarian, and my good ol’ brain. PTL.

MK

The F Word: A Leg to Stand On.

**This entry will be especially interesting if you are an educator.**

Common Core: it’s coming to a classroom near you. This semester is an effort to completely delve into the its waters of achievement, engagement, and growth.

I’ve always been taught that the first one to two weeks should be solely about procedures. It’s a difficult concept for me since they’re high school students and I don’t really know how to transfer those skills in. Instead, we spend the first day talking about the guidelines and procedures, the next day learning about responsibility, and as the week progresses we establish some pretty set routines. Next week we will jump into Gilgamesh and the Creation story from the Bible with BOTH feet. Before we get into actual work, though, we are reading “In Praise of the F Word” by Mary Sherry (and idea which I totally stole from a C3 workshop).

Responsibility

This is a two-three day lesson.

We started with the word, responsibility. Since this is an English class, we need to get our vocab churning soon. We discussed the meaning and I had the students tear off half of their bell-ringer and write their own definition of it in about 20 words.

Students wrote their anonymity number on their work and then crumpled up the paper. Surprisingly, the students looked at me in horror. I know a lot of teachers that refuse to even have the kids crumple their papers if they’re throwing them away  — let alone for an assignment in class! They tossed them into a cardboard box I have in class. They were passed back out and I told the students to write back, in response, whether they agreed or disagreed with the definition.

This launched me into my sermon about “agree/disagree and yes/no” questions. Students need to be able to critically think about and explain their answers. I told them flat out that I would could any unexplained answer as wrong — always. Instead, I asked them to always explain their answer and tell me why. Typically, those answers don’t have to be long, but they need to be able to communicate why they think the way they do. They seemed to pick that up with little difficulty. Now only if they can keep it up without being reminded to do so!

They crumpled them up again and were passed back out. This time, I asked them to read the definition and response and then tell me how that notion of responsibility could be acted out in my class. The papers were then returned to their respective owners and the students, without prodding, were already discussing the answers — eager to see the string of comments. Discussion of the assignment happened without being asked. This is revolutionary, people.

They stapled their bellwork to the front and then passed the mashed mess into the homework bin. They were walking around and beginning to talk so I shocked them and exclaimed, “Now, let’s get to work and read about the F word.” They stopped and looked at me. Ah, Mary Sherry: Thank You. From the bottom of my heart.

In prep, I told them an analogy about literature/non-fiction being like a table: they always have support. We discussed our rule-of-thumb for marking Main Idea and Details in a work we are annotating. Then we read the article together and they all seemed pretty focused.

We immediately got into groups, numbered off all of the paragraphs (for use tomorrow), and looked for at least 3 main ideas. There were a few students who didn’t get it at first, but with a little bit of individualized instruction, they got it and did just fine. They re-wrote their main ideas at the bottom of their articles and then found support to back them up by underlining the details.

I asked for volunteers to tell me their general thoughts on the article. They seemed to have a very good grasp of the overall concept of the article, explaining that it is ultimately the student’s job to be motivated — but parents and teachers have a HUGE part in that.

I love to get students arguing. It’s a silent joy of mine. I had each student in the pairs pick a supporting side: the students or the teachers/parents. They were then given 3-5 minutes (thanks to e.ggtimer) to defend their position. Some rowdy girls in 3rd hour got WAY into it, but they were actually learning so I let it continue in hushed tones. They were then bribed with tootsie rolls to explain their positions. A lot of the kids said that students have to want to work and do the work, while other said a major roll lies with the teacher because after they all, they do get paid. Students rubutted with the fact that no one can make them learn — even if they are a good teacher. Needless to say, I was so proud of my classes today.

On post-its (that I have started requiring as part of their necessary materials for this class) they wrote a 20 word sentence summarizing the article in its entirety. They really get into that word count thing. I’m going to use it all the time.

As they passed their articles in for tomorrow, several students exlaimed, “Are we going to do stuff like this every day?” I looked at her, “Well, that depends… are you enjoying it and are you learning anything?” She thought a moment, “well yep.” And at that moment I could have cried. I know it’s only day 2 but seriously… we are going to do stuff like this all semester. Who says they can’t enjoy learning like this?

We transitioned into a slide-show about MLA format and how it works in this class. We’ll be using it tomorrow as we write a sample essay about the article from today(for me to gauge their writing).

I get observed by my principal tomorrow and I have to say: I’m pretty confident in my abilities. Yes, I spent over an hour on one article, but the did GOT IT. They know what they’re talking about now. And I think I hit a few nails on the head with this notion of responsibility — namely my two repeat offenders. I mean, repeat Juniors.

Prayer, time, and block schedule: good things. Common core: a good, engaging thing. Banana, nutella, whole grain bread sandwiches: all good things.

Tuesday, what a good day.

MK

(Article for today In Praise Of The F Word)

Antigone and Drama

Today we started our Antigone reading. Honestly, the kids love this story better than any other story we’ve read so far.

Perhaps it’s the incest, magic, and intrigue of a world we’ve never known.

We started off the day with vocabulary work and then quickly moved into our big question: How do we cope we death? From there we recapped last week’s “Shoofly Pie” and segway’d into this week’s question, “Where is our ultimate loyalty?” We discussed what loyalty means and where we owe our loyalty. Most of the kids said family or religion — which was surprising. I had a few that said that their greatest loyalty was to themselves, which isn’t all that surprising. I explained to them that we’d be reading a Greek tragedy and that we’d need to understand the loyalties of the Greeks to understand the story.

The Greek loyalties, I know (thanks to Western Civ at OBU) are first to the gods, the to the country, then to the family. Any action that would put you at odds with one of those three loyalities was BAD. The order of these loyalities is NOT interchangeable. If an action was for family but was in treason to your country: forget it. You’re screwed.

It took a lot of time for the kids to fully understand that. And after that I had to explain Oedipus’ family tree — which gets a BIT tangled. I retold the story of Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colunus in my very best ghetto voice, which actually kept their attention better than reading the summary in an ordinary voice would. I then had to explain the nuances of incest and the fact that their children wouldn’t necessarily be handicapped because this was a very long time ago and bloodlines were not so muddled with mutations as they are today. The students struggled with this… but by the end of the day I think they understood it.

We discussed tragic heroes and fate at length and then set into group work. I split up the class into 4 or five groups of 4 and they were assigned parts. They have a reading log and group questions after each section. I set them to work with four groups in the classroom and one outside. They ate it up. Never have I seen the read so dramatically and feel so into the story as they did today.

I think I found out two things about my classes:

1. They need the summary made plain, in layman’s terms.

2. They need self-guided learning. They need to read it and talk it through.

Though the latter part of the class was crazy chaotic… I do believe they understand what’s going on. Which is SUCH a Godsend for me. I’ve been dreading teaching them drama but then I forgot, I guess… they’re high schoolers: they love drama.