Repair the World....one bandaid at a time

In Judaism, we have a required work, called, Tikkun Olam; which translates to "repair the world". It calls all Jews to take up work that will help to repair the ills of the world, one good deed at a time. Some argue this is a call to social action or social justice, you can read about the beginning of the debate here.

I think it quite succintly explains why so many Jews work in service of some type; law, medicine, education and many others.

As a teacher, and former nurse, I feel as though I have a unique position to pass on to my students an interest and a love of serving others.  I try to find ways that our work in class either connects with their real-world lives or that we can connect it to other things. Such as, their long-term assignment of writing science books at a kindergarten level. This may sound easy, but once you take a look at the Dolch primer list of words, the project becomes astronomically more difficult.

This year, teaching feels a bit like we are under attack. It seems every way we turn there is someone else wanting to fill out a form, check a box, observe a space, or give some new standardized test to see what we're up to. I'm not sure what's helping and what's junk, but it's a lot.

Ultimately, I have to believe that what I am doing is helping. I have to believe that I am empowering my students to "think globally and act locally". My students asked if they could read their books to small children once they are finished, so I'm working on a field trip for them to go to area feeder schools and read to the students at their old elementary schools. I hope that the kids I'm teaching can show the kids I'll eventually teach that science is fun!

I think this is one of the many reasons why I can't leave education just yet.

I feel like I need to for personal reasons, mostly financial. But the love I have for the work and for the kids keeps pulling be back.

I guess eventually I'll get run down enough that I will finally give in. But for now, I'm going to keep pushing.

To that end, if you would like to help me in my quest to help St. Jude, please feel free to follow this link or this link, for my daughter's page and donate.

Odd days make for odd feelings

Today was day 2 of block scheduling so my students can test in their English classes. Trust me, they're thrilled. 

Since I had my planning period today and grades were due today, I decided to go for a run during my planning period. I have not really run since late August. You'd be amazed how fast 6 weeks can disappear off a calendar! They FLY!! While I was on my run I had all the usual thoughts, "this hurts, that doesn't, I'm frustrated with x, wonder about y, etc". But I also realized what frustrates me so much about the day grades are due. 

Here's the proof. Cause, ya know, if you don't post it, it never happened. 

It's the day that precedes the day when the disengaged parents re-engage and the day that precedes the same thing for my students. 

Mind you, I did not go into teaching with some doe-eyed notion that I was going to miraculously change the world. But I continue to be saddened and disappointed by the number of teenagers who give up on themselves, disengage or don't commit to their own grades. I wonder if the students, or their parents, believe that Neely showing up warrants the gift of a C or B. I find it baffling the number of students who make low grades and are content to just float with it. I did not become a teacher so I could track 0's and bag teenagers. 

I've tried using fun projects with multiple parts and interesting topics, but somethings just can't be made much more exciting than what they are. I find that my children do pretty well in this area, but the more I coach my kids, the less chores get done. We are working in findin our balance. 

So, in light of this; these are my resolutions for the rest of this semester to see if it helps:

1. Students will bring a signed printout from home with their grades, if they're lower than a 75. (And get bonus points for doing it.)

2. Students will get late homework signed by their parent or guardian. 

3. I will remind students of due dates daily and in Friday's via text message using our messaging app, remind. 

4. Sadly, I will have to increase my parent call rate and call ads and Fs each week, instead of just Fs. 

What ideas do you have, as a parent or a teacher? 

Another spin on the same thing

I have taught a candy lab on the classification systems for years. It's one of the hardest and best labs I do. 

The kid get a Baggie with 6 different candies, asked questions about how Aristotle and Linneaus created their classification systems and then they have to create their own classification system for their candy. It's up to them if they work together or not, but everyone turns in a lab sheet. 

It ROCKS!

This year one of my students just was not getting it. She took notes all week, listen intently to instructions, asked her peers and it just was not making sense...so I did this. 

That's ribbons and note cards. It's the classification system turned into a tree! And it made total sense to everyone!!

Teacher WIN!

Then to top it off we had a great pep rally for homecoming, a strong turn out for Mock Trial interest meeting and then I went and voted before taking my girl to the football game. 

It's a right I'm grateful to have. I hope you exercised your right. 

We had a great time at football with our friends, ate skittles and drank lots of water. 

All in all, today was a day I was prou to be a teacher. 

What made you proud to be a teache today?

Context Clues and Observation Skills

Keys to Success

As a science teacher, I think those two things are the two most critical pieces of a student that I can help develop. Context Clues and Observation Skills. My students do not always come to me with these skills, nor can I always develop them as much as I would like in my 9 months with my sweet darlings.

Today I received an email inviting me to speak at STEMCON. I plan to try to go. It's an incredible opportunity to share with some of the really great minds in my field. But, what I find we all keep coming back to, is that as teachers we have to find ways to bring out the context clues for our students or demonstrate the use of observation skills. This means that no matter the skill level, reading level, IQ level, functionality, etc, our students can all use more developement in the area of context clues and observation skills.

I find that my students not only hear teachers often say, "are you sure you read ________" referring to novels, directions or most anything, but that often the students eyes have gone over the symbols on the page without really absorbing the full content within, much less gaining any clue to the context.

Most of our students today have grown up around technology in a way that most veteran, ie 4 years or more, teachers did not. Most veteran teachers watched the technology develop, some have even embraced it into their classrooms as much as their schools will allow. What this means for our students is that they are used to memes, instagram and vimeo videos, youtube, google, facebook and other medias, being short snipets of information and sound bites that are always at their disposal.

How as teachers and parents can we navigate the minefield and get them to actually see the world around them!?! How will they discover the science behind Leonardo DaVinci or Claude Monet?! When will they notice the patterns of flowers directly match the wind patterns months prior? Or how will they find out that Vincent Van Googh was the first to finally make us able to see turbulence and the prior to this, no scientist or artist could really get it right?

What as teachers can we do?

1. Create class lessons that utilize 10-20 minutes of time and then require the student to do a different task using a different part of their brain.
2. Question what we show them.
3. Give them word searches and word puzzles and brain teasers to start our high school classes.
4. Make our content rich classroom, Actually RICH WITH CONTENT! Don't throw it all on the wall, give it meaning.
5. Teach your students to see context clues and how to use observation skills. Maybe give them a search and see sheet for your classroom or show a short clip and have them write everything they saw.

What ideas do you have? Post them in the comments below.

Reflections

Today, one of my students brought me a yellow watermelon. If you have never had one, they are amazing. Yesterday, one of my students brought me a HUGE pack of Sharpies. (I love sharpies!)
I was sitting today thinking about how different I am now as a teacher as compared to when I first started teaching, especially, at the school where I am. It made me think about the way that I was as a teacher back when I first started.

I taught freshmen and sophomores in my first year at my school and last year my sophomores graduated. This year, my freshmen are graduating. I can't believe that I am about to watch them walk across the stage. These kids dealt with me being pregnant, my mother dying, my teacher licensure paperwork getting lost and then some. I was frustrated many times, I was unreasonable, and honestly, there were times I was just down right mean.

These kids have blossomed into amazing kids. They are smart, funny, kind, generous people. These students are exactly who they should be and where they should be.

I wish I could take more credit for who they have become, but honestly, I am so glad that I didn't have as much to do with it. I hope they learned as much from the lessons I was teaching as they did from the mistakes that I made.

As these students move forward, I wish for them all the same things that I constantly wish for my own children...I wish for them roots enough to feel grounded and confident in where they came from, that they know they have a "home base", but I also wish for them wings enough to fly high and soar to new places, to meet new people and to allow themselves to become new people.

I cannot wait to see who they become and where they go.

Why I do what I do

If you have a job that you love, cool. But if you have a job that mostly doesn't feel like a job, THEN you have something worth hanging on to.

I am not sure who said those words to me. But, I firmly believe in them.

This afternoon was another great example of this. I met with another parent and talked to one on the phone. Both of them were met with my usual happy upbeat personality, but I think they both were surprised by how very clear I am. So many teachers are so tired of what they do, that I don't think they really understand how vital they are. Some truly do not understand the impact they can have on their student population and the lasting effects of those relationships.

Each year I say that I have 204 kids; 4 I gave birth to and 200 that the school gave me. This year I feel that even more than normal. These kids are really incredible. I hear people say, "they have such a bright light" about different people and I've never really known what that meant. This year I do. These kids are AMAZING. They soak up the material while we're in class. They tell me jokes. They tell me problems. They ask me questions. They are incredible. I force them to work really, really, really, hard and they do it.

For the most part, I don't have any behavior issues. Ever. It is so strange to me. I've never been this lucky before. I give all the credit to the kids. Don't get me wrong, I am working my tushie off! I study every night to make sure I can teach them correctly, do my best to write quizzes and tests that are aligned with the primary learning objectives, write lesson plans that I think are really fun and they they will engage in and then write study guides that I believe will guide them in the right direction. It's the best hard work I've done in a long time.

I think this is the, "I am so blessed" post. Most of the time those sound so trite to me. I hope this doesn't sound that way. But, truly, I have never had a roster full of kids for whom I feel nearly the same way as I feel about my own kids. They're incredible. They make me want to work harder at my classes for my Doctorate to be sure that I am working at setting a good example.

Now, this is where I get pretty out of character for me....If you are of the praying kind, whatever your method, prayer beads, incense, spiritual gods, good vibes, positive energy, what have you; say a prayer for us. We have a big mountain to climb to try and get these kids to reach the proficient goal on the end of course test in May. I want to see these sweet kids reach the top. Help us reach the top.