Thursday, October 25, 2007

Looks Like We Have Another Floater...

Children puzzle me sometimes (the things they do, the way they act, the things that entertain them, the thrills they get off of unthrilling things, bathroom humor). Maybe its because I have a weak stomach or maybe I'm not hip anymore (I am going to be 38 in 3 more months...another sad realization I made today). Who knows?

It all started a little after lunch during our post-lunch bathroom break. There are 5 stalls in the boys bathroom and 5 in the girls. So, naturally I send in 5 at a time. I monitor the boys bathroom, and the girls pretty much take care of themselves (thank God). I will step in and out of the bathroom several times to facilitate maximum occupancy of the toilets while others are still washing their hands. But, enough of the unimportant details. Occasionally, while walking in and out, I tend to catch them in their little moments of err... um.. immature-ness (whether it be climbing up the stall doors, flicking water in someone's face, throwing a wad of paper somewhere it doesn't belong, or writing something on the wall). But, every year, this little "gem" always becomes an issue: The floater.

Yes, the floater... sitting in the water of the unflushed toilet bowl. It's like the 8th wonder of the world to these kids. Forget a trip to the museum to see relics from a lost era... in stall #3 we have a relic from last period!

I don't understand it. I don't own a cat for a reason. I can't clean out a litter box without vomiting... or at least gagging. There's a reason why I wear dark clothes when I walk my dog in the dark. When she poops in other peoples' yards, I can high-tail it out of there without having to clean it up. I can't use the inside-out baggie method. The poop is usually too squishy. Messes with my mind. Makes me want to throw up. Makes me want to gag. But, enough about my surreptitious dog walking techniques. Back to the floater.

The floater is a wondrous thing. Its like that tiny box in the Hellraiser movies. They are drawn to it. It has mysterious powers. There are even rumors that Adolf Hitler himself was in search of the perfect floater. It could annihilate an entire army. Umm.. err.. maybe that was the Ark of the Covenant, but I digress.

I have my secret ways of observing the boys in the bathroom without going in. The mirrors mainly.... Sometimes their reflections in the tile. Anyway, this is the "script". Happens this way pretty much all the time and the same way:

Boy walks into stall. Boy says, "Ewwwww!!!" Boy dashes out of stall and tells other boys. Other boys go observe floater in the stall of the offense. Other boys dash out one by one laughing and saying, "Ewwwww!!!" Some boys make repeat trips.... and come out with the same result, "Ewwww!!!" As boys filter out into the main hallway, they notify the other boys (who are still waiting in line to go in to the restroom) of the attraction in stall #3. Its like when you see your friends in line at the movies when you've just finished seeing the feature they're waiting to see. Or when you get off of a roller coaster at an amusement park and you see your friends waiting in line to ride the same ride. "It was awesome!!!"

They'll recall these stories of their youth in their later years.

Student #1: "Remember when we saw that poop floating in the toilet?"
Student #2: "Yeah."
Student #1: "That was awesome!"

But, I have to admit that it is quite humorous to see this event. I try not to laugh. Most of the times I don't. Sometimes a smile creeps out, but I pretty much keep a straight face. But as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog might say: It makes for a good blog-writing topic....... For me to POOP on!!

Monday, October 22, 2007

I Am A Golden God!

I give my students many opportunities to go up to the board or overhead projector in front of the class and demonstrate how they solve particular problems. Most of them get a kick out of it and enjoy showing me that they know how to solve a particular problem. Well, today I had a student demonstrating how they solved a "lattice-style" multiplication problem. When the student got to the point where she had to multiply 9 x 4, she put the wrong answer in the box. I politely interrupted her and asked if she was sure that 9 x 4 was 27... and if she wanted to go back and check. She started counting by 9's on her fingers and kept getting stuck. She would start all over again, and get stuck all over again. I decided to give her some help.

I asked her if she knew any shortcuts for figuring out her 9's, and she responded in the negative. So I told her to write the numbers 0 through 9 in a column. She did, and it looked like this:

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

Next, I asked her to make a 2nd column right next to her first column and count down from 9 through 0. It looked like this:

09
18
27
36
45
54
63
72
81
90

Then, we went back to the 9 x 4 and I asked her to count to the 4th number down (36). And I said, "You're right! 9 x 4 = 36."

There was a collective gasp from the entire class. It was like I was practicing witchcraft or making the Statue of Liberty disappear. Every year, I show my kids this little "trick" and I never get the reception that I received today. At that moment, I knew my students saw me as more than just a mere mortal. I was a god today!

Now, if I could only magically make them learn the entire curriculum that way. :-)

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

We Interrupt This Scheduled Lesson For.....

Is there some kind of "hotline" for anonymously reporting P.A. system abuse? If there isn't, there should be. If such a "hotline" existed, my school would definitely be "red-flagged" by now. It seems like there is a freakin interrupt... err... um.. important announcement every damn minute. It is really unnerving (especially when I'm in a teaching groove, and my kids are in a learning groove). There has got to be a better way.

Whether they are:

  • Looking for some AWOL teacher

"Ms. Black, please report to the office. Ms. Black, please
report to the office. You are needed immediately, Ms. Black. Ms.
Black, please report to the office. We are a go for Operation Black Hawk"

  • Telling us stuff they should've told us in the weekly update newsletter

"Please have your students sign off on their free fair tickets for
elementary fair day."

or:
"The Fast Forword Lab will be closed today
and next week until further notice."

or:
"Duh, don't you read? The Fast
Forword Lab is open again."

  • Telling us at 2:30 to send students down to the office or teacher workroom to get copies of "important" notes that must go home by the end of the day (when they should've had the copies ready first thing in the morning).

....They inevitably make the announcement longer than it should be and basically..... ruin the atmosphere of my classroom. If my students were engaged, you can sure bet they won't be engaged anymore. If they weren't engaged, you can sure bet they are even worse afterwords.

It is absolutely ridiculous. Maybe a script would help. Write it out before you ramble it out. One announcement in late September warned us faculty members about the approaching end of summer dress code, and that the men would now have to go back to neckties and the women would have to go back to hose. By the end of that convoluted exposition by my school leader, some of my 4th grade boys were convinced that they needed to show up with neckties the next week. The other 60% who have learned the important skill of "tuning out" were fine until they overheard me trying to "clear up the confusion" to the other 40%ers. After they overheard me trying to explain "no neckties" to the "confused" ones, their response was, "We have to wear neckties???"

It is truly a vicious cycle. Dominoes on the tumble. If one falls, they all fall.

And after all the confusion was finally cleared up, the dialogue kinda went like this....

40%ers: "By the way, Mr. Cater, what was that you were telling us about Left Angles?"

Mr. Cater: "I was talking about right angles. There is no such thing as a left angle."

60%ers: "There's a left angle? What does it look like?"

Mr. Cater: "It looks like a boot about to kick some ill-prepared elocutionist in the buttocks."

Monday, October 8, 2007

De de de de, De de de de, De de de de

As I've mentioned in other posts of mine, my district is really pushing the "Principles of Learning" approach to teaching. And, as I've also mentioned in other posts, I'm all for this new approach. If it truly benefits students (like I think it will) then I am for it 100%.

Of course, with all new approaches, there is a learning curve. You can't just implement all aspects at once. There are many pieces to the "Principles of Learning". One such piece is accountable talk. Accountable talk involves having the students become more responsible for their learning. In the process, they take ownership of the learning. When they answer questions in class, they are expected to give a valid reason (or proof) for how they came up with their answer. During the implementation of this facet, a habit of intellectual discourse develops. Hmmm.... I have to say that I was kind of skeptical about it too. But, the experience I've had the last couple of weeks is starting to sway my opinion.

During our staff development sessions over the summer, we were provided with a list of accountable talk stems. The stem that I have been experimenting with the last couple of weeks is the "I agree/disagree with ___________ because __________" stem. When I started to implement it in my class, I suddenly felt like I was transported to some sort of alternate dimension. A dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. Moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. Yep, I crossed over into... the Twilight Zone. De de de de, de de de de, de de de de, de de de de, Dummmmmmm dum dum dum dum.

Who were these kids that were talking so intellectually? Certainly not the ones that I was used to. I teach in a school where most of the population in in the low s.e.s. bracket, where most of the population is some kind of minority, where the population doesn't normally use the words "agree" and "disagree". It is totally amazing how they speak once you get them in that mode. Its not always easy to get them there, but thats mostly because of my old habits. I'm sure I'll get better. Anyway, not only does it make them sound more intellectual... the other students seem to be more focused or in tune to what their fellow student is saying so that they themselves can chime in with an agree or a disagree. Truly amazing.


For another interesting anecdote on accountable talk hop on over to Mister Teacher's blog at Learn Me Good and read his post titled "Accountable Counting". Pretty funny stuff!

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Assembly Line Education

Ugh…Assembly-line education. I can’t stand it. It’s like the scene from "I Love Lucy" in which the chocolates are moving too fast on the conveyer belt for her and Ethel to wrap. I have a "middle-school" rotation in 4th grade. I have 5 classes and they rotate in and out every 60 minutes. My district is really on the "Principles of Learning" bandwagon (which I have no qualms about). However, the whole "Principles of Learning" philosophy is about educating at a more rigorous level, a more deeper level. How can I get deep in 60 minutes? Truthfully, its not even 60 minutes. These are 9 and 10-year-olds we’re talking about here. We have other issues from bathrooms to fevers to she won’t be my friend to he’s making fun of me to pencil sharpening. Heck, sometimes it takes a kid an eon to take out a sheet of paper and put their name on it! The issues are endless.

It has been suggested to me that the Science teacher could take 15 minutes out of her 1 hour science time to allow students to do "practice" work over stuff that I taught. However, I don’t really see a very good cost/benefit result here. Science instruction will suffer and I really won’t be able to effectively monitor and address misconceptions with immediate feedback. It would have to wait a day. Truth be told, there just isn’t enough time in the day. With every subject now facing the prospect of state testing, nothing can really be shortchanged. The problem is, that everything is shortchanged as a result.

A 2-teacher split is much better than a 5-teacher split. A 2-teacher split also gives rookies the opportunity to team-up and learn from a veteran. What if I decide to change schools next year? I take my 12 years experience and wisdom with me. I taught a state-tested subject my 2nd year as a teacher. I worked very closely with the "other" math teacher on my grade level. I learned a lot. It sped up the learning curve. I wouldn’t mind having the opportunity to "groom" a newbie. I’ve done it before.

When I used to teach 2 subjects (Math and Science), I had a 2 1/2-hour block and I always had the flexibility to spend more time on one subject if students were facing difficulties. Of course, the other subject would suffer. There were times when I would take away from Science time, because Math is a state tested subject at my grade level. Unfortunately, science is state tested at the next grade up. I want to prepare my students for that as well, but math scores are what ultimately ride on my shoulders. I enjoy teaching science as well. However, I would not enjoy teaching it if I was faced with 45 minute class time (because in 4th grade, that translates to about 30 minutes after all the B.S. mentioned above).

But…I don’t run things. I don’t rock the boat. I just do what I’m told to do. If someone asks my opinion, I’ll give it to them, but nobody ever asks. Such is the frustrating life of a teacher.

Next thing you know, they’ll want to start basing my salary on how well I cram stuff into 9 and 10-year-old heads in 60 minutes. Oh, wait… they’re already on that, aren’t they? I guess the truth will finally come out: I suck at teaching! Don’t send your kids to Mr. Ed. U. Cater! He sucks! Oh, wait… He’s the only freakin’ math teacher.

Anyway, that’s all I got. Just a little rant for cyberspace.