Are over. Thank goodness.
It was a grueling marathon of a day, long, exhilarating, and too intense for words. I have no voice left and my brain is mush, but I feel like tomorrow is the first day of school all over again. Today I told 46 parents that their children were pleasures to have in class, that I would like to see "more confidence in navigating the social agenda of 7th grade, that I love teaching them but sometimes I just have to use worksheets.
I was only yelled at by two out of 46, and in both cases the principal and department head ran after them to yell at them immediately. I was supported; the oldest, most veteran teachers set me up next to them in the front of the room and escorted parents to my table as if I was a celebrity. They want me to succeed, and the parents for the most part want their students to learn and have a great time. Who doesn't want their child to learn critical thinking, after all? And since I made Judaics about skills for life, there wasn't one person who thought my subject wasn't important. In fact, for all the talk about other agendas, I found that most parents were so willing to engage me as a key to their child's succcess that I wondered at times if it was true that the apathy all comes from home.
Now I just have to implement the million and one awesome suggestions that they gave me for the classes and their children. I'm glad that no one asked for the moon, and that I can help many of them just by being flexible in ways I already am.
Shout out what you think about the idea of my advisory students learning to run a 5k race for tzedaka (silly kinesthetics) and shout especially if you have an idea for how to make them think it up themselves...
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Things I Miss
I miss writing.
I miss eating real food, not school lunches. I miss eating lunch after 12, and dinner after five.
I miss having time for myself, caring that I do, and not caring how much sleep I get because I'm the only one it affects.
I miss not being on all the time, not caring about someone else even in my dreams, and not wondering about the fact I don't have a life.
I miss going to bed early, and not being under constant stress of classes and conferences (yes, that is what I'm procrastinating preparing for) and parents who care more than me.
But I don't miss an inch the days of the theoretical, when we thought about making a difference instead of just doing it.
I don't miss that one bit.
I miss eating real food, not school lunches. I miss eating lunch after 12, and dinner after five.
I miss having time for myself, caring that I do, and not caring how much sleep I get because I'm the only one it affects.
I miss not being on all the time, not caring about someone else even in my dreams, and not wondering about the fact I don't have a life.
I miss going to bed early, and not being under constant stress of classes and conferences (yes, that is what I'm procrastinating preparing for) and parents who care more than me.
But I don't miss an inch the days of the theoretical, when we thought about making a difference instead of just doing it.
I don't miss that one bit.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Think, Please
I gave up on my 8th graders last week, got frustrated at how they didn't respect anything down to the time I take to make all these awesome lessons for them all the time, and assigned them workbook pages to do instead.
And I realized something.
They have no idea how to think.
I don't think its a socialized mind thing, where they just refuse to have different opinions from each other for fear of being ostracized, because the school culture just isn't really like that. Also, that's why I let them do almost everything in groups ("open friends" as a teacher of mine used to say). I think that they honestly have been taught to think that if they procrastinate and ask obnoxious questions long enough and hard enough, they will get a frustrated teacher to just feed them the answer, and then they won't actually ever have to put two and two together.
That won't fly in most of the high schools, or the colleges, or the jobs that they want for themselves, so I intend to try to break them of that. I think I need two parts.
First I need to give them the tools (dictionaries, word lists, notes, books, websites, whatever) that they need to find out the answers for themselves. I need to give them the skills, too (translating, or at least picking stuff apart, is just one of those).
Second, I need to stop answering their questions and resist the temptation. I need to ask questions I know they can get, I need to scaffold what I ask and what they ask. But I can't walk around explaining every question to them, or they will learn that someone's always there to do that.
Maybe I need to compile a list of every question they could possibly think up, and then assign them to find out the answers. Maybe I need to have "unanswerables" every day, or something too hard for their pat responses when they come into the room. No more content, no more spitback, but somehow, I want them to actually turn on their brains.
Because they're pretty awesome on the rare occasions when they do.
And I realized something.
They have no idea how to think.
I don't think its a socialized mind thing, where they just refuse to have different opinions from each other for fear of being ostracized, because the school culture just isn't really like that. Also, that's why I let them do almost everything in groups ("open friends" as a teacher of mine used to say). I think that they honestly have been taught to think that if they procrastinate and ask obnoxious questions long enough and hard enough, they will get a frustrated teacher to just feed them the answer, and then they won't actually ever have to put two and two together.
That won't fly in most of the high schools, or the colleges, or the jobs that they want for themselves, so I intend to try to break them of that. I think I need two parts.
First I need to give them the tools (dictionaries, word lists, notes, books, websites, whatever) that they need to find out the answers for themselves. I need to give them the skills, too (translating, or at least picking stuff apart, is just one of those).
Second, I need to stop answering their questions and resist the temptation. I need to ask questions I know they can get, I need to scaffold what I ask and what they ask. But I can't walk around explaining every question to them, or they will learn that someone's always there to do that.
Maybe I need to compile a list of every question they could possibly think up, and then assign them to find out the answers. Maybe I need to have "unanswerables" every day, or something too hard for their pat responses when they come into the room. No more content, no more spitback, but somehow, I want them to actually turn on their brains.
Because they're pretty awesome on the rare occasions when they do.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Helping the Universe
Today we actually had a good day, the 7th grade and I.
The school took us all to "Books for Africa", this organization that packs up old textbooks and reading books and ships them to poor children. The students started the trip with the obligatory "Do we have to? This is stupid" etc, but the minute the guy there said, "Take a library cart and climb into the crates to take out the books and pack them in boxes" they got all excited. I didn't hear a single complaint the whole morning, the kids actually said they thought it was cool, and maybe they would want to volunteer there during summer vacation or at least another day.
I think this was the first time, for many of these over-privileged kids, that they ever thought about anyone being grateful for castaway stuff, let alone books. Through packing they learned that there are kids with less stuff than they have and kids who actually NEED to read. They learned that not everyone has iphone touches and even shiny new stuff, and that they could make a difference.
I know I've been a cynic of a lot of these places that make you feel good about helping more than you really are. But these kids had never felt like they helped the universe before and this was a great place to start. They didn't come in with the fear that often comes at this age with soup kitchens, etc, and the children they pictured getting the gift of these books were kids, just like them.
All this they learned with not a speech, a lecture, a worksheet, a fancy smartboard interactive activity, or even a jigsaw or Engaged Learning Strategy. They learned it with their muscles and by getting dusty and by working hard. My classroom is seldom frontal, but even so, I wonder at the power of moving and getting sweaty and doing all of it in "free play" while talking to friends. I wish that my classroom could have a little more of that hard-work-magic, where learning happens despite students' greatest reservations. Why don't every day I teach I feel tired in my muscles as well as in my brain? Why doesn't their learning every day feel, well, GOOD?
Mo'adim L'Simcha!
The school took us all to "Books for Africa", this organization that packs up old textbooks and reading books and ships them to poor children. The students started the trip with the obligatory "Do we have to? This is stupid" etc, but the minute the guy there said, "Take a library cart and climb into the crates to take out the books and pack them in boxes" they got all excited. I didn't hear a single complaint the whole morning, the kids actually said they thought it was cool, and maybe they would want to volunteer there during summer vacation or at least another day.
I think this was the first time, for many of these over-privileged kids, that they ever thought about anyone being grateful for castaway stuff, let alone books. Through packing they learned that there are kids with less stuff than they have and kids who actually NEED to read. They learned that not everyone has iphone touches and even shiny new stuff, and that they could make a difference.
I know I've been a cynic of a lot of these places that make you feel good about helping more than you really are. But these kids had never felt like they helped the universe before and this was a great place to start. They didn't come in with the fear that often comes at this age with soup kitchens, etc, and the children they pictured getting the gift of these books were kids, just like them.
All this they learned with not a speech, a lecture, a worksheet, a fancy smartboard interactive activity, or even a jigsaw or Engaged Learning Strategy. They learned it with their muscles and by getting dusty and by working hard. My classroom is seldom frontal, but even so, I wonder at the power of moving and getting sweaty and doing all of it in "free play" while talking to friends. I wish that my classroom could have a little more of that hard-work-magic, where learning happens despite students' greatest reservations. Why don't every day I teach I feel tired in my muscles as well as in my brain? Why doesn't their learning every day feel, well, GOOD?
Mo'adim L'Simcha!
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