And I'm still not sure I have anything to report now.
It's still January, finally nearing the end, and I'm boring myself. I'm in that rut that happens when spring hasn't come but everyone's kinda getting sick of winter. In the north, where I'm from, that happened in February, but here it seems to have happened already, with the weather being nice and cruelly awful in turns, and midterms coming only in two weeks even though we've had our 100th day of school last week.
I haven't given a real test all year, and I'm giving one for the midterm (at my director's request). Writing the review sheet is something I'm strangely dreading. I have about enough energy to sit during a free period and make smartboard slides for the next day, but that's about all the planning I've done since I came back, and I have a class for whom I don't even always do that.
I have half my students failing because of missing work I haven't chased them for, we had a meeting with the head of school about the negative school culture, and today I had to kick three kids out of my desk drawer because no, I don't let them rummage through my emergency snack (or pencil) supply.
I give free time at the end of lessons because I don't want to listen to myself talk, I gave a quiz just to stump kids and prove to them they have to take better notes, and in the deadness of January I feel myself becoming the monster of the teacher I most didn't want to be.
I can't remember when was the last time they even successfully worked in partners. And I was the queen of projects.
And I admitted in front of a class today that I don't actually think Mishna's all that important in teh grand scheme of life (though it was in a lecture about respecting others trumping all) because honestly, I'm not so sure right now that it is.
Because the most important thing right now, or the only thing that seems to matter, is hanging on to that lead-line and following it through without falling off until spring.
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Guest Blogger Entry
Courtesy of a fellow Cohort 8er who teaches in NY...
today in class my student asked me 'did this happen' about the story of eliezer and rivka at the well.
i let the other kids be like 'we're never going to know if it happened. it's a question of belief.'
'but sophie, do YOU think it happened'
'i'm not going to answer that right now'
'but it's really important'
'you're distracting from the story'
(i had tried to get them to act out the story, which they were excited about, but excitement + crazy kids = INSANITY and WAY TOO MUCH GIGGLING. oh well)
what i did not do:
a) talk about type scenes (though they brought up moshe and miriam. they meant tziporah but i don't have time to correct every mistake they make and they learn)
b) talk about how it doesn't matter
but really, i hate giggly, disrespectful 9th grade girls (who are also mean. some of them, not all of them). who turn my plans for trying to make learnign fun so they don't have to read all of a really long perek into 'let's laugh at x.'
YES!
today in class my student asked me 'did this happen' about the story of eliezer and rivka at the well.
i let the other kids be like 'we're never going to know if it happened. it's a question of belief.'
'but sophie, do YOU think it happened'
'i'm not going to answer that right now'
'but it's really important'
'you're distracting from the story'
(i had tried to get them to act out the story, which they were excited about, but excitement + crazy kids = INSANITY and WAY TOO MUCH GIGGLING. oh well)
what i did not do:
a) talk about type scenes (though they brought up moshe and miriam. they meant tziporah but i don't have time to correct every mistake they make and they learn)
b) talk about how it doesn't matter
but really, i hate giggly, disrespectful 9th grade girls (who are also mean. some of them, not all of them). who turn my plans for trying to make learnign fun so they don't have to read all of a really long perek into 'let's laugh at x.'
YES!
Monday, January 4, 2010
The First Day Back
Was a dream.
It was like the first day of school again, only better, sweeter, and more chilled. As if the worst was over, the eye of the storm had been reached, and the other side had arrived, but much less scary.
I'm standing at the top of the mountain, looking down at the great expanse of snow reaching out in front of me and knowing that I'm not the only one that can do it. My students can, too.
In the two weeks since we've been gone, my 8th graders have finally stopped hating me, my advisory has made a truce to not be snotty to each other, and the other teachers actually look like people. We even sat and drank tea at lunch, chatting in Hebrew about nothing, not about students.
I don't even care that I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow, that I just got suckered into some weird Tu B'Shvat shuk thing, and that I still have trouble keeping my class quiet for more than 30 seconds. I did dream up some new ideas, but I'm giving myself three weeks for them to percolate, because suddenly I'm not in a rush. I didn't think about school at all for two weeks until yesterday morning, I know I never would have done that in August, and I am proud.
This morning I was not nervous; I knew not only all the students names but their histories, their moms, and what computer games they like. I'm their teacher, they are my students, and they were happy to see me and happy to be back. Some even complimented me on my haircut and let me talk in opening circle about my vacation, not just about theirs. Some difference from that first terrifying day of school.
I am a teacher, and I'm ready to jump off the ski-lift and enjoy every minute of the downhill slope until June.
And that is why we have vacation.
It was like the first day of school again, only better, sweeter, and more chilled. As if the worst was over, the eye of the storm had been reached, and the other side had arrived, but much less scary.
I'm standing at the top of the mountain, looking down at the great expanse of snow reaching out in front of me and knowing that I'm not the only one that can do it. My students can, too.
In the two weeks since we've been gone, my 8th graders have finally stopped hating me, my advisory has made a truce to not be snotty to each other, and the other teachers actually look like people. We even sat and drank tea at lunch, chatting in Hebrew about nothing, not about students.
I don't even care that I have no idea what I'm doing tomorrow, that I just got suckered into some weird Tu B'Shvat shuk thing, and that I still have trouble keeping my class quiet for more than 30 seconds. I did dream up some new ideas, but I'm giving myself three weeks for them to percolate, because suddenly I'm not in a rush. I didn't think about school at all for two weeks until yesterday morning, I know I never would have done that in August, and I am proud.
This morning I was not nervous; I knew not only all the students names but their histories, their moms, and what computer games they like. I'm their teacher, they are my students, and they were happy to see me and happy to be back. Some even complimented me on my haircut and let me talk in opening circle about my vacation, not just about theirs. Some difference from that first terrifying day of school.
I am a teacher, and I'm ready to jump off the ski-lift and enjoy every minute of the downhill slope until June.
And that is why we have vacation.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Post-Modern Students
For those of you in my cohort who have been emailing me this week, you know that I promised the kids a lesson on the "miracle of oil being a lie" and the reason why. In the end I did a full jigsaw with sources from 4 places (Maccabees, Mai Chanukah, Al haNissim, Rambam) and asked the students to compare the versions.
They did a great job comparing, and talking about how the oil miracle only appears in 2 of the four versions, and any miracle at all is not present in more than 3. Then I asked them why. I wanted them to think about what might motivate each of these sources to tell the story differently. I hoped that reading the four stories would have peaked their interest and sense of linear-mess to wonder what the "real truth" was and why the other versions chose to tell it differently. After all, that bothered an awful lot of people in Pardes, HC and everywhere else I've been as an adult. In fact, we even wrote a paper on it last year.
There was an almost visible sigh in the room as every single one of them wrote "because there are different versions with different understandings and ways of interpreting the story based on their agendas". Wow, I thought. I totally underestimated how post-modern my 7th graders are. While us adults are busy looking for the "truth", post-modernity, with its multiplicity and varying narratives for everything, has come to town. The kids know that the answer is going to be in the layers and agendas because they've learned that from Gossip Girl. They don't wonder about what other people think and how their stories are different, because they have novels in multiple voices and movies that spell out characters' motivations. How much richer it is than the one dimension that we thought in when WE were in 7th grade.
Richer, maybe, but also less connected and emotionally attached. My students know that everyone has a way to tell their story, and no version compells them. They can pick and choose at will, so they often don't even bother. I was looking forward to the second lesson, the one where we talk about each story's history and motivation, but they're already bored. Of course they all have reasons, they tell me, and that means we don't have to take anything too seriously. Anyone can tell their story (just look at the rise in self-publishing, blogging, etc) so no one's story is more than a breeze in the hurricane of images that passes before their faces every day.
In short, they have so many more stories, they don't have to care too much, or even think too much, about any of them. I threw my lesson on multiple perspectives down the drain tonight, and am now wondering how I can make just one story, one moment, really and truly matter.
They did a great job comparing, and talking about how the oil miracle only appears in 2 of the four versions, and any miracle at all is not present in more than 3. Then I asked them why. I wanted them to think about what might motivate each of these sources to tell the story differently. I hoped that reading the four stories would have peaked their interest and sense of linear-mess to wonder what the "real truth" was and why the other versions chose to tell it differently. After all, that bothered an awful lot of people in Pardes, HC and everywhere else I've been as an adult. In fact, we even wrote a paper on it last year.
There was an almost visible sigh in the room as every single one of them wrote "because there are different versions with different understandings and ways of interpreting the story based on their agendas". Wow, I thought. I totally underestimated how post-modern my 7th graders are. While us adults are busy looking for the "truth", post-modernity, with its multiplicity and varying narratives for everything, has come to town. The kids know that the answer is going to be in the layers and agendas because they've learned that from Gossip Girl. They don't wonder about what other people think and how their stories are different, because they have novels in multiple voices and movies that spell out characters' motivations. How much richer it is than the one dimension that we thought in when WE were in 7th grade.
Richer, maybe, but also less connected and emotionally attached. My students know that everyone has a way to tell their story, and no version compells them. They can pick and choose at will, so they often don't even bother. I was looking forward to the second lesson, the one where we talk about each story's history and motivation, but they're already bored. Of course they all have reasons, they tell me, and that means we don't have to take anything too seriously. Anyone can tell their story (just look at the rise in self-publishing, blogging, etc) so no one's story is more than a breeze in the hurricane of images that passes before their faces every day.
In short, they have so many more stories, they don't have to care too much, or even think too much, about any of them. I threw my lesson on multiple perspectives down the drain tonight, and am now wondering how I can make just one story, one moment, really and truly matter.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Bad Day
Bad Day, bad mood. It's something about having only a week more until a 2 week vacation, and that week will be on Chanukah, and every single teacher giving a test to finish a unit before the break, and even I did that, but it means they are so loopy all day because of having three tests and not being able to focus in class.
I also am finishing a unit with each class next week, because who wants to come back and not be learning something new, but I wish there was another way and that we could be just able to just have class and not have consequences and all that annoying stuff and that we could just have a good class for a change, would that be so terrible?
DD says we shouldn't punish negative behavior of a whole class, instead we should do something fun and interesting. But how about the fact that I plan something really awesome and then they chat so much that I can't get a word in to give instructions, so I don't, and then they don't know what to do or we have no time to do it, and everyone leaves upset. How do I fix that one? I don't know, and barely getting quiet for 5 minutes means that I often don't really have any choices. Maybe it's going to have to be back to the worksheets and only having written instructions and no oral ones. But it's just more work for me to get something near the same result, and less well done since no one has ever taught them how to make or fill in a chart or graph or how to read one. I hate that I am now becoming the teacher who asks them to have it but then doesn't give them a chance to learn it on their own. And in this case, I don't even feel like it's my fault.
But I don't know how to make it better.
I also am finishing a unit with each class next week, because who wants to come back and not be learning something new, but I wish there was another way and that we could be just able to just have class and not have consequences and all that annoying stuff and that we could just have a good class for a change, would that be so terrible?
DD says we shouldn't punish negative behavior of a whole class, instead we should do something fun and interesting. But how about the fact that I plan something really awesome and then they chat so much that I can't get a word in to give instructions, so I don't, and then they don't know what to do or we have no time to do it, and everyone leaves upset. How do I fix that one? I don't know, and barely getting quiet for 5 minutes means that I often don't really have any choices. Maybe it's going to have to be back to the worksheets and only having written instructions and no oral ones. But it's just more work for me to get something near the same result, and less well done since no one has ever taught them how to make or fill in a chart or graph or how to read one. I hate that I am now becoming the teacher who asks them to have it but then doesn't give them a chance to learn it on their own. And in this case, I don't even feel like it's my fault.
But I don't know how to make it better.
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Not Fun
Thanksgiving, and home. I haven't been writing because I haven't been talking and this doesn't rate the "real" blog still of the Pardes people, though I haven't written in three weeks.
It's my day off and I'm procrastinating doing an assignment, writing the curriculum for Chanukah in standards and benchmarks. It's easy, except that I have to write it in big words. Maybe that's not usually hard for me, but I haven't been in the mood for any words in weeks.
It's not something wrong with me, in case you were wondering after reading the last post. It's just a lot of taking care of too many people for too long and without anyone taking care of me. It happens when you're a teacher and November means you have a lot of friends who need help.
Thanks for letting me stand by you. But I need a vacation with people doing that for me. This one with family just doesn't count.
It's my day off and I'm procrastinating doing an assignment, writing the curriculum for Chanukah in standards and benchmarks. It's easy, except that I have to write it in big words. Maybe that's not usually hard for me, but I haven't been in the mood for any words in weeks.
It's not something wrong with me, in case you were wondering after reading the last post. It's just a lot of taking care of too many people for too long and without anyone taking care of me. It happens when you're a teacher and November means you have a lot of friends who need help.
Thanks for letting me stand by you. But I need a vacation with people doing that for me. This one with family just doesn't count.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Novemeber Blues
I've got them. It's a good thing it's just a few days before Thanksgiving, and I'm going on vacation, or else it would really be bad. All I want to do is sleep, I feel like I don't care that they act up because all I want to do is just let it go. I don't want to meet with all the people who think they can help me. I just want to sleep.
And I really want to be angry at the person who told me this month would be easier without nano, because that's what makes it possible to get through at all...
And I really want to be angry at the person who told me this month would be easier without nano, because that's what makes it possible to get through at all...
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