Mr. Schroeder, Teacher, 2.0

Happy New Year fellow teachers and interested parties!

 

     It wasn't a New Year's Resolution to reinvent myself once again but apparently that is what is happening. Monday - Thursday, for two whole weeks, I have worn a tie and my best black dress shoes. But more importantly, this renewal is more than appearance.  It's also dusting off some seldom used teaching techniques and gasp, trying some new ones!

It had been maybe 5 years ago I tried once or twice the K-W-L teaching technique. This semester I have in my first nine days used that technique 3 times.  Yesterday in teaching on grief and grieving, several students questions in the W, what I Want to know, were actually answered before the end of the period in our reading and discussion.  While I used this a few times years ago, I never took it the next step, to also make it a Think-Pair-Share.  I have instructed them that when to they are done writing, they have already done the Think part, now they just need to Pair up with someone next to them and take turns reading it aloud (Share). Finally, depending on time, some are called upon to Share once again but this time with the entire class.  (I find it helpful and very teacher-ee to compliment and paraphrase briefly what the students contributes).

Another technique employed the last two weeks is called Clarifying Bookmarks (CB).  I used it often 2 semesters ago but dropped it for various reasons last semester.  This semester with the idea of increasing student engagement, I have used it again, twice, to pleasant results. While taking extra time, it is worth the extra minutes every time it's used.  It fits all abilities as there are 18 sentence stems that a student can complete and the students that love to write will write anyway but the students for whom writing is a chore, all they need to do is copy the sentence stem--- actually a topic sentence- and then finish it with a thought. For them it's a powerful step in the right direction in learning to write, and perhaps more importantly, learn not to fear writing and have some success in it.  Also, this writing lends itself perfectly to Think-Pair- Share as well or better than in the K-W-L activity.

       Every few years teachers have to be formally evaluated.  The old acronym for this was STULL and who knows what it is this year-- acronyms in education change with the weather it seems!  I was dreading mine yesterday.  Years ago I generally had an administrator who was overworked and little observation occurred. Yesterday I had an administrator sit through an entire class, start to finish. While I had been "on edge" about this, it couldn't have been better.  He gave me a great suggestion about one of the pieces of the lesson plan before the class, and we debriefed casually at the end where he gave me a few other outstanding suggestions-- not criticisms where I had to be defensive, but real good ideas where I felt he said-- this is great and you could try this to make it even better.

This past year of teaching (and life) was a struggle.  From air conditioning problems in my classroom, to health problems that kept me in pain for several months I am glad that is all in the rear view mirror.  That year is gone and Mr. Schroeder, 2.0 is here.

If an old dog can change (me!), perhaps there is hope for these children I work with.  It makes sense too as they are "works in progress."  Aren't we all?

Same Class but All Different

A student asked me today if I teach anything else besides Health.  "I use to teach Life Skills too but I haven't done that for about 2 years.""Does it get boring, the same lesson all day?  "No because each class is different, each class kind of has its own personality." Here's an example, a fun one.  I end my day with a period 6 composed of seven boys and thirty-five girls! Yup, that's a 5:1 ratio of girls to boys.  How that happened I am not sure but maybe 10 of the girls are on the volleyball team and this is the off-season so instead of Period 6 volleyball, now period 6 HEALTH!     But I digress. 

Yesterday, in that same period 6 GIRL CLASS we watched a scene from a movie that had an alcoholic couple.  When the guy proposed romantically to the girl, when the wedding ring appeared there was an incredibly loud "awww ...".

It never gets boring.  Same lesson but different students means interest and challenge.  My period 3 has only 34 students but I have 4 that do not understand any English, none, nada, zip!  It's the same lesson but I have to  s l o w   d o w n  m y  s p e e c h and skip some details for them to communicate the bigger picture.  (It's also about finding other kids in class to help them translate until I can get an adult bi-lingual aide in here but that's a blog for another time.)

I am glad it never gets boring.  If you get bored at your job it's time to find another career.

Justin Bieber, Miley and Kim Kardashian read this blog!

Okay, not actually true but again, a clever way to get more hits to this page!

The REAL title should have been, "But Mister, How Can I Have a D?"  This year I have many 10th and 11th graders, with maybe less than 10% freshman and 10% seniors but they all have 4th grade math skills when it comes to grading.

Most of our assignments are in the 15 - 25 point range.  About 3 weeks ago we had an assignment that was worth 60 points, we had a week to turn it in and about 4 days in class to work on it.  Sixty points.

Now a month later our progress reports have come out and I get "what happened to my grade?  How did I go from an A to a D" (or B to an F).  I turned everything in!   


Well , it looks like in the grade book that you did turn in everything except the biggest assignment of the year .  Taking a zero out of 60 is like taking four zeros on smaller 15 point assignments. Looks like your percentage went from 92 to 64%.

Basic math.  Percentages.  I am no scholar but a little middle school math will help you in many ways. And guess what?  Some of these students who never turned in their assignment and wonder why their grade plummeted are in trigonometry or calculus.  I guess they don't teach common sense in those advanced classes.

Breaking Bad... Habits!

Ha!  Maybe I will get a few extra hits (pages views) from people searching that wildly popular TV program about making crystal meth.

But that isn't what this blog is about today, though I am showing a National Geographic special on meth amphetamine.  Yesterday I shared with them this story from Sports Illustrated about Katie Spotz. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1208630/index.htm. 


What we discussed the day after finishing the film 28 Days (about alcoholism and rehab) was about processing FEELINGS.  In that film there was a large emphasis on identifying your feelings.  We figured this was because addicts as soon as they begin to experience anxiety, they go to their drug almost immediately. So the ideas is to stop, process what you are feeling, and then make a better choice (than using drugs).

 Great.  Now what does that have to do with Katie rowing this boat from 3000+ miles Africa to South America?  If you click on that link above you will see in the 4th paragraph that she says:  "At times I felt overwhelmed and wanted to quit," she says. "But you learn to say, 'Yes, I'm feeling this, but I don't need to act on it.'

We discussed what THIS might be in the above sentence. "This" being a negative thought, like fear, confusion, anxiety, etc.  And my next question to the class was:  How many negative thoughts are you going to have over the next 10, 20 or 70 years?  Yeah... tens of thousands.  What Katie's BIG IDEA is that you don't have to ACT on that idea.  That was a very freeing moment for me when I read it and I sense that some of my students "got it" too.  So instead of that knee-jerk reaction to having a bad day and ACTING OUT with emotional overeating, playing video games as an escape, going on-line for porn, drinking alcohol, (ad infinitum), you can make a healthier choice.

Are those bad habits changeable?  Sure.  By taking a new mental approach to your worries?  Maybe.  But I will use every thing I can- the LA Times, Sports Illustrated, a scene from a movie, anything I can to get the point across.

LISTEN to KIDS!

Whether it is parenting, or teaching, I have to remember to be a better listener.  Today a boy while doing small group work wanted to tell me a story about something that happened to him maybe 2 years ago in middle school.  The story and conversation we had was bit bloated, maybe 3-4 minutes that when other groups are working is hard to justify, especially when it didn't pertain to the assignment at hand.  But I listened and then we discussed what to do next time he is teased.

I have to admit that in times past I would have been in a hurry to get on to another group and would have dismissed this boy and his story, but this phrase (LISTEN TO KIDS) has been recently implanted in my brain and it's critical.

This morning I left for school with my ten year old son crying because of a toothache.  Neither my wife or I had a lot of time for him this morning besides telling him to chew on the other side and give him a pain reliever.  When I got to the car I thought that the correct response would have been with my son to hold him and say,  "I'm sorry", because a pain shared is a pain divided.  Or something like that.

Consider the ears on the deer pictured above.  Why so big?  Hearing a twig snap could save it's life.  Our ears are smaller but no less important.  What we hear is designed to help us.  In the case of a teacher, parent or friend, we can also help others with an appropriate response after taking time to listen.

Welcome back... to chaos!

Hi friends,

I had been warned that my classes would be enormous.  I have 42 desks and the first day back, I had anywhere from 45-53 kids in every class.  That meant all 42 desks full, plus the ten chairs, and in the last period of the day, a student sat in the last chair, my chair.  Gulp.

I know it won't last, it never does, but all these students left me a bit anxious.  Because none of the faces were familiar.  Strangers can look intimidating, especially a group of them that are also not thrilled about the temporary overcrowding.

And then something happened.  I started to notice smiles.  Smiles make me relax.   It disarms people.  It humanizes these bundles of hormones we call young adults.

One particular boy that I felt some unease with I started to strike up a conversation.  I found him very polite and we found common ground quickly.  I had gone from fearing this boy a little bit to liking him and not fearing him at all in just two minutes.

You can't judge these kids on appearance.  Some of the appearances are admittedly rough, but once you get past the facial piercings and the tattoos, these kids are still kids, with joys, hopes and dreams.

I am looking forward to another good year.

Embracing Technology

Last Christmas break, I guess with too much time on my hands, I thought about starting a Facebook page for my health classroom.  My modest goal was to see if we could get 100 Likes.  We passed that goal in about 3 weeks and hit 200 at maybe the 8 week mark.

Health is in the news CONSTANTLY!  Good for me and my class.  It's so easy to add a link to the site, and I often show the class on our screen upfront (via a wireless internet connection, and an LCD projector) something linked from our Facebook page.  It can range from the silly (bad flirting from Season 7 on Friends) or something more serious on Sexual Harassment in the Workplace which I streamed today from the PBS website.

And you know what's even better than "Likes" is when students post links of video or articles that compliment what we are currently studying!  Student engagement outside the classroom, thank you Mark Zuckerberg!

Here is a link to our baby: https://www.facebook.com/JMHS.health