Category Archives: Teaching

Reflections on the beginning of another school year

Today was Day #4 in the new school year. I’m teaching freshmen again.

Last year, I threatened to retire if I had to teach freshmen this year. I’m just too blasted old and do not have the energy and I reasoned that they need a younger teacher who is more creative and has more energy … Because of a change in my financial status, I could not follow through on my threat. 

So, here I am with these young students who are eager to experience all that high school can offer them. Of course, analyzing literature and writing essays and research papers in MLA format are not top priority.

To my delight and surprise, I have been visited by students from last year’s classes. Lots of hugs. Lots of comments that they want back in my class. Now, I’m not naive; I understand that I’m what’s familiar and their sophomore teachers are the unknown. But it makes me feel good.

I had some behavior problems on Monday & Tuesday and made calls to MOM! The behavior improved.

I am thankful that my students have focused on writing their essays the past four days. Many of them turned in the summer reading project …. and the others are either reading … or thinking about reading and might get around to finding a book this weekend … maybe.

Maybe this year …… maybe this year will be a little bit better. Maybe this year, I will be able to teach. Maybe this year ………………..

Gray Golden Mood

It’s raining, a wonderful and rare event here in Phoenix, and the sky is gray, reflecting my mood.  It’s been a difficult work week. There are two weeks left of school; we are in the midst of testing (my content area requires a minimum of five days of testing), and my freshmen are not responding well — lots of misbehavior which is wearing me down.

I need to grade papers this evening, but before I do, I must get into a more positive frame of mind. I always feel better after playing with images and blogging. I like the mood of these shots of water in the golden afternoon sunlight….kind of soft, mellow, and peaceful, soothing my troubled spirit.

SUNDAY POST: Culture

Last summer, I worked with excellent English teachers in Feicheng, Shandong Province, China. This city of nearly a million people has a small-town feel for me. Each evening, after dinner, the town becomes alive as its citizens walk along the river, amidst the parks, and on the city streets, which become alive with buyers and sellers, with the enticing aromas from the food vendors, and with friends sharing their daily joys and woes. On one of my last nights in the city, I took my camera out to capture some of the city’s essence and culture before I returned to the United States.

I purposefully did not “clean up” the white balance on these images because I want to show the warm glow created by the lights of the city.

Thanks to my well-loved Nikon, I was able to take a small part of this family culture home with me.

A major ingredient of the culture: the ubiquitous bike in its various forms

Aromas wafting from the street vendors enticed us, but I did not indulge because we had just finished a delicious dinner with our hosts.

The streets are lined with people and merchandise ranging from lingerie and linens to hardware, automotive parts, and jewelry.

The streets are vibrant with life.

Because I plan to spend tomorrow with my family and to not touch my laptop, I am posting my JAKESPRINTER SUNDAY POST today (Saturday) 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Journey

The greatest journey of my life (besides life itself) is my trip to Shanghai, Beijing, and Feicheng in China last summer; of course, when I saw the title of this week’s photo challenge, I went to that file. I also searched for appropriate quotes related to journey (there are hundreds available on a myriad of websites and blogs). Nothing rang true. Besides, I’ve already posted the best pictures I’d taken in China.

Then I saw this image.

I took this journey to China with my team of three other educators; we conducted workshops on teaching strategies for teachers of English as a foreign language. Before we began work in Feicheng, we explored Shanghai. While I stayed behind the camera and spoke little, my friend (in the straw hat) was actively making friends. We were on the subway just a few minutes before he struck up a conversation (translated by the children) with this family.

One of the lessons I learned on this journey is that we are more alike than different. We may look and sound different, but we share common desires for good health and something meaningful to do. We want to provide for our families and to feel safe in our homes. We want to laugh, to love, and to live fully. We search in some way for a spiritual connection. We journey, even if we never venture outside of our home village. If we are fortunate, we share our journey with good people who support and encourage us.

“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

52 Days

Creativity has dried up. Recently I’ve not been happy with anything captured by my camera and my writing has been flat. I am enormously busy with work and simply want to stop the world (where’s Superman when I need him?) and catch up. I also want to sleep! More than that, I want to escape. I feel as if I’ve worked nonstop since second semester started on Jan 9 … Getting terribly burned out, and am physically and mentally exhausted. 52 days left in the school year! I think I can do this. (I think I can.) I need a weekend! Need to get out of the city! Need time…to do NOTHING!

OK, enough whining. Time to get back to work! It’s 7:18 PM. If I hyper focus, I might be able to get a few tasks done.

Good night, everyone.

 

Weekly Photo Challenge: Arranged

I decided that the images in my Lightroom catalogue that best illustrate the theme of arranged would be a few from my files of classroom pictures. I bypassed many because they show students’ faces, and I do not have their permission to post them; therefore, I chose to show the classroom devoid of teenagers. I hope that you enjoy a look into my workplace in all of its various arrangements. (These shots were taken with the Canon G12 and aren’t as sharp as those from my Nikon D90. I know that the G12 is capable of producing good images; I think I just haven’t learned how to use it.)

You can see that the arrangement of papers on my desk is messy, reflecting my mind; this must have been lunch-time or the end of the day. It also shows that I am working on at least five tasks at one time.

What's the saying: a cluttered desk is a sign of genius?

These files were arranged by category at the beginning of the year. Now, the files in the 1st 1/4 of the drawer were moved off piles on by desk and floor and are waiting to be filed. I bet that might happen in August when the new year begins.

At least the files are arranged in some semblance of order. Another drawer contains stacks of random papers without the hint of organization.

This shot shows my typical arrangement of desks, which are configured so that each student has a partner; I use a lot of “turn to your partner and discuss…” type of strategies. They can easily turn the desks around to enable small groups of four for a more extended small group discussion.

I try to teach the students how to work together.

When the students walk into a new arrangement, they complain; they like stability. I like to mix things up and arrange the desks to suit the lesson.

Arranged for whole class discussion of a short story.

Ah! My desk is neatly arranged. This must have been at the beginning of a day, before clutter and chaos rule. Lately, I haven’t been able to see the desk, even at the start of the day.

Before students bring their teenage enthusiasm into the room

Before Work

A quick post before getting ready for work this morning: I had my pre-observation conference yesterday…my chance to show my evaluator (aka my principal) that I know how to write a lesson plan, that I use data to back up my choice of assessments and activities (I won’t bore you with any more details). The point is this: I worked at least 10 hours on this document and on the lesson that will be observed tomorrow. Hence, I got little sleep over the weekend and nearly fell asleep during 6th period yesterday. I said nearly.

I hit the sack as soon as I got home about 5 PM and gratefully fell asleep. However, my body woke up at 1 AM. I attempted sleep for 2 hours, gave it up at 3 AM, did some work, read some blogs, and read To Kill a Mockingbird because some of my students are reading it.

Now, my body is crying to return to bed and sleep. Alas, I have to take it to work (a 30 minute drive) and force it to be “on” for my students. I’m getting too old for this job.

By the way, for the class to be observed, I’m employing the skills I’ve learned while blogging. I set up a blog, We Read, Think, and Write, for my students to respond to their chosen novels and they will participate in that activity tomorrow (some have already posted their thoughts about the books). In addition, they will use my school website for their in-class and homework assignment.  Ms. Howard’s Freshman Honors English. I hope it works.

Thoughts about “The next generation”

As an educator, I think that I’ve been looking at this from the wrong side of the lens. For years, I have been soap-boxing that we need to find out what business and college need our students to know and to teach it.

However, after posting and reading the comments here and on my Facebook page, I think we need to also look at the children. What do they already know? What, then, do they need from us to help them go forward?

My state and district have adopted the Common Core Standards which were developed to provide equity for our nation’s students and to prepare them for college and the workforce. http://www.corestandards.org/

There is one standard specifically related to the skill of using technology, and it’s under Writing: Production and Distribution of Writing progressing through each grade level, i.e., W.1.6 = Writing Grade 1; W.11-12.6 = Writing Grades 11-12. 

The standard is worded in general terms and teachers can create assessments and activities that specifically meet the needs of the kids, but will they? I do not think so, for a number of reasons, primarily because of assessments.

Teachers are hyper-focused on the skills that are tested on the high stakes assessments because their own evaluations and sometimes pay are linked to increasing students’  test scores, in the name of accountability. There is little time to play with the creative activities that spark enthusiasm and curiosity because they “aren’t on the test.”

This results in tedious lessons that redundantly cover the same skills presented five years before. The students react in boredom and misbehavior, and their skills regress rather than progress.

I wonder if our students might be more successful if we look at where they are now and show them how to move to the next step. While keeping our eyes on the standards, I think we should also look at the student herself.

Of course, that might necessitate a smaller teacher to student ratio, rather than the typical 150 students – 1 teacher. But that is a topic for another day.

What the students write

Blog Friends, I usually don’t write long missives, but I ask you to read this one. (It’s a quick read, I promise.)

I am a true baby boomer, born in 1950 when our country was celebrating life. My childhood was an innocent one spent climbing trees and playing with kittens and dolls in small town Midwestern USA. The only killing I knew was fictional in the television portrayals of the old west or of the war. Even when I was protesting the Vietnam War in the 60s, I was isolated from the killing and violence.

I’m grading student essays now; as frequently happens when they have a prompt that promotes a personal response, I ache for them as I read their words, even the poorly written ones. Many have written about a loved one who was shot or who committed suicide. Many wrote about family in prison for murder.

One girl wrote of a recent party she attended. She just wasn’t thinking when she put on her new outfit of red sweater and skinny blue jeans. Get it? Red = Bloods; Blue = Crips. Representatives of both gangs were at that party and both were ready to jump her for wearing the “colors” … especially together. They forced her to take off the clothes; when her boyfriend brought her an all-black outfit she realized that those who wanted to stay outside of the gang conflicts were wearing all black.

Another girl wrote this today. It’s not good writing, but her voice is strong. This essay makes me hurt for my students because I know that her words represent the feelings of a majority of my students.

When I was little, I didn’t know how bad the world really was. As I get older, I see that people are getting killed for dumb reasons. It makes me barely wanna go outside. Life is not promised to me or anyone. I love my life. I’m not ready to die yet. People are yet still killing.

People are being killed over colors, signs, and just going out to have a good time. When people get killed, I get scared. I feel if they kill innocent people for nothing, my life doesn’t mean anything to them either. I now know the world is crazy and it is a very scary place.

People shoot and kill for no good reason at all. They think it’s a style and it’s cool. One day I hope the people who killed people will get it. You’re not supposed to be scared of a world that was created for you. I’ll be happy when one day we can all be in peace.

A few years ago, I attended two “Anytown” camps with students; the purpose is to tear down the walls of hatred and prejudice and build tolerance. One of the activities involves identifying the violence in our lives. I was shocked to learn that almost all of the students had been involved in or are related to someone involved in a violent death. More astounding is the number of students who have actually witnessed a murder. Many of them had had loaded guns pointed at them; many had been shot or had shot someone.

I personally have lost far too many students to violence and drugs.

I ache for these young people who do not know the safety and comfort of a time and place when people did not lock their doors, when it was safe to sit outside at night, when you could drive with your windows open and not be afraid.

Teaching Experiment

I’m trying something new with my students…a blog. I’m not sure how this will play out. The idea is simple, but I’ve learned that a simple idea can turn into something complex, complicated, and convoluted quite quickly. (How much alliteration can I slip in here?)

The plan is that my students will respond to prompts that I post on the blog as they read books, articles, poems, and epics.

Our new blog is entitled We Read, Think, and Write (http://ireadthinkwrite.wordpress.com/).

I’ll let you know how this works.