Life in the Classroom of a Science Teacher

CONFERENCES

2011-10-09T18:44:00.000-07:00

Fall is the time of pumpkins, Halloween, and teacher-parent conferences. I am not sure which is scariest for the new teacher. There are a number of things to do to have a good conference. I’ll share a few of those things here.

The first thought to keep in mind is that both of you are here for the same reason: to help each child improve academically/behaviorally. Neither person should be on the defensive for any reason whatsoever. As a teacher I keep in mind that some parents are regular visitors to the school because their child is persistently in some sort of trouble. These parents dread conferences and sometime are in an “attack mode” as a defense mechanism. Starting the conference with a positive comment about the student will set the tone for a good conference.

I also prepare for conferences by giving one or two very simple assignments during the school year before conferencing. Since I teach science, I like to give a scientific coloring from time to time. I make sure that I have given at least two of them before conferencing. That short circuits the comment, “Johnny finds the work too hard and doesn’t understand what you are doing in class.” The focus shifts very quickly away from that excuse when I show zeros for “Johnny” not doing colorings. Then we can get down to exposing the real reasons why “johnny” is not doing assignments.

I always have parents and students sign in for conferencing. That way I have a record of the conference and I can always ask for additional contact information. Also, as I mentioned in my last blog, I tell the parent(s) to keep the pen. It always helps to set a good mood. Sometimes I have candy setting out as well. Jolly Ranchers are great for conferences and also for classroom rewards/bribes. They are cheap and tasty!

Open House is a time of confusion. Parents want to talk about grades while teachers are supposed to show off their rooms and only explain their curricula. Parents always leave unhappy and teachers are frustated that they only have about 10 minute time blocks to explain everything. We decided to replace Open House with Fall Conferences and have been pleased with the results.
Conferences are usually held soon after report cards have been sent home. That tends to bring out the parents. Then the teachers with the most students in grade trouble get the most “business”. They, and the new teachers, tend to have long waiting lines. New teachers tend to confer with parents longer than necessary and may run an hour or more overtime to meet with them all.

When conferencing, limit small talk to introductions and a short comment about something good the student has recently done or turned in for a grade. Then get out a progress report and “run down the list”. Point out strengths and shortcomings and make suggestions for improvement.
One of the best suggestions for underperforming students is that the home should have a study area and the student must spend a set time interval in it every day. If there is no homework, he/she can either work ahead or read a book. There is no TV, cell phone, or electronic game access during that time. Make it a mutually agreed upon time so it is not perceived as punishment. You will find that most parents appreciate the suggestion but won’t carry it out. Unfortunately most of the poor grades are related to a lack of strong parental support and your talking to the parent won’t change the “let the teacher do it” attitude.

I document everything with notes after each conference. That way I can do followups during spring conferences.

Use the conference time wisely. Get to know the parents of your students. Present a caring, concerned teacher image and your job will become a lot easier. All parents want their children to be successful. Some won’t want to exert a whole lot of effort to help, but their good will is still very important. A followup email to each parent is another good move to maintain a good parent-teacher relationship. Build upon each conference in this way and many students will view your class differently because now you know their parents.

Memories

2011-10-03T23:16:00.000-07:00

I have a number of things I remember about my school years: some pleasant and some not so pleasant. We all have such memories. One of the things I try to do in my classes is to give my students some good memories about their school days. I try to create a classroom atmosphere that is educational, welcoming, and influential. I believe that most days I achieve at least one of these goals.

I have taught many students for three years of their science education. They have had advanced earth science, chemistry, and physics with me while other students who are not college bound have had me for two or more years of the fundamentals of biology class (failed and then passed). One student had me for fundamentals of biology three years in a row. He failed it the first year, passed it the second year, and just wanted to have my class for a third year so took it again.

When students repeat a class with me or return after graduation on a visit, I sometimes hear things that make me feel good or things that make me smile.

For example, during my fourth year of teaching, I was lecturing a 7^th grade life science class. I sat down on my stool behind my lecture desk and it broke, sending me to the floor. The kids were shocked until I laughed it off. I had most of those same students two years later in 9^th grade earth science. The second day of class I was asked by the class whether or not I still broke stools during class. Obvious a lifetime memory!

Another student drew a giant mural on the back of my classroom depicting the United States space program. Several years after graduating he visited to see how his mural had fared. It was just fine and was there ten years later when I left Pennsylvania for Oregon.

Kids visit after graduation and talk about science demonstrations that made an impression upon them. They tend to remember little favors I have done for them. Most of all they feel the need to visit me when they come back to their “old school”.

One of the things I have been doing for the past seven years has been very rewarding on a personal basis. My wife and I have a retail mail order plant business and we sometimes buy pens to give out to customers. Back in 2005 I got the idea of giving pens to my students. I try to influence students attitudes as much as I try to achieve a measure of subject matter success. I usually purchase between 300 and 500 pens, keeping the cost under $150.00 and getting enough of the pens for two years. These totals depend upon the best prices available.

I search the web and books for a 2-3 line inspirational quote which I have printed on the pen just under my name. I hand the pens out, one per student before Thanksgiving vacation. The expression of disbelief on many of their faces is worth the price of admission. They always read the quote and sometimes I even have to explain what it means. Two things have occurred that convinced me to continue this activity. First, out of approximately 150 pens handed out, less than five are found on the floor at the end of the day, which means they have value to just about everybody. Second, I have had students up to four year later who have said they still have their "Fincham Pen(s)" in their room at home. I think that a little gesture on my part had a profound effect on some of my students.

The pens also make a good impression on parents during parent/student/teacher conferences. I have parents sign in before we conference in order to keep track of who met with me. I always lay ten or more pens on the table and give one to every parent who meets with me. It helps start the conference with a good atmosphere.

Kids remember many things from school. As a teacher I want their memories to be good ones. I have rigorous academic standards that are suited to the level of class I am teaching, but it is tempered with an obvious concern for each student under my supervision. My students remember many things about me, things I have done out of the ordinary as well academic skills that will serve them well as they go beyond high school to higher education or into the workforce.

Setting the class parameters: Ninth Grade

2011-09-25T22:42:00.000-07:00

When the students have all been settled into class and their seats have been assigned, it is necessary to set the class parameters. Students need to know the classroom procedures and the teacher's expectations. This information is especially important for the ninth grade students who are new to the high school.

Ninth grade students will by and large exhibit middle school behaviors for much of the school year, especially the boys. The girls tend to be more mature although a number of them will continue the slutty language that tends to be fairly common among middle school students.

The information below is given to my ninth grade students on the first day of class and is taken home to be signed by their parents. It pretty much covers my expectations. Then I have included two additional forms for you that I use when a student becomes a problem. The one is for behavior and the other is for language.

Next blog I will discuss how to handle the disrupting student.

Grading Policy

You will receive points for each and everything that you do. At the end of each marking period, I divide the points you earned by the total points possible. The resulting percentage determines your grade.

Class work

You are responsible for making up work that is completed during an absence.

Wednesday from 2:45 to 4:00 is set aside as make up time for students who need to complete makeup work and tests.

Hall Passes

You will be given two hall passes at the start of each quarter for bathroom privileges. They are for emergency use only. Use the facilities before or after class, not on my time.

Testing

An important part of your grade is determined through testing. If you are absent for a test or quiz, you may only make it up before or after school. It must be made up within two weeks, or it is recorded as a zero.

Homework

A homework assignment is given periodically. All homework is to be done individually unless I assign partners. Homework one day or more late receives a 50% deduction. Once an assignment is returned, that particular assignment will no longer be accepted as late work. To make it up for half credit, another assignment on the same material may be completed. The student must specifically request the desired assignment. No late work will be accepted within five school days of the end of the quarter.

Returned papers

I will return papers by placing them into a class bin. It is up to students to retrieve their papers from that bin. Papers with no name will be placed into that same bin. Periodically the bin will be dumped into recycling. I do not lose papers so do not try to use that to explain any incomplete work.

Class Behavior/Participation Grade

Each student can earn 10 points per week in this grade category. Participate, obey class rules, and do not disrupt class activities.

Cell Phones

Turn them off and keep them in your backpack. If anyone, including a parent calls you during class and you attempt to answer, I will assign you a lunch detention. If I catch you texting, I will assign you a lunch detention. If that consequence does not change your cell phone behavior, I will refer you to the office for class disruption.

Profanity

Slutty and profane language is not acceptable in my classroom. There will be consequences and parent involvement in the consequence. Saying you are sorry is not sufficient and usually insincere.

Sexual harassment

Students are aware of what constitutes sexual harassment and I will do immediate referral to the office for anything I overhear in the way of improper sexual comments or innuendos.

Semester Grades

I use the cumulative method to determine a semester average. The final exam is factored in as percentage of your semester average.

Cheating

Copying or using someone else’s work/answers without the permission of the teacher is cheating. Plagiarism of written work from texts or the internet is also cheating.

The first offense results in zero credit for the assignment. A second offense will require a failure for the semester.

High School Credit

Each semester of Natural Resources has a value of .5 credits. Passing both semesters will provide 1 credit of science. Presently 2 credits of science are required for graduation. Failure to earn this credit will require a student to take an additional science class.

If you cannot live within these classroom standards, then get a schedule change. By staying in my class, you are agreeing to follow them to the best of your ability.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

CLASS DISRUPTION ASSIGNMENT

Write the following statement ten times and have this paper signed by one of your parents or guardians. Failure to do so will result in my assigning lunch detention or doing an office referral for class disruption.

Name ____________________________________

I have been uncooperative in my science class and realize that this type of behavior will have a bad affect on my grade. I have been wasting work time and distracting others.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

PROFANITY ASSIGNMENT

You have used the word ___________ in my classroom. Write the following statement ten times and have this paper signed by one of your parents or guardians. Failure to do so will result in my assigning lunch detention or doing an office referral for inappropriate language.

Name ____________________________________

The use of profanity in the classroom is not only inappropriate, it also reflects badly upon me and my reputation. I must learn to show the maturity expected of a high school student and work to be less offensive in my vocabulary.

BTS Day

2011-08-29T21:27:00.000-07:00

Back To School Day

The first day of school can set the tone for the whole year. Making a good impression is all important. But what is a good impression? I remember my first day of school that was also my first day as a teacher. It was January and I had been hired to teach math in a junior-high school. Three previous substitute teachers had walked out of the position. I was given fair warning and decided to take the “prick” approach. I was 21 at the time and my class of juniors had some eighteen year old boys with real attitudes.

I remember how nervous I was when I entered the building and was shown my room. The students did not know what to expect and were somewhat cowed for the first few weeks as I acted like one nasty S.O.B. Eventually I relented a bit and gradually lost control of the oldest class. However, I had made it into May before that happened and I managed to “hang on” until the end of school.

Having had my baptism under fire I started the next year with some confidence and once again exhibited a nasty, cranky disposition at the beginning of the school year. As a gradually eased up on the students the classes went along quite well. The students knew the boundaries within my classroom as far as behaviors were concerned. The only propblems were with some of the students from the previous year’s junior math class. I was teaching science but had to work with them in a study hall situation. It took quite a bit of effort to restablish control over these particular students, but I managed.

By my third year I was experienced enough to establish my classroom parameters with just a few weeks of frowning and as the years have passed I have managed to begin each new year with very few problems.

Most students want to work with their teachers and don’t think of their teachers as being “regular people”. They like to do things to please the teacher (especially at the start of the year) and don’t want to spend a year in conflict. Some students prefer to agitate and tend to disrupt the proceedings. Sometimes a teacher has a reputation that can either work to help or hinder the opening day process depending upon what it is.

The first couple of weeks are ther time to establish control and set the class parameters. Students are unsure of themselves, especially ninth graders, and can be easily taught how to conduct themselves in your classroom. In forty years, only two times did I have classes that were disruptive from the first time they walked in my door.

I remember Ray, a new teacher, who had it all figured out. The students and he were going to be friends and everyone would work together to learn. The first day he told his students to address him as Ray, not Mr. _____. It took three days for him to rescind that privilege and another three weeks to establish a good learning environment.

I recommend several ways to get started on the first day.

Greeting: Meet students at the door, make eye contact (most hate that), and introduce yourself. Shaking hands is an option unless it makes you feel too uncomfortable. Don’t be some sort of a smiling fool while doing this and don’t have a rod up your ass either. Have a welcoming expression on your face without appearing to be a phony.

Seating: Have seats assigned for the students on your original class list. Put the seating chart on the overhead or projector oriented in the proper direction so the students can see where to sit. Never let students pick their own seats.

Welcome everyone: Never complain to a student if he/she is not on your class list. Everyone needs to be made welcome and wanted by the teacher. Have a seating chart and assign the student a seat at the first oportunity.

Sincerity: Kids can spot a faker a mile away. Be sincere in welcoming students to your room. Wait a few minutes after the tardy bell for students still finding their classes.

Free Time: Don’t give them any on the first day. You are setting a classroom routine. Make it a good routine.

Introductions: After taking care of attendance, introduce yourself and talk about some of the more interesting things they will be doing while in your class. Be formal with them and any friendliness need to be done in a reserved manner. Have each student state his/her name and talk a bit about what they like to do when not in school (make notes).

Rules and Regulations: Set them out the first day. Be clear and concise and don’t overdo it. Give each student a copy and post them in the room.

First Lesson: As a science teacher I have some advantages. The first day I prepare some sort of a demonstration to focus student interest. I want them to look forward to coming to my class everyday.

No Wasted Time: Keep students busy that first day. It sets the tone for the year.

The Only Line Crossing is at the Alamo: There has to be a line drawn between the teacher and the students. That line will be a different distance from each teacher depending upon the teacher’s clasroom skills and personality, but it has to be there. A teacher is not there to be a friend to his/her students. That teacher is there to be a role model. Start being one the first day. Have that line be thick and firm on the first day and it can be moved toward the teacher as the year progresses. But always have it there.

Hard to Soft: It is a lot easier to go from being hardnosed and demanding to a more giving demeanor than it is to go the other way.

These are guidelines to help you survive the first day and to set the tone for the rest of the school year. Other experienced teachers may use variations upon these steps but I find they work very well for me.

The Winds of Change

2011-08-20T22:53:00.000-07:00

This will be my last year of blogging so I decided to take a different approach. I tend to “get on my soapbox” and express my feelings about some of the things that are going on in education today. For the rest of this school year, I will be throwing the soapbox away and share tips and techniques I have used in my classroom to be an effective teacher (and survive).

That being said, I have just this one last rant from my soapbox. I will relate my feelings about teacher evaluations and seniority in this blog. There is a lot being said about poor teachers. There is no question at all that there are bad teachers. Every school has their share of them. They are not always the experienced teachers, since being new is no guarantee of competence and greater enthusiasm for the job. I am entering my fortieth year in the classroom and still look forward to interacting with my students. Likewise I have seen first year teachers who bored their students to death or had no classroom control and were driven right out of teaching.

The biggest recent complaint about teacher evaluations has arisen due to all of the RIFing (teacher layoffs) that are taking place across the country. The news is full of comments about finding ways to layoff the “deadwood” and keep the young, energetic teachers in the classroom.

Historically seniority has always been the predominant method of laying off people in any industry or profession. I don’t hear government workers being laid off according to any criteria other than seniority. How about having open heart surgery performed by a surgeon fresh out of medical school instead of a surgeon who has done hundreds of those operations. Which would you prefer?

On the other hand, seniority does not guarantee competence in any profession and RIFing in any job or profession should be based upon performance, not duration. However, the fair evaluation of people in any job or career depends upon so many different factors that it is a very difficult process. Not the simple process advocated by a number of simpletons (simpleton in their understanding of the educational process).

Let’s look at each of these factors as they apply to teachers:

1. Students

a. Student opinions about teachers are nonfactors since most students like the friendliest teachers and dislike the teachers who work them the hardest. Of course parents hear all kinds of stories about what goes on in the classrooms and are infuenced by the stories that come home. Especially since their child would never lie about or embellish anything that goes on in school.

b. Student test results are a poor gauge of teacher competence since all students have different learning abilities. Teachers who teach students with involved parents will see good test results no matter how incompetent the teacher may be. Meanwhile, students who see no value in school (for many different reasons) will generally show moderate to no test improvements. Of course the administrator will say that is the fault of the teacher who has not been able to interest all students in his subject.

c. No matter what is done regarding seniority, there will always be a pecking order among faculty and the newer teachers will be predominantly given the more difficult classes, especially if student testing is part of the teaching evaluation criteria. I would prefer the advanced students if testing is part of my evaluation.

2. Principal

a. Not all principals are competent. Not all superintendents are able to make the best choices when selecting principals. The principals and superintendents hire teachers and are able to evaluate teachers for two or three years with no tenure considerations. If a poor teacher is hired, whose fault is that?

b. When evaluation criteria are changed and the principal’s evaluation determines who gets RIFed, almost all controversy regarding curriculum development and the teaching environment will go away. Who wants to aggravate a principal who is no longer held to a detailed due process to remove tenured faculty?

c. Many, if not most, principals warn teachers in advance before doing a formal evaluation. It gives the teacher plenty of time to prepare a “dog and pony” show for the day of the classroom observation. Drop-in evaluations are looked upon with a “He’s out to get me” attitude on the part of the teacher. The exception would be if the principal makes drop-ins a regular occurance and focuses on the positives as well as the negatives taking place in the classroom.

3. Peers

a. There is no way teachers will evaluate each other. Not only would personalities enter into the process, teachers don’t have the required training nor time to visit each other’s classrooms.

4. School board members

a. Since most of them never visit classrooms at all, let alone on any sort of a regular basis, they base their knowledge about their schools upon what they are told by their administrators and any of their own children who are enrolled in classes. That makes them a nonfactor in evaluating teachers, not a very popular thing to say on my part.

5. The most ignorant groups who don’t know what is really happening in the public schools would be the politicians and big money executives who want to fix all of the problems in the educational system by tearing it down. They base their opinions upon what they hear from special interest groups such as conservative “think tanks” who use skewed data collected and evaluated by someone who would be “eaten alive” in a typical classroom. They know how to evaluate teachers and want to remove job protections to “kick out” the bums doing a bad job. If only it was so simple.

There are fair ways to evaluate people and those methods need to be developed to remove incompetent teachers, worthless government employees outside of education, and politicians who refuse to live within a budget. Why just focus on the easiest target?

Sacrificial Lambs

2011-07-09T05:32:00.000-07:00

Another school year is behind me. I was invited to several graduation parties and was able to visit all but one. It is always nice to mingle with students’ parents, especially when they appreciate the work you have done with their “graduated senior”. At one party I was talking to a parent of a former student who graduated last year. I had her daughter in my ninth grade advanced earth science class (which I no longer teach, having assumed responsibility for two chemistry classes). She told me how much my class helped her be successful as a college freshman. I had discovered that my ninth grade students were woefully lacking in study skills. They could not outline a chapter, had no note taking skills, did not know how to studey for a test, and did not know how to take a test.

When I discovered this lack of preparation among the best ninth grade students, I did something about it. I would spend the first four weeks of my science class focused on study skills and I would use the science subject matter as the tool. She remembered a lot of what we had done and applied it to her college work. It made things a lot easier for her. I felt good hearing that for a couple of reasons. First, it showed that my efforts were successful with some students (for every one I hear about there are probably several others that I heaven’t heard about). Second, it helped her get over one of life’s hurdles.

I had good relationships with a lot of my students who have now graduated. I will be making new ones with students in my classes during the next school year. Hopefully I will have some successes and only a few failures. This past year I taught two sections of non-college bound ninth grade students. Three of the students failed every class they were taking. I would have liked to have gotten through to them that they were making a serious mistake. This year I will have two more classes of the same type of student. I plan on varying my methods a bit and being a “loving hardass”.

Since school is out I thought I do a couple of posts on the state of education from my point of view as an experienced educator who gets more good results than bad results. I’ll focus more on my classroom happenings when school resumes in September for what will probably be my last year as an educator in a public school (I will decide in January).

In education there are some groups of kids that go through the educational system who are what I call “sacrificial lambs”. They are sacrificed on the altar of “educational improvement”. For example, throwing high stakes standadrdized tests at kids that establish their “stupidity” cannot be a good thing. Those kids have an esteem disruption that the middle school with its excessive focus on esteem cannot overcome in a realistic way, especially when the testing continues. Then the waffeling of the politicians over how to use the test results only adds to the confusion. Eventually the tests are watered down and simplified so most students pass or the consequences of failure are put off for a number of years from the original schedule.

Then someone has the bright idea to use these tests to evaluate teachers since the student failures must be due to bad teaching. When that happens, then teachers “pull rank” to get the best classes where students will be successful regardless of the teaching methods. The schools in the tougher parts of town see more of an exodus of their most experienced teachers to schools in the higher income parts of the district or even to other districts. Then the youngest, least experienced teachers have the students that tend to show the least improvement on standardized tests.

“Sacrificial lambs” are taught self esteem in middle schools (replaced junior high schools) and have a disatrous year as high school freshmen. “Sacrificial lambs” are taught newly designed curriculum that ignores past successful teaching methods as being antiquated and out of date (modern math). “Sacrificial lambs” are not able to take shop and home economics in middle school (eliminated) and cannot take basic trade classes in high school since many have been eliminated for computer based trades classes and besides, they need to take remediation classes to pass standardized tests. “Sacrificial lambs” can’t take music or art because something had to be eliminated due to budget constraints and high stakes testing programs. “Sacrificial lambs” are created when our politicians adjust our educational system to try and catch up with Asian and European school systems that produce students who test higher than our students. That is such a farce as to be almost unbelievable.

I’ll go into that more in a future post. I also plan to blog about teacher evaluation methods and layoffs. Other topics will appear in my blog this summer based upon whatever public education bashing I read in the paper.

Another One “Bites the Dust” (Year, not person)

2011-06-19T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have one week of school remaining before summer vacation. I have been away from my blog for a while since I not only had to finish the school year but also our plant nursery work was requiring extra attention and I had to finish working on a book about dwarf conifers.

A number of things have been going on at school- some good and some questionable. Students completed the science test (HISPE- might not be quite the correct acronym, but who cares?) They were told by a vascillating legislature that they had to pass it to graduate. We worked on revising the biology curriculum and my Natural resources class for next year to accommodate the students who don’t pass it. They would have to take it again, although then it would be an end-of-year (EOC- another g-damn acronym) exam that they must pass to graduate. I even coined my own acronym- PMS – for Primary Middle School.

Guess what? The legislature waited until a week after the test was given to postpone the passing requirement until the class of 2018. So the EOC will have no teeth to it, will not be used to improve the educational process, and will serve the role of an evaluative tool to demonstrate how bad our public schools are. Meanwhile, our curriculum changes involving Natural Resources are out the window since upper classmen will not have to take the class. Oh well, another day in the politically controlled public school system where we try to teach everyone to feel good about themselves and to go to college.

Graduation was last night. I have several graduated seniors who are returning to class tomorrow to take the final exam. I gave them that option as an opportunity to improve their grades. They are chemistry and physics students. That doesn’t happen very often. It’ll be interesting to see how many actually show.

Two weeks ago I had one of my ninth grade wastrels come to me during class (not on his own time) to tell me that I had to give him the twenty assignments he hadn’t done so he could make them up. His father had been in to the office about his grades and they told him that his “little boy” could make up any and all missing work. So I took two minutes to show him on his grade printout what he was missing. Surprisingly, the work still hasn’t been turned in.

One of the goals I have always strove for was to hold students accountable to deadlines. That disappeared this past year. It is now school policy that we accept late work as far back as 18 weeks, even if the student wasted class time and just screwed around instead of completing it. We are allowed to only give half credit. Students are now able to copy other students’ returned work and turn it in and we have no way to check to see if it was copied. That takes care of another life skill I tried to teach.

The latest buzzword at school is the Power Standard. (Actually two words but then I went to public school and have trouble with my numbers. Everyone knows the United States produces terrible math students). Someone wrote a book taking old concepts, relabeling them, and repackaging them as something new. Now he goes around the country presenting expensive seminars and sells books and videos about this wonderful new concept that I was doing back in the 1970’s. Meanwhile the district is spending all kinds of money on training and rewriting curriculum (copying old curriculum and relabeling it would serve the same purpose). We are not the only district doing this. The really sad part is that the book publishers and state standards committees have already spent millions of dollars doing the same thing.

The math EOC was given and the results will be back sometime in August. That will be just in time to rewrite schedules for thousands of students across the state who will have to go into math remediation classes. Unfortunately the problem is not that they cannot do the math. They can’t read, interpret, and apply their math skills because they are not trained to work with math in that way. I see that in science all the time. Whenever we have physics problems that only involve algebra, my students, many of which are on geometry and calculus have no idea what to do. They have poor written problem solving skills and they haven’t done basic math for one or more years.

I have to break this off and go to a couple of graduation parties. Both of these boys had issues when they started high school. One would not do any school work while the other vandalized school property and was always in trouble. The former turned it around in his junior year and did alright in my physics class as a senior. He just needed to decide on a goal and to go for it. The second student changed during his sophomore year, and as a junior became my regular TA in Physics (he told everyone he was in physics). He was still my TA as a senior and even became senior class treasurer. Two success stories: one is going to a private college and the other is going into a family business to work with his brothers.

If I get on my soap box once in a while, it is because I hate to see what happens to students because of political tinkering with the educational system. Too many well intentioned (and lots of self interested people as well) people who have no idea as to the realities of the classroom have their own opinions as to how to fix it all. Meanwhile it is the students who suffer.

I have been a classroom for forty years and have pretty much seen it all. I will retire in the next year or two and I am sure I will be replaced by some new teacher who will know all of the answers and will treat any suggestions or curriculum I leave behind as the ramblings of some old fart who was burned out and has nothing appropriate to the modern world (I’ve seen that happen more than once. Of course sometimes it was true!).

Next blog I might just ramble on about teacher evaluations and RIFing and I have a good story about a budget email I sent out to all staff.

Fare Thee Well

2011-03-24T21:57:00.000-07:00

I was reading the obituaries from my home town newspaper tonight when I came across the name of a man named Joe who died at the age of fifty. He was living a successful life with a lot of community involvement and a good career. I was quite upset to read his obituary. I hadn't seen Joe since 1979, his year of graduation from Tamaqua High School. Joe was a former student of mine.

I love teaching but I am always saddened whenever a former student dies. I should not outlive my students anymore than a father should outlive his son or daughter. My former high school had an inordinate number of deaths among our students. One year we lost six students. Most were not mine but their loss impacted our school community and Curt, the high school principal, had a very difficult time since he attended every funeral.

I remember an eleventh grade girl who was often careless about keeping her asthma inhaler close by and ready. She died before she could graduate.

I remember Ernie, a brilliant kid with a great personality who belonged to ski club and usually skied in bib overalls. He graduated and was studying to be a doctor when he died. I used to have a lot of fun teasing him.

Greg was my chess opponent in over 300 games through high school. It made us both better players. I won almost 60 games against him before he finally beat me with some new maneuver. I always figured it out and started another streak which he would derail after about ten games with another new maneuver. We got so involved that nobody could watch and follow what we were doing. Greg had a bulldog-like tenacity when it came to our chess games and he never got frustrated, just even. I read almost twenty years ago that he died as a young man from a heart condition.

I had one boy in class, Joseph, who was always in trouble. For some reason we got along quite well, even though he never passed my class. He had a girlfriend, Maureen. She was academically challenged but always had a smile and was great fun in class. Joseph quit school and was living in a car for some time. Maureen tried to stay in school and get a diploma but she didn't make it. A short time after giving up on school, she was murdered by Joseph.

Lori was a ninth grade student of mine and was in my wife's tenth grade homeroom. She died in a house fire when she was in the tenth grade.

Mike was a real character and loved life and loved being a bit of a cutup in class. He even had a crush on my wife. A short time after graduation he was killed in a car accident.

Jim was a junior when he was killed in a car accident. Then there was John, who could be a real pain in the class. His yearbook picture shows him on a motorcycle. Unfortunately the yearbook was dedicated to him because he died before he graduated.

These are the students I think of with fondness and sadness. They will always have a special place in my memories when I think of "what might have been".

At the same time, I have taught over 6000 different students in my career, which spans almost 40 years. I have seen more good things happen than I could ever begin to list. I still teach and I have not "burnt out". I enjoy teaching and my students keep me feeling young. After all, I have to stay one step ahead of them. It is funny to see my students acting out in ways that they think are unique. During my career I have seen every action done by every student multiple times. I have to chuckle to myself when I watch their actions.

The only time I don't chuckle is when I am reminded of a former student who has left this world ahead of me.

I Am Back

2011-03-13T23:32:00.000-07:00

I have had an interesting as well as very busy time since my last posting.

My chemistry classes are moving right along. Students are comprehending the material we are covering, even though they have some problems with the tests. I believe they have problems with the tests because they simply don’t know how to prepare for a test. Hopefully they will master that skill by the time they enter college. Meanwhile my physics students are still having problems with the mathematics part of the course. Since it is what should be simple math for them, I believe it is due to a lack of skill in reading a problem and deciding which math to use to solve it. There are two possible reasons for this problem: students don’t have the mental maturity to have the insights needed to relate the appropriate mathematics to the problem and secondly, the way students are taught mathematics emphasizes the mechanics of problem solving over the interpretive skills required for mathematics applications needed for science.

A few weeks ago we decided to modify my ninth grade natural resources class to serve students who have failed the tenth grade biology end of course exam. We were told that students graduating in 2013 or later had to pass this test. Now the state may move it to the class of 2017 and later. These are mixed signals similar to what happened in math. We have also been prewarned that students will have to take three years of science to graduate from high school.

Budget cuts mean that schools will be laying off (furloughing) teachers and class sizes will be going up, so I guess this is a perfect time to increase graduation requirements and push more students into the sciences. I don’t know where the additional science teachers will originate and I wonder what will happen to the teachers who teach electives. Students are able to take fewer and fewer electives as more requirements are dumped onto them.

The state is experimenting with a new system of evaluating teachers. Students’ test results will be part of a teacher’s evaluation. I am not sure how this system will work. One of the big falicies of public education is that all students can be successful. There are always students who will make no effort to be successful and use the school for socialization time. Most administrators will criticise the teacher for not engaging such a student. Now the test scores of such a student will have a negative effect on the student’s teachers. I am also interested in how much of the new system will be objective and how much will be subjective. One big fear teachers have is that the principal will use administrative powers to create a feifdom in the district. Teachers would not be so adamant about merit pay and job seniority if a fair method of evaluations could be devised. Unfortunately no such method has appeared.

I am wondering if I should move to Wisconsin. I understand from the Tea Party crowd that the average state worker makes over $100,000 a year. I think I’ll go there and drive a school bus so that I can afford to own two houses and drive a Lexus. They have decertified their public employees unions and basically took away many of their job protections, using money as the reason (bogus). There are plenty of public service employees who are next to worthless but going after everyone is hardly the best solution.

Next week I’ll write about my natural resources class.

Tie One On

2011-01-07T22:20:00.000-08:00

This past week had a few interesting events. First of all, I was able to throw out a few puns that caused a few chuckles and a lot of groans among my upperclassmen. We worked on phase transitions and latent heat energy in chemistry. When the students started having trouble with a problem about latent heat, I explained how the girls would do better on those problems than the boys because the units were in joules and the girls like joules better than boys do.
My TA has been installing some aluminum clad bubble wrap insulation in the greenhouse. I want to reduce the energy cost. I plan to run it at 40 degrees fahrenheit through the winter and produce some grafted conifers. This coming week I’ll show all of my freshmen how to graft and then offer training after school to interested students. They are the ones who will take over the plant production.

Today I did some demos for my chemistry students and successfully completed two out of the three. I warmed and then cooled chainsaw bar oil to discuss viscosity. That worked just fine. Then I did 10W-30W oil to show that it reverses the process and thickens upon heating and gets thinner upon cooling. It didn’t work. It behaved just like the chainsaw oil. I pointed out that things don’t always work out and that I got ripped off with that brand of oil.

Yesterday my chemistry students did a latent heat lab. They all had their prelabs done and I have been letting them just reference the procedure in the lab instruction packet when they do their writeups. Unfortunately there was a lot of bumbling around during the lab. It seems that they are doing the prelab without reading the procedure. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that they would take the easy way out. So I had to warn them, they are very close to having to include procedural summaries in their lab reports.

Yesterday was interesting. I wore black jeans and a black shirt with a bright pink/paisley tie. I had at least twenty different compliments from students throughout the day. I even had one of my ninth grade girls interrupt the class discussion to say that my tie was having some sort of an effect on her. After school one of the junior girls in chemistry came in for extra help with a classmate. Before she left, she told me that she couldn’t take her eyes off of my tie while I was lecturing and that everytime I looked at her, she quickly looked away.

Kids think they are so worldly and yet can say the most innocent things that could be taken inappropriately. It is one of the joys of teaching.

Awards and Money

2011-01-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

As Christmas vacation comes to an end (last day today), I am just getting over a bad cold that my students gave me for the holidays. I just read an email from the assistant principal about a new program. We seem to be in a “something of the month” condition right now. Back in November we were told that each department had to select two students of the month each month. Now we are to nominate a teacher each month and a support person each month. I guess we are really going to be “feeling good” about each other for the rest of the year.

As a rule, most teachers dislike the “teacher of the month” or “teacher of the year” designation. It is a bit like painting a target on your back. It also has a problem in that it either gets passed around so everyone gets a turn or it becomes a regular “award” among a select group of the staff. I always believe that recognition for good teaching comes in the feeling of self satisfaction as well as results observed among the students.

I know I do a good job because I can observe the growth of my students as they master the material I present and in their attitudes toward me as they gain confidence and become more mature in their approach toward achieving a good education.

Our state is entering a period of severe budget cuts. Education was hit hard, which was expected, since it takes a large percentage of the state’s budget. One area cut was the $5000 annual bonus for teachers who achieved National Board Certification. I have already seen “letters to the editor” bewailing the loss. The additional $5000 for teaching in a district with a high number of free and reduced lunches (a warning flag that the kids will be more difficult to teach) and having that certification also disappeared.

It is nice to have the extra money and to get repaid plus make a profit for getting the certification, but that should not be the reason for getting it. It is interesting that no one from the teachers’ union came out against the original proposal to pay these bonuses and yet there is a great outcry when any proposal comes along to pay bonuses or higher salaries to teachers in critical areas such as math and science where private industry filters off many of the best for much higher salaries.

It is expensive to obtain National Board Certification. I don’t agree that it is all it claims to be. It is a continuation of “teacher training” that puts more of the work upon the teacher. This work is evaluated by board representatives and a test is given. Pass everything and you are labeled as a superior teacher and receive benefits of cash and licensing from the states that recognize it as a worthwhile program.

Meanwhile, get a Master’s Degree and a Doctorate in Education and actually receive less in the way of “perks”. The standards listed are the same as any good teacher training program will provide. Good teachers will continue to grow with or without a national standards board.

On the last day of school before vacation I actually had to sing a Christmas carol duet with another teacher at the Christmas Wishes assembly. We had fun with it and even involved all of the male faculty in our building singing “Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer”. The student who made the wish said it was the best thing to happen ever since he started school.

My TA in Physics is a success story. Nothing but trouble as a ninth grade student, he turned things around in tenth grade, became my Physics TA in eleventh grade (and told eveyone he was in my physics class), and is repeating as my TA this year plus was elected senior class treasurer.

Next time I’ll probably talk about what is going on in a neighboring district as they realign, sending ninth graders into the high school and sixth graders to “learn” with the seventh and eighth graders.

“We study history so we do not repeat the mistakes of the past.” Too bad we don’t follow this in educational pedagogy.

Cow Pies in the Classroom

2010-12-04T19:19:00.000-08:00

It has not been a very exciting time since my last posting. However, things do happen that keep life in the classroom interesting.

Two weeks ago we had student-led, parent conferences. I caught a chest cold and have been fighting it ever since. The six years I was out of teaching I think I had a total of two colds. Now I have one every fall and again every spring. I suspect the ninth graders are the source. They seem to have no concept of germs (bacteria) as they pass around water bottles and soda pop containers. Sometimes up to four different kids will drink out of one bottle.

I inherited the district’s greenhouse when I volunteered to teach Natural resources. This past week they hooked up two LPG tanks to supply heat. The horticulture teacher used to have the kids doing hanging baskets and vegetable plants. I will be using a different approach and teaching the kids how to do grafting of conifers and how to root conifer cuttings. We will do flower seedlings in the late winter. I want to have some things to sell for community day.

Community day is unique to Eatonville. The whole school closes at noon on or near May 1. Clubs and other school groups set up stands on the school property and sell various things to the public. The elementary schools provide students to do a Maypole dance. A fun time is had by all. We just have to watch for Middle School students coming onto the school grounds and causing problems with their immature behaviors.

Every once in a while something will happen in the classroom that can only take place in a rural school system. Two days ago I was doing a lesson in equation writing with my first period chemistry students when there was a slight commotion. One of the boys asked if I had a hose he could take outside. He was disappointed when I said no and that the outside faucets could only be turned on with a key. The students around him were waving at him and holding their noses. When I gave them a puzzled look, they told me that there was a very bad smell coming from the boy. He was upset over the commotion he was causing. It seems that he gets up every morning at 5:00 AM and does chores on the farm. This morning he was repairing some fencing around the cow pasture and walked through a number of cow pies (cow flops or poop). The excrement was all over his boots and part way up his pants. He had tracked it into my room (luckily I don’t have carpet) and was quite aromatic (for once my cold was helpful). I sent him outside to clean his boots, without much success. He finally went to the lavatory where he managed to get everything off and then wiped up the floor when he returned to class.

One of the other boys started to criticize him but shut up fast when I pointed out that getting dirty doing honest work is nothing to be ashamed of and getting up to do an hour or two of dirty work before school is something to be admired. I have a number of older students who are very hard workers outside of school. Sometimes they don’t see a need for the same amount of effort on their intellectual type of work.

We got the word this week that we have to plan ahead for sophomore and freshmen students who don’t pass the end-of-year science test for graduation. It will be given to biology students and administered through the state. The WASL was such a fiasco that the state has moved in this direction. Students who normally take just two years of science (the graduation requirement) must now pass this test. Since many of them will not pass it, we will have to figure some way to offer two or three more sections of a biological based science. They have to retake the test until they pass or they will not graduate, even if they pass the class. I hope the impact on our higher level classes is not severe but I am afraid there will be some negative impacts.

Two weeks until Christmas break. The last day of school is our Christmas assembly. It seems that a bunch of kids got together and for their Christmas wish want me and another teacher to sing a song at the assembly. I'll let you know how it goes.

Fantasies

2010-11-12T23:07:00.000-08:00

Education is full of fantasies. They start at the bottom of the ladder with the students and work their way up to the top at the state level.

A large number of ninth grade students think ninth grade is for socializing with their friends and ignoring teacher directions and assignments. They beiieve that they will become tenth graders, regardless of how they perform as freshmen. Extra credit is a common request, especially by students who do not do assigned work. When they are criticized or told in a firm manner to stop , they reply with comments like, “I’ll tell my mother.” or “You can’t make me.” or “I didn’t do anything.”

The root of this fantasy is that ninth grade students belong in the senior high school setting. Freshmen students cannot be treated like the older high school students. They do not have the necessary maturity. Failure rates are high and behavior problems abound. Ninth graders belong with the seventh and eighth grade students in a junior high school where they can be transitioned to the high school.

Another fantasy is that sixth, seventh, and eighth grade students mix well in a middle school setting. It is interesting that sixth grade teachers want the old kids kept away from their students and prefer their own area of the middle school. Then too, the eighth grade students think that they “rule the roost” because they are the oldest. Ninth grade students would subdue this attitude.

Recently the state of Washington has been fantasizing about graduation requirements.Starting with the class of 2013, all students need three years of math to graduate. They need algebra and geometry to get a high school diploma. The fantasy is that all students can be successful in these math classes regardless of ability. The majority of the students can’t pass the tenth grade math exam that is supposed to test basic skills so why not up the graduation requirement?

Another fantasy is the idea that people who have never been public school classroom teachers can conduct studies to determine the future of education in this country. Or that college and university instructors know how public school students should be taught when they never had to deal with that type of student. These individuals repeat what they have read in books and rehash old ideas using new names.

The biggest fantasy of all pertains to the idea that most politicians want to do what is best for students, not their political careers. More than one graduating class has been sacrificed on the altar of political expediency. Luckily, students who want to learn, will learn, in spite of the latest educational dogma and politically inspired educational requirements.

Before I fall off my soap box, I will step off of it and mention a few things about this past week.

We are preparing for parent conferences. These will be student led and focus on student testing results and on post graduation plans. Unfortunately there is not much time for parents to talk with their children’s teachers about how their youngsters are doing in their classes. This trend seems to be prevalent throughout the educational community and ignores what most parents really want to do. Then they wonder why inducements like extra credit are needed to bring out the parents.

My freshmen are taking more interest in the Natural Resources class. I started a plant unit and we will work toward lessons on grafting and rooting cuttings in the school’s greenhouse (which was being used for storage). Of course there are a number of them who still haven’t lost their childish behaviors andregularly get into trouble. I am concerned about handing out exacto knives to some of the more moronic classmembers.

My physics students did pretty well in a triangulation lab using surveying equipment to determine distances and elevations. The chemistry students are trying to master stoichiometry, with varying degrees of success. But I have high hopes for them all.

Observed by the Principal

2010-10-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

Today I had a visitor. The high school principal sat in on today’s lesson. It is part of his job to observe and evaluate each tenured teacher twice a year. New teachers are observed more often. After the observation, an evaluation is prepared and presented to the teacher. It becomes part of the teacher’s permanent file and if the rating is poor, steps are taken to bring about some improvement.

I remember my first observation at Weatherly Jr.-Sr. High School. I was twenty and several of my students were my age. It was done by a representative from the county rather than the district and it was a disaster. The students put on an obvious act for the observer. I had been hired in January to teach six math classes, all different. (I was the fourth teach that year. The first three all walked away.) She observed my 11th grade, general math class. It was near the end of the year and I was losing control of this particular class. I was even considering quitting and joining the army, even though those were the days of the Vietnam buildup.

But I survived and the following year was experienced and teaching science classes. The same person observed me in November and gave me a superior rating and I have survived almost 80 formal evaluations with all satisfactories and aboves by at least twelve different administrators in my 38+ years in four different districts.

I have always wondered about the procedure universally followed by administrators. The teacher is given advance notice of up to a month as to the date of the observation. Then a preobservation meeting is held with the planned lesson being reviewed. Afterwards, the administrator observes the lesson and does a written report for “the file”. It is a little bit like college, where a lesson is prepared that will impress the administrator and keep everybody happy. If the teacher “screws up” with all of that advance notice, he/she definitely needs help.

Some of us experienced teachers don’t worry about doing anything special for the observation. We know we are observed everyday by over 120 observers who really matter- our students. We do a “show” for them everyday. The principal is just another body among many.

I have always believed the principal needs to drop in at random to do observations. Then he will really know what is going on in a classroom. Of course the principal needs to observe with several goals in mind: give a pat on the back for good things, a kick in the ass for bad things, and be a resource to help the teacher improve.

Every teacher can always benefit from helpful input from any observer. The problem is, however, that teachers are by and large the most insecure people around when it comes to a feeling of job security. If the principal is a rare visitor to the classroom and only points out negative aspects of the teaching techniques, then the teacher will develop fear toward the principal and be one “unhappy camper”. The “drop in” observations take on the aspect of harassment. But handled properly (in a helpful and positive manner), they are more effective than the “dog and pony” show the principal usually gets to see and no teacher will feel threatened.

By the way, my evaluation was exemplary and I believe he enjoyed the two oxygen production demos I did for my first period chemistry class.

Measuring Up

2010-10-23T22:38:00.001-07:00

I have two sections of ninth grade students taking a course I helped develop at the county level called Natural Resources. It is available for students to take as either a science credit or a CTE (Career Technical Education) credit. It is oriented toward the students who are not planning on attending a four year college. The past two weeks we have been doing drafting with drawing boards, T-squares, architect scales, and other equipment.

The first disaster was an assignment to draw a 4”x6” square centered on a sheet of paper. I thought most of the students were just being difficult when they said they could not do it. After the third disastrous drawing, I had them do a scale drawing of the front of the high school building. Then I discovered the reason for the difficulty: most of them could not read a ruler. It was like beating my head against a wall as I showed student after student the 1/8 and ¼ marks on the scale. They had no comprehension of the fractional divisions on a scale/ruler.

Then this one girl asked to be excused on the first day of the scale project to go work on a history project. I told her she would fail the drawing if she missed the introductory information. She said she didn’t care. She missed day one. Then on day two she showed up in the middle of the class period. On day three she just sat in the corner of the classroom with two other girls and ignored what the rest of the class was doing. When class ended for the day, she came up to me and said she wasn’t able to complete the assignment because she was absent and didn’t understand it. I was very sympathetic and was moved to tears as I told her that was her choice and have a nice day.

Meanwhile my physics students are studying triangles by triangulating the distance to Mount Rainier from our football field. Then they have to determine the height of a radio tower on a ridge about two miles away. I have two theodolites on permanent loan from a local surveying company. They were just collecting dust in the owner’s garage. Some of the students are really getting “into it”. Meanwhile, my ninth graders can’t even read a ruler and they don’t think that is a problem.

Their math teacher is doing algebra (no one gets general math anymore) and rulers are not part of the curriculum. Whenever they were taught to use rulers, it obviously didn’t stick. Meanwhile the state wants all students to take math through geometry to graduate. I doubt they will “measure up” and are in danger of becoming dropouts.

Teaching is Never Boring

2010-10-07T20:56:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my ninth graders started working on a drafting unit. I have them use drafting tools to draw simple geometric shapes with specific measurements. Eventually we get to the point where they are able to do scale drawings. Then when we start studying maps they have a better understanding of map scales and what they are showing. The first assignment involves drawing a 2” x 3” rectangle in the lower corner of a sheet of paper to be used for the student name, date, class, and assignment title. Then a 4” x 6” rectangle was to be drawn in the exact center of the same paper. All sides of the rectangles were to parallel the sides of the paper.

You would have thought I was asking them to do calculus. I had to baby them through the assignment. Eventually most of them completed the assignment with various stages of accuracy. In my last period of the day the students were getting their equipment together to begin work. I was helping some students get started when I heard a loud CRACK. Upon investigation I discovered one of the boys standing with his equipment and blood running out of his nose. He threw his drawing board across the room and started calling one of the girls a “fucking bitch’ followed by an interesting string of obscenities. Meanwhile the girl was just sitting at her desk trying to ignore him.

It turns out that he had used his board to push her board part way across her desk. She told him to stop and she stopped his pushing. He held his board in front of his face and she pushed it into his face, catching him across his nose, thus the blood. His response was to slam his board across her skull much like Randy Orton using a chair across the head of John Cena. The board was cracked and she appeared to be unaffected by the whack. He weighs about 80 pounds (35 kilos) and she weighs about 200 pounds (90 kilos). I turned the incident over to the administration and they proceeded to handle it since I had 31 other students working with the same equipment to monitor.

I am not really looking forward to teaching these students how to graft trees. I can almost imagine the carnage that might result when I put exacto knives into their hands.

Which High School Grade Has the Most Morons?

2010-10-04T22:55:00.000-07:00

Today there were a few incidents at school that led me to think of this question, and at the same time also come up with an answer.

My school district has what is supposedly a cutting edge “deployment” of students. Our sixth graders go to our middle school, where the teachers want them segregated from the 7th and 8th grade students. Our ninth graders go to the high school where their middle school maturity leads to all kinds of interesting situations and the upperclassmen wish they were segregated from them.

This year we have been required to institute a half hour study session that actually runs twenty minutes for students in grade trouble. I have sophomores and seniors while my neighboring teacher has freshmen and juniors. We have been telling our students the expectations for three weeks. Many of the freshmen have no idea what is going on. Some of them have decided they don’t care if they are failing everything. Others are angry because they can’t go “hang out” with their friends who are passing everything. They have to stay in the “study hall” and do work.

Meanwhile, in my freshman science class, I had an interesting “moronic” incident. A boy was playing with a tennis ball and fifteen minutes before the end of class he shoved it down the front of his jeans. He then turned in his seat so the two girls to his left could see what he was up to. Somehow he thought I didn’t notice what he was doing. I was going to wait until the end of class (I was lecturing) to have a “chat” with him. But he kept playing with and adjusting it, so I told him to come up front. When he did, I told him I wanted the tennis ball. He had to reach next to his crotch and work the ball down the inside of his leg. He handed it to me with a smaile that disappeared real fast when I told him he was being reported for inappropriate sexual behavior. After class I explained to him that using a tennis ball to make a bulge like a big penis or large testicles was inappropriate and doing it to girls was a sexual harrassment.

When I asked him if his mother would be upset, he said it wouldn’t bother her. I said “We’ll see later tonight.” Ten minutes later I called his home and spoke to his mother. She had just talked to him and he explained that he had the ball in his pants pocket and I took it from him. When I hung up five minutes later, she was very upset, with him.

Yesterday I announced to my freshmen that too many were going to the bathroom during class so the privilege was taken away. They were just going for walks. One of them told me I couldn’t stop her from going and if she had to go, she would just go. I was so frightened!

Freshmen kick each other, throw things at each other, get the most F’s, walk around in their own little worlds, BUT eventually they grow up and become normal people.

Phew!!!

2010-09-28T22:59:00.001-07:00

This is my first chance to work on my blog since school started. I plan on retiring from teaching in three years and I guess I’ll go out “firing on all cylinders”. Chemistry is taking up a lot of my free time. I am so glad I spent much of this past summer building the curriculum and I was actually to get the first semester all set up. Doing a chem lab every week is very tiring but also very effective. I build each week around one basic concept or set of concepts with coordinated lecture, lab, and homework for the class.

I am enjoying teaching chemistry and watching student expressions “light up” as they understand various concepts. Their lab technique was not the best, but in just two labs I have seen a lot of improvement. The lab this week involves determining the thickness of the layer of zinc on a piece of galvonized iron. Hydrochloric acid will be used to remove the zinc and the students have to be able to work with mass, area, and volume to calculate the thickness.

Teaching a section of physics between my two chenistry sections is sometimes confusing to me. This is my third year of teaching physics and I am still becoming comfortable with the subject. So, of course, I had to also take on chemistry! I had a comment from one of my chemistry students the other day. “Why do the physics kids get to play with toys and we don’t?” I love questions like that. It shows that the kids are communicating with each other about science, not just what they did over the weekend.

Physics labs are set up differently from the chemistry labs. In physics I work on a number of basic principles to prepare the students to successfully complete a lab. The lab itself may take several days, unlike the single period labs of chemistry.

This week we are finishing the lecture/worksheet part of lessons on velocity and acceleration in physics. The lab I designed has several parts to it involving scale RC cars, friction powered cars, and model trains (HO and O scale). The kids will have some time playing with “toys” and learning science.

Then my afternoon classes become the focus for the rest of my day. I have two sections of Natural Resources, a class for students who have a history of difficulty with their science classes in the middle school. My major goal in these classes is not to simply teach subject matter. I also try to teach self esteem by helping them become successful without treating them like babies, not an easy thing to do.

We have been working on insects and the interest is high, as long as they don’t have to overexert themselves. For the past two weeks I have been after them to bring in jars so we can go outside and collect some insects. I have four jars from 60 kids (I have one class of 32 and another of 27) and 9 jars from one young lady, who insists on dressing like a boy. Last week she was punished by her mother. She was made to wear girl clothing and put up her hair.

The afternoon is when I have to fight the cell phone battle and stop kids from chasing each other around the classroom. One boy likes to take things from other students and run off with them. The other day in another class he knocked a friend’s hat off his head. The teacher had to intervene to separate them and prevent a fight. Then they were both supposed to come to my class but luckily one went home early. I have the kicking, socializing, forgetfullness, throwing of objects, refusal to do homework, and several other behaviors coomon to middles schools. It’s amazing how different these kids will be after I have worked with them for this year.

It’s too bad I can’t bring former students back who left the system and never finished. I know of several who have bad jobs or no jobs, with wives (whom they got pregnant in school) and kids to support, and have just about given up on having any sort of a good/happy life. Unfortunately the ninth graders have to learn these things for themselves since adults don't know anything about what they are going through.

I Am Back and Primed For Another year

2010-09-01T22:43:00.000-07:00

I don’t know if I have been missed but I have been on vacation from school and I was very busy at the end of last school year.

Today was a teacher work day at school. We always spend a couple of days before school begins doing things that are supposed to make us better teachers. I have been in the classroom for almost 40 years now and I have pretty much seen it all come and go and then come again. It is interesting how a new idea comes up to improve student achievement which on closer inspection is just a new packaging for something that has been done before.

At the end of last year the chemistry teacher at the high school was given a different schedule for this school year. Now I will be teaching two sections of chemistry, one section of physics, and two sections of natural resources (a course designed so a student can receive CTE or science credit). My CP Science 9 is now being taught by another teacher. I gave up the CP Science 9 in order to teach the chemistry.

The previous chemistry teacher did very few laboratories with her students. I believe chemistry needs extensive lab work to ensure an understanding of its basic concepts. This summer I spent a lot of time designing chemistry curriculum and have the basic course designed with the lectures and labs all prepared for the first semester. The basic plan is to do one lab each week to reinforce the topic covered in the weekly lecture/lesson.

Last year I was also involved with a group of teachers in designing a course about natural resources that met the requirements of a biological science course or a career technical education class. It is for ninth grade students who have problems passing a traditional science course. My goal is to show these students that there is some value in education and help them to be successful as high school students.

We also got some recent news that students in the state of Washington are scoring low in tenth and fifth grade high stakes exams. What a surprise! The state has been vascillating on this whole topic for years and gave an all new battery of tests last year. This reliance on standardized testing for high stakes is not only disrupting the educational process but is also helping to convince students that they are stupid.

Then throw in the Federal Government’s Race to Top money and how it is being applied to force Charter Schools into state programs through bribery and I begin to wonder if the people in charge care more for the kids across the country or their own political careers. If charter schools are so great, then why not let public schools operate under the same conditions. Besides, how does filtering off the best students from the public schools help them become better?

The Race to the Top money is also being used to force more teacher accountability into the educational system. The problem is coming up with a way to do a fair evaluation of a teacher, Right now a clunky due process procedure has to be followed that depends upon the competency of the principal. Letting student testing play a role is ludricrous as is any other method that could turn things into a popularity contest. I'll talk more about this in a later blog.

As usual it is time to dump the blame on the teachers, create assinine simplistic fixes to our educational system, and then compare us to other educational systems around the world that do not even attempt to educate everyone in a well rounded educational program that includes the fine arts, athletics, and academics.

I should have lots to talk about this year from the viewpoint of a science teacher who loves what he does and has little tolerance for anyone who uses his kids for their own advancement- be it at the local, state, or national level. Of course my main intent is to let my readers know what goes on in my classroom as I interact with my students but I will do some agitating from time to time.

The Dropout Rate

2010-05-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

We had a science department meeting this past week and one of the topics was our student dropout rate, which is above the state average. The principal would like ideas about how to reduce the rate.

Unfortunately that is a million dollar question. The federal government seems to think that the wholesale firing of teachers in schools that don’t become perfect is the solution. The department of education seems to think that requiring students to complete a battery of tests as well as three years of math through geometry and algebra II will help provide a solution to the problems of education. This emphasis on academics has not been without a decreasing emphasis on physical education classes (more fat kids) and tech education (fewer carpenters and plumbers).

The middle school philosophy is a great help. Spend three years developing a high esteem in each and every student at the expense of any substantial academic achievement. That way when they hit high school and academics are the focus, the self esteem inflation gets shot to hell when reality hits and students have to perform to advance. Too many students end up losing their self confidence and taking the “I am a loser attitude”. Or they do not accept the reality and responsibilities of high school, thinking they can be successful without it.

I have a number of students who will make no attempt at completing any in class or out of class work or assignments. They don’t just exhibit this behavior in science. It occurs in all of their classes. They have no explanantion for the behavior. They discuss the situation politely and then continue the behavior. Some come to school because of the courts saying they are required by law to be in school. Some try to go to job corps, thinking it is better than school for some reason. They can’t say why it is better. They just see it as some sort of a better alternative to what they are doing.

Some of these students are into drugs and incapable of making any sort of intelligent decision. We can hope they will turn their lives around but unfortunately many of them never do. However, once in a while I get through to one of them and that makes it all worthwhile.

They all want to live “the good life” but don’t necessarily want to work for it. Many of them just can’t make the connection between success and work.

Two hours ago I went to the front door and a former student wanted to say hello. He was in my science class five or six years ago and showed me almost no effort. But he had a bad situation at home and was living with relatives. When he asked me for a job, I hired him part time for a summer and worked with him on various projects. I treated him like an adult and gave him my trust. He was a responsible worker. The following school year he disappeared from school (dropped out) and I lost track of him.

Tonight he told me he has a good job where he is respected by his boss and has been employed for three years. It is a position with the possibility of advancement. He has his own place, pays his bills on time, and has benefits. He isn’t interested in getting a G.E.D. or any sort of diploma. He doesn’t need it right now and can always get one at some future time if he changes his mind. He likes the work and has job security.

Like I said before, the ocassional success makes it all worthwhile.

Water Water Everywhere

2010-04-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

We had some excitement in the remodeled biology lab this past week. Students had been working on a microbiology lab for almost two weeks. One of the basic procedures involved sterilizing an innoculation wire with a gas flame from a Meeker Burner. Unfortunately the fire control system used sprinklers installed directly over the lab tables at about a height of about ten feet (three meters). You guessed it- a sprinkler discharged during the last period of the day. The water sprayed over students, five computers and sundry books and clothing. By the time it was two inches (five centimeters) deep in the hallway, twenty plus gallons had gone through the floor into the technology computer lab immediately below the biology room. Luckily the teacher saw it coming and moved about ten computers out of the line of fire. Classes were back to normal the next day.
The fire department was a big help with controlling the water spray and replacing the discharged sprinkler head. They also pointed out that the sprinklers in the science labs appeared to be residential sprinkler heads. They have a temperature release rating of about 130 degrees fahrenheit (55 celsius). Much too low for a lab setting. Nothing like taking the lowest bidder on a construction job.
I also discovered this week that I will be having some major changes in my teaching schedule next year, I will be teaching a basic reading class using science as the conduit. To do that, I have to give something up. Right now it appears to be my two college placement nine classes. Then I will also pick up something else to replace the second cp nine class.

What's Been Going On?

2010-04-09T22:59:00.000-07:00

I have been busy at school so I have been truant from my blog. A few things happened at school during the past month that have kept life interesting.

One student fell asleep during a video about the moon. When the class was dismissed, he was sound asleep. When that happens, I tend to let him sleep until the next class enters. One year I had a student wake up about a half hour into the next period. He was very confused upon awakening. It was good for a chuckle and a learning experience for the sleeper. That type of thing stays with the kid for many years. He never fell asleep in class again.

The week before spring break, a ninth grade girl was suspended from school for a day. She came back on campus during her suspension to see her boyfriend and refused to leave. The police had to be called to remove her. They had to take her down to the ground twice before they got her into the patrol car. She then had her suspension extended for 58 days. Surprisingly, her mother withdrew her from school. I am sure she was immediately enrolled in her home school district. (She was an out-of-school-district student). We take these kinds of students for the state funding that comes with them. Sometimes it benefits us financially and the student educationally due to a shortened bus route. Other times we spend more money on discipline and disruptions to the educational system than we get from the state.

My ninth grade CP Science students have completed several labs during the past month. They still haven’t learned to read the lab packet before starting to work. They start right in on the procedure without having preread anything. Then when they cannot complete the different steps they think it is too difficult to do and they get frustrated.

Unfortunately this behavior does not change very much through most of high school. Students just do not want to read and follow instructions when completing lab work. The minority who do read the instructions can only follow cookbook types of procedures. If they have to read and then interpret what they read to create a hypothesis, confusion and inaccuracies reign.

Either the instructional methods for reading trains students to regurgitate what they have read with little understanding, or the mental abilities of teenagers are restricted by their immaturity. I suspect the latter is the main culprit, since I remember how much easier I could interpret complex data/information to derive inferred hypotheses or mathematical data after I entered college.

Today we began a complex multimedia research project in CP Science Nine. Every student needs individual computer access. I will be sending five students to a neighboring biology class and five to the library to use PC computers. I have 14 student computers in my own room. The fifteenth needs a reinstall of the operating system. I have been waiting for three weeks to get the work done. Our district wide, two day a week, computer tech hasn’t gotten to me yet.

The first day of school the superintendent gave his welcome back speech and told us we have the best technology available for us and our students to use. Then he eliminated the district computer tech position and contracted with the local educational service district for a part time tech two days a week. Later all of the teachers were locked out of their computers and basically given student access levels. I can’t even correct the time of day on my computer. I have to do a work order.

In physics we are studying waves. I am spending two weeks doing lectures and labs about sound waves. One of the labs involved taking two paper cups and connecting them with 50 feet of string through their bases. The students were fascinted that they could talk to each other through the cups and that the sound waves went through the string. Then we spent two days manipulating a wave tank. Monday we work with resonance and will then be ready to study the properties of light.

Next week our sophomores will be taking the science WASL Exam. It is designed to show them how stupid they all are. Then the same students, and a large number of juniors and some seniors will take the math WASL to reinforce the idea of their stupidity. The juniors and seniors are exercising the rites of futility since they have failed it in the past and will probably continue to do so. As a trained educator, I abhor any test that is designed to punish and denegrate the intelligence and abilities of my students. It is not designed to improve education since the results are not fedback to any teacher in a way that can help that teacher improve the instructional methods in his/her classes for a better success rate. In a high stakes test having a high success rate is obtained by teaching to the test and the hell with anything else. Especially if merit pay is involved (a later blog topic).

Tomorrow I get to ride in a parade. I was selected by our school’s daffodil princess as her Educator of the Year. The Daffodil Festival is county wide and has been in place since 1933 (http://www.daffodilfestival.net/). The young lady who selected me was a ninth grade student of mine three years ago and last year took my physics class as a junior.

It is amazing what stays in kids memories. When she was in my ninth grade class, she was diagnosed with leukemia. It was during the first half of the school year. She had to leave school and do school lessons at home during the first year of treatments. During her last day in science class, she asked me if she and a few of her friends could make friendship bracelets from some wooden beads I had in a plastic box on a shelf. (I would not let kids play with the beads because I used them for a classification lab in my biology class.) I let them spend the class period making bracelets because I knew they would wear them and remember each other while she was undergoing her treatments.

When she surprised me with my selection as Educator of the Year two months ago, she gave me a copy of what she wrote about me. It was the bracelet story. I like to think that what I allowed her and her friends to do may have helped her just a little through her ordeal. She is a beautiful Daffodil Princess. She placed sixth out of twenty-two princesses. And most importantly, her leukemia treatments ended a few months ago (she had monthly chemo treatments while in my physics class) and now she will just be doing regular checkups as she lives a fairly normal life. Her college plans include training to be a pediatric nurse.

This is the kind of a story that makes me proud to be a teacher.

What a Tangled Web We Weave

2010-03-06T20:34:00.001-08:00

The past few weeks have been interesting ones at school. There is a superintendent search going on and we met the three finalists this past week. During one of the presentations to the general public, I sat by a friend of mine who is a computer assessment guru at a neighboring school district and lives in our district where his children attend school. He found it hard to believe that the district doesn’t have a full time computer guy on the payroll. We contract with our local ESD for a tech 1 ½ days a week. The rest of the time the librarian handles the high school’s problems. I’m not sure how the other buildings handle their needs.

Many districts still wrestle with the new technology while other districts move ahead and manage to fully exploit its capabilities. I suppose that we fall somewhere between the two extremes, unfortunately near the lower end. For example, we went the first six months of school without an antivirus software throughout the district. The high school had just been remodeled and there must have been 200 new PC computers on the school network without any protection. We were lucky.

Students and teachers have both been aggravated since the district installed an internet filter and set it to maximum security. It has put strong limitations on surfing the world wide web for all of us. Then the teachers were given a higher level of access than the students. That meant we only get blocked ¾ as many times as the students. Some of these limitations are due to the lack of sufficient bandwidth coming into the district. According to the part time computer tech, we have about 40% of what we really need. I suppose as long as we have a restrictive filter in place we moronic teachers don’t have to make any decisions regarding the web sites being visited by our students or ourselves.

I believe getting students ready for life involves giving them some chances to make some wrong decisions while the consequences of those decisions are not so terrible. As long as teachers proctor computers while their students are working on them, the internet does not need to be so strongly filtered. If teachers are sitting on their asses when kids are surfing the net, then problems will arise that are the fault of the teacher, not the kids. That being said, there are times that even the most hawkish teacher will miss a student visiting an inappropriate site. But then, that is part of education. Students do get away with things once in a while and they will occasionally get caught. That is part of life.

Yesterday I asked to have chess.com unblocked so my chess club students could practice on my computers. It is blocked as a gaming site. I haven’t heard back yet. Then a formal email arrived telling me that I was causing problems with the computer network and undermining teachers. I had shown my physics students a simple computer game called pocket tanks. Two tiny tanks shoot assorted projectiles at each other to score points. Each player sets the gun angle and the power to try and score a hit. It is a free download off the internet. I used to use it to interest the students in projectile motion. When I let students play it from my thumb drive, some of them copied it into their network folder. A few of my advanced ninth grade students did the same thing. The librarian came unglued (she is our pseudocomputer tech) and reported me to the principal as the source of the pocket tank scourge that could destroy the computer network.

Then a formal email came from the principal to me that began with the statement that video games are not allowed in school. I think he mistakenly believes that pocket tanks is a video game. If he means any computer games, then I will point out that the games section of windows needs to be removed from all of the school district’s PCs. It will be interesting to see how far that I get with that approach.

I noticed Tacoma is looking for a horticulture teacher. That might be interesting. Instead of working with computers, those students would be working with pruners.

The Classroom Menagerie

2010-02-25T21:16:00.001-08:00

Kids always enjoy animals in the classroom, within reason.

My ninth graders really bugged me a few weeks about some prospective class members. I had picked up two desktop aquariums from RiteAid for $10 each and set them up in the front of the classroom. Then some of the kids were into checking as soon as they entered the room to see if I had gotten any fish yet. When I put a beta into each tank, I started receiving regular instructions about putting them together and watching them fight.

I think a typical teenager has a little bit of sadism in his/her makeup. They are fascinated when the classroom has a large fish in it, especially if it is fed live food. I once had a gar in a large tank. Watching it grab a goldfish never became old for most of my students. Even a tank with a crayfish (crawdad) was a source of excitement whenever an earthworm was dropped into the tank.

For seven years I kept an albino California king snake in my eighth grade classroom. The only snake that is better to keep in a classroom is a corn snake. Both types tend to be very docile when they are used to being handled, provided they are left alone when shedding their old skin. The corn snake also has such small teeth that it is never a risk. The king snake will eat small mammals as well lizards and other snakes. It is the easiest snake to keep fed. Not only did students enjoy watching it feed after school, many of them also enjoyed handling it. Snakes in the classroom are an excellent way to help kids get over their fears of snakes. It has to be done in a careful manner and is not effective with all students.

Pythons and boas are too big for the classroom and are not native to this country. They don’t belong due to high risk and little actual educational value when compared to corn and king snakes. They also require larger food such as rats, which leads me to another classroom “prisoner”, the small mammal. Nothing stinks worse than a cage of mice, unless it is a cage with rats. They produce large amounts of urine and will stink up a room in no time, even if held in a storage area off of the main room. Students have enough smells to put up without also having to put up with smelly rodents. Having dirty cages is unsanitary and disrupts the educational process.

I used to raise gerbils to feed Leroy (my albino king snake). They don’t breed as fast as mice and need to be fed to the snake when young. But they are native to desert areas and produce small amounts of a pasty urine. Their odor is minimal and the smell is easy to contain. The hardest thing about feeding them to a snake is that they have furry tails as compared to mice with scaled tails, s they “look cute” even though they are close relatives.

When I taught in Pennsylvania I had as many as three tarantulas, one Asian scorpion, and the gar in my room at one time. Students enjoyed them and the only live food was crickets and goldfish. I never handled the scorpion but we had lots of fun with the tarantulas. My good friend, who taught science next door, got carried away. He was studying eastern rattlesnakes in their native environment and was raising some young ones from eggs. He even kept one in his room and often had it crawling on his desk. Once in a while it would bite him. (This was all illegal of course.) It had minimal effect. Then he almost died from a bite from a large adult in the field. After he was back to normal, he still played with the young one. However, when it nipped him again, his resistance had been compromised and he got quite ill. He released all of the young ones near a rattlesnake den and stopped playing with fire. Now he studies less dangerous forms of nature.

Security for any caged animal is important, since the custodians don’t relish coming across a snake, rodent, or large spider crawling around the classroom after dark. They also don’t care for the possibility of salmonella being produced in a dirty reptile tank. So many school districts have shut down classroom menageries and only allow a few fish in a small tank. Liability is a big concern, but so is security and cleanliness along with student allergies.

Being exposed to animals in the classroom is beneficial to students. For many it is their only opportunity to interact with wildlife in a controlled environment. Unfortunately too many teachers “get in over their heads” and create problems. But then there is the exceptional teacher like the one I met in Pennsylvania many years ago who had a menagerie in a specially built section of his high school that contained an alligator, a crocodile, and a caiman as well as up to twenty different kinds of snakes, a number of lizards, and several turtles. Everything was maintained by a herpetology club under his direction. It was a professionally run setup. Not typical to a high school, and most impressive.

It’s A Testy Time

2010-02-13T16:39:00.000-08:00

The halfway point of the school year equals final exam time: something brand new to the ninth graders. We did the final exam testing last week and the kids seem to take it in stride. At least one freshman teacher gave his final exam before the schedule testing days. I'm not sure what he was thinking. Kids told me that they watched a movie during finals in his class. Maybe he thought he was doing the kids a favor.

I have never agreed with final exams as a grading tool. Students who are doing well tend to do well in the final (It just means they are under that much more stress.) Likewise, students who are doing poorly in a class will do poorly in the test (even it is designed for them to do well). Many educators argue that a final exam gives these low scoring students an opportunity to improve their grades. I haven’t seen that happen more than a very few times.

Students going on to college have to learn to handle the pressure of final exams. I have no problem with testing these students since it helps them be more successful in college. The students who are not going to college do not need this experience. In fact, it just reinforces the feeling of hopelessness concerning school that predominates among these students. In my own basic science classes I deliberately design a test that anyone who is not a complete idiot can pass. Only apathetic students are not successful. Or should I say ‘pathetic’ students?

It seems as if the prevailing message across the land is that everyone needs to be prepared for college. That is unfortunate because not everyone is college material. But put a bunch of educators together and all of a sudden they forget reality and make up all of these benchmarks for students to attain. For example: all students in the state of Washington must complete Algebra 1 and 2 and Geometry to graduate. About 35% of Washington students are able to pass the math WASL so of course they are all capable of doing geometry. The old fashioned word for this thinking was “balderdash”!

Our final exams are scheduled at special times with two given each day for two hours each. Wednesday’s finals were interesting. School starts one hour later on Wednesdays so teachers can do all kinds of neat things relative to teaching/training. That meant that after finals the student class schedule was abbreviated. The afternoon classes were twenty minutes each. So of course quite a few students went home right after finals. The excuse was that their parents said it was ok. Lunch detention was so full this past week that they had to spread it out to additional rooms.

For my two fundamentals classes, I had the students complete a powerpoint about dinosaurs. I even let them start it two days before the scheduled final. Three students refused to do anything on the powerpoint. Two others did next to nothing on the powerpoint. It carried enough weight to raise grades for the semester nearly 10%. Only five students failed. Guess who they were.

Another day I’ll do a blog about student apathy.

Never A Dull Day

2010-01-21T23:12:00.001-08:00

Last week was an interesting one at school. One of my freshmen girls came back from a five day suspension for fighting. She had said some things to a smaller senior girl who proceeded to slam her head into an elevator door. It gave me five days without hearing the word fu__ in my classroom. She came back and started dropping f-bombs right and left. I put a stop to it and it moved out into the hall during passing time. What an exceptional young ‘lady’. I consider her a “work in progress”.

I have another young man who wasn’t doing his work this past week. When I talked to him about his problems, he told me he doesn’t like to do any writing and would as soon take a zero in the assignment. If we did projects in science that involved building things, he would be fine. When I reminded him that he would not build a bridge project earlier in the year, he pointed out that that was with craft sticks. He’d rather work with power tools. Some kids are very difficult to reach but I just look on it as a challenge.

A third boy was loafing along, missing class on a regular basis and avoiding work whenever he did show up. Yesterday, he came into class and spent the whole period on task. Then an email came from the counselor telling me that he had just realized he needed to pass classes to earn credits. I guess he thought he was still at the middle school. He isn’t a discipline problem but he is definitely hurting himself.

Yesterday saw two fights on campus. One was between two guys that was stirred up by a girlfriend of the one. The other was between two girls who had said some nasty things about each other. Different teachers had to intervene to break them up. Fights between two boys usually involve a lot of posturing and hoping that someone will come along to break it up. I made a bit of a reputation for myself when I broke up a fight last year and didn’t even put my clipboard down to do it. But when girls fight, it is usually no holds barred and step between them at your own risk.

My physics students had a test today. Hopefully they did well since even the calculus students have trouble handling the math (algebra based) in the text. I don’t think high school students have developed enough mental maturity to interpret the questions and determine the proper method to arrive at an answer. The questions are often too complex for a junior or senior in high school but appear to be simple when they are just a year or two older. They know the mechanics but the setup is often beyond them. Part of the problem might be the way math is taught with repetitive sets of problems that involve little actual thought and limited problem interpretation.

Wednesday morning was a lot of fun. We had a faculty training session on computers. We were taught how to plug in a keyboard and mouse among other basics. It was unbelievable that the district paid money to bring in outside consultants to go over such basic information. I suspect the training was part of a requirement from the state to maintain our special rates for internet access. Computers have been a bit of a recent sore point among the faculty. We are following a business network model with a central server and all computers set up so we can only use them and not add any programs or peripherals. Unfortunately we do not have a full time computer tech on staff to do installations so our computers provide less flexibility than they did in the network system. The trainer didn’t know we had such restrictions and many of her points didn’t apply to us.

Never a dull day.

Sex Education

2010-01-07T23:20:00.000-08:00

This topic hits more hot buttons than Evolution. I taught sex education to eighth grade students for five years. It was part of their health curriculum. The state of Washington requires the teaching of this topic. I think many parents are relieved because they are actually embarrassed to sit down and talk to their children about this topic.

I volunteered to take on health as part of the eighth grade science curriculum. The phys ed teachers had avoided the subject for years, short changing the students. I could see the need for the curriculum whenever I talked to students. I am not just referring to the high school pregnancy rate.

Students refused to shower after taking a P.E. class, leading to some smelly situations. The P. E. teachers had given up fighting this battle with the students. In conversation with different students, I arrived at the conclusion that most students weren’t too lazy to shower. They were apparently afraid that one of their classmates might be “gay” and would see them nude. Then the “gay” boy would obviously make a pass at them because a gay eighth grader has no self control around nude boys.

A number of the eighth grade girls had other problems. The high school campus was next to the middle school campus and high school boys were meeting middle school girls in secluded locations on the middle school campus. The girls were providing oral sex for the boys. We never did determine just how widespread the practice was, but when we caught two of them in the act, there were a number of upset parents spending some “quality time” with their suspended daughters. The girls thought oral sex was safe and they not only could not get pregnant, they also could not catch a STD (sexually transmitted disease) from the boys.

These were two of the immediate problem areas that needed work. The other, long term one was teen pregnancy.

Since I had the students for a full year of life science, I was able to develop a rapport with most of them before starting the health unit. I conditioned them to feel free to ask me any question on their minds and I always gave them straight answers. I got them used to words like penis and sperm so they got the giggles out of their systems. They felt comfortable with me.

I used a realistic approach with my students and only ever had one parent complain to me about teaching sex ed and told me he was standing up for all of the parents who were afraid to approach me. I felt sorry for his daughter and she was excused from the one day of “ask me anything about any sex topic, using the appropriate language.”

Eighth graders think they know all about sex. Their naiveté was interesting, to say the least. On ask any question day, the girls seemed to ask the most pointed questions. The mechanics of sex for procreation and effects of STD’s were part of the regular curriculum so the questions tended to be more about gays and how they could possibly have sex to why boys are so fascinated with girls’ breasts.

I never showed how to put a condom onto a banana but I did present a unit on birth control and abstinence. Many students previously thought condoms were 100% effective at preventing conception and STD’s. I pointed out how that train of thought could easily lead to problems later on. I always preferred to point out the consequences of sexual behaviors and focused my comments more toward the girls, since they could not walk away from an unwanted or accidental pregnancy. When I finished the unit, students understood that abstinence was the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy and STD’s. But they also knew how to handle situations where abstinence is not an option.

Studies show that teaching abstinence alone is not only a waste of time, it is misleading and criminal. Anyone who says otherwise, needs to get a teaching job in a different field where they will do less harm.

I enjoyed teaching health as part of my science curriculum. I felt as if I was having an effect on my students beyond academics alone. Students responded to the curriculum in a positive way and many of them looked forward to seeing me when I would regularly visit the science teachers on the high school campus. They would go out of their way to visit with me.

The WASL testing fever hit the state of Washington and I had to change my curriculum to reflect the demands of the science portion of the test. I converted my curriculum to the earth sciences and gave up the health unit. It was to be taught by the P.E. teachers. For my last three years at the middle school, it wasn't taught as a separate course or unit by anybody. Supposedly it was integrated into P'E' as part of a "wellness curriculum".

T’was The Week Before Christmas

2009-12-17T23:13:00.001-08:00

The kids are “bouncing off the walls” this week, especially the ninth graders. We have a two week long holiday break approaching, and mentally the kids are already enjoying it. Tomorrow will be a “lost day” since visions of sugar plums will be floating in their heads.

I have an advantage in science. I can “entertain” my students and trick them into learning something. We are completing a chemistry unit so I am finishing the unit with chemical reactions and equation balancing. Last week I taught about hydrogen and made some as a demonstration. I used mossy zinc and hydrochloric acid. When I ignited the collected gas, I had everyone’s full attention. Then when I did oxygen production and blinded everybody by putting burning magnesium into the pure oxygen, once again I had their full attention.

Class interruptions over the intercom are a constant annoyance. Anyone who has taught knows what I mean. I even had one interruption by a student with a guitar who wanted to serenade me in the middle of a lesson. I’m not sure which class he was skipping, but he left when I nicely told him to “go find some traffic to play in”.

I made extra use of my chalkboard and white boards this past week. Some students like to write on them while others are too shy. I brought in a container of miniature candy canes and used them to generate greater student involvement.

This week I had several visitors from the Spanish class down the hall. I was given two large Christmas cards written in Spanish and three tree decorations that were hand colored with Spanish sentiments written on the back.

The past two days, my students were actually focused on science more than Christmas. We spent the two days doing a lab where they mixed pairs of chemicals to observe the reactions that took place. Keeping students active makes this week before Christmas break a valuable week. A lot of learning has been taking place. I even threatened a test on Friday but canceled it at the last minute. I told them it was a Christmas present.

I haven’t done a whole of insulting lately. It is funny how the kids seem to enjoy being insulted, as long as it is done in a nonthreatening way as part of a bantering exchange. They even laugh at the oldest wise cracks. Yesterday I had a student called to the office and I told her to “make like a tree and leave”.

I think the students enjoy my class since even the ones who are doing poorly don’t want to move to an easier level of work with another teacher. I have had several of last year’s students visit me and tell me they are planning to take physics next year so I can be their teacher again. Gee, maybe I should be cloned?

The day before vacation I always do something loosely related to science and have friendly dialog with my students. I discourage them from bringing any gifts, but a few still do. I am just happy to be working with them and being able to look forward to the upcoming holiday through their eyes.

The Poor Teacher

2009-12-12T23:45:00.001-08:00

Teaching is not considered a high paying job. New teachers barely get by with the starting salary in most states. Then add on the increasing qualifications criteria and the recipe becomes perfect to discourage anyone from entering the profession. So then who wants to become a teacher?

Surprisingly enough, lots of different people do. Most people enter teaching as dedicated professionals. However, some are looking for a job where they have their summers free or just want to coach sports. A large number of both groups don’t survive for very long. Teaching is a grind that wears you down. It takes a unique individual to be able to do it successfully. A listing of the reasons for leaving teaching would find their classroom students down near the bottom of the list. The highest dropout rate among teachers is within the group that enters the profession for the wrong reasons.

The poor teacher has developed a number of self preservation techniques and will do one or more of the following things to excess. Principal observations are treated to a real “dog and pony show” when they are announced. Classroom discipline is maintained through excessive use of office referrals for misbehavior. Students are kept very busy with worksheets that are intermittently graded while videos, many of which are loosely related to the subject matter, are shown to excess. Notes are put on the overhead or white board and the students spend most of the class period copying them. Students are usually given minimal directions or assistance when given assignments and are left pretty much on their own to come up with solutions. Lessons are seldom changed from year to year and the same old lectures are given forever. The teaching contract is often closely followed, especially concerning the hours required. Volunteering for anything is seldom done unless there are adequate benefits or remuneration involved. School property is often appropriated for personal use through a variety of techniques.

I have had to tolerate a number of these teachers in various school districts. One time as department chairman I tried to do something about a poorly performing individual in my department. Not only was nothing done, the hard feelings generated made things uncomfortable for a year or two. Then he moved on to another district. I learned the hard way that teachers can’t do much about other poor teachers. The final responsibility rests with the principal.

Most principals know who the problem teachers are. They don’t always deal with them for a variety of reasons. Some principals just can’t gather sufficient evidence for dismissal while others don’t want the hassle of eliminating bad teachers. Many principals use “backdoor methods” to eliminate poor teachers. The most common “back door” method involves changing the teacher’s assignment to classes with students who not only perform poorly academically but are also exhibiting many discipline problems. One district used to “demote” high school teachers to the middle school in the hope of acquiring a letter of resignation.

The problem with “back door” methods is that they inflict bad teaching on the students who need the best teaching, similar to what happens in many districts when the “new guy” gets the most difficult classes that the experienced teacher tries to avoid.

Tenure protects teachers from unfair termination but does provide methods to eliminate the bad teacher. The reason many principals don’t want to take it on, is the amount of work and time required to process a teacher through the system.

Teacher bonuses to reward good teaching are never trusted as a means to improve teaching. When these awards are based on student performance, it leads to teachers wanting only the better classes where students will score well on tests. The other drawback is the possibility that the awards will be based upon favoritism or nepotism on the part of the principal or superintendent. There really is no fair way to determine how to apportion these bonuses. Not only do they lead to bad feelings among staff members, they don’t have any effect on the quality of teaching.

Every school has a mix of teachers. Just like everything in life involving people they range from excellent through mediocre to poor. Well managed districts with effective administrators tend to have more of the cream while others end up with more of the curds. Teacher associations (unions) are of little help in sorting the curds from the cream. Unfortunately, students suffer the most since not only are they subject to less than the best quality lessons, they also observe the actions of these "do as I say, not as I do" teachers and often use them as role models.

The Changing of the Guard Part II

2009-12-03T23:16:00.001-08:00

After two years at the junior high school, I was transferred to the high school where I got to know several excellent educators. Sam made an immediate impression on me. A tall, stocky man with a completely hairless dome and a strongly Italian accent, he was an imposing presence in the classroom. He had no discipline problems at all. He had an undeserved reputation as a man to be feared. Sam always wore has class ring, which had a giant red stone. Early in his career he would use corporal punishment and once slapped a student. Unfortunately he caught the student with his ring a cut his cheek. That was the last time he touched a student.

When I knew him, he was mellow and laid back. As an experienced teacher, he had developed more relaxed and refined discipline methods. The students enjoyed his classes and I enjoyed his company. I valued his advice and improved as a teacher because of it. Sam retired many years ago and recently passed away. He had a long, successful teaching career and enjoyed over twenty years in retirement.

George was a fellow science teacher. He taught the chemistry classes and could teach physics if needed. He set high standards and expected the students to attain those standards. George’s curriculum was demanding and prepared students for college courses in the sciences. At the same time he was able to tailor chemistry classes for students who were more oriented for trade schools rather than for a four year college. George had a long, successful teaching career but developed cancer and died before he was able to retire.

I also knew a couple of teachers who at first made very strong, positive impressions on me. Ray was an excellent math teacher with very high standards and an excellent ambassador for the teaching profession. He was an excellent negotiator for teaching contracts with a focus on what was good for the students as well as the teachers. Unfortunately, he moved into administration and became the antithesis of everything he stood for earlier in his career. Eventually he became the superintendent of the school district and when he died, few people remembered anything about his years in the classroom.

Bruce was my department head and I learned more from him about organizing and preparing a good science lesson in my first year with the district than I had learned in four years of college. He had made a reputation by consistently advising state and national science fair winners. He taught the advanced chemistry and physics classes and brought many national science grants to the school district. His goals were set much higher than the classroom and as he moved into district position, the science grants dried up and budgetary cutbacks became commonplace. By the time he worked his way into the position of Superintendent of Schools, his classroom career was pretty much forgotten and a teacher antagonistic school board made the position so difficult that he had little positive impact on the educational system.

Ray and Bruce helped me develop improved classroom techniques. They also showed me how detrimental weak leadership is to the educational process.

My high school principal, Curt, was my immediate “boss” for 18 years. He was a well respected sports official until his legs gave out. We often noticed that his office door was closed after he officiated a state championship match. The rumor was that he was “napping”. I don’t know if that was true or not, but I do know what was true. Curt would defend his teachers against any questionable criticism. He would also defend teachers against complaints about decisions being made that affected students in an adverse way. Then, if the teacher’s action was not a good one, he would quietly point that out to the teacher after the parent had left. The smart teacher would then correct the problem.

Curt required weekly lesson plans so he was always aware of what was happening in the classrooms. I used to wonder if he read them and would sometimes turn in plans that were short and cryptic. I remember the week I turned in these plans: Monday-Mars, Tuesday-Venus, Wednesday-Jupiter, Thursday-Saturn, Friday-asteroids. That is when I discovered that Curt did read the plans. I spent ten minutes with him. The next day I had acceptable plans turned in and he paid special attention to me for a few weeks after that.

Curt showed many of the characteristics of an excellent high school principal. He defended teachers when they were unjustly accused by anybody- parent or board member. He supported their decisions and actions as long as they followed established policies. He would quietly discipline teachers who needed it and was always up front with any teacher in all of his actions. He always acted for in the best interests of everyone concerned. He was as fair with the students as he was with his teachers. He interacted with the students in a friendly manner and new many of them by name.

Curt was satisfied being a high school principal and served for many years until retiring and eventually moving to Florida.

When we moved to the west coast and I eventually returned to teaching, I worked under two other principals who played important roles in the development of my teaching career. John was a guidance counselor who worked his way up to being a middle school principal. His interaction with students was a very important aspect of his position. Students felt at ease with him, even when being disciplined.

John had some health problems from his time in Vietnam and found decision making to be very difficult. He was in a difficult position working in a school where teachers wanted to do things their own way and were often less than cooperative. Many of the attitudes were surprising to me and a number of them appeared to have their own agendas ranked ahead of what was best for the students. For example, most were against grouping by ability because it was easier to control a class that had very bright students scattered among students who could care less about school. They didn’t seem to mind that the bright students were held back from achieving their full potential and the slow students were unable to handle the level of work being taught (a middle ground approach). John hit a wall more than once. When he did make a decision I didn’t agree with, his door was always open and I could go in and tell him what I thought. He never held anything I said against me. That was one of several things I respected him for.

When John was encouraged to leave, I had to take part in a juvenile, distasteful proceeding. The district held a special retreat for all of the staff in the building to cleanse themselves of John’s tenure. It was felt that everyone harbored bad feelings that prevented them from moving forward under new leadership. That somehow everyone must have been psychologically injured. I wanted to vomit when I heard this plan but I was contractually obligated to take part. Here were professional people who were preparing young people to be successful and they had all of these hang-ups over a principal most of them never really supported. When everyone had to write down any bad feelings they had for John and then discard them into a trash container as they filed by, I knew then I wanted to find a high school situation. John is happy today. He is retired and working as a substitute teacher. I run into him once in a while and we swap some stories.

I spent a few more years here working under an excellent principal who had come out of retirement to be John’s vice principal. Tom had taken an early retirement from teaching to take care of his son. His son had a number of personal problems and John gave up his career to care for him and renew their father-son relationship. I respected him for that and stayed on to work with him.

Tom was in a difficult position as he had to work with a difficult staff. Many of the teachers were dedicated, but many others were self focused. One science teacher had spent most of his career telling science fiction stories instead of teaching science. His students were a disaster when they hit high school. When he retired, his replacement was a know-it-all fresh out of college who caused me all sorts of grief. A female teacher was especially vindictive and made me the focus of her attacks. Knowing I didn’t need to put up with the downslide of teaching expertise surrounding me, I became very active looking for another position. The year Tom retired, following a three year “healing program”, I also moved on to my present position.

Tom was very humanistic in his approach. He weighed all of decisions carefully before making them. He interacted with the students and always had their best interests as the basis for each and every decision. I was pleased to have worked with him for the years that I did. After he retired, he was constantly approached by other districts who wanted him to run one of their buildings to correct some problems that had become apparent.

These two blogs have been about people who have been part of my professional life and helped me become the teacher I am today. I hope that as you have read them, that you have thought about a teacher or principal who had a positive affect on your own life.

The Changing of the Guard

2009-12-01T21:17:00.000-08:00

During my years in education I have worked with a variety of educators. Many of them had a positive influence on my career. Teachers come and go. (I have even come and gone a few times myself.) Some teachers are hardly missed, while others leave a gaping hole to be filled. I have encountered a number of teachers who fit one of those categories.

I have been influenced in a number of ways by my fellow educators. These influences have helped me become the teacher I am today. A number of these people from my early days as a teacher are often in my thoughts. I thought I’d share a few of them with you. It will be nice to have others get to know a little bit about these people. Even though they are gone, they are not forgotten.

Ann was a home economics teacher at my first school. She was a good friend and very active with a chapter of the FHA. She always had a large membership and was very popular with the students and faculty. She chaperoned the prom each year and would critique my date. She especially complimented me when she and a group of her students were meeting at a restaurant where my future wife and I stopped for dinner.

Reid was my first principal. He was from the old school and wouldn’t hesitate to use corporal punishment when he felt it was warranted. His methods were too old fashioned for his bosses and he was convinced to retire several years before he was ready to do so. He taught me to be consistent and fair when disciplining students.

Jim was the guidance counselor. He and I hit it off from the day I met him. He had an earlier career as a physical therapist who worked mostly with the elderly. Jim was burnt out and gave up that career to work with young people. He had a special ability and made good connections with our students. We used to go to the Friday night basketball games together and then stay out until near sunrise drinking beer and eating pizza. Then I’d crash at Jim’s place, sleep for about an hour, then head home and drink some cold coffee before going to Lehigh University for my Saturday class. The funny thing is that I don’t like beer and I seldom drink coffee hot, let alone cold. After the second time, we scaled things back to about an hour after each game. I had sowed enough wild oats.

The principal, Peter, who replaced Reid, wanted Jim to be his partner for applying corporal punishment. Several teachers wanted the paddle used on miscreants but would not do it themselves. They would call for Peter and Jim to apply the punishment. Jim soon told Peter that witnessing punishment was interfering with his role as a counselor. Jim’s relationship with students was a strong one. It was broken when he suffered a stroke and was moved into a nursing home to spend his few remaining years among the elderly receiving physical therapy to help him recover his speech and regain some movement in his arm and leg.

Jim was the best man at my wedding and the first true friend I made in my teaching career. I lost track of him when his brother moved him to New Jersey but I believe he died within a few years after his stroke. Life wasn’t fair to him but the last time I visited him in the nursing home he was cantankerous and still demonstrated a great sense of humor.

When I changed school districts, I accepted a position at a junior high school. There were several long term teachers working in the building with me. Irma had over thirty years of teaching experience and lived with her two sisters. One of her sisters, Kathryn, taught English in the high school. The other took care of their house. A brother, John, was a maintenance supervisor for the school district. They were an important part of the educational system.

I enjoyed getting to know Irma. She taught seventh grade geography. Rote memorization was an important part of her curriculum. She related well to the kids and they seemed to enjoy her class as much as preteens can enjoy anything related to education. Unfortunately she got caught up in the drive to discredit memorization as a teaching method and the drive to take geography out of the junior high school curriculum and integrate it into social studies. When geography was dropped, Irma was forced into an early retirement. She always felt unappreciated by the administration.

Charlie was the eighth grade science teacher with over thirty years of experience. He had developed an effective curriculum coupled with methods that modern educational theory considers to be outdated. Charlie eventually decided that battling with the department chairman wasn’t worth all of the stress it caused. He retired and I lost track of him. He was a great resource to a young teacher.

More later ....

A Day in the Trenches

2009-11-22T00:13:00.001-08:00

I thought that maybe my readers might like to follow me for a typical day at school, especially those who are not educators themselves. Of course I might be just writing this for myself, but even so, it is good therapy.

I generally arrive at school between 7:00 and 7:15 in the morning. That gives me about a half hour to prepare for my first class. The kids start showing up about 7:30 and trickle in for the next ten minutes or so. Then they would “hang out” in the back of the room until the tardy bell rings. After all, they have to catch up on what happened since yesterday. These things are very important to ninth grade students. However, my expectation is that they are in their seats and ready to go when the tardy bells rings. Since these are CP Science nine students, grade threats are very effective. Now they are ready to go when I expect it.

My CP students are working on a chemistry unit right now. I do some interesting demonstrations that hold their interest. Friday I gave them an elements/symbols quiz and reminded them that they can earn extra credit points by singing the elements song in 1.5 minutes. Some kids think extra credit is S.O.P. at the high school. It must be an acquired expectation from the middle school days.

When class ends, my 30 ninth graders leave when the bell rings and 18 new ones enter the room. It is almost disconcerting to operate under an educational system where so many things are regimented and yet we want to encourage independent thinking. This class consists of students who are either turned off to school or just find learning to be an onerous chore. They are a real challenge. It is my goal to make them better all round students. We built and smashed craft stick bridges. That was moderately successful. Now we are also doing some chemistry, but in a different way from my CP class. After an hour of discussing elements and symbols and a demonstration of mixtures and compounds with sulfur and iron filings as an example, the kids leave for their next class.

Now I have my planning period. I patrol the halls to keep an eye on things and watch for problems. So far the only things I have seen involve what we call PDA (public display of affection). I usually stop it by telling the kids to stop swapping spit. Speaking of patrolling, I remember when I taught at a middle school and we had a bomb scare. We evacuated the buildings. Then the principal asked the male teachers to go back in and search for the bomb. Stupidly we did just that (I guess some principals think we are shock troops).

I visited the boys’ lavatory but didn’t find any smokers. I am not surprised since smokeless tobacco appears to be more popular in this area. In one district I was actually assigned to patrol the girls’ lavatory. The principal told me that since I was a married man, I could shout a warning and enter if I suspected anything (yeah, sure, like I would do that).

I spent the rest of my planning period grading papers and organizing some lesson plans, and ten minutes blasting some pocket tanks.

My fourth period class of ninth graders came trouping in and reluctantly took their seats. A few of these kids think they are in school for socializing and that the educational process is an intrusive act on their lives. The curse of the cell phone is very active in the class. A few of these students text at every opportunity and concentrate on ways to avoid detection by the teacher, instead of focusing on the lesson.

Parents look on the cell phone as a great way to stay in touch with their children. I consider the student cell phone an educational disaster. Any parent who allows a child to take a cell phone to school is working against the educational process and shouldn’t be surprised when grades start to “tank”.

The kids are interested in my sulfur/iron demonstration and overall the lesson is a success. I expect Monday’s quiz on the elements and their symbols to be a disaster. They are teachable students. They just won’t or can’t memorize information for a test. I tend to avoid using tests or homework with my fundamentals students since I know it will guarantee failure.

My fifth period class of juniors and seniors trouped in ready to learn some physics. We are in the middle of a triangulation lab but rain has messed up the schedule. I have two theodolites on permanent loan from a surveying company and a transit I purchased on eBay. I also have my own rods and tapes. We are determining the height of a flag pole and the distance from the campus to Mount Rainier.

Today we focused on vector solutions and looked at some youtube videos on vectors and Newton’s Laws. Then we discussed taking part in an engineering contest this coming February. The contest will involve building and destroying craft stick bridges.

My last class of the day is a CP Science nine class. The kids are bundles of energy and there are 31 of them. They are attentive and only once do I do a cell phone warning. However, they have the same problem as my first period group. Their study skills are very poor. Most of them do not take notes during class. Few of them really know how to study for a test. None of them knew how to properly outline a chapter from a text book so it could be used as a tool for test preparation. Even though I require them to follow an outline format and to outline each chapter studied, only a few have actually used it as a tool. Most consider the outline as “just another assignment”.

At the end of class, the students put their chairs on top of their tables so the custodians can easily sweep the room. After the students leave, I catch up on some work, blast a few more pocket tanks, and organize things for tomorrow’s lessons.

Then I pack up and head home with any uncompleted work in my bag. It is 3:00 and another school day has ended. As I walk to my car I think of the kids I connected with and the ones who remain elusively disconnected with school. I’ll get through to them tomorrow.

Everybody Has a Story

2009-11-14T00:02:00.000-08:00

Whenever I meet somebody for the first time and we have a conversation, I often hear a school related story. It seems that all of us like to tell stories about things that happened to us when we were in school. It is even more common when talking to a school teacher.

For example: last week I was at a tire shop talking about some new tires and wheels with the manager. When I mentioned that I am a science teacher, he told me a story about his “good old days” in high school. He graduated from the school where I presently teach.
He and three other guys were in shop class standing around a 50 gallon garbage can chewing tobacco and spitting into the can. The principal caught them and after dealing out some consequences, he ended up giving my new friend a ride home. To this day they are good friends.

Four guys in a shop class standing around a barrel and spitting tobacco juice into it do create a rather incongruous picture. But then this was a shop class where on some days students would have contests throwing axes at a target on a board. There was even a time when kids in the science class above the shop would tie a piece of candy onto a string and dangle it down into the shop through a hole in the floor. When a kid would grab for it, the candy was pulled up to the shop ceiling.

We all have stories to share about our days in high school. I see my students living out their future stories and I often think about some of my own. Like the time I parted Harry’s hair with a paper clip shot from a rubber band. I was lucky I didn’t hit him in the face. Or when I pushed David’s face down into a water fountain to get him all wet and ended up having him cut his gum on the water shield. We booby trapped lockers and were really fascinated with girls, who were at least two years ahead of us in many different ways. I remember another Dave driving his father’s car to some kind of a meeting with Jimmy and me as passengers. He was driving about 100 mph and kicking the dashboard with his right foot because the radio wasn’t working properly. He must have had his left foot on the gas. Later that year another boy became half vegetative after being badly injured in a crash along that same road. Sometimes I wonder how I ever survived school. Some of us were lucky. Some of us were not.

We had fun in school, sometimes got into trouble, and were never vindictive in our actions. All but a few of graduated and most lived good, successful lives. A few did not. Ned committed suicide a few years after graduation (I never found out why.). John had a heart attack and died before he was 30. Jimmy had a nervous breakdown in college and lived at home until a fatal accident. Judy passed away in her early fifties while Bernie, my best friend, died in his early sixties. Most of us still chug along and tell stories to anyone who will listen about “the good old days” with a Mr. Dubs or a Prof Meyers or a Coach Kline or a Mr. Potera or ……

I bet everyone who reads this blog could tell an interesting short story about their school days in the comments section. In fact, feel free to do so.

What we do in school stays with us throughout life in many ways. We don’t only learn academics and fine arts. We don’t just pass standardized tests. We also become members of society. School helps us develop emotionally through our interactions with teachers and our peers while teaching us to use our minds. Too many people in authority forget that school is more than scoring high on tests and preparing for college. Who gives a damn if Japanese kids are smarter than American kids in math? There is a lot more to education than being a math whiz.

How Stupid are They?

2009-11-09T20:55:00.000-08:00

Today I had some visitors in my classroom. Second period a girl was kicked out of her class for being a wiseass to her teacher. The teacher asked to put her into my room rather than the office. Sixth period another girl was placed in my room by another teacher for repeatedly using foul language in the classroom. I even had a problem with a young lady in one of my classes who consistently ignored everything I asked her to do unless I got right into her face. Is the full moon out tonight????
My kids were amazed at the stupidity of these people. Antagonizing someone who has authority over you is stupid. Unfortunately some students have to learn that lesson the hard way. Even more unfortunately, some never learn that lesson. High school is a time to learn and create lifelong memories. Causing grief to others and yourself makes for bad memories and a painful time that will often carry over into greater problems in adult life.
What incentive does a teacher have to cut a kid a break who has been antagonistic during the school year? I can answer that in one word- NONE! It is like poking a tiger with a sharp stick, except the student won't be physically mauled. Only his reputation will be mauled.
I remember one kid in Pennsylvania who jumped onto the hood of his own car in front of the high school with some sort of a weapon and wanted the Vice Principal to come out and fight him. What a smart thing to do! After the police were called, he became a nonentity on the school campus. I hope he is getting along okay as the "village idiot".
I ask kids why when they dislike a certain class or teacher, they deliberately fail the class. It only means they will be in the class again. The response is invariably a shrug and a quizzical smile that says "So what if I act that stupid. I'm just a kid."
Some kids outgrow their stupidity. Too many don't. As long as there have been schools, kids have been getting kicked out of classes. I will just keep an extra chair in the back of my room for visitors. At least that way they won't be cluttering up the office.

Your Cheating Heart

2009-11-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Cheating is not an unusual phenomenon in any classroom. Even the best kids will do it on occasion; especially when they are under pressure to get good grades from their parents.

When I was in high school, I had a science teacher who taught all of the science- biology, chemistry, and physics. He gave all of his tests out of test books. We were able to look ahead at the upcoming tests for the whole year. So a group of us got together and we each copied three different questions from the next test onto our desks and later put them onto paper. Then I compiled them and put together all of the answers, which I then gave back to the group members. Then we would punch pinholes indicating the answers into a pencil the day of the test. The funny thing was that I knew all of the answers anyway. The teacher got suspicious when everyone in the class got 96% or higher except for one girl who scored a 40%. He never did figure out how it was done. The teacher was replaced soon after I graduated. During three years of science, I never did one lab. Everything was done out of a textbook. Eventually that caught up with him. He was a nice guy but a terrible teacher.

Kids think they are too smart for us teachers. They don't realize that every trick they pull has been done hundreds of times before and that many of them I had even done myself.

From my early years in Tamaqua I remember many students. However, one made a lasting impression on me that leads to many stories. Joe M. was a big guy who was just cruising along through school happy with D's and once in a while earning a C. He was taking a short course with me in oceanography and showing no effort at all. I noticed one day that he was chewing tobacco and spitting into a cup that he thought he was keeping well hidden. I made him throw the cup away and told him that he was not allowed to spit into anything in my room and I figured that was the end of it. A few days later I caught him chewing again and was prepared to lay into him when I discovered he wasn't spitting into anything. I asked him what he was doing with the juice. His response was "I'm just swallowing it." and he gave me a big grin. In those days there were rules against smoking but nobody had thought about chewing tobacco. So I just shook my head and continued with the lesson.
Joe scored a "B" on our first test. When I discussed the test with the class, he couldn't answer any of the questions orally. I knew then he was copying from his neighbor. The next test I gave was a big unit test. I made two difefrent versions and made certain Joe's copy was different from his neightbors. No one knew they were different. After the test was given and graded I read off the scores. I read the score of the student next to Joe and it was a 98%. Joe broke into this big grin and looked me right in the eye. Then I read his score of 8% and he almost fell off his seat. Then I explained what I had done. Joe told me "You got me good on that one." and gave me a big, yellow-toothed grin.
The following year I taught the class again and Joe was right in the front row making up the "F" he had from the previous year. We actually got along quite well together and he earned an honest "C" or "D" and did graduate with his class.
A kid like Joe who is lazy and content to just scrape through with minimal effort but at the same time bears no grudges and takes whatever consequences are earned for his behavior is someone who can be a lot of fun to have in the classroom while providing a challenge to the instructor. After all, not everyone will go on to higher education.
I don't know what Joe is up to today but I think I would enjoy sitting down with him in a bar somewhere, sharing a couple beers, and reliving some of his school days. I always felt he would become that kind of a man. After all, only a real man can swallow his chew.

Back to cheating-
I remember one test I gave in a class where the whole test was true-false. Half the class had all true questions and the other half had all false questions. One student had an all true test and marked every answer false (his neighbor had an all false test).
With computers I am able to always give two different versions of the same test. Copying almost completely disappears under those conditions. Unless I am missing something, I don't have much copying going on. I know it goes on in other classes because kids tell me stories. Whenever kids copy or cheat during a test, it is the fault of the teacher. If the teacher is not vigilant or smart enough to prevent cheating, the kids will do it, even if they know the material covered in the test.

Cheating on homework, etc. is another whole topic for s future blog.

Would you believe …

2009-10-29T22:04:00.000-07:00

One of the mixed blessings of public school teaching is the gullibility of the students, especially the eighth and ninth graders. They are so trusting of their teachers that it is easy to lead them astray. If done in an unthreatening manner, it is not only a way to inject a bit of humor into the teacher/student relationship but it is also a way to encourage students to not take everything at face value and question things they are told.

For example, when I was teaching science to eighth graders , I inherited a monkey fetus in a jar of formalin. When I would set it out for the first time each year, I acted as if I had made a mistake when students noticed it. It was always possible to convince some of them that it was an alien in a jar. The alien had been shot by a farmer in western Washington when he discovered it walking in a field. I was hired by the government to keep and study it. It seems that the more farfetched a story may be, the more likely some students will believe it. Most often, the trick is to be sure they know the truth before the end of the class period. That way everyone has a good time with the story and the story can lead directly into a lesson.

I used to have sixth graders stop by my room after school asking me if they could look at “the monkey in the jar” that a brother/sister had told them about.

We also had some really interesting conversations about dogs and cats. I was teaching a lesson about rabies when an opportunity presented itself. We were discussing German shepherds when I pointed out to the class that they are very difficult to train because they only understand German. English doesn’t work. A Scottish terrier only understands Scottish and even a Siamese cat only understands Siamese. That is why they act so independently and don’t listen to commands.

I stood by this ridiculous assertion until the next day. That way I was able to actually stimulate some dinner table conversations in a number of students’ homes.

During my tenure as an eighth grade science teacher I became known as the “teacher who eats chalk” by my students, some of their parents, and even a couple of board members. I have always wanted to have a chalkboard in my room (in many ways I’m just an old fashioned kind of teacher). One day the kids were talkative during a lecture. I told them that they made me so angry I could just “eat chalk”. So I proceeded to bite a stick of chalk in half, which I then chewed and swallowed. The kids were surprised and couldn’t believe what I had done. I then passed out chalk, and several of the most extroverted ones joined me in a chalk snack. When the clay in the chalk coated the inside of their mouths, they decided they didn’t care for the taste. So I handed out Jolly Ranchers to help them get rid of the bad taste. That story spread throughout the campus and parts of the community. I have done this many times over the years, but I have learned to slip a candy cigarette into the chalk box for my “chalk” snack.

I am one of the few teachers in the state of Washington who still shows 18mm films. Thanks to eBay I have a small library of excellent films and a couple of projectors. A good friend owns the local movie theater, and students often see me there in the evening. Because I show some science movies in class, I

was able to convince students that I am the projectionist in the theater. That just fascinates them. My friend tells them that I watch for anyone who misbehaves during the movie since I know who they are.

When my wife and I both taught in the same Pennsylvania high school, kids would often ask me if she was my wife because we both had the same last name. I would tell them “No, she is my sister”. Then they would tell her what I had said and she would have to explain to them that the Mrs. In front of her name meant that she was actually my wife. Then they would proceed to tell her what was going on in my classroom.

It seems as if being a teacher who can interact in a humorous way with my students while not belittling them allows me to build good relationships that benefit everyone. My senior high kids know they can do some give-and-take with me and have an enjoyable experience in my classroom. Even old cracks from the sixties are well received: “You have wonder muscles. We wonder when you’ll get some.” “You are muscle bound. Bound to get muscles.” “Are you hungry? How about I give you a knuckle sandwich?” That seems to be a favorite with my upper classmen.

I even had a student with the bad reputation who was always being suspended for behavioral issues who once told me I had curly hairs sticking out the top of my shirt. My response was “When you go through puberty, you’ll probably get some of those too.” I not only never had another problem with him, but he actually looked forward to my class.

Over the years I have developed an ability to interact with students in many different ways. Students know I am concerned that they are successful and that I have their best interests at heart. My kidding and mock threats are always done in a way that they not only don’t feel abused but actually look forward to the interaction. Student/teacher relationships are often difficult at best, and only after a high level of trust has been developed should any of my activities be attempted.

A Code to Live By?

2009-10-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

Dress codes have always been a topic of discussion throughout my teaching career. I’m not speaking of student dress, but rather the ways that teachers dress.
When I was a student in high school, male teachers wore ties with either a sport coat or a dress suit. Women all wore dresses and nylon hose. When I student taught, I had three clip-on ties, two hand-me-down sport coats, and two pairs of slacks. I was expected to be formally dressed at all times. After all, teaching is a profession, not a job.
Things have really changed since my early years as an educator, and not always for the best. I always resisted wearing a tie because I did not like the constriction around my neck (partly also because it was expected of me.) At one of my positions, I was teaching in a three story building. I was on the third floor and the office was on the first floor. My tie stayed in my desk drawer except when I went down to the first floor. Then the tie went on. Once in a while I’d forget it and the principal would just shake his head. After a few years he gave up and the tie just stayed home. My justification was that if the gym and shop teachers didn’t need them, then, neither did I.
Looking back on those early days, I realize that dressing formally helped define the difference between myself as the educator and the teenagers as my students. It helped to maintain the classroom as a formal place of learning. As I gained experience, I developed skills that allowed me to interact with my students in a successful manner without the formal attire. However, I have always felt that being well dressed and well groomed are important in a world that has become very informal. I am the one in charge and it needs to be reflected both in my manner and my clothing.
I taught a total of 23 years in Pennsylvania and during that time the form of dress became more and more informal among the faculty members, but only to a limited extent.
I then had a six year hiatus from teaching and returned to the classroom in 1993 in the state of Washington. The mix of clothing proved to be very interesting. Ties had all but disappeared and jeans were in for the male faculty while the women wore anything from jeans with torn holes to nice slacks and dresses from formal to very short. One very attractive young teacher wore skirts that were shorter than the students were allowed to wear. She even had the habit of sitting on her desk when teaching. One day we were in the faculty room and she was sitting with me and another science teacher (older but inexperienced with women). She was sitting on a low chair with her feet up on a table right across from him. He was trying very hard to keep his eyes up on hers as she talked to us. I started to snicker at his discomfort which only made him get a bit flustered. It took a while but then she asked, “I’m flashing him, aren’t I?” I grinned at her and said, “Yes, you are.” So she put her feet down and just continued chatting away. That was during her second year of teaching. Today she is an elementary school principal and much more formal in her behavior and attire. I suspect she is a very fine administrator, too.
I have had two student teachers during my last fifteen years. Both dressed inappropriately for the position. The woman was overweight and wore jeans and tops that were several sizes too small with more rolls than Pillsbury. The young man wore formal attire the first week and then switched to old jeans and shirts. They both had clothing that fit their roles; they just wouldn’t wear it. I believe part of the problem is educational indoctrination that often encourages new teachers to blend in with the students and be their friend.
One of my principals once suggested at a faculty meeting that the men should all wear ties when teaching. I was surprised when some of the older teachers strongly objected. Most of the resistance was financially based and was based upon the perception that ties and coats are an unnecessary expense .
It is difficult to proclaim oneself as a professional when attired in rubber sandals and shorts or jeans full of holes while instructing students. It seems as if we like to vacillate between extremes and the pendulum has been swinging to and beyond the informal. I suspect that some day it will swing back the other way. Especially when people realize that if you want to be looked on as a professional, you have to sometimes dress the part. Looking worse than many of the students you teach does not accomplish that role.
I am nearing retirement and decided to go out the way I came in. I am wearing a tie but avoided purchasing a number of sport coats by taking the approach that I am a science teacher and as such can wear a white lab coat similar to that worn by a doctor. I am also doing this as an experiment to determine if students look on me any differently for dressing as a professional. So far I have noted slight differences that I believe would be magnified for the new teacher.

Den of Iniquity

2009-10-17T17:53:00.000-07:00

I remember early on in my career that I was given some advice by an experienced teacher. Stay out of the faculty room. It’s nothing but trouble. I soon discovered that he was right and wrong.

When I was a high school student and would walk past the faculty room, if the door was open, cigarette smoke rolled out of the room and I couldn’t see across the room for the smog. If students wanted to smoke, they had to go off school property during the lunch hour. Eventually teachers had to do the same thing due to fire codes, and later due to antismoking regulations on campuses.

Basically, the faculty room is a place where teachers can “hang out”. It will generally have a fridge, microwave, toilet access, and assorted furniture. It is a place where many teachers will gather twice a day, once during a planning period and then during a duty free lunch period.

I discovered early on that when I spent time in the faculty room I got nothing done. In one district there was even a continuous game of pinochle throughout the day. There was often a race to get a seat at the table and I always felt that some players dismissed their students early since the same three were always there first.

The newspaper was read to the point of falling apart, tests were run off on the duplicator, later a photocopier, papers were graded, and gossip flourished. I uncovered more information about various students than I ever really wanted to know. Whenever I wanted to accomplish something, I spent my planning period in my room, provided it wasn’t being used by another teacher.

There are some good points about the faculty room. It is a place to share information about students that can be of value by giving different viewpoints on their skills and behaviors. The faculty room is also a place to unwind from the pressures of the classroom. Teachers also get to interact with their peers and not spend the whole day just in the company of students. It is also a room for sharing (donuts, brownies, cookies, etc.).

One year we had a teacher who was getting married and wanted to make her own wedding cake. Every few days she brought her latest attempt for us to evaluate. One cake couldn’t be cut and another tasted like baking powder. One even flowed when it was cut. She finally gave up and had one of the other women bake it for her.

The typical high school teaching day does not allow time for teachers to exchange ideas and information on shared students nor on their teaching methods and curriculum across grade levels and departments. Even within departments such exchanges are difficult to manage.

The middle school philosophy is badly flawed, but it does allow for teams of teachers who share information on their students. However, there is no such time allowed for sharing curriculum ideas or student information across grade levels- a serious flaw for a number of reasons, not the least of which is “turf wars”.

Unfortunately the “den of iniquity” is usually the only place for sharing information and ideas. The trick is to filter out the gossip while actually focusing on meaningful topics and avoiding pinochle, gossip, football pools, and criticism of the administration.

Survival of the Fittest

2009-10-09T18:56:00.000-07:00

Somewhere along the line people got the idea that everyone needs to go to college. In the state of Washington parents can put money away for their newborn child's college fund. Everybody needs a college fund. That is the word throughout the land. Well guess what. Not everybody goes to college. Some people just don't want to go to college while others just are not college material.

Our department of education and people who decide the status of education in this state either do not believe it, or are living in a delusional state of mind. The latest mandate (unfunded of course) requires a third year of math to graduate. Not a bad idea if it was handled realistically. But guess what, the students must complete algebra and geometry as the required classes. I am not sure how that will help the dropout rate.

Now Seattle school district is trying to require a 'C' or higher to get credit for a class. Another well intentioned idea that often leads to grade inflation. In other words, a 60% mastery of the subject matter is not good enough. Get a 70% mastery. I don't know of any college who accepts students with D's scattered through their transcripts. However, a 'D' does allow a student to move on to the next level. So 'D' students become dropouts since that is not good enough to pass a class.

I have science curriculum that I have developed according to certain standards. Once a student completes my class with a certain grade, s/he has mastered the material to that level. Any rote memorization will soon be forgotten and only the skills of how to learn, along with the major principles of the discipline, will be retained. So throw a high stakes test at the kids a year or two later to show them how dumb they are and to denegrate the evaluation methods of the curriculum being taught.

Why are our graduates so dumb? According to comparisons of our students with students from other countries and according to the failure/dropout rates in four year colleges, our educational system "sucks".

People who say that ignore some basic facts. We keep everybody in public school, whether they want to be there or not. We can't remove troublesome students like charter schools and private schools. We have to teach 'em all. Overseas in many countries students are tested and sent to the appropriate school with only the best going on to their universities. Others are diverted into training for trades. Our students have fine arts classes. In Japan that would just be a distraction. In other countries teachers are respected. In this country teachers are expected to be babysitters and Heaven help the teacher who dares to discipline a rowdy student too agressively.

Why do so many students fail at four year colleges? Don't look at the public schools. Look at the colleges. Teaching methods are very different from the public school methods. Instructors make many assumptions about their students and most use a lecture/test method while flying through the material being covered. Competition is fierce among students and no longer are there low achievers to take care of the bottom of the "bell curve". Using college teaching methods in public schools would greatly reduce class size as students would drop out as soon as legally permitted to do so.

We used to offer curriculum for students not planning on college. Vocational/technical programs were offered to these students. Well guess what, these programs are going away from the middle schools and junior high schools and the high schools have elevated the level to attract students interested in engineering, not the student who wants to learn how to build a house with basic hand tools.

It is too bad that we worry about how dumb our kids are compared to the rest of the world and accuse our educational system of catastrophic failure when we live in a country that has become great through its educational system and attracts students from other countries who want to take advantage of what we offer. If our educational system has failed anywhere, it is in its production of political hacks who attack the system for their own political gain, not caring about the negative effect their tinkering has on the present generation of students.

Now I'll get off my soapbox and next time talk about "dens of iniquity"- faculty rooms.

They'll Eat You Alive

2009-10-01T19:57:00.000-07:00

The first year of teaching is the hardest. As a new teacher I was fair game for some of the hardcase, older students. I had a section of shop math where some of the students were going on 19 and I had just turned 21 four months earlier. After our get aquainted first month together, things became very difficult and from day to day I didn't always know who was going to control the class. Looking back I realize now how I could have handled things better, but at least I survived.
I was a real introvert growing up and hated speaking to a group. Now I not only had to control and educate large groups of students, but I also had to handle the attention of girls with their love letters hidden in my desk. A new, young teacher attracts some students like a flame attracts moths. It is one of those things the ed classes do not prepare you for. Once again, I survived and now the girls look at me like a "father figure".
In a smaller district the new teacher may not have as many assets for help over the bad spots, but there are other compensations. Scheduling is fairer and administrators are more available to assist.
In many districts the new teacher gets a schedule shafting, although nobody would admit that. The teachers with seniority feel they have earned the right to teach the classes with motivated kids. Give the "hard cases" to the new guy. Of course the new guy goes through some very difficult times and too often will not survive. Low pay and a difficult schedule, who wants to look forward to years of those conditions? It is unfortunate but the kids needing the most help often get the new teacher, who is least prepared to cope with them. But at the same time, the experienced teacher has some entitlements as well. A good administrator finds and applies the obvious solution.
I remember a new teacher was substituting next door to me. I talked to him several times about coming to me if he had any problems. He told me "not to worry". He had just finished a class called "Disrupting the Disruptor" and he would apply what he had learned. Unfortunately, his plan did not work and at the end of the day he was told he would not be called back. At the start of his first class, he picked out the biggest student in class, walked by his desk, and shoved his books onto the floor. He then started to shout at the student in an attempt to demonstrate something about disruption in the classroom. Needless to say, he lost all control of the class, word got around, and he had a terrible day with several principal visitations.
When I taught at my second district in Pennsylvania, we used to get new teachers that were trained at Penn State. Their theme was "be friends with your students". What a recipe for disaster. One teacher, call him Mike Johnson, told his biology classes "Just call me Mike. We are going to be friends and work together to master biology." It lasted two-three days before he forced them to use Mr. Johnson to regain some control of the classroom. There is a big difference between a friendly classroom atmosphere and having students as friends.
Then there is the new teacher who thinks every experienced teacher is out of touch and should retire. I have met a couple of them. I even mentored one when I taught eighth grade science in Washington State. He taught half of the eighth grade science and I taught the other half. I loaned him a three ring binder stuffed with my curriculum and told him to feel free to copy anything he wanted from it and then return it when he finished. Unfortunately he went to the principal and complained I was forcing my curriculum down his throat and he had ideas of his own. Needless to say that mentoring did not work out. Refusing any aisstance from experienced teachers is just asking for trouble. When I left that position to teach at the high school level, he had attained tenure and was doing a terrible job with his students.
It is too bad that ed courses don't teach their students how to distinguish teachers who are "burnt out" or just collecting a paycheck from those who are dedicated and look upon education as an important service to the students in their charge. They also need to instill confidence in their students without giving them arrogance and also how to interact with students in a teacher/student atmosphere and avoid the idea that students need to be their friends for best results.
One other short "newbie" story. Sometimes a new teacher can be very naive. "Betty" was a new PE teacher at my Pennsylvania school. She had returned to her alma mater, where she had been Homecoming Queen and a four year cheerleader. The guys just loved having their planning when she did since she always wore her skimpy gym shorts. At the end of the school year the guys always had a "kegger" picnic to celebrate the end of the year and the sign up sheet was in the faculty room. Thirty names were on the final list. Nineteen guys and Betty, then ten more guys who had never attended before. She thought it was for the full faculty until one of the women explained the situation to her. When she crossed her name off the list, so did eight of the guys.
More on faculty rooms later.

Interesting Day

2009-09-29T22:06:00.000-07:00

From time to time I'll throw a short blog into the mix about an interesting day at school. These blogs will digress from the train of thought being developed in my regular weekly blog.

Today we are in the midst of homecoming activities week and the kids were to dress as animals to earn points for their grade levels. I had a stuffed weasel that I put onto my shoulder with some masking tape. Kids just love being scared by a teacher. One sophomore girl screamed so loud when she suddenly saw it up close that she was heard throughout the building. Luckily it was between classes. What made it so funny is that I had her in class last year and she was used to my antics.
It is interesting how my relationship with my students has evolved as I have become more experienced. Kids appreciate a humanistic approach that includes some give and take teasing coupled with a teacher/student relationship that maintains some boundaries.
I have been wearing a lab coat on a regular basis for the first time in twenty years along with a tie. It is funny that most comments are about the lab coat and just an ocassional mention about the tie. There are only three teachers who regularly wear a tie so I am a bit surprised about that. but I did get comments about my Project Mercury/Space Shuttle tie today.
I will be retiring in 2-3 years and I thought I would go out looking as professional as when I started teaching many years ago. I wore a tie my first five years of teaching and then stopped, opting for a more casual appearance.
For secret agent day one of the sophomore girls is planning to wear a lab coat so she can be like me (although I don't see the connection to being a secret agent). One of the boys is planning to be me for Halloween and do the same thing. Should be interesting.
I had a lot of fun in lab today watching students struggle over finding a way to determine the volume of an irregular piece of salt so they could determine its density. In Physics one of my seniors figured it out. The advanced freshmen don't have a prayer. I seldom ever give kids a straight answer. I want them to use that thing between their ears to do some reasoning based upon the hints I give them. Some get frustrated while others accept the challenge. The trick is to keep them working at the problem without giving up.
Meanwhile my Fundamentals of Science 9 students are getting the hang of work with drafting equipment (mechanical drawing) and should be able to master scale drawings and subsequently map reading.
Last week all of my ninth graders were enthralled with the lesson. It was on an 18mm film shown on an old projector. None of them had ever seen an actual film in school. I have a film library purchased from EBay and the single concepts they present are as relevant today as when they were filmed. Videos tend to be too much of a shotgun aproach.
Next time it is back to Newbies.

Becoming A Newbie

2009-09-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

A newbie is a first year teacher. I was one a long time ago in the state of Pennsylvania.
I still remember how nervous I was when I walked through students to enter the high school on my first day as an educator. I had applied to substitute at my alma mater and prepared to be drafted into the army for Vietnam.
I was called into the district office and met the superintendent from a nearby district who offered me a full time position teaching math. Since I had a science degree, he felt I could handle the math. Especially since the kids had destroyed three different subs and he couldn’t find any math subs with a death wish.
My cooperating teacher during my student teacher experience had taught me a lot and I was not only able to get through the rest of that school year, but was given a permanent contract to teach science the following year. Unfortunately my undergraduate education classes were little or no help at all.
As a new teacher, I depended upon the advice of other teachers to help me resolve bad situations. There were no mentors available to new teachers. I was lucky to be teaching with two other science teachers who willing to help me plus the district was a very small district where everyone worked together or at least knew each other's business.
New teachers today still have to complete student teaching in order to get their credentials. Then in Washington State they have to pay for an additional two years of education before they are considered competent enough to receive professional certification. Even then the state is not done. Every five years until retirement the equivalent of an additional 15 credits must be completed.
These requirements say a number of things. First, undergraduate educational programs are out of touch with reality and don’t prepare truly qualified teachers. Second, be prepared to spend money and time to be licensed to earn a minimal salary that is actually insulting to a college graduate. Third, teachers are not dedicated enough to stay up to date on their own and the state has to force them to recertify every five years (must have been a university lobby at work here). Fourth, bright, dedicated people take the good paying career tracks so the state and university system have to guide the rest of us bozos through the complexities of the classroom.
The reality is that dedicated people are subject to the mediocre teaching methods practiced in undergraduate education classes and then required to spend additional funds for continuing indoctrination throughout their teaching careers. Requirements are piled on while salaries stagnate.
In spite of all attempts by the state to keep the best people out of education, I have seen many dedicated people enter education and stay there. I have also seen some that needed a lot more training to be successful in the classroom.
In my next blog, I’ll share some stories about Newbies in school.

Two Down- 34 to go

2009-09-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

I've been back in my classroom two weeks and things are falling into place. My students are getting used to me and I'm getting used to them. One even interrupted me ten minutes into lecture one day to ask when class would end, and did I intend to keep talking the whole time. It is amazing to me how some kids act toward a teacher. It is as if we can't do anything to affect their lives for the upcoming 180 days.

The class sizes are being adjusted with the health teacher down from 40 to the low 30's. My largest class is now at 32. But it is offset with a couple of small classes. That helps my average class size, but puts some limits on my helpfulness in the larger classes whenever individual help is needed.

Our school was just remodeled and I was rewarded with my own computer lab of 15 new Dells. I think the principal took pity on me because for the past ten years I have been supplying my own student computers through EBay. I just finished networking them and today students were able to start working with them. They are a great tool for teaching science.

Speaking of class sizes- let me finish my story from last week. Remember that this was my first full year of teaching. I don't think I mentioned that I was in a small district in Pennsylvania.

I waited for the 54 students to arrive for their first day with me. They all squeezed into my classroom. The twenty without desks stood around the back of the room. They were too shocked at the number of kids in the room to even think of throwing spitballs or kicking each other.

I "took the bull by the horns" and marched the 54 ninth graders out of my regular classroom down to the cafeteria, where I assigned two students to each lunch table. I rolled in a portable chalkboard and got ready to teach.

I actually had this situation for about a week. Not being an experienced teacher, I decided that I had to be a real prick or there was no way I could survive. The first student to start talking when I was lecturing got a severe reprimand in the form of a verbal toungue lashing, after I slammed a meter stick onto the table right in front of him. Talking was not a problem after that.

I assigned homework the second day and any student who did not have it done got chewed out in front of the class. I kept a paddle close to hand where all could see it.

I had decided that the only way to control such a large group of students, who were not academically motivated, was to be very strict and downright nasty. It worked for the first week. Then the science chairman volunteered to set up another class and took twenty of the students out of the class. I was then able to get back into a classroom and forgot about joining the army (at least for the next few weeks).

I'm not sure what had gone on behind the scenes. As a new teacher I was trying to survive. In those days it was pretty much sink or swim. The principal had put the schedule together and had messed up some classes. I suspect they were afraid of what might happen if I continued in such a difficult situation.

The joys of being a new teacher! Things are so much better for new teachers today. NOT! That everyone should want to go into teaching. YEAH, SURE! More on this topic in a future blog.

Stack 'em deep, teach 'em cheap.

2009-09-17T22:28:00.000-07:00

One full week plus two days back in the classroom and enjoying almost every minute of it. I just love the banter with my students as I help them adjust to high school while turning them into "little scientists".
I have two ninth grade CP classes with 29 and 31 students. That is a high number to do any individual work with students, but in a CP class many of the students are self directed. I can handle it but it is not an ideal situation. In a 1 hour class period, each student gets 2 minutes (but then who's counting?)
Contrast that with the health teacher who has a room full of ninth graders of varying abilities and behaviors. He had 40 students until yesterday when 1 was transferred. We have had math classes in the high 30's and history is often in the 30's. Don't even think about PE where the 40's are not uncommon class sizes.
Teaching associations (unions) try to have class size limitations placed into teacher contracts. Seldom will a school board even consider any sort of binding language since the costs can be horrendous. The best we could get was an agreement that the district would work very hard at keeping the class size average about 24 across the district.
My district is a small district and scheduling is very difficult with our limitations. However, we have most class sizes set at reasonable numbers as we begin this school year. The administration realizes the importance of class size to education and does work to shrink oversize classes.
Some districts focus on costs when working with averages and will count the counselors, librarians, and SPED teachers, who are all certified personnel. That puts a number of zeros to low double digits into the calculations.
Any parent with a child in a large class needs to make some noise and annoy their school board representative.
I remember my first full year of teaching. We did not see our class lists until the day before the kids arrived. I taught the ninth grade science and geography. I had six classes. One of my two advanced classes had six students. My third period class had 54 students assigned to it. I took over the cafeteria and considered joining the army.
I'll tell you what happened in my next blog.

My Teaching Background

2009-09-12T19:18:00.000-07:00

My teaching career began in 1967 when I was hired by a small school district to teach six sections of math: general math grade 7 and grade 8, algebra grade 9, business math grade 10, and shop math grade 11 for one semester. The substitues that had taught these classes were "eaten alive" by the students.

That was a very interesting year and more than once I considered resigning and joining the army. But I survived and taught at that Jr. Sr. High School for two more years. I taught Earth Science and Geography for that time.

Then I took a position in another district from 1969 until June, 1986. I taught many different science classes/courses while at my new district. I taught courses in astronomy, geology, marine science, radiation biology, and agriculture.

I then left education for the business world in another state until 1992. At that time I accepted a teaching position for 8th grade science and history. I taught history for one year and then I taught only 8th grade science.

After nine years with eighth graders, I changed districts in order to teach high school students. I have just begun my ninth year at this last position and I will retire from it in either two or three years.

I have been teaching science, with a six year hiatus, for 37 years. I will havea total of about 40 years of experience when I retire from teaching.

I still enjoy teaching and I love to interact with my students. The constant challenges keep me energized and being around young people keep me feeling young myself.

I have gained many insights into the world of education and I have had many interesting things happen in my classrooms over the years. I have worked with many different administrators and teachers in a variety of school districts in two different states in different parts of the country.

I took my "rose colored glasses" off a long time ago. I will write about true events, do a little politicising, and I will point out what I see as some of the fallicies being spread around about public education today.

Stay tuned for some enjoyable as well as poignant experiences.

Topics I Will Write About

2009-08-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

I have never been involved in writing or reading blogs, but there is a first time for everything.

There are so many misconceptions about classroom teaching that I thought some readers might be interested in following me through some of my teaching experiences. I am a high school science teacher working with young adults

I plan to discuss a number of things here and I will avoid any educational jargon so the reader will be able to follow what I am writing. The topics will include:

1. daily experiences in my classes
2. things that occurred in my classes earlier in my career
3. my opinions about recent events in the world of education
4. how you can help your child have a better educational experience
5. anything else that I believe will interest my readers (assuming I get some)

My next blog will be about me and my background in education.

I will be blogging once or twice a week unless something really special happens in my classroom.