I have returned! Again, apologies for a long absence, but my excuse this time is so crazy you'd be crazy yourself to not believe it's true. I don't typically invent things of this caliber on my own.
I had remained in Stacey's room to finish out the Greek unit with plans to return to Mick's after spring break, when we will begin literature circles in RLA. This past Monday, however, my phone started buzzing at about 6:45 a.m.; since it was my birthday, I thought it was a pesky friend or relative calling to wake me up with birthday wishes, but what I got instead was a request from Mick's wife Julie that I sub for him that day. She was calling from the emergency room. Mick was conscious but in a lot of pain, and nobody could figure out why.
Of course ready to oblige and help where I could, I filled in that day, comfortably (I'm happy to say) collecting assignments, directing kids on their next move, and going about business as usual. And since I had passed my midterm, I was actually getting paid to sub, which was a pleasant little bonus to being in total control of a classroom for the whole day.
By the end of that same day, the doctors had discovered Mick's problem, and he went in and out of full surgery with little to no problems. The process went smoothly, but he was to stay in the hospital for at least the rest of the week recovering, and I was to take over his classes for the time being.
I wouldn't have blinked an eye, normally, because especially over the last few weeks the kids have began to respect and trust me more, and I've been at least mostly successful in helping them grow both academically and socially. I'm kind of good at this, if I do say so myself.
What tripped me up, however, was that Friday, March 25 was the end of the quarter, Mick was at least 3 weeks behind in scoring and posting grades, and we were between units in both RLA and Science, and I didn't know what he had planned for either. Not to mention they were straight up finished with the textbook in Science, so it wasn't exactly going to be a la-dee-dah just move on to the next chapter type operation. I had to plan a week's worth of classes on the spot, grade a mountain of homework, post all the grades online, get students missing work so they wouldn't get zeros on everything (we had eight or nine kids out sick every day the week previous), and fulfill Mick's door duty before school, all in four days' time. Plus, I'm by no means a PE teacher (or even vaguely PE-inclined), so figuring out what to do for that was a bit of a doozy too.
Lucky break number one: The vice principal made a general shout-out to the staff, who covered Mick's door all week. Thank you!
Lucky break number two: All the assignments Mick had yet to grade were easy to assess and I was able to blast through most of them fairly quickly. I still have a lot to do, but all I can say is thank goodness I have no problem with objectivity.
Lucky break number three: I had already been planning on squeezing in a Found Poem project, so I used that to fill my time in RLA. More on that later.
Lucky break number four: The catch-all, be-all Planet Earth "Mountains" episode, which covered both the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia and the Himilayas, which were two things we had talked about in previous science units. A whole day covered with that baby, and I could grade during class.
Lucky break number five: "You know there's another textbook, right? And you just go on to the next one?" BOOM! Go-Go-Gadget Water and The Atmosphere! (Lucky break number six: The sixth grade science curriculum is the bomb and even though I could never teach anything more advanced, the water cycle is totally my style).
Lucky break number seven, eight, nine, and ten: The kids, parents, other sixth-grade teachers, and principals have all been incredibly supportive, flexible and patient with me. My kids especially seemed to be aware of what a bizarre situation this all is, and were able to largely-self direct; I could write a "To Do" list on the board, and with very little instruction the majority of them could move through it with ease. I could therefore spend more time with kids who had missed a lot of class time, or had missing assignments otherwise, and by the end of the week we got almost everybody on the same page! And we went to Dairy Queen! Yes!
I will continue to update on Mick's recovery and my general sanity. Thank you to parents and fellow teachers for patience and support. I would like to also thank my University Supervisor Caroline, who was largely responsible for getting me the okay to continue to sub; student teachers are typically only allowed five days, but because of the extreme circumstances, Caroline, Stacey, and Paul (the principal) all vouched for me and told the district I should get paid next week, too.
I'd also like to thank Clark for being my rock and putting up with me this week, and for buying me the most beautiful birthday cake I've ever had.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Monday, March 7, 2011
I write to you today directly from my classroom. We have MontCAS testing today, and since teachers aren’t allowed to do anything beyond getting a kid another pencil, I’m left to sit and watch as my students meticulously fill in their bubbles. A familiar wave of thoughts and emotions has washed over me; I remember the frustration when I took Washington’s version, the WASL, when I was in grade school, and the disbelief when I found out how many times the MontCAS is administered. I think standardized tests are bogus, and I won’t say anything more on the topic.
They do, however, give teachers ample time to think and grade and write.
We’ve finished our Greek mythology pottery project, and the kids, overall, did a remarkable job. It’s refreshing to have them in big groups for an entire unit; they can practice cooperation, conflict resolution, dispersement of power, time management and self control in ways not possible when they work individually or with partners. It has also, on the other end, given me the chance to solve communication or behavior problems between students when they are unable to do it themselves, and I have remembered how truly fragile a kid can be.
The other main benefit of group work of this kinds is that it allows students to find their niche and perform in a way that’s easiest and best for them- I had a few jobs for artists, one for a writer, and a couple for people people. In a way, it was like a mini-experiment with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.
For those that haven’t heard of it, Gardner’s theory of the Multiple Intelligences states, essentially, that there are eight different areas (at this point- it’s a pretty fluid theory) in which a person can be novice, expert, or somewhere between. Whereas we usually think of someone having a “gift” for music or numbers, Gardner credits this instead to the “several different intellectual strengths, or domains of intelligence -- each located in discrete parts of the brain; each responsible for a particular human ability; each relatively autonomous from other human faculties; and each progressing through Piagetian-like stages... at rates that are influenced not only by heredity but by cultural values,” (Olson 92). They are: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
Through this project, I have been able to test out this theory, which I (truthfully) immediately bought into but never had to opportunity to try. As I said, however, it was but a mini-experiment, and because we had a highly condensed timeline for the project, there wasn’t much space for the kids to grow, so to speak. Most groups got the idea that they should pick the best drawer to be their artist, but some kids clearly chose a people-person role so they “wouldn’t have to do any work,” and others picked one job and ended up doing another. More work in this area would be both fun and rewarding.
In other news, in my constant attempt to appease the requirements for Indian Ed for All, I think the cleverest one I’ve seen was this morning in Math, to introduce the lesson on finding the circumference and area of a circle. Math seems to me the hardest subject to include an Indian Ed lesson, but Stacey dropped a Black Elk narrative about the importance of circles in his people’s traditions and practices! Boom!
They do, however, give teachers ample time to think and grade and write.
We’ve finished our Greek mythology pottery project, and the kids, overall, did a remarkable job. It’s refreshing to have them in big groups for an entire unit; they can practice cooperation, conflict resolution, dispersement of power, time management and self control in ways not possible when they work individually or with partners. It has also, on the other end, given me the chance to solve communication or behavior problems between students when they are unable to do it themselves, and I have remembered how truly fragile a kid can be.
The other main benefit of group work of this kinds is that it allows students to find their niche and perform in a way that’s easiest and best for them- I had a few jobs for artists, one for a writer, and a couple for people people. In a way, it was like a mini-experiment with Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.
For those that haven’t heard of it, Gardner’s theory of the Multiple Intelligences states, essentially, that there are eight different areas (at this point- it’s a pretty fluid theory) in which a person can be novice, expert, or somewhere between. Whereas we usually think of someone having a “gift” for music or numbers, Gardner credits this instead to the “several different intellectual strengths, or domains of intelligence -- each located in discrete parts of the brain; each responsible for a particular human ability; each relatively autonomous from other human faculties; and each progressing through Piagetian-like stages... at rates that are influenced not only by heredity but by cultural values,” (Olson 92). They are: linguistic, musical, logical-mathematical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalist.
Through this project, I have been able to test out this theory, which I (truthfully) immediately bought into but never had to opportunity to try. As I said, however, it was but a mini-experiment, and because we had a highly condensed timeline for the project, there wasn’t much space for the kids to grow, so to speak. Most groups got the idea that they should pick the best drawer to be their artist, but some kids clearly chose a people-person role so they “wouldn’t have to do any work,” and others picked one job and ended up doing another. More work in this area would be both fun and rewarding.
In other news, in my constant attempt to appease the requirements for Indian Ed for All, I think the cleverest one I’ve seen was this morning in Math, to introduce the lesson on finding the circumference and area of a circle. Math seems to me the hardest subject to include an Indian Ed lesson, but Stacey dropped a Black Elk narrative about the importance of circles in his people’s traditions and practices! Boom!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
The gods would be pleased
I've moved over to Stacey's room for a couple weeks to help with the Ancient Greece unit in Social Studies. It's an art-project-heavy unit and the kids are seated in city-state groups (Athens, Sparta, Corinth, etc.) for the whole thing, so they get to practice cooperation skills beyond the textbook's scope.
My main contribution so far was designing a crazy Greek mythology project! Here is the assignment I gave the kids:
Greek Mythology Pottery Project March 2-4 2011
Over the next two days, you and the fellow members of your city-state will be modernizing ancient Greek pottery by creating a comic book version of a popular Greek myth and adhering it to a vessel of your choosing.
The project will consist of the following steps:
1. Research the myth.
2. Outline and storyboard the myth.
3. Create the comic version.
4. Attach the comic strips to your piece of “pottery.”
To help make the process run smoothly and ensure that everyone has a part to play, you will need to divide up responsibility into these six categories: Group Leader, Storyboard Designer, Scribe, Sketch Artist, Color & Detail Virtuoso, and Maintenance Manager (if your polis only has five citizens, you will need to share the responsibility of Maintenance Manager among you). Each member of the team will participate for the entire project, but the different jobs will help a different person be “in charge” at different stages of the project.
Your group grade will be determined by:
- Accurate adaptation of the classic myth
- Clarity of the drawings and text in the comic strip
- Creativity and/or humor in the final product
- Using the appropriate number of panels to cover the pottery
- Cooperation within your team during the project
Your individual grade will be determined by:
- Outline or bullet point form of the myth
- Responsibility reflection worksheet
It was awesome- I got to talk about oral history, comic books, fate, tyranny and compromise, and why ancient Greece was freaking awesome all in one day. I'll post pictures when the glue is dry.
My main contribution so far was designing a crazy Greek mythology project! Here is the assignment I gave the kids:
Greek Mythology Pottery Project March 2-4 2011
Over the next two days, you and the fellow members of your city-state will be modernizing ancient Greek pottery by creating a comic book version of a popular Greek myth and adhering it to a vessel of your choosing.
The project will consist of the following steps:
1. Research the myth.
2. Outline and storyboard the myth.
3. Create the comic version.
4. Attach the comic strips to your piece of “pottery.”
To help make the process run smoothly and ensure that everyone has a part to play, you will need to divide up responsibility into these six categories: Group Leader, Storyboard Designer, Scribe, Sketch Artist, Color & Detail Virtuoso, and Maintenance Manager (if your polis only has five citizens, you will need to share the responsibility of Maintenance Manager among you). Each member of the team will participate for the entire project, but the different jobs will help a different person be “in charge” at different stages of the project.
Your group grade will be determined by:
- Accurate adaptation of the classic myth
- Clarity of the drawings and text in the comic strip
- Creativity and/or humor in the final product
- Using the appropriate number of panels to cover the pottery
- Cooperation within your team during the project
Your individual grade will be determined by:
- Outline or bullet point form of the myth
- Responsibility reflection worksheet
It was awesome- I got to talk about oral history, comic books, fate, tyranny and compromise, and why ancient Greece was freaking awesome all in one day. I'll post pictures when the glue is dry.
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