No bout a doubt it

Thanks to Matthew at Look at My Happy Rainbow, I have a new top blog to check out on a regular basis.

He posted an excerpt on Facebook from Heidisongs Resources, the blog of Heidi Butkus. I have to share this excerpt as well, because it is fantastic. While Heidi (and Matthew) teaches kindergarten, and does NOT like to be told that teaching older kids (or adults) is the same -- I think we can safely apply much of what she says to all of elementary school.

This is her list of...

The Top Ten Signs You Work in Public School

1. The best person that can be found to teach K/1 teachers how to teach any subject is someone who has only taught high school.
2. If you were to add up the hours it takes to teach all of the required lessons in all of the teachers manuals in all of the subjects, they would total more than 22 hours of direct instruction per day.
3. Your current reading program is very similar to one that you have used before, way back two generations ago when the curricular pendulum swung the other direction. (I guess the advantage is that if you don’t like what you currently have, wait around for a couple of years and another curriculum or theory du jour will be in vogue to take its place!)
4. The curriculum that was chosen for you to use in Kindergarten was based on how well it works in some other grade level.
5. There is a teacher at your school that regularly calls in sick more days than she actually teaches, and somehow manages to hang on to her job.
6. You have had an LCD projector mounted on your ceiling for two years, but there is no money for a screen so you cannot use it. Or vise versa.
7. Three years after you have been given a new math program, they find the money to train you on how to use it.
8. Your legislature is thinking of increasing your hours but not your pay.
9. You know what your kids need to learn, but you don’t have time to do it because of all of the required programs.
10. The best way to make sure your kids learn (and therefore keep your job) is to close your door and do what you know works for your students!

Top Ten Memorable Moments from the First Day of School

Today was our first day of school, and if you've ever read Harry Wong's "The First Day of School," then you know that it's best when everything is planned out in advance, and there are no major surprises. This would be pretty much the total opposite of my school's first day of school. Also, you may be giggling at the name Harry Wong right now.

Our day was actually full of chaos and mayhem and unexpectedness. Instead of just narrating the day, I thought I'd pick out the top 10 moments and express them in list form.

10) Having people walk in and out of my classroom all day long to check out the air conditioner. The motor was working all day long, and if you held your hand 2 inches from the vent, it appeared to be blowing out cold air, yet the classroom remained at 85 degrees. I'm not really sure why the 2 guys inspecting it were wearing hard hats, but I guess there's no such thing as TOO safe?

9) I was able to offload a few handfuls of my leftover wedding M&Ms before classes began. My morning duty was monitoring the 3rd grade hallway, so I told the kids that I would give a few M&Ms to each student in the quietest class. There were two classes that I figured this would make no impression on whatsoever, and I was right about them. But the other four classes WERE very quiet, which was especially great seeing as how it was the first day, and they didn't know the usual routine. The class who won never asked me who "John and Tamara" were, or what was special about "July 2, 2010." They just shoved the candies in their mouths.

8) Despite the district going to a computerized attendance system, we learned in our meeting after school today (yes, a meeting after school -- memorable moment 8.5) that we would still need to turn in a folder with a headcount each day. We are to a paperless system what Hummers are to Green cars.

7) Getting called out of the 3:15 meeting to meet with a parent who didn't know where her child was. This boy was not supposed to get on a bus, yet he may have, instead of going to parent pick up. The lady eventually went home to see if he was there, and I never heard anything more, so I am assuming she found him. We'll know for sure tomorrow.

6) One of my students from last year coming up to me after school and giving me a hug. I am sorry to admit that I did not remember her name (I remembered it later), but it was nice to see her.

5) After-school bus duty was hectic and hot. It was about 104 degrees outside, and I was out there for about 20 minutes, due to several missing kids. The kids were finally found, but my buses were the last to leave, and I probably lost about 10 pounds through sweat. Also, there are usually 6 faculty members monitoring the first two buses, but today my buddy Ed U Cater and I were the only 2 out there between both buses. Not sure what happened to the others, but I have a feeling it had something to do with our bus duty never being officially announced.

4) The cafeteria ceiling collapsing. We were told to have lunch with the kids in the classroom, and things were delayed for a while, but I didn't find out until a little later the reason why. It seems a few sections of the ceiling fell (leak? gas? bigfoot?), narrowly missing one class of students.

3) The announcement at 2:55 that "the brother or sister of so-and-so needs to go to room 202 to pick up so-and-so." Turns out that the sister (cousin, really) was in my class, and that earlier, I had needed to send her to the office with a message. And she hadn't known where the office was, so I had to send another student with her. Yet here she was, being asked to find a room on the second floor, in the 5th grade wing. Thankfully, at that time, the 5th graders were walking by on their way out to the buses, so I snagged one and sent my student with her.

2) The teacher break room now looks like a high-scale Starbucks. There are fancy tables and chairs, the walls are bright colors, complete with trim, and the lighting is soft. It's good to know that I may not have working air conditioning in my room, the hallways were just painted last week, and our cafeteria may need to be condemned, but at least I can have lunch in style. Priorities.

1) My kids. It would appear that I have a really good group of kids this year. There were several on both rosters that did not show up, but of those who did, there were only a couple that gave me any problems today. One kid fell asleep, and a few others couldn't stop talking and playing. But other than that, they listened, they did what they asked, and when we did a fact family triangle, they completed the fact family with little trouble. I hope this trend continues!

Top 10 ways to close out the school year

Down here in Texas, we have crested the hill as it pertains to standardized testing. Yes, there are still some kids who need to RE-take the TAKS, if they are at a grade level that requires passing. And the lower grades are taking ITBS this week. But if not now, then very soon, all teachers will be wondering the same thing -- what do I do for the rest of the year?

Allow me to make a few suggestions. Here are ten ideas for things to do for the next few weeks to keep you and your kids occupied from the morning bell till the afternoon buses leave.

10) Teach your kids Advanced Quantum Mechanics. If the kids' jaws hang open in disbelief, comment that they will comprehend THIS lesson equally as well as they have comprehended everything else this year. (Note: this requires a level of sarcasm that may elude some teachers.)

9) Ask the kids to measure the perimeter of the school -- in millimeters.

8) Have a Bill Nye the Science Guy video marathon. After that, have a Magic School Bus marathon. Then show every episode of Reading Rainbow you can get your hands on. Time allowing, screen old episodes of 3-2-1 Contact. Bonus points if your kids learn the theme song to the Bloodhound Gang before the end of the year.

7) Commit fully to physical education -- OK kids, let's see how many times we can walk around the school in 2 and a half hours! Ready? Go!

6) Give each child one volume of the encyclopedia and a spiral notebook. Ask him/her to transfer everything to the spiral notebook, including pictures. Take off points for spelling.

5) Give kids a clipboard with a new survey every morning. Their job is to survey the entire faculty and student population. Once the complaints start (from other faculty members), task the kids with creating visual presentations of the acquired data.

4) Napping contests. Whoever sleeps the longest and most silently wins a prize each day.

3) Science experiment -- How many pieces of blank white paper can you completely darken using a single crayon? Do different colors give different results?

2) If you teach a bilingual class, spend the next few weeks having THEM teach YOU their native language. Appear to grasp the vocabulary or pronunciation perfectly one day, but then forget it completely the next. EX: on Tuesday, say the Spanish word for red as "rojo." On Wednesday, insist that the Spanish word for red is "eplok."

1) Make a flier that says, "Last day of school -- May 14." Send home.

Top 10 Reasons I Love Benchmark Week

10) Standing around, with nothing to do but watch kids quietly take a test, is practically another mini-Christmas.

9) Gives me a chance to see how students other than my own can do on difficult, tricked-up, culturally-biased questions.

8) My psychic ability gets a workout when I predict who will be next to ask to use the restroom.

7) I enjoy witnessing Einstein's Theory of Relativity in action, where every 5 minutes seems like 2 hours.

6) It's just about the only chance I get the time to quietly count pi out to 254,000 places.

5) As an army of one, I do less all morning than most people do before 9 AM.

4) I swell up with pride every time I hear that one of my students finished their test in 30 minutes without showing any work -- that's like doing a crossword puzzle in ink!

3) Sometimes I fall asleep and wake to find that I'm a giant blue creature on another world -- watching giant blue kids quietly working on a test.

2) With half the day devoted to testing, and shortened periods with my classes, there's not as much time for the kids to waste each day.

1) There is always the knowledge that next week will NOT be a benchmark week.

Guest who?

Yours truly is the guest of honor over on another blog today --So You Want To Teach? Joel has graciously allowed me to post a top 10 list over there. It's the Top Ten Rejected Meanings of TAKS.

Coming soon, to a T-shirt near you.