Low Self of Steam

Over Thanksgiving break, I read Carol Richtsmeier (she of My Bellringers fame) 's new book -- How to Lose Your Self of Steam (& other teaching lessons I never learned from professional development).

This book was great, and you should definitely go straight to Amazon and order yourself a copy right now! Richie has put her sense of humor right out on display, and her stories about her Journalism students are fun, funny, and memorable.

First a word about the look of the book. My first thought was that it looked like a yearbook -- fitting, since Richie's class is in charge of putting the yearbook together each year. My fiance thought it looked like a composition notebook -- still fitting, as I'm sure the kids have gone through a ton of those writing assignments and reports. Either way, the look of the book is unique and really stands out on a shelf.

Something else that I really enjoyed was the little "inserts" on several pages, especially the "Chapter Terms." These small colored bubbles defined words and phrases used within the text -- including a dictionary-worthy definition and a tongue-in-cheek meaning. One of my favorites -- "In-service -- 1) another name for a professional development day. 2) another name for wasting a teacher's time."

These inserts made me think of another of my favorite books, America, by John Stewart and the Daily Show.

The vignettes, everything from a young talented artist who didn't want to give up his black fingernail polish, to the kids who caught the porn JUST before it made it into the yearbook, are touching, and show how much Richie cares about the kids who have been in her classes over the year.

Check out How to Lose Your Self of Steam, and see what all the fuss is regarding Big Fat Stupid Heads, heads in freezers, and rubber chickens.

Benchmark stumpers

Last week was Benchmark week at my school. Or, as I like to refer to it -- BM week. Four benchmarks! Four subjects! Four mornings of absolute joy!!!

I don't particularly care for benchmark tests. First of all, they often seem to be written by someone who hasn't spoken to a child in 10 years, much less actually TAUGHT one. The story problems always have really weird names in them (and believe me, I teach at a school with some really weird names) like Azcaputle and Terrenicavia. They contain questions that cover concepts that we have not even taught yet. And there is SO much reading involved that a lot of my kids who are good at math but not so great at reading just get swamped by all the verbiage.

Oh, and since we teachers are all a bunch of lying, cheating, stuck up, scruffy looking nerf herders, we certainly cannot be trusted to administer these tests to our own students. So I found myself in another 3rd grade teacher's room for those four mornings, watching her kids (and trying SO very hard not to tell them all the answers and fill in the bubble sheets for them!).

A few observations:

On the Social Studies test, a couple of kids said that a Good Citizen destroys property and breaks laws.

On the Science test, a few students said that it was ok to drink a strange laboratory liquid to identify it.

On the math test, 3 kids were absolutely stumped by the first page. They were not able to move forward until I pointed out to them that that was just the measurement page with rulers and unit conversions, and that question number ONE was on the following page...