Reminders

Just a couple of reminders about upcoming events --

Monday is the deadline for the contest to win 500 business cards or 500 brochures from uprinting.com. Remember, all you need to do is leave a comment in the original post explaining what you would do with that prize. There aren't a ton of entries, so your chances are still good!

Also, I am hosting the Carnival of Education here next Wednesday, and it's going to be BLOCKBUSTER! Don't get left in the dark; get your tickets to the big show and submit a front-row post ASAP!! You can email me or use this handy submission form.

We love to fly, and it shows

Doing a little project with my kids called, "I Want to Go There," which involves the kids picking a vacation destination and then making a travel brochure about it. Included in the brochure will be trip information, travel costs, tables showing sight-seeing fares, etc, etc.

Yesterday, the kids in partner groups decided where they wanted their vacation spots to be. Most of them were really good choices like New York City, Miami, Paris. And some of them even chose those spots because they knew about some touristy things to see like the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower, and so on. Of course, there was an issue with spelling "beaches" (One kid -- "I know! It's B-I-T-C--" before I cut him off and said, "Nope! That's not it!")

A few weren't quite sure what their attractions would be. One group had chosen Mexico as their location. When I asked what people would go there to see, they replied, "Mexican people?"

Um, we can see plenty of them right here!

Today, I asked the kids to estimate the cost of airplane tickets to their destination. It was really interesting to see how much they think travel costs. One group said a ticket to NY City would be 2 bucks, while another group had a ticket to China rather under-priced at $50.

Hey, be sure to catch this week's Carnival of Education over at Siobhan Curious. Lots and lots of great articles there! And the Carnival will be here at Learn Me Good next week! So be sure to get your entry in early, by emailing me or using this handy dandy submission form.

One more week

Just a reminder, the contest for 500 free business cards or 500 free brochures ends next Monday night, June 1st! All you have to do is leave a comment on the original post telling what you would use the cards or brochures for. Best entry will win! It's as simple as that!

Can't win if you don't enter, though!

Pump up the Volume

My last post was about kids who answer (nearly) every question with the words, "I don't know."

But what do you do about kids who answer so softly that you can't even hear them?

I have a couple of kids in class who I am constantly urging to speak louder in class. When I call on them, I can see their mouth moving, but even the person next to them can't possibly hear what they are saying. It's even worse when the air conditioning is blowing and making noise. Then, there is NO chance of hearing these kids.

Some of them are kids who just don't like to be called on, but some are kids who always want to be the "teacher of the moment," even asking to be called on to go up to the board to work out a problem.

I have a strict rule in my class that when someone works a problem in front of the class, they are not allowed to just write and DO the problem. They have to explain the steps verbally as they go. In some cases, I have to stop a kid midway through their first step and say, "We can't hear you." Usually, they pause for a heartbeat, then start over AT EXACTLY THE SAME VOLUME LEVEL. So I repeat, "We can't hear you. Please speak louder."

Apparently, they think "louder" means "don't change a thing."

There are some days when I think we could play the game all day long, with me just repeating the same request and them starting the first half of their sentence with no change. Over and over and over.

Even out-of-the-ordinary entreaties often fail to have any effect:

"I've heard you yelling at people out on the playground, so I KNOW you can speak louder!"

"Pretend you're talking to everyone in the whole school!"

"I can't hear you -- I'm OUTSIDE your head!!"

Sure, I could go over and put my ear directly beside each child's mouth as they speak. However, besides not wanting to contract every disease and illness they have, that doesn't solve the problem. The point is not just for ME to be able to hear them, but for the whole class to hear what they are saying.

What do you mean You Don't Know??!?

I was just browsing through the most recent Carnival of Education and came across this fantastic post by Loony Hiker (Pat) of Successful Teaching. How often have you heard your students answer a relatively simple question with the words, "I don't know?"

Do they truly not know? Unlikely, most of the time.

Is it a stall for more time? Quite possibly, if you give them more time and they DO answer the question.

It is merely a defense mechanism that they are accustomed to using? Most probably yes.

So how do we get them out of this habit? Read Loony Hiker's post, but please leave your comments here as well, because we ALL have this problem I think, and we are ALL looking for ways to get our kids out of this rut.

The results are in!

The TAKS results came in earlier this week, and I finally told my kids how they had done yesterday. Overall, my scores were really good. Out of 37 kids tested, I had 32 pass and 10 get Commended (missed 3 or less questions).

I was a bit sneaky in how I broke the news to the kids. I had told them before the test that I would throw an ice cream party for everyone who passed the test, but earlier in the week I told them that I was pleased with how everyone had tried their best, so they would all be getting ice cream.

Yesterday morning, I wrote a small note and picked 2 kids to take it across the hallway to my partner teacher. I then told the class that they had done really well, we'd all be enjoying ice cream, oh, and by the way -- you all passed! Every one who I was talking to passed!

Of course, the note I wrote asked my partner to hold those 2 kids there for a couple of minutes, and of course, those 2 kids were the ones from that class that had not passed. I intercepted them in the hallway on their way back and broke the news to them gently.

Did the same thing with my afternoon class and the 3 kids that didn't pass.

Out of the 5 kids who didn't pass, 4 of them were really close. It would appear that they missed passing by only 1 or 2 questions.

We also got the results of the 2nd reading test, and combined with the FIRST results, the 3rd grade rocked this year! We had a 94 or 95 percent passing rate, which is spectacular for our area!

Now we just have SEVEN more days of school left to trudge through...

Exclamation points!!

The other day, I was working on punctuation with my kids. Specifically, the exclamation point. We went over how it is used when someone is excited or shouting. Perhaps an oversimplification, but it gives a pretty general rule for its use.

We did a few example sentences together.

"Don't call me names!"

"Stop talking!"

Then I asked the kids to write some of their own examples. Some of them got it pretty quickly, and it was amusing to read things that they have obviously head/said often.

"You're grounded, Corey!"

"Mary, stop copying me!"

"Hey kid, that's not your pencil!"


A few others didn't quite get the distinction between a statement and an exclamation, as evidenced by their line of sentences.

"I like pizza!"

"I like the Incredible Hulk!"

"I like water!"


Then there were the oddities, like the boy who had obviously done a poor job of copying from his neighbor.

She had written, "The school is out!"

He had, "School out!"

*Is that like Seacrest out?*

In other news! This week's Carnival of Education is up! It's over at the Education Wonks! Check it out!

Meet Hopeful But Frustrated

I received an email a couple of weeks ago from someone at a "Virtual Book Tours" site. They asked me if I would like to host one stop on such a virtual tour for the author of a new book which sounded like it was right up my alley. Seeing as how this seemed like a REALLY neat idea to me, I immediately said, "HECK YEAH!"

Meet Hopeful But Frustrated Teacher. HBF for short. In this world of parent showmanship when it comes to naming children, one can only hope that Hopeful But Frustrated is not her LEGAL birth name, or that if it is, that at least she goes by Hope.

HBF is a middle school teacher who has written a book called No Teachers Left Behind. Set at the fictional Vilyon Middle School, the teachers don't merely have to deal with unruly students and stubborn parents, but (the horror!) a truly awful principal named Alicia Marsh.

I must admit, I know all of this from reading the information at the book's main site. I haven't actually read No Teachers Left Behind. But I can honestly say that I WANT to read it. The format sounds very similar to that of Learn Me Good, a series of emails and communications. The tiny excerpt I read was very captivating. And of course the subject matter is near and dear to heart.

Without any further ado, let's get on with this Virtual Book Tour, and allow me to present a Guest Post (since 2009 IS the year of the Guest Post here at LMG), by HBF.

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Dictionary Additions from HBF Teacher

Mister Teacher delights and inspires his fellow teachers on a daily basis, but few of his posts have delighted me as much as Mister Teacher’s venture into the world where only a few, the talented ones like Webster and Scholastic, have gone before - into Dictionary Land - with his own Teacher’s Dictionary.

When I read some of the terms, I was laughing so hard that I was hitting my head up against the dry erase board. Don’t think for one minute that some of my students did not take the opportunity to write on the back of my blouse at that time either. Well when I was done rolling on the floor laughing, I realized that at my middle school, we have a few unique terms ourselves. Before I can discuss them, I must first pay homage to a couple of Mister Teacher’s terms which stood out to me, and then I will share a couple of my own phrases with you. Perhaps one of them may strike a chord with you, just like a few of Mister Teacher’s words hit home with me.

I particularly liked Mister Teacher’s "gradecation" although I’m not familiar with the word. My students typically frown upon me grading their papers because in order for me to come up with a grade, they would actually have to complete an assignment. Therefore I have no official knowledge of “gradecation”, but I have taken at least one “mental health day” this year. No, I’m not crazy, but a day away from the classroom, locked away in a padded room with nice, soft music, and no one repeatedly calling my name does a great deal for preserving my sanity.

"Maximum Kiddage" (the largest amount of students that can fit in a certain area) is another one of Mister Teacher’s terms that I love. At my school, there is never a number that is too large to go in the smallest area of the school. This area is generally known as my room. I tried explaining the theory of “maximum kiddage” to my principal, but for some reason, he didn’t seem to understand it.

There is so much school jargon bantered about my middle school that it took me a while to decide on the best words/phrases, but somehow I got it down to my two favorite work related expressions.

Number 1 – “frequent flyer”. I’m not talking about Delta or Air Tran. I’m talking about those kids who are always sitting on the principal’s bench. You know the ones I’m talking about. I walk into my classroom, even before the day begins, and this kid is on the bench. Eight hours later, I’m walking out the door, and this kid is still on the principal’s bench. Of course this kid had not been on the principal’s bench all day because I did see him in the cafeteria getting his lunch. Later, I saw him eating that same lunch on the principal’s bench. Nevertheless, there are quite a few students like “him” at my school. They can barely go forty-five minutes without getting in some kind of trouble and being sent to the principal’s office. When these kids are seen in the hall without passes, nobody even questions them because everyone knows where they are going. They’re going to the bench. They’re the “frequent flyers”. If you could accumulate points for trips to the bench and convert these to dollars, these kids could buy their own schools.

And Number 2, sadly my favorite – “five year plan”. This phrase is similar to one of Mister Teacher’s words, but in middle school, some of us dreamier teachers like to think of our students as being goal oriented. Sure there are only three grades (6th, 7th, and 8th) in middle school, and it should normally take only three years to complete them all. But we would be less than enthusiastic teachers if we did not rejoice when some of our lower achieving students finally made it out of middle school in their fifth year. Sure they are a little behind their peers, but hey, these kids were working on a plan.

On a different note, despite the words my colleagues and I toss about, we are very serious about inspiring our students to set high expectations and then challenging them to exceed their own goals. In my novel, No Teachers Left Behind, I give voice to my frustrations about the people and events which place obstacles in my way as I attempt to motivate my students. The novel is told through a series of emails, poems, and brief conversations and is available at Amazon.com. Give it a read; you’ll love it.

Mister Teacher, you’re tops with me, and I look forward to reading more of your dictionary. Thanks for allowing me to visit.

HBF Teacher

Ask and ye shall receive

This weekend, I wrote a post asking people who had read Learn Me Good to post a review on Amazon, and I just want to say thank you to the people who heeded the call!

An especially big thanks to The Scholastic Scribe who put up a glowing review on her site this morning, asking all of her readers to check it out. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Scribe and Columbia Lilly, who also posted on Amazon (thank you), were winners of the book through a contest I ran back in February. Don't forget that it's not too late to get entered in the CURRENT contest going on here at Learn Me Good.

500 business cards and 500 brochures are up for grabs from uprinting.com. All you have to do is leave a comment on the original post, and the best description of how you will use the cards or brochures will win. I will say that only a couple of people have even mentioned the brochures, so they're at the top of the list for THAT half of the prize!

Follow me on Tattle

Since I don't Twitter, after all, I'm thinking there needs to be a network for teachers called Tattle.

I was speaking yesterday with some fellow teachers about the excess of tattling we experience every day, and one of them said that she uses a sort of "tattle box" with great success. The kids write out their complaints on a piece of paper and put it into a box which is then thrown out perused at the end of the week.

My own personal philosophy is to quote WC Fields and say, "Go away kid, you're bothering me!"

Last year, I wrote a Mr. Teacher column about this topic, where I asked several teachers what strategies they used to combat this epidemic that is tattling. This column, entitled, "I'm Telling!" originally ran on education.com on July 28, 2009.

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I used to have only two pet peeves in life -- people who drive in the dark with only their parking lights on, and people who quote entire scenes of Monty Python at a time. Since becoming a teacher, however, a new contender has risen to make those a distant second and third. Oh heinous pet peeve, thy name is tattling.

Anyone who has dealt with children (or professional basketball players) has had to deal with tattling. Some kids tattle to get other kids in trouble, some kids tattle just to get some attention, and some kids tattle because they truly feel a misappropriation of justice is happening.

Regardless of the reason though, most teachers find tattling incredibly annoying.

There is a significant difference between telling the teacher something and telling on someone. For instance, if Susie is hanging upside down from the monkey bars by her shoestrings and can't get down, then yes, that's something I need to know. However, I think I can do without hearing that Billy allegedly called Peter the "S -word" ["stupid"] at the apartments last night.

Many children seem unable or unwilling to make this differentiation. I had unofficially given one boy in my class last year the cabinet post of Tattle Tale General, as he would assault my ears as soon as he saw me each morning, laying out the general school population’s misdeeds with almost military precision.

"Sir, status report, Sir! Tommy kicked Lisa's book bag, Kelly was making faces at a second grader, and Donnell is jangling pennies in his pocket. In world news, Lindsay Lohan was busted on DUI charges again."

I once joked that if teachers didn't receive any base salary at all, but they were given $25 every time one of their students tattled on someone, we could all retire to the Bahamas by the end of the second year.

Since tattling is so prevalent, I asked several teaching colleagues how they handle it in their classrooms, and what, if any, strategies they employ to curb it.

Some of the no-nonsense teachers immediately replied that they tell their kids up front that they don't want to hear any complaining unless it involves one of the 3 B's - Barfing, Bleeding, or Broken - or the "Double D" - Dangerous or Destructive.

One teacher said that when a child approaches her, she tells him, "Save it for tattle-time." Of course, there is no tattle-time, but the younger kids never catch on to this.

Another interesting technique was the suggestion of a "tattle sandwich." Sounds like it would be quite tasty with a bit of mutton and some ripe tomato, but this teacher allows students to tell on classmates as long as they say something nice about the person before and after that tattle.

Many of the responses I received suggested having the kids write down the tattles instead of speaking them. When pressed to use perfect grammar, punctuation, and spelling to report an injustice, it seems many kids just aren't willing to put forth the effort. Some teachers require their students to write down their grievances during recess, which is a deterrent, and some require that the kids fill out complicated incident reports involving exact times, minute details, and a list of witnesses.

My favorite strategy of all the responses involves the use of a tattle patsy. A few teachers told me that they have a stuffed animal or a picture on the wall that they send the kids to when they absolutely have to tattle. This makes perfect sense because some kids just want to speak the words into the air, regardless of who is listening.

A couple of years ago, I witnessed one of my little girls, desperately in need to tattle, turn to some random woman who happen to be walking down the hall, and claim, "Miss, he hit me!"

To this woman's credit, she continued walking without making eye contact.

My thanks go out to all of the teachers who replied to my request for information. I know I learned some new tips that I will be employing this year, and if you are a parent or teacher reading this, hopefully you have as well.

I can already picture "Tattle Toby," the stuffed elephant in the corner. Yes, he's already rolling his eyes.

Be kind, re-view?

Hey everyone, this is just a generic request. As we are very close to the end of the school year, and summer vacation is often the time when many teachers can once again lift their head above water and read for pleasure -- I am asking anyone who has read my book, Learn Me Good, to please, please, pretty pretty please, post a review of it on Amazon.com (if you have not already done so).

It doesn't need to be Hemmingway-esque -- just a paragraph or two would be great!

If you have NOT read it, but would like to review it, send me an email, and we'll see if we can make a deal. Some kind of email copy for a review type swap.

Thanks!

Now THAT's how you save money!

Some of you may recall a few of my district's poorer moments, in terms of decision making and money handling. The most recent and glaring of these, of course, was the $64 million dollar shortfall which resulted in the firing or "retirement" of almost 500 employees.

Well, it would seem that they have taken action to recoup some of that money. A little belt-tightening, a little budget crunching, a little cost saving.

Here are three great ways that my district is saving us money (even as we speak!):

3) Those supplies we ordered with our budget money way back in November? Yeah, they never came, so one can only assume that the orders were cancelled and the money recouped. Ca-ching!

2) I'd say the water bill is most definitely not an issue at my school, since several of the water fountains (most notably the one in the 3rd grade hallway) haven't worked since October. They say water is vital to brain function, but we say saving money is vital to budget!!

1) A decision was made last week to shut the air conditioning off in the classrooms at 3:15 every day. Nevermind the fact that many teachers work in their room PAST 3:15, or that after-school parent conferences are now held in an oven -- think of the coin we're saving!!!

This is just one man's observations. If you've noticed any other cost-saving measures, please feel free to submit them in the comment section.

Inspiring?

I found out today that one of my posts made someone's list of "100 Incredibly Inspiring Blog Posts for Educators." Oddly enough, it's a post I don't find THAT inspiring, but hey, one man's inspiration is another man's perspiration. Or words to that effect.

Anyway, the post that made the cut was America's Next Top Student, which was a reposting of an earlier education.com article about appropriate and inappropriate dress for kids at school.

Check out the list and you'll also find posts from Joel at So You Want to Teach, Mr. D of I Want to Teach Forever, and Dr. Pezz among many many others.

That is highly illogical, captain

Since there are only 3 weeks (and change) of school left, I thought I would stop having a Problem of the Day word problem as my bell ringer activity and switch to something more fun. Of course, I suppose I should have remembered that fun is in the brain of the beholder.

I've got a set of overhead transparencies of logic puzzles. You know the ones -- Bozo, Schmozo, and Jimbo own a dog, a cat, and a giraffe. You get clues and fill in a grid to determine which pet goes with which kid.

Personally, I have always LOVED logic puzzles like this. Of course, I love math also, so call me screwy. When I've done logic puzzles with my 3rd graders in the past, they've enjoyed them as well.

Maybe my kids will grow into them. However, the first day was not reason to celebrate their arrival.

The first puzzle in the set involves 3 boys having their birthday parties at 3 different places. I explained to the kids how they needed to copy the grid that showed the boys' names and the place names. We read the first clue together, which said something along the lines of "Richie, and the boy who had his party at the roller rink, are best friends."

I then asked the kids, "So what does this clue tell us about Richie or the other boys?"

Several hands went into the air. I called on one of my brighter little girls.

"It tells us that they are very excited about having their birthday parties?"

"Um, they probably are, but remember we're trying to figure out WHERE each boy is having his party."

I called on another kid.

"They are happy?"

OK, I thought, this is not going in the right direction. Maybe if, instead of party locations, the top part of the grid showed emotions like Happy, Excited, and Manic-Depressive, THEN we'd be getting somewhere.

But still I pressed on. "The boys are all happy and excited, but we are looking for a clue to WHERE the boys are having their parties. What do you think?"

"I think they will have their parties at a house because those places are too expensive."

By this time, I am just about making "gagaga" sounds, flapping my lips with my finger, when finally another little girl got the clue and offered the right piece of information from the clue.

Despite the rough first outing, I am determined to stay the course here. I always thought puzzles like this really exercise the brain, and I have some kids whose brains seem to be morbidly obese.

As long as we can get past frugality and emotions...

Calling cards, anyone?

I was recently contacted by some folks at Uprinting.com who wanted to offer the readers of Learn Me Good a chance to win 500 free business cards or 500 free brochures! Uprinting.com has been around for over 25 years and offers free file review and helpful customer service!

Now you might be thinking, Just what in tarnation is a TEACHER going to do with business cards?? Well, that's the whole point of this little giveaway! The sky (and your imagination) is the limit! Maybe you just want them to have something to throw at kids standing in time-out corner! Maybe you want to have some that say "Official Insubordinator" or "I don't do windows!" Or maybe you want to have something to pass out to friends, family, and people you meet that says a little something fun about yourself.

That's what I plan to do with MY business cards. Use them as little advertisements for Learn Me Good the book.

Entering the contest is super simple. All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog post, describing what you would use the free business cards or brochures for.

The best entries, as judged by my girlfriend, my dog, my pet raccoon, and me, will win the cards or brochures.

This contest will run from May 11-June 1, 2009. Please please please, feel free to blog about this contest and link to it from your own blog or website.

Winners who reside in the US and Canada will receive free shipping; costs will apply to anyone else.



Good luck, and be creative!

The Running of the Bullies

Yesterday was Field Day at my school. And by Field Day, I mean Field Hour-and-a-Half for my grade level, which is really all the time we needed outside in the heat.

For the past couple of years, I have been having back problems and foot problems, but I decided yesterday that I was tired of NOT running the race with my kids and being a slave to health issues. So I ran.

The really screwy thing was that (in addition to eating a large, catered barbecue lunch immediately beforehand), I hadn't run in 2 years, and believe it or not, I was actually very nervous about running! As my class and I all lined up at the starting mark, I had butterflies in my stomach, and my legs felt a little weak!

However, as soon as the whistle was blown and I got those first couple of strides out of the way, it all came back to me, like riding a bicycle or gutting a shark, and I blew the competition away. Sure, they were all 9 and 10 year olds, but still, I smoked 'em!

Field Day was a lot of fun, and afterwards, I went out with a couple of friends and stayed out late. Needless to say, this morning, my body aches -- from the effects of a certain adult beverage AND the first run in years. I laughed so much and so hard last night that my abs actually are sore. Let's just say that when the cheesy cover band asks for audience help in singing the "Bum bum bummm" part of "Sweet Caroline," it is MUCH more fun to sing it at the wrong times during the song (and after).

While Field Day was fun, the parent conference I had the day before was not. It seems that one of my kids, who doesn't speak much English, has been experiencing quite a bit of bullying by his classmates. They have been calling him names like "gordo," "feo," "cabeza cuadrado," and so on. To make matters worse, a lot of it has apparently been going on in my classroom, right under my nose!

My Spanish is not the greatest, so when I hear kids speaking in Spanish to this boy, I had always thought that they were actually doing what they were supposed to be doing, which was translating what I was saying, so that he would understand the instructions. Instead, they have sometimes been mocking him, NOT helping him, and in cases, doing very inappropriate things.

Those kids have now been moved, and this boy has 3 new kids at his table, kids that I trust to do the right thing.

Looks like we will be having several more parent conferences this week to discuss the bullying itself...

Subscribe now, operators are standing by!

This week's Carnival of Education is up and running over at Steve Spangler's Science Blog, and it was written by Mamacita of Scheiss Weekly! If you're a teacher and feeling under-appreciated, head on over and you won't be sorry. If you're NOT a teacher, you might be sorry, but you won't be bored. :)

And since this IS Teacher Appreciation week, let me just say Thank You (in very large letters) to everyone who reads Learn Me Good on a regular basis, and to all of you who have become FoLMeGs. I love writing for a receptive audience, and for the past few weeks, you've been leaving bunches of comments, which is super fantastic!

For anyone who has not yet become a FoLMeG, may I humbly ask that you subscribe to the Learn Me Good feed, either through RSS or email using one of these handy links.

Email is pretty well grasped by everyone I think, but it took me a while to grasp the concept of RSS. When I did, I wrote this post which I'm going to re-run now for anyone who may have missed it.

RSS can beat YOUR RSS

I'm sorry to disappoint all of you Princess Bride fans out there, but the fact is RSS does NOT stand for Rodents of Substandard Size. But then, to quote Princess Bride once again, Get used to disappointment. ;)

No, RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, and it is a tool that is widely becoming more popular and more used. It's almost, sort of, not exactly, but pretty much like TiVo for your television. Instead of having to scour the TV Guide and set up your timer for each program that you want to catch, you just tell your TiVo the name of the program that you want to watch, and it records it for you whenever that show comes on. If the show doesn't come on, nothing gets taped. If the sci-fi channel shows a New Year's Day marathon, every episode gets taped.

RSS serves a similar purpose for the Internet community. Instead of hopping from one blog to the next, taking a peek in the hopes that something new has been posted, all you have to do is subscribe to that blog's RSS feed. Then whenever new content is published to that blog, you're feed reader is automatically updated and notifies you (boop-boop TiVo sound effect not included).

Joel, over at So You Want to Teach? has done an excellent job of promoting his RSS feed and explaining it in a way that everyone can understand it. I have attempted to explain it, but you might want to check out his version all the same.

So why am I even talking about RSS feeds, TiVo, and the sci-fi channel? Well because I want more subscribers, of course! Those of you who are regular readers of Learn Me Good, I certainly appreciate your business, and I hope that you keep coming back. I know there are some times, though, that I go for days without making a post. Subscribing to the Learn Me Good feed would keep you updated on when I've posted something new. Since many of you are already subscribers, I'll even go one step farther and make a request. I would be eternally grateful if you could think of just one person that you could recommend Learn Me Good to as a new subscriber. Just think about all of the fun conversations you could have over lunch! Who will Kate choose on Lost? What will Simon's next snarky comment be on American Idol? Can you believe what Mister Teacher said yesterday on Learn Me Good?

And for those of you who are new or visiting here at Learn Me Good, why not give me a chance to win you over? Put me into your feed reader and read a few posts. I guarantee, if your acne hasn't cleared up after three weeks, I'll give you your money back.

Here's the link you need to click to get things going: http://feeds.feedburner.com/learnmegood

I'm looking forward to RSSing all of you real good in the near future!

Egg rolls and Lucky Charms

My school always has an International Festival in late may, partially as a delayed celebration of Cinco de Mayo and partially as a way of acknowledging that our kids come from.a wide array of nations.

Typically, each grade will choose two countries to represent at the festival. The kids then decorate the halls with those countries as their theme, we get parents to bring food that is representative of those countries, and sometimes we have kids dress in traditional attire during a fashion show.

This year, 3rd grade has selected China and Ireland as the countries. We've done China in the past, so that is nothing new to us. We have depicted the Great Wall on our hallway wall, we've put Chinese symbols around the classrooms, we've hung paper lanterns from the ceiling, and we've made fireworks posters with glue and glitter. Oh, and dragons, we've got dragons.

We've never done Ireland before, though. And though I'm part Irish myself, I really don't know what would be considered Irish food, not counting Lucky Charms. And potatoes are too generic.

So I throw it out to the audience for suggestions. Can any of you suggest some sort of food that is traditionally Irish? Or some sort of craft that would represent Ireland? I mean, we are already gearing up for shamrocks, leprachauns, and pots o' gold, me wee laddies, but can you think of anything that Ireland has given to the world? Like, Hey, it was an Irish guy who invented the picture frame!

BTW, alcohol doesn't count. We will NOT (because we CAN not) be bringing Bailey's or Guiness to school.

I'm thinking I might just go around getting really really mad at the kids every day and telling them it's my Irish temper flaring.

stepping it up

Since we are finally finished with TAKS testing for the week, my class got back to (somewhat) normal routine today. Usually, during the few weeks after testing, we preview 4th grade for the kids by introducing them to some things that aren't on the 3rd grade curriculum, but which they'll need to know for the next year.

Today, we started 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication. And it actually went quite well. I introduced the "stair-step" method, which is the traditional method, and though there was some confusion, most kids started getting the hang of it rather quickly.

We'll practice this more tomorrow, then on Wednesday, I'll show them the Lattice method, which I've noticed most kids prefer.

We've also started division with remainders. I'm not quite ready to start long division -- that always throws them for a loop -- but we're using circles and tally marks, and they've done quite well with the remainders as well.

Sick days and swine flu

It would seem that the H1N1 virus, formerly known as Swine Flu, formerly known as Porky's Dilemma, has caused several entire school districts around the area to shut down for a week or more.

Teachers and students really didn't have a choice of taking these days off or going to school, but I thought it would still be an appropriate time to run an old Mr. Teacher article about teachers and sick days, according to the NORMAL procedures.

This article about the difficulties of taking a day off is titled "Does This Look Infected to You?" and it originally ran at education.com on November 20, 2007.


For most people in most professions, taking a sick day isn't too tricky. If you feel stuffy sinuses or that tell-tale tickle in the back of the throat, you just call your boss from the luxury of your soft, warm bed and let him know you won't be in. As long as you didn't have any important meetings or deadlines that day, it probably won't be that big of a deal.

When I was an engineer and had to take a sick day, people hardly even noticed my absence. This may have been thanks to the life-sized mannequin I kept around for just such occasions -- its productivity wasn't much less than mine.

But I have discovered (much to my dismay) that things are very different in the world of teaching.

First of all, it's far easier to get sick. Four years of teaching have brought more illnesses than four hundred years of engineering ever could. I had a stomach flu once in college, but aside from that, only the common cold and the obligatory childhood chickenpox had marred my otherwise healthy life.

As a teacher, I've already had strep throat, sinusitis, laryngitis, ringworm, mad cow disease, and Dutch elm disease. There have also been cases of pneumonia, pinkeye, scarlet fever, and meningitis at my school, which thankfully, I haven't had to mark off on my Yahtzee card just yet.

For another thing, taking a sick day as a teacher is often much more work than it's worth. The reason for that basically boils down to those pesky kids. Unlike a computer, which will just sit on your desk, happily doing nothing while you're gone, students actually need someone there to give them direction. Since the other teachers have their own kids to worry about, an absence necessitates a substitute teacher.

And this is why many teachers would just as soon come to school with a full-blown case of Asian bird flu than go through the hassle of preparing for a sub.

Now I don't mean this as a criticism of substitute teachers. There are some fantastic subs out there. Unfortunately, there are also some less than fantastic subs, and you very rarely know whom you're going to get on such short notice. I once came back from a sick day to find my desk raided and all of my cough drops gone (I guess the sub was sick too!). Another teacher found that a sub had let her kids cut up all of her construction paper. Believe it or not, this was NOT on the lesson plan!

Even just one experience like that can make a teacher leery of staying home sick.

There's also the small matter of actually having materials prepared and ready for a substitute to come in and find. Personally, I haven't quite mastered that nuance, and I know I'm not alone in that regard.

So the next time your child comes home and tells you about their substitute teacher, you might want to light a candle and say a prayer. Because more than likely, that poor regular teacher is REALLY sick.

Pork, the other white flu

Well, I had hoped not to have to comment on it much, but it would seem that discussion of the swine flu is unavoidable. Especially since it's pretty much sitting on my porch step.

It was one thing when it was a kid down in San Antonio. But then a kid in Richardson, the neighboring school district, caught it, causing that school to shut down for a week. Then last night, the Fort Worth School District decided that they were going to shut down ALL of their schools until May 11!

Cah-REEE-peeee!!!

Today, Dallas closed down a school where a kid had swine flu. Oh, and the girl who was giving the TAKS test in the room right next to me all day long has been complaining of sore throat and body aches.

So it's probably just a matter of WHEN and not IF my district will close schools for however long. Especially since the world seems so out of control over it. I mean, really Egypt and Japan? Killing all of the pigs in your country?? REALLY???

Isn't that a bit extreme? And how effective is that really, since the flu is transmitted from person to person, and not from hog to dude.

Should we slaughter all of the chickens in an attempt to prevent the chicken pox??

Well, I suppose it's a good thing the dress code doesn't say anything about surgical masks, because we may very well see some of those on Monday.

Assuming of course that school is even in session on Monday...

9 things I won't be wearing on Monday

This week's Carnival of Education is up and running over at Jason's Perspective, where he has graciously included my post TAKS Awareness along with the other midway rides. Apparently, I am a clown. What, do I make you laugh? Am I here for your AMUSEMENT? I am? OK, good. Go check it out, and um, watch out for Code Browns...

We received wonderful news at our school today... Summer Dress Code goes into effect beginning on Monday!!! Finally!! As the temperatures start to rise, and the air conditioning is about as consistent as a drunken babysitter, I won't be forced to wear a noose around my neck!!

We were given a memo today that covered "Acceptable and Unacceptable Attire," so it seemed fitting that I should put together a little list of what I will NOT (and CAN not) wear on Monday.

9) Tie and long-sleeve shirt
The memo clearly stated, "Anything you might wear... to clean around the house, leave at home." It just so happens, I clean in a 3-piece suit.

8) Godzilla slippers
I had a pair of these in high school. Big, green, fluffy slippers, and one of them had a button on the bottom connected to a speaker so that when you put your foot down, it made the sound of a Japanese high rise being smashed. If you stomped your foot, you heard the sound of a mutant roaring.

7) Daisy Dukes
Only because the memo says shorts are not acceptable.

6) A simple white tank top
Every day, when driving home, I pass a sign that says, "This way to the Gun Show." Alas, I will not be able to make a similar invitation to my co-workers by showcasing my own "cannons."

5) Sweat pants
This is really a shame, because I would just want to wear ordinary gray or blue sweat pants. In my humble opinion, they should prohibit me from wearing sweatpants that say "Juicy" across the butt cheeks, but not ordinary gray or blue sweat pants.

4) Spandex
I'm ok with this, because frankly, I like to CHANGE out of my work clothes when I get home. Since I already wear Spandex at night to fight crime (and to rock out with super-crazy dance moves), I don't need to wear it at school.

3) Bib overalls
Well darn, without the bib overalls, the single hay seed sticking out between my front teeth is going to look REALLY out of place, now isn't it? Actually, I would really like to know who showed up to work in bib overalls one day, causing this clause to be officially written into the dress code memo.

2) Dresses revealing a bare midriff
Actually, the way this one is worded -- "Dresses or attire revealing a bare midriff should not be worn to the office" -- makes me think maybe I COULD wear this, provided I stayed in my classroom and didn't approach the office.

1) Thongs
The memo says flip-flops are not acceptable. What did YOU think I was talking about???

It must be pointed out that the memo says absolutely nothing about suspenders, bloomers, rainbow wigs, or Brett Michaels bandanas. This last month is gonna be FUN!!!!

And now we wait

My kids took the TAKS math test today, and by law, I am not allowed to know how they did. Couldn't be in the room with them, couldn't talk to them during the day, couldn't look at any of the problems on the test.

So really all I can do is drink heavily and pray.

Instead of being with my kids, I was a substitute teacher in 5th grade all day long. Wow, I don't miss subbing.

Tomorrow, I am back with my kids, while reading retests go on in every room surrounding me, so I will keep one group for the entire day. Oh, with the door closed, and quietly. My kids will get very acquainted with my good friend, Bill Nye the Science Guy...

I need galoshes

For anyone outside of the greater Dallas area this morning, we received roughly 3 feet of rain between 7:15 and 7:45. This was the time that Anonymous Joe and I were out doing our morning crosswalk duty. We both had rain slickers on, but they didn't do much other than get wet, then soaked, then permeable.

I didn't take an umbrella outside because there was also a whole lot of thunder and lightning, and I didn't want to be holding my giant electricity rod up as a target. As a side note, I walked out with Ed U Cater at the end of the day, and he suggested that perhaps electrocution would have been a better alternative to the school day. I'm thinking Ed didn't have a very good day...

Anyway, as you might have guessed, I entered the school building looking and feeling as though I had jumped into a swimming pool. Pants, shirt sleeves, and hair dry quickly enough, but what was really bad was that my shoes and socks were drenched. My feet were not making pleasant sounds on the way down to my classroom.

As soon as I had the kids started on an exercise, I took off my shoes and socks and very hopefully placed them on my A/C vent. Where was all that oppressive heat from 2 months ago now that I actually needed it?? Alas, it was just cold air coming out, and that unfortunately doesn't dry things nearly as well.

So I walked around my room barefooted for the first hour. Then it occurred to me that kids go to the clinic for new socks and pants all the time! So I sent a student down to ask if they had any socks that I could have. Sure enough, they did! Nice, warm, dry socks.

Nothing much I could do about my shoes, so I put them back on. They were still wet, but at least with dry socks, I didn't feel like my toes were going to rot off.

Oh, and did I mention that I stopped a baby possum from entering the school this morning? When it was quickly apparent that I would get soaked outside, I ran back in to put my phone in the office. When I went back out through the main doors, something was scurrying towards me, and it wasn't a student!

I thought it was a mouse at first, but it had that weird, white triangular head and grey body, and it was running right at the door. I bravely wielded my STOP sign to hold it off. And I don't mean that I held it up and commanded it to stop. I whacked the darn thing once and then knocked it several feet away. It ran down into the flower bed and disappeared from sight. No idea what happened to it afterwards.


Today was the last review day before TAKS. We didn't do a whole lot other than go over homework, practice Volume one more time, and take it easy. I figure, if they don't know everything by now, they're not going to learn it today.

At the end of each class session, I told the kids that I was rooting for them and wanted them to do their very best, and that I would give them a high five like I normally do, or a hug, if they wanted one. As I said the word "hug," it was funny to watch some of their eyes grow huge.

In my morning class, the one that usually "gets it" more, it was probably a 70/30 split, with the majority going for high fives. In my afternoon (lower) class, it was 100% hugs.

Hopefully, I imparted some wisdom through osmosis. We'll find out tomorrow.

Seeking input

If you have been a regular reader Learn Me Good, I would really appreciate your input on the state of my blog. I have changed a few things around over the weekend, moving this here and that there, and I feel it's a bit more streamlined and less clunky.

Please take just a moment to either leave a comment here or send me an email and let me know what you think.

If you are new to reading, please let me know what your initial impression of this blog is!

Thanks!

--Management

TAKS Awareness

One of the tips in Darren's 31 Days to a Better Blog over at Problogger is to create a "Sneeze page," so named because it serves to hold a Kleenex up to your best posts. No wait, it's actually called sneeze because it sends readers throughout the archives of your blog.


Since I am an elementary school teacher in Texas, I thought I'd create a sneeze page that listed all of my posts related to our dreaded standardized test, the TAKS.


So, in no particular order, here are some of my best posts related to our friend, the TAKS man...

The Top 10 Rejected Meanings of TAKS -- This was a guest post over at So You Want To Teach. It's a list of phrases that TAKS ALMOST stood for. I left my favorite for number 1 -- This Assessment Kinda Sucks.

A Massive Coverup -- One of the ridiculous hoops we have to jump through every year before the test is covering everything on our walls and in the hallway. I wrote a letter (and of course never really sent it), telling the district that I couldn't possibly comply due to certain complications. Read it, I think you'll enjoy it.

What are We Really Testing Here? -- A TAKS test is a reading test, plain and simple. Sure, some of them have a math bent or a science bent, but first and foremost, they are a reading assessment. Is that fair??

Practice Like You Play -- You wouldn't bang the keys with your elbows at a piano recital after practicing the right way for so long, so why wouldn't you do the strategies on the TAKS that we've practiced in class for so long? This is my never-ending question to my kids year after year. Also a source of much frustration.

The Million Dollar Test -- This is a short story I wrote about a group of kids who are offered a Decent Proposal. An eccentric billionaire offers 1 million dollars (cue evil laugh) to anyone who can achieve a perfect score on the TAKS. It went over pretty well when I read it to my kids in class.



Testivus -- taken from the classic Seinfeld episode Festivus, of which the "Airing of Grievances" was an integral part, this post is a major rant against the current state of our testing. But there are also some suggestions presented, lest anyone think I'm merely whining.

What are we really testing here?

I don't know how upper grade teachers can stand it.

TAKS is stressful enough to prepare for at the 3rd grade level, and our kids at least can get reading assistance on the math test! There has been a little bit of debate over exactly what that means, but at least it is specified that, on an individual basis, a student may ask to have a word or a question read aloud. This helps immensely, especially with a child who is a struggling reader and/or an English Language Learner.

However, after 3rd grade, the kids are completely on their own for every TAKS test -- excepting those kids with special modifications, of course. The vast majority of kids taking these tests every year cannot ask to have a word read, cannot ask for clarification on a question, cannot ask ANYTHING except a question about the directions, and the directions are usually "Pick the best answer."

So what it comes down to is that these kids are taking a series of reading tests. Some of them are ABOUT math or ABOUT science, but they don't strictly assess those subject areas as much as they assess whether or not the child can read the questions, some of which are highly complicated.

This is really a sore point for me, because I find it ludicrous. It is an outright farce to call the 5th grade science TAKS a science test but not give the kids reading assistance. Any tester at any level should be able to ask to have a word or a question read to them.

Are we trying to see if little Johnny truly knows what photosynthesis is , or are we trying to see if little Johnny recognizes this vocabulary word and then can describe it?

Imagine going to live in Russia for a year and taking a math class. After 3 months, you are given a math test in Russian, consisting of word problems and lengthy questions. I don't know about you, but I would fail that test miserably. Would ANYONE in their right mind think that that means I don't know math?? Or that that test accurately gauged my knowledge??

That's pretty much how it is for struggling readers or kids new to the language, but even for kids who read English fluently, there should still be reading assistance offered.

Only then will we TRULY have an assessment of a child's ability in math, science, or any OTHER skill than reading.

If I taught a grade higher than 3rd, I would be fuming every year about this very matter. Thankfully, I don't, so I can just vent instead of fume...

Jumping on the Bandwagon

Twitter.

Just wanted to say it.

Once.

Oh Say, can you CEI?

Carol at Bellringers is hosting this week's Carnival of Education, the Loosey-Goosey Edition of the Carnival, and it looks like a REALLY good one, full of great posts. My post about unreasonableness is there, holding its own, compared to other posts by comparable bloggers using similar online resources.

If you thought THAT was strangely worded, you should look into CEIs sometime.

For those of you sane people outside of the Dallas ISD, CEIs are Classroom Effectiveness Indices, and they are ostensibly used to measure a student's growth over the course of a school year.

However, they are currently being used for evil in several instances, and being used as the highest, if not sole, evaluation of some teachers.

Check out this article at the DMN blog today, and read some of the comments. It talks about the dreaded letter that many teachers have received or will receive, telling them that their CEIs show improvement in performance next school year, or your contract may be subject to non-were low last year, and that therefore, they are under close watch. "You will be expected to renewal at the end of the contract term."

Not unreasonably, many teachers are seeing this as a threat to their livelihood -- Shape up, or ship out!

Nevermind that this letter is being sent out NOW, with 6 weeks left in the current school year, despite the fact that last year's CEIs were published within the first 6 weeks of the year.

Nevermind that, according to the letter, THIS year's CEIs don't seem to matter.

Here's the really bothersome thing. Nobody can understand how these blasted things are computed! The guy who wrote the "formula" for calculating CEIs is long gone, probably laughing at the foolish people still using it, and nobody in the district can explain exactly how they are calculated. The only thing we hear is vague and generic.

"It's a measure of student growth, using data from previous years."

That's like someone asking about how nuclear reactors work and being told, "It involves energy, molecules, and the cosine."

For anyone who really wants a headache, follow this link to the explanation of how CEIs are computed. I consider myself a mathie, yet I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

Furthermore, it's pretty darn outrageous that we would be evaluated on this scale anyway. Student growth, predicted from one or two tests that they have taken, is the sole measure of how effective we are as teachers? Not to mention that the kids don't even take the same test in the 2nd and 3 grades! Let's just predict how many oranges Farmer Brown can grow this year, based on how many apples he grew last year!!

My understanding is that CEIs are only used in Dallas. Anybody outside of Dallas have anything similar to share?

Good luck with THAT one...

Here's one straight from the "They'll never do THAT again" files:

Our mailboxes were stuffed with individual student pictures today. Every child had the full package in an envelope -- an 8 X 10, 2 5 X 8s, a sheet of wallet size, etc.

Normally, the order forms are sent home in advance of picture day, and the kids (or, more accurately, parents) who want to order pictures send their money on the day the pictures will be taken. Usually, only 3 or 4 sets of pictures arrive in the ol' mailbox.

Nope, this year, EVERYONE got the pictures, along with a note which said something to the effect of "Please take a look at these pictures. If you want to keep them, please send back money. If you do not want to buy them, please send the pictures back."

REALLY?? No, REALLY??

I mean, it's great if the photography company just doesn't care about recouping their printing costs and is doing this pro bono, but if they really expect to get back all of the photos from the people who don't send money, I just might have a bridge to sell them.

Add to that the confusing order form inside the package. There are 5 "sheets" of photos, plus one sheet of "instructions." Four of the sheets are glossy photos of various size, and the last one is a bunch of punch-out pics for key fobs and mirror and such.

The order form, first of all, is entirely in English. Since more than 50% of our school is hispanic, this already doesn't bode well.

Secondly, the order form says that all 5 sheets usually cost $60, but now they are available for only $45. Great, what a bargain! The sheet then goes on to say that any ONE sheet is $12, and TWO sheets are $24, etc, etc, counting by 12s. Any unbought sheets should be returned.

I am VERY curious to see if anybody actually puts a check in the "ANY 4 SHEETS" box. This would mean paying $48 and having to return one sheet, when all 5 could be kept for $45.

A few years ago, a PTA fundraiser was to have the kids sell coupon books. Every child was given a book to use as an example and to return if unbought. I don't think they got back a tenth of the books in that fiasco.

So again, to the photography company, good luck with that one. Just don't expect ME to be the one nagging kids to bring back their pictures...

the ol' homework excuse

Today I'm rerunning an old column from my education.com stint, this time about unusual homework excuses. Seems to be appropo, since we are coming right up on the state math test and we will be giving plenty of homework next week.

This column, titled Homework, Shmomework originally ran on December 18, 2007 at education.com.

Did anyone ever really try to use the excuse, "My dog ate my homework?" I never heard anyone use it when I was in school, and I certainly never had a kid try it on me.

At any rate, dogs have better things to eat nowadays, and kids have more imaginative excuses too. Here are the Top 5 I've encountered during my tenure.

1) "My mom/dad/primary caregiver didn't understand how to do it."

Um, that's why your mom/dad/primary caregiver is not getting anything written down in my grade book. I think it's fantastic for parents to show interest in what their child is bringing home and even to offer help if needed. I wish more parents at my school would show such an interest! But the homework is always something similar to what we've practiced in class. The kids never say, "I didn't understand how to do it." They'd much rather blame a family member. Which brings us to number two...

2) "I couldn't do it because my little brother drew on it."

When I hear this excuse, which is thankfully not very often, I always ask to see the homework in question. Usually, there are a few thin pencil lines drawn across the page. Sure, that sort of thing would ruin a Picasso original, but it hardly renders a math worksheet undoable. It's the equivalent of telling someone your car has been totaled when you spill coffee on the passenger seat.

3) "At the Day Care, they don't give us much time to do our homework; we have to go out and play!"

Sometimes those evil Day Care staffers really annoy me. I mean, the nerve! All these kids want to do is finish their homework assignment in a thorough and timely fashion, and these despicable adults are forcing them to play! I can't help but imagine a scene in which an Oliver Twist-like urchin meekly asks, "Please, sir, can I have some more time?"

4) "Since the homework isn't for a grade, I didn't do it."

Huh?? This is a new one, and has only been used once, and bizarrely, that one time was in front of the girl's mother! I have no idea how she got the notion that she wasn't getting graded on the homework. Especially since she heard me say, "OK, then, that's a zero for you," every time she didn't do an assignment. Maybe that wasn't clear enough, and she thought I was stockpiling Coke Zero for her in the classroom fridge.

5) "It's not in my backpack!"

This little gem is the one I hear the most. The kids make this exclamation in a tone that suggests that they most definitely would have completed the assignment if only it hadn't magically disappeared. I would love to be able to use this one in my life:

"Sir, that will be twenty dollars, please."

"It's not in my wallet!!"

I imagine that teachers will be giving homework and students will be making excuses until the end of time. I'm just looking forward to hearing something truly convincing. Like maybe, "My mom/dad/primary caregiver ate my homework."

Grade / No Grade

Earlier this week, on my post about Practice the Way You Play, there was a very astute comment by Mary H. She asked, "How much credit do you give for right answer and how much credit do you give for showing work?"

I briefly responded to this question in the comments, but I wanted to expound on that as well as get other people's take on the issue.

Personally, I think that showing work -- computations, notes, labels, etc -- especially on math problems, is a vital skill that kids need to learn AND utilize. To me, it is absolutely no good if a child turns in a test or a homework with all of the correct answers, but no work shown. I'm not convinced (especially on a homework) that that child knows how to do the problems and didn't just copy off of someone, guess luckily, or get someone else to do it for them.

I'm not someone who tells kids, "I don't care if that's the way your mom taught you to do it, you have to do it MY way or else!" I certainly prefer that kids do the work the way I've taught them, and the way we've practiced in class, but if they come in and say they learned some other way, I'm ok with that -- as long as that work is clearly shown! Only then can I see that they followed the correct procedure and mastered the concept.

I often employ the strategy of "camoflauged grades" on tests. In other words, I sometimes put one grade in my gradebook and different grade on a test. If I am trying to emphasize the importance of doing a particular set of steps, then (with ample advance warning) I will take a few points off here and there on a child's test for not showing those steps. Their grade visible on the test will reflect those deductions. However, I usually give them credit for correct answers (work or no work) in my grade book. During a test, I KNOW that they're not getting the answers from someone else -- I keep a close eye on the kids during a test -- so I want their grade to accurately reflect their answers.

I can recall times when a student has scored a 100 in my gradebook (all answers correct), but had a 65 written on their test!

What do you think of this? As I ask the kids, agree or disagree? How do YOU try to emphasize the importance of showing work?

Wednesday Words

Hey everyone, be sure to check out this week's Carnival of Education, being hosted at Joanne Jacobs' site. There are lots of great posts there, including my recent one about practicing the way you play.

For anyone who's curious, the answer to yesterday's missing info question is C. In order to know how many sweaters are blue, you have to know how many are NOT blue. Some adults (and many kids) think you need to know how many sweaters are white, answer B, but you have to realize that there are many other colors that the sweaters could be.

So there.

Unreasonableness

The lesson/task/tip of Day # 7 in the Problogger 31 Day Challenge (yes, we're on Day #9, but I'm a little behind) was to give a little "link love" to another blogger. In other words, to link to and comment on a post from another site.

Last night, as I was looking through the sites that I frequently read, I came upon Mrs. H's post about her countdown to the TAKS test. Mrs. H is a Texas high school teacher, so she is counting down to a slightly more advanced version of the TAKS than the one my 3rd graders will be taking, but our goal is the same -- to kick the CRAP out of the TAKS. Er, I mean, to get all of our kids to score high.

Mrs. H says that one of her goals is getting her kids to recognize the difference between reasonable and unreasonable answers. I can so totally relate. What SHOULD be a simple thought process -- Hmmm, if I have 4 friends, and I want to share a bag of 20 peppermints with them, each friend is NOT going to get 80 peppermints!! -- is often anything but simple.

I tend to use the words "Does your answer make sense" more than "is it reasonable," mainly because there is a classification of 3rd grade math questions called "reasonableness." We started our lessons on Reasonableness questions today, with varying results.

If I might brag about my own education just a bit, I was an excellent math student in high school, I took graduate level math classes as a senior in college, I then took graduate level math classes as a graduate student, and then I used some pretty advanced math in my job as a thermoelectric design engineer for almost four years. However, I NEVER came across this type of "reasonableness" questions until I started teaching 3rd grade.

Here is an example of a Reasonableness question:

Mrs. Nestor bought 6 games for her son. The least expensive game cost $10, and the most expensive game cost $30. What is a reasonable total amount that she spent on the games?

My question is, who on earth doesn't track the exact total that they spent at the store?? Why do you need a "REASONABLE" total, when you can just add up the exact amounts, or round them to the nearest dollar and add??

The strategy of solving a problem like this involves finding a number in the middle of the range (10-30 dollars) and using that for each game. Furthing confounding things is the fact that the answer choices are always either ranges themselves ("between $100 and $150") or single numbers that are usually close to, but not exactly what the kids compute. So after all these months of telling the kids that, when taking a math test, if their answer doesn't match any of the answer choices, NOT to just pick the closest one, but rather to go back and find their mistake -- now we get to tell them, Oh yeah! If you see this word "Reasonable," THEN it's ok to pick the closest answer...

(For those of you wondering if the kids can just multiply 6 times $10 and 6 times $30 to find the range of answers, I just want to say. . . THAT WOULD BE FAR TOO EASY!!! Often times, using the extreme ends of the range yield an answer considered incorrect.)

I will say though, that after the first day of doing a brand new type of problem like this, the kids did pretty well with it. They certainly have the skill of finding a central number down, and hopefully this skill won't go out of their brains in two weeks. Like telling time seems to have done.

We also looked at a type of problem today we call "Missing info."

Try this example. Answer to follow tomorrow.

Mister Teacher has 15 sweaters and 22 shirts in his closet. What other information is needed to find the number of sweaters that are blue?

A) The total number of shirts and sweaters
B ) How many sweaters are white
C) How many sweaters are not blue
D) How many shirts are blue

Practice like you play

Am I showing my age by titling my post with that old adage, "Practice like you play?" I mean, do kids nowadays just not GET that, or do they not HEAR it very often except from old fogies like me?

I probably don't use those actual words too often in class. After all, the kids tend to hear the word "play" and think "run around outside like chickens with their heads cut off" as opposed to "taking the TAKS test." However, I emphasize the meaning of the words all the time.

For as much good as it seems to do...

I find it very frustrating when we've spent an entire week of our lives going over the steps for labelling a picture representation of a fraction ( ?/total ), practicing it in class, honing the skill, doing it on homework and classwork, and then when we take a test and there is a fraction question, the kids just pick an answer without drawing a picture, without labelling an existing picture, oftentimes without even circling (and thereby acknowledging recognition of) the word "fraction!!"

I have tried pleading with them.

Me: Please, if you want to do your best, you need to do it the way we've been practicing, NOT by closing your eyes and doing eeny-meeny-miney-moe!

I have tried scolding them.

Me: If you're not going to do the steps and strategies that we've learned and practiced in class, what was the point of last week??

I've tried giving them analogies. (without burdening their brains with the actual word "analogies)

2 of my favorites are as follows:

The Baseball Coach --
Imagine if I was your baseball coach, and you were on my team. I've spent all this time teaching you the right way to hold the bat, the right way to stand at the plate, the right way to swing and hit the ball so that you get a homerun every time. All of that practice, and you know exactly what you need to do to get a homerun.

But then when we have our first game, you decide to stand with your back to the plate, holding the bat by the wrong end, swinging it like a golf club (I of course pantomime all of this).

You MIGHT get lucky and hit the ball. Probably not, but you might. But you certainly aren't going to do your best and hit a homerun that way.


The Piano Teacher --
Imagine if you were taking piano lessons from me. Every day, we've practiced how to play a song, where you put your fingers on the keys, how fast you need to play, how to move your hands. After practicing so much, you know exactly what you need to do to play the song beautifully.

Then, on the day, of a big recital in front of your family and a big crowd, you decided to sit down at the piano and start pounding the keys with your elbows (again, pantomimed, with cacaphonous sound effects).

Why would you do that on the day when it counts, after practicing the RIGHT way for so very long??

Every time I tell these stories, the kids laugh and tell me, "No, Mister Teacher, that would be silly! Why would anyone do that??"

Yet, getting these kids to show their work on a test (or even homework sometimes) -- work that we have practiced for days, weeks, or months -- is like pulling the back teeth of a narwhale!

I feel like this is where so much of the frustration of teachers comes into play. The teaching is great, the imparting of wisdom is great. I enjoy showing the kids how to figure out a certain type of problem, and what strategies can make it even easier.

I just don't get why it is so incredibly difficult to get them to actually do these simplifying steps on their own!

Silent but Deadly

Not that this has ANYTHING to do with education...

I was reading the Dallas Morning News the other day when one story just jumped out at me. Please go and read it for yourself so you can catch a whiff of the story.

In such a short story, there were more than a few red flags. First of all, why are FIVE men sharing ONE motel room? Second, what the heck were they eating that gave the one guy such blazing saddles? Third, guys LOVE farts! We pull our shirts up over our noses, we laugh while our eyes water, we try to fart louder and harder than the first guy -- so what nitwit ruins all that by throwing a knife at the farter???

Dude, it's "who cut the cheese?" not "who cut Juan Antonio?"

LAT

Came up with a new entry for the New Revised Teacher's Dictionary. Today was a LAT day. Now maybe that doesn't mean much for people outside of my district, but inside our little circle, LAT usually stands for Linguistically Accommodated Testing. These are the tests that our newcomer kids take in leiu of the TAKS test.

However, today was LAT day in the sense that it was Long Ass Thursday.

I walked into my room this morning and checked my mini-thermometer (hey, we were studying temperature measurement last week) -- 80 degrees. That just ain't right.

The temp didn't improve much throughout the day, even with the "air conditioning" blowing -- really just moving room temp air around -- and several windows open.

When I picked my kids up from specials class in the afternoon, several of them were in tears because there had been a fight outside, and one of them was even getting suspended! I totally expect one class of 3rd graders to be fighting, because they are just a bunch of idiots and don't care. But I would never have guessed that this suspended girl would have gotten involved, and she claims she WASN'T. Of course, not having been witness, I had no idea what had actually happened, so I wasn't able to say one way or the other.

This being (Long Ass) Thursday, we had after school tutoring, so that was a fun hour.

Afterwards, as I walked out of the school to the parking lot, I noticed that the air seemed really thick and smokey. Turns out there are wild fires raging through North Texas! The air was full of ash and very dense. Guess I won't have to worry about fights outside at recess tomorrow, since I don't think there will BE an outside recess tomorrow.

To top it all off, I came home to find that my DVR had died, taking all of my stored programming with it. Guess I'll have to check out this hulu.com after all...

Posts of the Week

So Joel of So You Want to Teach got me hooked into Darren of Problogger's 31 Days to Build a Better Blog (aka: Who Wants to Be a Bloggy Idol?). Day 2, which I'm only slightly behind on, had a challenge to write a link post. My man Joel is of course the guru of link posts, but I figured I needed to make an attempt if I was going to keep up.



Having said that, here are some fantastic posts, coming directly from several blogs that I enjoy frequenting.



Carnival of Education: The Day to End All Days -- I had to start the list here, because this week, Joel has put together an amazing Carnival. Chock full of relevant links, as always, this one has the distinction of being tied together by a really fun story, of which I am proud to say that I am a major character! According to sources, my character actually died heroically at the end of the original draft, but it didn't score well with test audiences, so I got to live instead.



What's the Word Wednesday: "Something" Happens -- Probably not what you would expect the "Something" to be, but still something that I probably shouldn't post on my blog. This post from the Scholastic Scribe talks about the dangers of a careless (or non-existant) spell check.



Why Bill Nye the Science Guy and I Will Never be Friends -- Mimi at It's Not All Flowers and Sausages (one of my new faves since April 1st) posts hilariously about her lack of a green thumb in the classroom. I can totally relate.



The Cornerstone Accolades for March -- Angela Powell, author of The Cornerstone for Teachers, has put together her own Carnival-esque links post of great posts around the web for the month of March. Is me linking to her links like looking into an endless line of reflections in a Funhouse mirror??

Poverty Stresses Kids' Brains -- In this post by Joanne Jacobs, she notes a recent Washington Post article that says that living in poverty actually affects children's memories. I work at a Title I school, and a lot of my kids can't seem to remember basic math facts, so I would tend to agree with this research.

One Blogging Moment

Alack and alas, March Madness is officially over. The Tournament has ended, with the dreaded North Carolina making it a lopsided, and incredibly boring, victory. However, this was good news for Joel of So You Want to Teach, who correctly picked UNC as the winner. His "Mariachi Madness" entry in the ESPN pool has won him the History Channel DVD set! Joel, I'll send that spinning your way sometime in the next few weeks.

Even more exciting than that, CBS must have read my letter and listened, because the One Shining Moment video was great! It was by far the best one I've seen in over a decade, marred only slightly by the croaking of Clark "Frosted" Kellogg at the end. Thank you, CBS!!

Today was the 5th grade math TAKS test, and it was an INCREDIBLY long day for someone who had to monitor the exam. Like me.

I'm going to watch One Shining Moment one more time, then I'm going to bed.

The New Revised Teacher's Dictionary

Over the past year or so, I've either heard or thought of a few terms that relate to my job as a teacher that don't necessarily apply to people outside of the education field. With that in mind, I thought it might be a good idea to start to jot these words and their definitions down into the beginings of a Webster's-esque tome.





It's not much, but I now present the few words that form the opening salvo of this Teacher's Dictionary. Feel free to add to it any terms that you have heard or thought of yourself!

"Choir practice" -- Code name for after-hours meetings held by some teachers, typically on Fridays, in an establishment where discussions are held, friendships are strengthened, and alcoholic beverages may or may not be consumed. See also TEAM BUILDING, GROUP MENTORING, and GARDENING WITH GRANDMA.

"DJing" -- The very annoying practice of some administrators, when using the school's Public Address system, of droning on and on, as many morning DJs do on the radio. What should be a 30 second announcement turns into a 6 minute beat-down as the speaker feels the need to comment extensively on the short announcement.


"gradecation" -- Taking a day off merely for the purpose of catching up on grading papers. Gradecations are typically NOT fun.

"maximum kiddage" -- The largest amount of students that can fit in a certain area. When planning for pull-out math tutoring, I tried to give each small group maximum kiddage so as to get the most children covered.

"milk carton photo" -- A student who is consistently absent or missing from class. Similar to the "Have you seen me?" photos on the side of a milk carton, but with less calcium enrichment.


"repeat customer" -- A student who has been retained for another year. Some kids just like 3rd grade so much they want another shot at it.


A small beginning, I know. But perhaps in time, this will grow to be worthy of its own internet page. Let the submissions begin!!

15 Places to Find Teacher Inspiration and Humor Online

This is a Guest Post from Karen Schweitzer, a writer for about.com  who has submitted well-receieved posts to other FoLMeG sites So You Want To Teach and I Want to Teach Forever.

Karen decided that my site would be most appropriate for a list of humorous links, and I have to say I appreciate the sentiment! So here they are, 15 for people looking for teaching-related humor (0ther than here, of course):

_________________________________________________________________
15 Places to Find Teacher Inspiration and Humor Online

An inspirational story or a good joke can sometimes ease the stress that goes hand in hand with being a professional educator. If you're ever looking for free inspiration and humor online, the following sites are worth visiting:

Tales from a Teacher's Heart - This site offers an inspirational blog and a series of movies that tell heartwarming stories about students and teachers.

Creative Teaching - Creative Teaching provides an interesting blend of teaching ideas and teacher humor. The site also offers a collection of teacher wallpapers.

InspiringTeachers.com - This site is dedicated to inspiring and empowering teachers of all levels. The site offers inspirational stories and humor in addition to tools that teachers can use in the classroom.

TeachersCount - Although TeachersCount is best known for its campaign to raise the status of the teaching community, this nonprofit organization also provides a wide range of inspirational resources to educators through its website.

Lesson Plans Page - Hot Chalk's Lesson Plans Page offers a large collection of inspirational teacher stories that have been donated by site visitors.

TeachersFirst - This teacher-created site has an entire section devoted to humor. All of the jokes and stories were written by educators for educators.

Crazy 4 Teachers - Crazy 4 Teachers offers an eclectic collection of humor, sarcasm, and cartoons for teachers.

Quotes 4 Teachers - This Educator's Network website provides more than 70 popular education-related quotations for teachers. Most are meant to be inspirational, but a few humorous quotes have been included as well.

TeacherTube - TeacherTube is an excellent place to find inspirational videos for teachers. You can find these videos by browsing the site or by typing "inspiration" into the TeacherTube search engine.

WINGS - This University of Texas at Austin website offers a well-organized directory of articles and other resources that offer teach humor and inspiration.

Why We Teach - The Why We Teach website provides excerpts from the Why We Teach book as well as stories submitted by other teachers. The site also offers a place to submit your own story to be considered for publication.

Scholastic - The Scholastic site is a great place to find inspiration for lesson plans and activities. Scholastic suggests a new activity each day and provides a slew of other resources for the classroom.

PBS Teachers Connect - PBS Teachers Connect is an online community for teachers who want to connect with one another and discuss the use of digital media in teaching and learning.

Teacher Lingo - This teacher blog community was set up to create a place for teachers to connect, share ideas, and learn from one another. You can start your own blog or chat with other teachers on the site's message boards.

Box Office Mojo - This movie information site has a great list of 20 inspirational movies for teachers.

Should I be worried?

Today's after-school tutoring went a bit more smoothly than last week's (AND, I managed to clean the blood spot off my wall from where I had banged my head!), though there are still a few things that make my spine tingle...

We have less than 4 weeks left until the TAKS math test. Is it wrong for me to be concerned that some of my kids add 2 dimes, 3 nickels, and 4 pennies by adding 2+3+4???

Or that when solving an Area problem, one girl counted the number 1 twice? ie, 1, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8?

Or even that one little boy didn't notice the large pictograph key, and merely counted pictures by 1''s?

April Fool's!!

If you read the post here at Learn Me Good yesterday, you may have been scratching your head, wondering WTF?? Especially when you got to the part about "my tiny toddler daughter" or "my husband's grandparents."

Well, would it help if I jumped out and cried, "APRIL FOOLS!!!!"

A group of us got together and decided that we would switch blogs for the day and see if anyone noticed. Looking around at some of the other blogs involved, it doesn't look like many people did notice. :)

Mamacita from Scheiss Weekly was my honored guest here at Learn Me Good, providing the post about her daughter's (not to mention her own) potty mouth. If you'd like to catch MY post from yesterday, head over to Mrs. Bluebird's Classroom to see my musings on measurement lessons.

There weren't really that many comments on the various posts, but the comments that WERE posted merely reflected the blog post and made no mention of, "Hey, something's up! This doesn't sound like you!"

At any rate, noticed or not, ballyhooed or critically disdained, we had fun. If you want to go back and check out the April Fool's Day posts after the fact with this knowledge in hand (ala re-watching The Sixth Sense after learning the big twist ending), here is a list of participants:

100 Farmers

Bluebird's Classroom

Chucheria

History is Elementary

IMC Guy

It's Not All Flowers and Sausages

I Want to Teach Forever

Learn Me Good

Ms Teacher

Scheiss Weekly

The Scholastic Scribe

So You Want to Teach?

Tales of a School Bus Driver


So I'd love to hear feedback from readers and participants alike! Did you notice at all? Did something merely SEEM funny without really triggering a specific thought -- like when Jeopardy comes on at 7pm instead of 11am?? Is it worth doing again next year?

Set a Watch, Oh Lord, Before My Mouth

When I was young, I had a bad, bad habit. It really was a bad habit, and I’m honestly ashamed of it. I picked up this habit in college, for my parents certainly never allowed such goings-on in their home.

Anyway, this habit, as habits have a way of doing, had become such a, well, HABIT, that I didn’t even notice it any more.

I had potty mouth, and I had it bad. I had a witty, foul mouth. I could string together "those words" and people would almost clap. Some of my rants and terms of exasperation were works of art. I was an English major.

Now, young parents with potty mouth must remember something here. Tiny children learn to speak by imitating the language they hear. Any kindergarten teacher could have told us this, but this was an elementary bit of science that hadn’t occurred to me, because whenever I spoke to my toddler and my newborn, I used VERY appropriate and pretty mommy/baby/cutesy language. Oh, you all know it. That schmoopy pidgin we talk to babies with.

Ah, but it’s always the footprints you DON’T want them to follow, that they pick up on the fastest.

My tiny toddler daughter had a touch of the potty mouth at a most inappropriately young age, thanks to Mommy who thought she was doing a good job of hiding her own. I even thought it was kind of funny. Looking back, I’m just appalled at my lack of judgment.

As we drove down to the family reunion, I reminded my little girl to be sure not to say, um, certain words there. She agreed. I think she even understood. That bothers me now, too.

Sometimes it takes a humiliation to open your eyes and make you shut your mouth.

With this background in place, I will now tell this story that some of you have already heard, again.

My husband's grandparents were awesome, lovely people; they were so good to us when we were first married, in many, many ways. They were also VERY conservative Pentecostal holy-rollers. Key words here: very conservative.

Dowdy clothes, bun-hair, dark hose, tongues, oil. . . .you get the picture. And no, I’m NOT making fun of them. I loved them dearly and deeply. I am merely DESCRIBING them. That is what they were. I loved them. But I digress.

The precious and wonderful grandparents were hosting a family reunion in their huge white Victorian house. The welcome mat was out, and they were standing in the door almost weeping with joy as each carload of relatives pulled up and were greeted. It was very Norman Rockwellian.

Ramble, ramble. . . . .

At dinner, everybody was crowded around their huge table, chowing down on food so good, the gods would have traded their nectar for just one bite. My newborn son was sawing logs on Grandma’s big bed, and my tiny daughter was dining with the rest of us, sitting in a red wooden high chair that had been in the family for generations.

At this particular time she was going through a dining phase that can best be described as the “banana chip and shaved ice” phase. She was thin as a rail, and simply wouldn’t touch most foods at ALL. The grandmothers and uncles and aunts were all worried to death about her, even though she was bright-eyed and energetic and obviously loving the complete control that any kid with food issues has over the adults in her life.

At this meal, she was pressured from all sides to eat this, or that, PLEASE? Just a taste, for Mamaw, for Grandma, for Grandad, for Aunt, Uncle. . . .Skin and bones, SKIN AND BONES, she must EAT. EAT EAT EAT EAT EAT.

Finally, she’d had enough. Catching my eye across the table, she knew better than to disobey the orders about potty mouth she’d been given before we got there, but she’d had enough of the constant nagging about food.

So my princess, my precious baby girl, freshly two years old but talking in complete sentences from the womb, master of innocent satire, stood up in the high chair, put both tiny hands on her tiny hips, swept the room and the people with an exasperated glance, and said, “Oh Mommy, I wish I could say SHIT.”

And I wished I could say ‘abracadabra’ and just vanish. I was torn between falling out of my chair laughing, and falling out of my chair to disappear forever underneath that massive table.
Nobody laughed. I’m sure they wanted to, but the shock and the environment hushed it all up.

For many, many years, I cleaned up my verbal act enough that she had no more of “those” words to mimic. Most of me is ashamed, but part of the shame is in the fact that there is a teeny-tiny part of me that still thinks it was funny.

I’m also ashamed to confess that some of that potty-mouth is back again.

But I’m nice, really I am. I’m @#$%^&*())(*&^ nice.