Hedgetoad Teaching

Over at the English Companion Ning , there is a conversation ongoing about what to wear on the first day of school . There are a lot of people planning on wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Proudly, in fact. After reading a few pages, it would seem that those who aren’t allowed to wear this type of outfit are down right loosin’ out. According to this discussion, wearing colors with a high contrast project authority, pastels project friendliness and bright colors are “fun”. Remember Dr. Kylie Johnson from MadTV ? The premise is a Dr. who acts like an airhead-party-girl. She enters the room wearing spandex hot pink leopard print pants with a belly shirt. She’s holding a clipboard with cutesy stickers all over it and speaks in a high-pitched sing-songy voice, where every sentence is spoken like a question. Needless to say the patient is uncomfortable with this doctor. And that’s what makes the sketch funny. Now picture this character as a teacher? Can you see the classroom? What kind of learn...

The class I gave up on yesterday and I had a frank discussion about what happened yesterday. I explained my frustration, remained calm and listened while they talked. As usual, it boiled down to miscommunication. Like when I say research for a paper I mean, find information and distill to use in a paper. The student definition was look at stuff on the web to use for a paper… someday. We also examined definitions for the words “work” and “prepared”. I’m sure it won’t surprise any teacher that their definition of ‘coming prepared to class’ means ‘walking through the door under your own power’ and everything else is a bonus. I wish I could write something pithy or funny about the scene, but really, it was 20 kids silently staring at me with slightly scared/guilty looks on their faces. They were still talking to me, but treading lightly. Then we came up with a compromise. I drew a calendar on the board and said, “these days I’m willing to schedule as work days” and asked them what they nee...

Did you ever have one of those days when you just felt like you were possibly the worst teacher ever? Your students have no respect for you, they’ve learned nothing and, in fact, everything you are doing is setting them back… possibly to elementary school days. Plus you suck. I have this never ending conscience battle with my AP seniors. There is a class they are all required to take. In this class, the teacher assigns an extensive research paper. The teacher chooses the topic theme, tells them the due date and never speaks of it again. Until, you know, the due date. The first year I taught AP seniors, I asked this teacher if I was supposed to do anything about this research paper. I was told “no, you don’t have to do anything, unless you want to”. This year the core senior English teacher spent nearly a month dragging those students through the process of writing the paper. He gave me all of his handouts (thank you!), and I gave my students two weeks to do their research. Apparently,...

Just give me the snack and the squeaky toy goes free.

Things have been going fairly well with my classes. I'm starting to get worried/suspicious... itchy butt was actually on task all period on Friday, thanked me for moving his assigned seat and returned promptly from a trip to the library with a book to read . It's a bit freaky. I'm thinking the flu epidemic is having an impact on this long streak of calmness. Only any given day, at least three kids are gone from every class. Even itchy butt has been out a few times, and you know that kids like that are never gone. Not that anyone has had swine flu, they're all just staying home at the slightest sign of sickness. Today I had my first pro-cert culminating seminar. Five hours people... five hours! During the pre-assessment pro-cert we had long discussions about the use of the refresh button , how important it was use the ,jpeg format for photos and other technological conundrums. Today we had a 30 minute discussion on how a document appendix works. Labeling each document ...

Rarely do I have specific stories about students - I always feel kinda guilty for talking about my students because they're only really interesting to tell stories about when they're being nutty. As a class started this afternoon, one boy announced that his "butt itched real bad". A little distracting, but he then proceeded to stand up and wiggle around, and let us all know that his "butt was really itchin'". I said, "sounds like a medical issue, do you need to see the nurse?" Oh, yeah. He was on a role. Anything to keep us all off of task and not writing. So, while the antics continued, I wrote him a pass to the nurse and off he went. Thankyoujebus that the nurse wasn't actually at the school today... she doesn't seem to have much of a sense of humor. This particular student is fairly notorious for making similar statements in his classes with female teachers to throw them off and establish his control of the classroom. The counselors ...

Every year starts out the same way... one class period I love. For some reason, we just click immediately. I'm excited to see them and I'm sure that we're all going to have a wonderful learning experience. It's wonderful! Then about three or four weeks into the semester, the class turns the behavior corner and because I'm "such a cool teacher", they go hog wild. No one turns in any work, assignments sit on tables or are used for paper airplanes and spitwads. They are directionless and only motivated to here the latest gossip. Every activity is like walking through a mud flat... I can hear my soul being slowly ripped out of my body as they manage to dampen any hope I had of having one of those wonderful classes. They drive me to drink. This year, I've been trying to avoid it. It happened anyways. But! Instead of drinking, we had a class meeting. I told them my sad dream class story. (they love to hear stories) They apologize and ask for more intesting a...

Before school started, I was asked to be the lead person for an intervention project going on within the district. No one really knew what I was supposed to be doing, but it did not require any traveling or extensive meetings after school. So I agreed to do it. I figured it would be good experience and I might learn something. Today I discover that I am, apparently, supposed to be attending a meeting every Thursday of the week during school hours. My last class of the day. You see, I do get an extra free period in the day to do all the work needed for this new program. The free period, however, is not during the time when the weekly meeting is scheduled. In fact, no one in my building was told of a particular day or time needed for this position. Thus a sub has to be found for one class period every week. I'm not happy - middle of week days off are a pain. The continuum of the class is ruined and students are never ready to jump back in after having a sub, no matter how good he/she...

How do you deal with cellphones in your class? I seriously need some ideas. Last year, I did the prescripted "if I see or it goes off, it's mine routine," but it left me doing A LOT of monitoring. Kids can send text messages through their pockets, you know. Also the "vibrate" setting is noisy and disruptive. It drives me to distraction. This year I started with the cute little baskets. I already have students not putting them in the basket (hiding them) and I just want it to stop being a policing issue. Parents are no help at all. Half the phone calls and texts during class are from the parent. I don't know if parents just don't care that their child attempts to send a text message every 30 seconds during EVERY class or if they're just oblivious. Last year a teacher had a little contest. He gathered all the phones on his desk and then asked the student to bet on how many text messages any one student would recieve. The highest number? 101. In a 50 mi...

I wanted to be the mean teacher in the beginning of the year, but I think I've taken it too far... I dunno... I can just seem myself doing things that I really don't want to do, but can't figure out how to do. For example, today during the last period the students were especially hyper. Some genius decided that a fire drill would be a great idea 3 minutes before a period ended. This meant that the next period had students straggling in for about 15 minutes after the period was suppose to start. And after a good quarter to half mile hike in the freezing weather, they were completely spazzy. Get everyone calmed down and on task takes forever... Students who are able to control themselves start reading books after 5 minutes of waiting. I begin the lesson about symbolism - great topic. Desperately wish I could pop in the Napoleon Dynamite movie like certain classes have. We get involved discussion trying to find the symbolism in various poems... I can hear student "Bob...