The Rest of Friday.

It is now the end of the day and the end of the week. I am pretty tired.

The rest of the day went pretty well. 6th period worked hard and got some stuff done. 8th period, which is all 7th graders, got a little squirrelly. About 2/3s of the way through the class, I decided that we needed some fresh air and we went outside for about 5 minutes or so. Fear not, I continued the learning process out of doors. Once outside, I huddled everyone up for some quick questions and answers regarding future technology. It was a long day, but it went well.

I asked Mrs. Murphy, the substitute that spent the entire day in the classroom watching me work, how she thought things went. She said that it went very well, in her eyes. She also indicated that I acted like a teacher and that you would not be able to tell that I haven't been doing this for years. I was pretty happy about that. She says that she has seen alot of student teachers that are shellshocked and have no real idea what they are doing in a classroom. Glad I am not one of those.

I am listening to some music at the moment, the Eric Clapton song "Wonderful Tonight." This lyric just played:

"It's time to go home now and
I've got an aching head...."

I think that about says it all for me. I am going home and trying to catch a nap.

2nd Period, Some Discipline Issues.

It is 4th period and I am tossing up a quick blog. I had the 2nd period class just end. There is a substitute in the room, but she is just here to make sure that nobody burns the room down.

The kids were finishing up their Band Site. This is a webpage that has to do with their favorite band, incorporating a Flash movie. Flash is the computer animation program that makes all of the cool rotating, spinning, fading-in and -out effects that you see on webpages nowadays. This kids are doing some great stuff, with band logos splitting apart and coming back together, spinning and flipping, flashing and fading, etc.

One kid, H., who is actually a pretty good kid, indicated that he was done early and what should he do. I asked him to please get into Macromedia FreeHand, a program that we have on our computers, but do not use. I wanted him to play with the program a little and then tell me what the program does and how we could use it in class. In general, the program helps with web graphics by using drawing tools. He tried for about 4 seconds and then went to do other stuff. Stuff like disrupt everyone around him. I tried redirecting him about 5 times, but he kept getting into other people's stuff. Finally, he said that he wanted to work on a "game that I am making in Flash." OK, that is possible, you can make games in Flash, and it would keep him involved with something other than bugging everybody.

The next thing I look over, he is playing some helicopter game from a website that is has happened to slip through the school's Web Filtering program. His neighbors were cheering him on, congratulating him on finding a game from the Internet. Playing Internet Games on school time is strictly forbidden.

H. was busted.

"H.," I said, "Close up, get out, you are in ISS (In-School Suspension) for the rest of the class!" He was shocked. I would not normally do this, but he had been playing me all class period and he was breaking the Code of Conduct by playing an Internet game and he had lied to me. He quickly came to. "Mr. Burkhard, I'm sorry, please give me another chance. I promise, I will work on FreeHand!" He was about to cry. I finally "gave in" and said he could stay.

The neat thing, though, is that H. finally started playing with FreeHand and figured out that you can do some really cool spiralling, layering, coloring tricks in the program. By the end of class, he was showing off the stuff he was doing to some of the more advanced kids in class.

I think that it went pretty well.

More later.

A Couple of Minor Victories.

I appear to have had some successes of some sort today.

After my raising a small stink about there not being any assistance for my two IEP kids in my first period class, I had three different visits from two different paras in class today. I immediately put them to work and included them in the class activity, helping the kids. I am not sure if this will continue, but I am already trying to establish relationships with them.

One of the kids in the class wrote on his "About Me" index card on the first day that he was "terrified of computers." I talked with him a little this morning and he indicated that he had been on the Internet a couple of times, but had never done anything else. He said that he didn't even know what a file was. After talking with the class a little bit about the "Scavenger Hunt" assignment, I did a quick introduction to computer files, folders and search engines. I also showed him how to input his Scavenger Hunt answers into the form and convert his answers to links. He seemed to get it. I helped him with one answer out of 14. By the end of class, about 10 minutes later, he had completed two more answers without my assistance.

As my friend Lee Evans would say: "Cool!"

Thursday. Skateboarding, Cute Guys and The Simpsons.

I had my second class period today. It was fun. I had a couple of exercises for the kids to work on, developed last night at around 11:00 p.m.

First, the kids had to log on to a "Mind reading" website and figure out how the trick worked, then send me an email outlining their theories. The catch was that the kids were not allowed to talk or make any noise. This was *extremely* difficult for 7th graders, who exist to make noise. It was alot of fun, though, watching them work their way through the exercise. They soon learned that they could, in fact, communicate with each other, but just couldn't talk. The ones that had it figured out organized and brought the other kids over, then walked them through the site, writing out their theory as they went. The kids all got it and emailed me their answers. I got to watch how the kids problem solved and worked with handicaps, as well as getting all (most) of their email addresses for my address book.

Want to try it? This is the link:

http://www.readyourmind.net

When you figure out how the site "reads your mind," send me your explanation in an email: pburkhar@psdschools.org. This is my School District email address, not my personal one.

We then went over my Course Outline sheet, which the kids need to take home and have signed and return a signature tear-off sheet. This assignment is worth 15 points and is due on Monday.

We also talked about Rubrics, which I will try to use for each assignment.

Then we got to work on our "Scavenger Hunt." Instead of the same old boring scavenger hunts that we have been doing forever, I put together three different scavenger hunts in areas of interest for the kids: Skateboarding, Cute Guys and "The Simpsons." The kids seemed very excited about this. They will continue to work on this next week. It is due next Thursday.

The rest of the day, I helped Mr. Jewett get kids finishing up their various projects. I have been having a number of kids ask specifically for my help, which is nice.

All in all, I having a great day.

Tomorrow will be different. Mr. Jewett is taking the day off and I will be in charge of all of the classes. I hope it goes well, but I am expecting the worst. I will let you know more then.

Two "New Kids" in My Class

I mentioned (or hinted at) the fact that I was going to be getting two new kids in my Computer I class 1st period. I actually know them quite well. They were in the 1st period Computer I class first quarter and both of them flunked. I have tried to work individually with both students at some time in the past to help them make progress in class, but have been largely unsuccessful.

It wasn't until last Friday, the last day of the quarter, that Mr. Jewett got an IEP summary sheet for these two students. For those of you not in the know, an IEP is an "Individualized Education Plan." This is a plan of learning for students that have learning disabilities or are developmentally disabled. Both of these two students have been struggling through our class last quarter, getting nothing done. Both are to have extra help from paraprofessionals in the classroom and accomodations on assignments and tests.

I have been asking around. Apparently, there is a Special Education teacher in the building that does nothing. One teacher told me that this teacher last quarter had only one student assigned for a particular class period. A week or two into the quarter, the student moved out of the school. The Special Education teacher said nothing, and used the time as an extra "planning period." In a time when Special Needs resources and funding are critically lacking, I find such behavior absolutely unforgiveable.

As you may know, I spent 15 years working with the Developmentally Disabled in the community. I have a soft spot for such kids. I will be figuring out some way to get these two kids learning something in my classroom, if at all possible.

Just Another 17 Hour Day

Hi. Sorry I am late.

It is Thursday and I am sitting in the media center during 7th period, which is my planning period for the day. I did not blog yesterday, as I was busy. All Day.

Yesterday, I got up, got ready and went to school at 6:45 a.m. We had classes all day, as usual. I was not teaching any of the classes yesterday, as it is an even day, but I am trying to get caught up on all of the projects that the kids are doing, so that I can take over Computer Productions and Computer Skills over the next week or so. I am slowly getting caught up on stuff.

After school, there was a staff meeting. We are supposed to turn off all of the monitors in the classroom when they are not in use, to save electricity. In addition, the school will be developing an interdisciplinary project next year that pertains to the Cache La Poudre River, which runs behind our campus. The science classes will be studying it, the english classes will be writing about it, the math classes will be analyzing it, the P.E. classes might be rafting on it, you get the idea. Sounds like a good idea. Won't start until next year, though.

After the meeting, I got home at about 4:15 p.m., just in time to start packing the kids up to go to CSU for our first "Seminar Night." Seminar night is a way for the Project Promise cohort to reconnect once per week during our student teaching and talk about our problems. It is also a time for PP instructors to fill our heads with more stuff. My head is pretty full at the moment, so I am having a hard time getting anything else in there.

Shannon has to work in the evenings, so Emma (4 year old) and Spencer (18 month old) went with me to class. Fortunately, Julia's kids were there as well and helped to watch and entertain them. We talked about our first week as teachers. Some folks are doing well, others not. I am doing pretty well, all things considered. It sounds like some cohort members are having a good time of things (Keith, Dave S., Mason,) others are deep into teaching already (Abby and Suzanne,) others don't think that they will be able to teach in the foreseeable future, because their teachers won't let them (Carolyn, Lynn.)

It was good to see everyone, but I was ready to leave pretty early in the evening. We got home at about 8:00 p.m. and the kids were in bed by 9:00 p.m. Then I got started on my lesson planning for this morning. That wrapped up at about 11:45 p.m. I am just loving these 17 hour days!

First Day at CLP as a Full-time Student Teacher

OK, it is now 7th period, my planning period. I am sitting in the media center, as usual. This has been my first day as a full-time student teacher here at Cache La Poudre Junior High School. It has been a crazy day.

1st period went pretty well, for the most part. It is my class. Mr. Jewett didn't even come into the classroom for more than a minute or two. It is a class of 14 (soon to be 16) kids. Four girls, ten boys. The girls are very attentive and well-mannered. Most of the boys also seem to be fairly well-behaved (for the first day, anyway.) One student, H., came in late to class and was rather disruptive. He then didn't participate in class exercises and starting rocking back in his chair to the point of almost laying down on the floor. I needed to bring that up to him twice. The second time, I was stern. From what I understand, he will be testing me for the first week or so. I am ready for this.

We went over some background information regardng the class and the types of projects and software on which we would be working. We also went over some of my classroom expectations. I had the kids give input on some of the rules, which I think helped them feel a little more involved in the rules process.

We also went over a "set" activity. This was a little online exploration of the dynamic computer graphic website, The Zoomquilt. I posted the link for this awhile back. The kids all brought up the website and played with it. They all seemed pretty impressed.

Unfortunately, I then proceed to completely forget the Course Outline sheet that I had spent hours putting together this weekend. I was supposed to pass out the sheet so that the kids could take them home to their parents so that they could have an idea what I am doing in my class and how to contact me, etc. I forgot all about it. I will have to try to pass it out on Thursday. Oops.

Anyway, after 1st period, things all went to hell. Early this morning, the "Gradebook" server was down, so I could not bring up any of the student and attendance information. Then, in 3rd period (today was a block schedule period day) all of the servers were down. Nobody could copy or save anything to the server. Then, we had a power failure and everything went out, including the DNS server that directs all of the nodes on the networks, etc. We could not do anything with computers for about a period and a half. Teaching your computer class without computers is tough. We played a couple of games, but for the most part, kids just talked and goofed around. Mr. Jewett was not overly excited about continuing the learning process, so I let things slide.

Lunch was lousy, as I ate in the cafeteria with the kids. As I got to the front of the line, the pizza ran out, all that was left was the hamburgers, which were really bad.

"Wait, Paul," you say, "I thought you always had a salad for lunch?" Well, I haven't been making salads much recently. We haven't had the money for salad fixin's, so I have been eating "Soups to Go" that my lovely wife buys on sale with coupons for 25 cents. I have also been buying $2.00 lunches in the cafeteria. Not as good for me. One benefit though, of the lousy diet, is that junk food does not give me bloating and gas the way that my fruits and salads did. Oh, well.

The Night Before.

It is Monday night. 10:18 p.m.

CLP and most of the rest of the Poudre R1 school district had the day off today. Tomorrow, I start at CLP Junior High School full time. I start with my 1st period class, Computer I. This is a quarter-long class for 7th graders. The new quarter starts tomorrow. I am in charge. It will be my first class that is totally mine. Of course, me being who I am, I am nervous to the point of illness.

I have spent most of the last two days working on my first day information, including a Course Outline, my classroom management plan, an introductory PowerPoint presentation, etc. There are only going to be 14 kids in the class, but they sure seem scary at this point...

I think that things will go well. We shall see.