A Pretty Sad Story.

I met with the school counsellor today regarding my ideas for working with H.

After hearing about his life, I am not at all surprised that he is disruptive and non-respectful of adults. Apparently, his mother is a mentally ill drug-addict and has never tried to give him any rules or structure in his life. He has been used to running around all night and doing what he pleases since he was very young. She was never around, and when she was, she was neglectful and abusive. 4-5 months ago, she disappeared for good, apparently, abandoning H. altogether. He has since gone to live with his Grandparents, along with his 15 year old sister and her 6 month old baby.

And people wonder why he is struggling in school. Seems like that might be low on his priority list at the moment.

The counsellor was pleased with my approach and was very encouraging of my efforts. She says that I can grade H. as Pass/Fail in my classes according to my criteria. She indicates, however, that there have been numerous "meetings" recently regarding him and that if he gets three more "referrals," he will be expelled from school and possibly sent to TLC, a school for kids with emotional issues.

Yikes.

I had H. in my 8th period class. Mr. Jewett came in and we began working on some Flash animations, which the kids absolutely love. I am still a little green at using the program, so Mr. Jewett did all of the lecturing and demonstrating for the day. However, after following along step-by-step with him, I think I am finally getting the hang of the program. I talked with H. before class and explained to him what was going to happen that class period. He seemed interested to learn about Flash. He followed along with the lessons and was doing some good Flash stuff. I noticed that he brought his CDs and his headphones and stayed on task for the whole period.

Somebody stole a mouse ball out of one of the mice yesterday, in 5th period, 7th period or Study Hall. Mr. Jewett was really pissed. He closed down the lab for study hall and sent all of the kids over to Mr. Denise's room instead. He said that this was the first time anyone had ever vandalized one of the North Fork Lab computers. Man, he was upset!

I start my "Graphic Arts" lesson plans in 3rd and 5th periods next week. I am excited about them, but they will take some work to prepare.

What I Learned From Mr. Denise

I talked with Mr. Denise at length today regarding my ideas for working with H. He was very supportive and agreed that something needed to be done and that I was probably on the right track.

However, we talked about differentiated instruction. I was surprised to know that you can't. Well, you sort of can, but when the rubber hits the road, all kids are equal. Some subjects, such as English and History, have regular classes and "Pre-AP" classes in the same classroom. These are seen as two different classes and in such cases, it is quite alright to have differentiated instruction and expectations for the two groups.

If you don't have such an official division though, things become much more difficult. You can differentiate your instructions and you can encourage kids to achieve more or produce more advanced work if they are more advanced students. However, when it comes to graded work, you can't expect the advanced kids in your class do anything more than any other kid. This opens the teacher and the school to great difficulties if the "advanced kid" doesn't do well and parents come back wanting to know why he had to do harder work for the same grade as other kids. Makes it sort of hard to "push" kids to achieve more than they think they can do.

You may have noticed that in an earlier post today, I seem to have set up exactly this situation with H., my current challenge. I talked it over with Mr. Denise first. He steered me in the right direction. I need to talk with the counsellor and have H's grade in my class changed to Pass/Fail, so that he will merely pass the course and get credit for it, not have any chance at getting an A for his differentiated assignments.

Me and the Toughest Kid in School.

H.

He is a nice enough kid and I think that he is pretty smart, but he is very hard to motivate and can be very disruptive. I have him in two classes, one odd period class and one even period class. That means that we spend at least an hour and a half together each and every day.

We have had our ups and downs. As I mentioned previously, on the first couple of days of my Computer I class, he worked hard on my "Skateboarder Scavenger Hunt" for an entire class period, without hardly looking up. But then, on the other hand, I have had to send him to ISS (In School Suspension) twice for being so disruptive I couldn't teach.

Unfortunately, I don't think that "Dictator Discipline" works with H. He already has a stack of 17 referrals, has lunch detention every day, is failing every class, you get the picture. I don't think that "busting him" is going to help anything. Some of the teachers in the teachers lounge think that he is on drugs. Maybe, I don't know.

He and I had a "heart to heart" today. I told him what I said above, that he is a likeable kid with some smarts, but that he appears to get bored really easily. He agreed. I told him that I noticed him working really hard on the Scavenger Hunt. He said, "Yeah, that was cool."

We kept talking and I made a deal with him. (I ran all of this by Mr. Denise ahead of time, the school disciplinarian.) If he agrees to work on the program in our classes that the rest of the kids are working on, I will let him create his own assignment. Anything that he wants to do, as long as it is school appropriate and as long as he puts his project in writing to me ahead of time. If he works for the class period and turns in some sort of product when assignments are due, I will pass him in the class. He seemed happy that someone wasn't threatening him for a change and was actually trying to work with him. He agreed to try this. He also agreed that if he was not working and being disruptive that I could send him out of class so that I could continue teaching the other students.

In our class today, the kids were working on their Computer Terminology PowerPoint presentation. H. spent the period making a slide show in weird colors with floating symbols and a bunch of spiralling letters that said "Computers are Confusing" with his name across the top. It was kind of neat, in its own way and he actually worked for the whole period. Interestingly enough, the work that he was doing was further advanced than the rest of the class. I also had him draw on the board when I needed a scribe and he liked that, as well.

Maybe I am making progress.

I Recover.

OK, if you have been following along at home, you know that I had a poor day yesterday. Mismanaged classes, lack of discipline, etc.

I thought about things a lot, well into the wee of the morning, as is my wont. I decided to start over again with my 1st Period class. I misjudged things originally and was expecting too much of the kids to be able to follow my directions in a group project and produce what I was looking for without some direct intervention.

"OK," I said to the class at the start, "How many people are a little confused about what PowerPoint is and how it works?" About 7 kids raised their hands. "How many people are confused about Mr. Burkhard's project and what the heck he wants from us?" Everyone put up their hands.

"Well," thinks I, "I must need to start over again..."

We started with "What is PowerPoint?" Then we worked our way up. Using a generic Computer Term, "Computer," we went through every step of the project. First, we came up with a definition of "Computer." We came up with "A machine that processes information." Then, I had the kids help me illustrate that definition. We came up with a funny looking machinebox with gears in the center of the page, with a jumble of question marks on the left, with an arrow from the question marks to the machine. On the other side, there was an arrow coming out of the box, with an ordered list of question marks as output.

Then, we started making the appropriate PowerPoint slides. I started at the beginning, how to make a file, how to create a slide, how to change background colors, how to change fonts, etc. We made the definition slides, then started working on the illustration slide. We went step-by-step over the process of getting clip art from Bill Gates' website. Soon, everyone had their practice slides done. Most kids looked pretty pleased.

Mr. Jewett sat in on the class (first time he has done that since the quarter started.) Afterwards, he said that he thought that it went really well. He likes the way that I talk to the kids, the way I move around the room and the way that I did my demonstrations.

I felt like a much better teacher after that class than after yesterday.

Hello to Everyone Visiting...

Over the last couple of days, I have been getting posts and emails from people out in the big world that are reading my blogs. A number of them are from teachers, giving me words of encouragement and lots of advice. I even had a recent student write with and tell me to hang in there, as well.

One writer's blog had some excellent "Teacher Stuff" on it:

http://teachertoteacher.blogspot.com/

Anyway, thanks to everyone reading and thanks for the kind words.

P.S. Awhile back, someone advised me to pick up the Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" album. I got it from the library and am listening to it now. It is REALLY good jazz music...

OK, Today, I Sucked.

I suppose that in every teacher's life there are a couple of days where you pretty much don't cut it. You were the starting pitcher and gave up 8 runs in the first inning and things went downhill from there.

Today was such a day.

It was an "Even" period class day. 2nd period went pretty well. The kids are wrapping up their Flash projects. This is a great class, with a number of hardworking and creative kids. You know, the kind that you don't have to say anything to, they just get to work and crank out good stuff. Mr. Jewett and I have talked and he says that I can do my "Computer Graphics" project with this class. They have the talent and the drive to produce some good stuff, I think. I will start that next week sometime. I am looking forward to it.

Fourth period, I spent grading the Computer Timeline projects for my 8th period class. These assignments were to have been completed a week or so ago, it's just that nobody has graded them yet. Out of a class of 23, there were about 7 As, 5 Bs, 5 Cs and 6 Ds or lower. As the class has moved on to another project, I thought that I would help the kids go over their Timeline in class and make some adjustments to their work and resubmit for a higher grade, if they wished. That came later.

6th Period went fairly well, the kids are completing their Business site projects and are halfway into their Candidates Frames page. This is the assignment that is driving me nuts, as Mr. Jewett is explaining it person by person. Some kids are getting it all done, though and the stuff looks pretty good.

8th period went right downhill. I am struggling with one kid in particular in the class, H. He is in both my 1st period Computer I class and my 8th Period Computer Skills class. He is a pleasant enough kid to talk to and appears to be pretty bright when he tries, but I struggle to get him to do much of anything in class. He is always getting up, moving around the class, bothering other kids and generally disrupting the learning environment. I have tried to talk to him on a number of occasions, but nothing seems to last more than a couple of minutes. He was "jumping" around the back of the computer lab in his chair, which makes alot of noise and is very disruptive. I brought him to a computer in the front of the class. After a minute or so, another student walked by and H. tripped him, almost knocking him down to the floor. I sent him to ISS. I know that this sounds like a cop-out, but I am at a little bit of a loss as to how to help him.

H. worked long and hard on the "Skateboarding" scavenger hunt that I gave him at the start of Computer I. He was on task and completing work for most of the day. The other activities, in either class, have not done it for him and he has done little to nothing. I am not sure if I should try to reach out and find something special for him to work on that will keep him interested or what. Argh.

Anyway, the rest of 8th period stunk. I was poorly managing the class, spending time helping kids repair their projects while the rest of the class got out of hand. I really did not like the atmosphere at all and felt like I wasn't teaching, but running a zoo, poorly.

Then we had our study hall period. Mr. Jewett had a meeting to attend, so I was on my own. I had given 5 kids study hall passes to come to the Lab to work on their projects. Unfortunately, Ms. Kimball and Ms. Francis also gave out about 5 passes each for their kids to come to the lab as well. We already have about 14 kids in study hall, add another 15 kids, all looking to work on computers in a 25 computer lab and you can just see the hilarity ensue.

Starting tomorrow, monitors will be off in Study Hall and kids will only be able to turn on their computers if they have specific computer related schoolwork to do. That might help.

Now, I have to come up with a lesson plan for 1st period tomorrow and see if I can avoid another fiasco like 8th period today.

Election Day

We had a little teambuilding exercise in my 1st Period class this morning. I think that it helped to break the ice a little bit, as I made sure that kids were paired for the exercise that would not normally work together. I think that the kids had fun and might have learned a little something. Then, we got back to work on our Computer Terminology projects.

I continue to be sort of surprised at how Junior High school kids struggle to follow directions. For our project, I have written out step-by-step instructions as to how to complete the project, yet kids cannot seem to get two straight steps completed without asking for help. Maybe I am being too complicated on my directions, but I don't think so. This is something that I must need to work on.

We were commenting today at how easily some of our kids "give up." Mr. Denise was saying that he thinks that there must be a connection between the right arms of kids and their brains, that when the arm is up, the brains stop working. I have seen this a lot. My story the other day about J., who sounded irritated that he had to figure something out on the computer by himself because I wouldn't go help him in time is a good example.

We had Mr. Denise in class for 3rd Period again. He showed us how to batch process pictures and create an online photo album. Pretty neat stuff. 5th Period class is finishing up their business website. The next assignment for the class is a frames website having to do with candidates in the election. Unfortunately, Mr. Jewett is showing kids in ones and twos how to move on to the next project as they finish their business site. This is very confusing and appears to be stratifying the class even more than it already is. Plus, Mr. Jewett is giving the same lecture over and over again. This is making me a little nuts.

I begged out of Study Hall this afternoon so that I could get to the polls and vote. I will cover Study Hall tomorrow, as he has a meeting that he must attend.

After voting, I ran over to CSU to meet with Robert and put the finishing touches on our 325 project presentation. You remember that? It is the "1/2 of all our points for the semester" project that is due this Friday. We were told last week that we would have to give a presentation on our project for the class today, then polish up the project for submission on Friday. Robert and I finished up some lesson plans and printed up some handouts for the class. All in all, Robert and I probably have put 25-30 hours or so in on this project over the last 2-3 days between the two of us. Well, guess what? Not only did we not give any presentations today, but the due date for the project has been pushed back to the 12th of November.

Why the hell do I bother?

Dr. Yohon had her friend Patsy from Boulder come in to class again, this time bringing up three of her students from her class to tell us more about "how they do things in Boulder." What a complete waste of time! Sure, they are great kids, but please! The last hour of class, Dr. Yohon shoveled a 2 inch stack of paper in our direction, trying to "cover" subjects that she missed over the course of the last 11 weeks. It was pathetic.

I can honestly say that this course has been the biggest waste of my time of any college course in my memory. I am particularly irritated at the fact that Robert and I (and the rest of the class too, of course) have been busting our ass to get projects and assignments done on time, only to find that the projects have been cancelled or changed at the last minute.

Argh!

Monday was to be Jury Duty Day...

I received a summons for Jury Duty a month ago. I told the school and Mr. Jewett about it quite awhile back. Mr. Jewett will be covering my classes for me. They are primarily working on typing on Monday, so this isn't so bad.

However, I called the secret "Potential Jurors" message line last night and the voice told me that I wasn't needed. OK, great. Unfortunately, I spent much of the afternoon yesterday working on my Methods project and getting sick. I woke up sneezing my head off, with a sore throat, a running nose and a headache.

Oh, and I am grouchy as hell, too.

As I was already scheduled to be absent from school today, I spent the morning sleeping, trying to repair myself for tomorrow.

Tomorrow, I need to figure out how to get to school, vote, get my Methods project polished up and get to Methods class by 3:00 p.m. Should be lots of fun.

On top of that, Ali, one of our Project Promise instructors, emailed me wanting to watch me teach this week. I don't have a problem with that, its just that she wants to come on Thursday and I will be in the middle of my PowerPoint project with the Computer I class. I am not sure that there will be alot to see, as I won't be doing any lecturing, etc. We'll see what happens.

Halloween Weekend

I spent time with the family on Saturday, keeping my 325 project in the back of my mind for much of the day. The 325 project is the "Business Methods" course culminating project that Robert and I need to complete by Tuesday. Using a course outline that Robert turned in a couple of months ago, we are to create two unit plans, four lesson plans, appropriate assessments and lists of student and teacher supporting materials. This would be much easier if we had an assignment sheet or some complete rubrics to go with it, but we don't, at least we can't find any at the online site for the class.

This is most irritating.

I talked over the project with Robert on Saturday evening and got to work on Sunday. I am putting together an "Introduction to PowerPoint" unit. Robert has already put together most of his parts of the project, an "Introduction to the Internet" unit. I already have a couple of lesson plans sketched out in my head regarding good PowerPoint projects, but I have to put all of these ideas down into a form that Dr. Yohon will like. What a pain in the ass!

There is a lot of duplication of effort involved here, trying to follow what we think she wants in her project and the outline of the unit plans, etc. It is driving me nuts. I spent most of Sunday afternoon on it and think that I am pretty close to having it all wrapped up. I will be SO glad when this course is over this week!

"Paul," you say, "why haven't you been working on this project over the last three or four weeks, like a good student, so that you don't have to rush at the last minute?"

"You," I say, "are nosy and need to keep your questions to yourself." "However, I feel justified in not working on this much yet, as I haven't had more than 10 minutes of free time to do anything but catch catnaps."