So earlier this week, my students' poor behavior led to them losing their recess time. Normally, this would mean that they would walk laps around the playground. On this particular day, it happened to be raining, so we stayed inside and I told my students to take out a sheet of paper and write to me, for 20 minutes, about anything they wanted to write about. The results were quite diverse, and very entertaining. Here are some of the highlights (transcribed exactly as written, hence the errors):
M: "Hi Ms. H. I know today is my birthday I'm really excited and I'm geting a fish today I don't now what I should call I If you got a good name tell me please your the best teacher I met If I give you a inveation will you come to my birthday pary you are really really really really nice and pretty I like school so much I don't wnat to leave."
C (an ESL student): "I fie sad becam we didit got time to tike at lunch and recess and I sorrow we wase our time." (followed by "Be Mine." and a picture of Spongebob that he traced from one of the many Spongebob valentines he has sitting in his desk that he will periodically distribute in quantities of anywhere from 1-4 to a random student at a random time.)
K: "Dear Ms. H. I'm feeling happy I want Kids Bop 18 a puppy roller skates a bairbe and a doll house. A coller for puppy. I want to go smiwing."
C (in the form of a thank you card): "Thak you for being my teaher and thak you for helping me love C"
T: "I want some new shes and some new games and some new close and some books and some new sinny j...and I want a machn and some bes so I can wap kids and I want to be a football plaer. The end."
D: "Dear Ms. H I will lik some jolley rache and som hot chetoc."
One paper without a name simply said "fighting", and honestly I was impressed that it was spelled right.
B: "Dear Mrs. H. You are a very nice teacher some people say you arn't. When I grow up I want to be a vet because it is so not cute to see animals out on the street or diging in the trash can trying to fine somthing to eat."
A (an ESL student): "Ms. H ho is jore frabrate siger?"
D (an ESL student): "I like my dog Soloman because he is playful. When I run he run aftar me every thime I go inside he goes inside. When I fall he goes and like me and jump on me and that tikiles. When I sleep get on my bed then he start liking me. When I wake up he star barking and that mean he is hungry. Then I got and walk him all the niborhood. When I go to use the bathroom he use it to. That is why I like Soloman. The end."
Z managed to write his name on his paper and nothing else over the course of 20 minutes.
R: "I want a milky way a 3 musscaters a bike a skate 3 game for x box 360 a candy bar 7 pairs of shoes a hot tub a jucuzy a big big pool with a diveing board a te-rex motercicle a skating rink."
B (an ESL student): "Well when I grow up I whant to be a doctor of anomirt."
A: "NASCAR us my fariote I love NAscar."
K, whose entire paper was embellished with flowers: "Dear, Ms. H. If we my famliy Invite to our house or vactoin would come"
E (an ESL student) and one of my favorite writings from the day: "guitar stampers horses cariwinds favorite restrunt barbie ice cream dog ice cream maker trofy calne movie for punit disien kit neckless braclit candy chuky cheses cotten candy gum balls notebook markers glitter pen led pencils cocont ice cream. new dress boucey house. bike scoter money miny bake oven. humingbrid."
S: "I want a bop it. and a fish. I like chinken. I like furits. I want a puppy. I want to go to daycare. I want to be a grown up. I want candy. I want some bloons and a moter bike and a moter scoter and a room flild whth furit and an manchin and to be rich. And have preety cloths and shoes. to have my toes done and hair done and to be mixed. and to have greenesh redesh bluesh eyes. I want to go to bild a bare workshop. D-3." (I was intrigued by the inclusion of "and to be mixed" in the middle of that...it's pretty deep for a third grader.)
And last but certainly not least, T: "Dear Ms. H. I love skatebording. It is fun you should try it. you might fall. But not hard I did a cople times. But not hard it's fun."
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. If you've found yourself wondering recently what's on the mind of your average third grader...well, I'm not sure I would call my third graders average, so I'm not sure this would help you. In fact, our classroom mission statement says that we're anything but average:
"We are exceptional. We are not ordinary. We will work hard to achieve our goals. We will support and respect each other. We are exceptional. We are not ordinary."
Exceptional thoughts from exceptional students. These are why I teach for equality.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Data Driven Instruction
So week 4 is coming to a close, and by the end of the day tomorrow I'll have at least 7 points of data on each of the students in my class (with the exception of the one new student who started at the end of last week - I'll have 3 for her) and they're all going into this very fancy excel spreadsheet that TFA has drawn up (that my entire school now uses) that color codes each student's standing in relationship to the class goal that you set. It's all part of "data driven instruction", which is the hot new thing in education. I have no idea how the tracker does what it does (I'm not very good with excel) but I love it.
I know a lot of people aren't crazy about the idea of looking solely at scores on assessments to determine what we're doing in our classrooms, you know, the holistic child approach. And while I fully believe that you can't put your blinders on and look just at the numbers, I'm also wholeheartedly invested in the theory and practice of data driven instruction. By breaking down each student's performance into a series of scores, you can see not only which students are doing well and which are struggling, but also specific areas of strength and weakness. I can see that because my student doesn't have a strong grip on place value and number sense, they don't do well in comparing and ordering numbers because those are skills that require an understanding of place value. This way, I don't go back to comparing and ordering before touching on place value and number sense; I could beat them over the head with how to compare numbers but if they don't know that 100 is worth more than 10, they're never going to know how to tell that 438 is worth more than 399.
Anyway, I'm writing this while sitting in grad class at UNC-Charlotte (shhhh...don't tell the professor) so my thoughts are not very put together or well articulated. But I'll close out with a story about the best part of my day:
Let me first say that my students do NOT get along well with one another. It's a rare half hour that goes past without someone calling someone else a name, or the passing of a shouting match, or someone kicking someone else. That said, I'm bound and determined to teach them how to work together, because it's centrally important to their development as students and people. So today I split my students into groups of 3 with one reading textbook per group (since I only have 7 textbooks for my class of 21), told them that they should take turns reading out loud, that they should read through the entire story, that they should complete a T-chart contrasting life in the United States and life in Korea (the book was about a girl who moves from Korea to the US), and that they had 30 minutes to do so. I let their group choose where in the room they would sit, with the understanding that they should not be close enough to any other group to talk to them. I set the timer and sent them on their merry way, and I walked around the room, expecting the typical behavior management nightmare that occurs every time we do group work. Instead, I saw my students working on task the entire time, with completed products that genuinely impressed me.
Those surprised moments of sheer joy are why I teach for equality.
I know a lot of people aren't crazy about the idea of looking solely at scores on assessments to determine what we're doing in our classrooms, you know, the holistic child approach. And while I fully believe that you can't put your blinders on and look just at the numbers, I'm also wholeheartedly invested in the theory and practice of data driven instruction. By breaking down each student's performance into a series of scores, you can see not only which students are doing well and which are struggling, but also specific areas of strength and weakness. I can see that because my student doesn't have a strong grip on place value and number sense, they don't do well in comparing and ordering numbers because those are skills that require an understanding of place value. This way, I don't go back to comparing and ordering before touching on place value and number sense; I could beat them over the head with how to compare numbers but if they don't know that 100 is worth more than 10, they're never going to know how to tell that 438 is worth more than 399.
Anyway, I'm writing this while sitting in grad class at UNC-Charlotte (shhhh...don't tell the professor) so my thoughts are not very put together or well articulated. But I'll close out with a story about the best part of my day:
Let me first say that my students do NOT get along well with one another. It's a rare half hour that goes past without someone calling someone else a name, or the passing of a shouting match, or someone kicking someone else. That said, I'm bound and determined to teach them how to work together, because it's centrally important to their development as students and people. So today I split my students into groups of 3 with one reading textbook per group (since I only have 7 textbooks for my class of 21), told them that they should take turns reading out loud, that they should read through the entire story, that they should complete a T-chart contrasting life in the United States and life in Korea (the book was about a girl who moves from Korea to the US), and that they had 30 minutes to do so. I let their group choose where in the room they would sit, with the understanding that they should not be close enough to any other group to talk to them. I set the timer and sent them on their merry way, and I walked around the room, expecting the typical behavior management nightmare that occurs every time we do group work. Instead, I saw my students working on task the entire time, with completed products that genuinely impressed me.
Those surprised moments of sheer joy are why I teach for equality.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wait...what just happened?
So my first 5 days of teaching have come and gone. It’s exactly what I expected in some ways and so very far from it in others. I have a rambunctious class of 20 third graders, most of whom are 8 years old. I have 2 students who are receiving special education services, 6 students receiving ESL, and 3 students who are repeating the third grade, having failed their end-of-grade tests (EOGs) last year.
My first two days of teaching were trying, to say the least. I broke down sobbing both days as soon as my students left the room, feeling completely out of control of my situation and my classroom. I’ve worked with a lot of students with behavior problems before but never in a situation where it’s 20 on 1 and the behavioral system in place is ineffective and incomplete. I quickly learned which students were going to cause me problems and which weren’t, and quickly decided that I needed to do something to make the next days different.
That having been said, I haven’t figured it out yet. I have a student who has been sent out of my classroom each and every day since the second day of school. I have students talking about other students’ mamas every single day. I have students tattling every single day, telling me things of which I can’t either confirm or deny the truth. It doesn’t phase me anymore, which is both good (because I stay much more composed) and bad (because I can’t settle for anything less than 100% of my students behaving 100% of the time). I’ve added about 7 levels to my classroom management system, including whole-class and individual student rewards and consequences. My students, though, don’t seem to care. Until they have to walk in a silent, single file line around the playground at recess instead of playing, of course. That having been said, they don’t really do that either. Even when they know they can play as soon as they walk a lap right. I guess that’s too delayed, since the laps are long.
[Author’s note – I’ve picked up this entry after day 9 of teaching] Today I was the recipient of my very first death threat – one of my students was mad at me for making them walk laps at recess, and wrote a note to one of my other students that said “I going to jail I’m going to kill Ms. H.” The other student wrote back “Why?” The first student responded “She made us walk laps at recess.” Needless to say, a bit of an overreaction, I believe. I’m not at all scared for my safety, but it was definitely unexpected.
[Author’s note – I’ve picked up this entry again after day 10 of teaching – that’s just sort of how it goes…little bits of everything slowly] I found out who wrote the threat, dealt with it, tried to call his parents, but couldn’t get a hold of them. Hopefully I hear back from them sometime this weekend, because I think it’s very important that they know. If I wanted to, I could have this child suspended. I’m not going to do that because I don’t think he deserves it, but his parents need to know. He apologized and will be writing me a letter this weekend explaining what happened, why it happened, why he knows that it’s a very serious situation, and apologizing for his actions. If he does it, I’ll be pleased.
I gave my students their first 3 post-instruction assessments (“real tests”) yesterday and was surprised to see some of the results. Some of the students performed exactly how I expected them to. A significant number of them performed disappointingly poorly. Most of them, though, impressed me with how much they actually learned. This was particularly evident in math, because I had two sets of pre-test and diagnostic scores with which to compare these first objective scores, so the growth was concrete and measurable. Just shy of half of my class scored 80% or above on the first math test, which was evaluating place value and number sense. These two things are a consistent struggle for elementary students, especially those coming from low-income backgrounds. So to have almost half of my class master the material at 80% or higher is something to celebrate. There’s still a lot of work to do to get the rest of the students where they need to be, but we’re getting there. I was especially struck by my students’ performance because my lessons over the course of the first 10 days of school felt so off-handed and poorly executed that I was certain my students weren’t absorbing any of it. To see that they had, though, was completely reinvigorating.
Those lightbulb moments – those are why I teach for equality.
My first two days of teaching were trying, to say the least. I broke down sobbing both days as soon as my students left the room, feeling completely out of control of my situation and my classroom. I’ve worked with a lot of students with behavior problems before but never in a situation where it’s 20 on 1 and the behavioral system in place is ineffective and incomplete. I quickly learned which students were going to cause me problems and which weren’t, and quickly decided that I needed to do something to make the next days different.
That having been said, I haven’t figured it out yet. I have a student who has been sent out of my classroom each and every day since the second day of school. I have students talking about other students’ mamas every single day. I have students tattling every single day, telling me things of which I can’t either confirm or deny the truth. It doesn’t phase me anymore, which is both good (because I stay much more composed) and bad (because I can’t settle for anything less than 100% of my students behaving 100% of the time). I’ve added about 7 levels to my classroom management system, including whole-class and individual student rewards and consequences. My students, though, don’t seem to care. Until they have to walk in a silent, single file line around the playground at recess instead of playing, of course. That having been said, they don’t really do that either. Even when they know they can play as soon as they walk a lap right. I guess that’s too delayed, since the laps are long.
[Author’s note – I’ve picked up this entry after day 9 of teaching] Today I was the recipient of my very first death threat – one of my students was mad at me for making them walk laps at recess, and wrote a note to one of my other students that said “I going to jail I’m going to kill Ms. H.” The other student wrote back “Why?” The first student responded “She made us walk laps at recess.” Needless to say, a bit of an overreaction, I believe. I’m not at all scared for my safety, but it was definitely unexpected.
[Author’s note – I’ve picked up this entry again after day 10 of teaching – that’s just sort of how it goes…little bits of everything slowly] I found out who wrote the threat, dealt with it, tried to call his parents, but couldn’t get a hold of them. Hopefully I hear back from them sometime this weekend, because I think it’s very important that they know. If I wanted to, I could have this child suspended. I’m not going to do that because I don’t think he deserves it, but his parents need to know. He apologized and will be writing me a letter this weekend explaining what happened, why it happened, why he knows that it’s a very serious situation, and apologizing for his actions. If he does it, I’ll be pleased.
I gave my students their first 3 post-instruction assessments (“real tests”) yesterday and was surprised to see some of the results. Some of the students performed exactly how I expected them to. A significant number of them performed disappointingly poorly. Most of them, though, impressed me with how much they actually learned. This was particularly evident in math, because I had two sets of pre-test and diagnostic scores with which to compare these first objective scores, so the growth was concrete and measurable. Just shy of half of my class scored 80% or above on the first math test, which was evaluating place value and number sense. These two things are a consistent struggle for elementary students, especially those coming from low-income backgrounds. So to have almost half of my class master the material at 80% or higher is something to celebrate. There’s still a lot of work to do to get the rest of the students where they need to be, but we’re getting there. I was especially struck by my students’ performance because my lessons over the course of the first 10 days of school felt so off-handed and poorly executed that I was certain my students weren’t absorbing any of it. To see that they had, though, was completely reinvigorating.
Those lightbulb moments – those are why I teach for equality.
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