The Horror of the 7th Grade Sleepover is Over

The traditional 7th grade sleepover was last night. It was rained out 2 weeks ago and last night it went ahead even though it was pouring rain most of the night. My activity, which was originally to take the kids on a hike to a dark spot on the neighboring golf course and identify constellations was (naturally) changed. The constellation activity usually involved some scary story telling after we went through the adventures associated with the constellation Perseus and his acquaintances  (Andromeda, her mom and dad Cassiopea and Cepheus, and Cetus, the sea monster that Andromeda was being sacrificed to when Perseus saved her). This year's rain modified event was scary story telling while the kids cut-up used construction paper followed by them making new paper with their initials on it from the cut, soaked, and blended paper they were cutting. The scary story telling went well and I took the kids through different levels of scary stories - the silly scary  story (The Big Hairy Toe), the supposedly real story from a different place and time (The Hook), and the imminent danger story (Freddy Krueger type homicidal maniac seen recently in the neighborhood).  This pretty much exhausted my scary story  repertoire. Then it was campfire time and they all wanted another story. With nothing in mind I launched into a story about the voodoo queen of New Orleans, Marie Laveau. The story was beginning to ramble when a little shiver passed over me. My greatgrandmother's face passed through my consciousness and led me to the cemetery where Marie Laveau is buried. My great grandmother wandered through the cemetery in search of the wailing moans of the long dead Marie Laveau. In my mind a cloud of smoke with the embedded head of Marie Laveau appeared above a mausoleum. The head shrieked out a curse upon my great grandmother that would be visited upon her grandchildren and great grandchildren. I stared into the eyes of each 7th graders and in a low growl uttered the realization that this curse was upon me, and in a hoarse bellow cried out ---- "I NEED BLOOD!!!!!"
I suppose that was how Cetus was feeling before Perseus chopped off his head.

A Gaseous Explosion to the End of Sex Ed Lessons

Yesterday I finished the 8th grade sessions on reproductive system. Monday I taught both boys and girls together from the textbook and by going over vocabulary and basic info on conception using a video on fetus development. Tuesday and Wednesday I took the boys and girls separately and answered their anonymous questions as honestly as I could. The female guidance counselor helps with the girls. All kids need  signed parental permission. One of the boys questions (honestly this was asked by an 8th grade boy, "If you are having anal sex and your partner farts can it blow-up your testicles?") stretched my belief that I should honor the commitment to answer all questions honestly. I did search for some sort of medical answer to the question, but couldn't find any 'research' or physiological explanation of the possibility of this happening. There were a few chat type websites which I could acces from school (which is bizarre because the school blocks an incredible range of websites from anything that has the words game or sex attached to it to all sorts of websites like expedia and facebook) and found a few self-reports of injuries requiring surgery with a urologist from this experience. There were also many reports of people who find this experience very enjoyable. It is a weird world out there.
I did pass on what I found to the inquisitive young mind with the admonition of another possible danger of unprotected sex.

If You Knew Today Were Your Last Day

Over holidays we record a tv series and then watch back to back episodes on weekends. This weekend we were watching "Greys Anatomy" and an episode had Meredith Grey with the premonition of death and pondering what would she want to do on her last day alive - thought provoking question. My wife and I talked about it for awhile. We were stuck on if we would tell our children. We would call them, but couldn't decide what we would say. Would we say something like, "This is my last day alive. I'm happy and spending it how I want to spend it. Of course I wish you were with me, but hope you are happy where you are and with your life. I love you."? Or just call and have a chatty last conversation? We discussed if we would want them with us. There was a concern that it would make the day sadder. Life doesn't work out that you usually get to plan the last day while in a relatively good state of health. Possibly fortunate it doesn't work that way, so you don't have to spend it worrying about who you should talk to and what you would say. I suppose as much as possible we should try to live each day as if it were the best last day we could have considering the high probability that there will be more days after today.

Blogging My Way through Lab Notebooks

I'm half way through checking 8th grade lab notebooks. There are 13 assignments in them since I last checked them. A little blog break and then back to the tedium.Several years ago I worked at a university in London. The students had these long essay final exams that needed to be graded in a relatively short period of time. Each one took 20-30 minutes to grade. I could take them home. We lived in a cool place just across the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. I would start out in a lovely park with a backpack full of exams, grade four, get a coffee, and move on to another park. This passed the time.
I'm going to make this blog my symbolic parks of Westminster. Every 4 notebooks I'll stop to blog a bit.

Another 4 notebooks graded and moving to a new blog park.  Seventh grade was doing experiment today where they mix baking soda and vinegar and collect the carbon dioxide in a balloon and then calculated the volume of the balloon by displacing water. It was a little messy. Paper towels were needed. The students are all second language speakers of English and most would ask for a "towel paper". The words for paper towel in Spanish is "papel toalla". Why would they reverse the word order when they translate to Enlgish? Fascinating. Time to grade 4 more notebooks.

Another 4 notebooks done and moving to "School Vision Blog Park". Yesterday I was reading up on vision and mission statements and found info on statments that combine the two. When I reread the school's mission statement I developed a strong sense that it combined the two. The first part  ("Our school fulfills the needs of the whole child") seems to be vision and the rest ("by teaching intellectual, democratic, moral, ...) seems to be mission. I sent this info off to the administrative powers that are calling everyone together on Saturday morning to write a vision statement for the school. I have a strong feeling I have not saved anyone from the agony of a wasted Saturday morning exploring platitudes that (much like our current 'mission/vision' statement) will have no effect on the instruction that actually takes place. Time to grade 4 more.

I got in a zone a finished them all but a few I've saved to grade during the "Vision" meeting.

The Dream of Establishing a Vision

I'm the head of the SACS committee Standard 1 on School Mission and Vision. There is no written vision for our school. We have  a mission which plays a part in the beginning of the year professional development. The school director says he'll give 100 lempira to teachers he approaches who can recite the mission from memory. I've never been asked nor heard of anyone being asked. We put a laminated copy of the mission up in our class and that is pretty much the end of it. A couple of years ago I was invited to volunteer to write a new middle school science curriculum. When I brought up questions about alining curricula with philosophy of the school and psychology or our learner, I was told to forget all the Taba-Tyler mumbo-jumbo and just use the Texas State standards. Perhaps needless to say our curricula do not align with our mission.
Anyway, my SACS committee started churning out the answers to the Standard 1 questions about mission and vision and completed our part. Tuesday we had a before school faculty meeting where we were told there is a semi-mandatory Saturday morning meeting to write a school vision. (Semi-mandatory meaning have a very good reason why you can't come.) I immediately sent off the Standard 1 Committee's completed document and asked if there was some kind of flow chart of the process to establish the vision as our committee would have a hard time "hitting the moving target of an evolving school vision". The principal happened into my room soon after I sent the email to chat about upcoming 8th grade sex ed classes. After showing the student permissions and plans for sex ed classes, I asked about the vision process.
The discussion wandered into possibilities that the school is verging on being shut down by the board of directors because it is not financially viable. (We are a satellite campus for a much bigger campus that is in an urban area about 25 miles away and our enrollment is dropping with many families opting for the better facilities at the bigger campus.) He felt confident that we could ignore the financail viability of the school and generate something about a dream for the school that we could get the greater community to "rubber stamp".
I suppose I could word that process so SACS would find it reasonable.

Last Bulletin Board

I just finished putting up my last bulletin board. Usually I have the students design a mini-bulletin board on a  science theme on a piece od graph paper, vote (anonymously) on the one they like the best, and then  students blow-up the winner to the scale of the real bulletin board. This last one was different. I've been holding on to some work from each class (6th grade model of the atmosphere, 7th grade electric circuit puzzles, and 8th grade drawings of the electromagnetic spectrum). The title is "Science: Electrifyng from Atmosphere to X-Ray". I cut the student work into pieces and stapled like crazy. I attached a battery with a light bulb and wires, so students can play the electric circuit puzzles. I wonder how long the battery and light bulb will last?

The Giant Elephant in the Room Plunges Ahead

I've been debating with myself about whether to post what I am about to post. Fortunately I suppose not many people read this, and hopefully those that do won't search out the school and create problems for me.
Since my last post what I am about to write has been bothering me and this is what the blog is supposed to be - a record of the good, bad, and ugly of my last year.
On Wednesday I had a meeting with the guidance counselor about a student I give individual instruction to for math. Her IEP calls for her to be slowly introduced back into the regular math class. The regular math class teacher is teaching for his first year. He graduated in December from engineering school and never had an education course nor 1 minute of student teaching. Administration has given him little (if any) support. The kids are basically very good, but the class is usually 45 minutes of this guy working one problem at a time on the smart board while kids are supposed to watch and take notes. There is little guided practice and usually involves one student at a time doing a problem on the smart board. The students are often not engaged.
During the meeting with the guidance counselor I was asked if my student would be ready to be fully integrated into the regular class at the end of the 3rd bimester and would her math skills be the same as the students in the regular class. I discussed her weaknesses and how she was progressing in those areas.
If she were to go into the regular class the last bimester, I would have an extra free period. I couldn't let it go, though. I expressed my concerns about the new teacher and that my student was not and would not do well in that environment. The guidance counselor (who is a very nice and sincere person) asked questions about the general math skills of students in the regular and advanced classes. I have them all for science, so I am familiar with their capabilities in many areas of math. We looked at each other with this unstated understanding of the giant elephant in the room. The IEP is written. The parent has signed it. To change it woud require too many uncomfortable explanations.The guidance counselor finally says, 'I will work her into a small math group next year, but there are bad teachers in the high school, so she should get used to them.' We plunge ahead with our plan.

Christmas Ghosts & Career Legacy

On Chritsmas eve or maybe Christmas day I ended up catching various parts of the movie "Scrooged" on tv. It was replayed throughout the day. I can't remember why now, but a blog idea about  what would my ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future be started haunting my holiday ruminations. The theme of that magical belief in the fantasy of Santa Claus was a big part of Christmas entertainment and of being a child expecting Christmas. I figured my Christmas past ghost would be the Christmas when my parents had this huge fort built in the backyard on Chrismas Eve. I was on the edge of disbelief but could not figure out how my father made that happen, so the magic of Santa was safe in my mind for another year. The ghost of Christmas present has evolved into airports and being alone. I'm not uncomfortable or sad about this anymore. My wife and I have separate families from previous marriages. We seem to make a new "tradition" each year. My kids and I get together somewhere between Christmas and New Year and that has become our tradition. My ghost of Christmas future and how I will be remembered when I am gone is the scary one. Hopefully there is the joy of sharing that magical belief in Santa with grandchildren one day. The grave scene is less clear. My imagined epitaph is something like: 'A thoughtful, reflective educator who tried to feel the world.' I struggle a bit over the word feel. At first I put in the word understand. When I was younger I was more about experiencing the different countries and cultures where I lived than studying them, so feel seemed more appropriate that understand.
This weekend I was watching my Christmas present of Season 8 of "24" and as President Taylor spiralled into the void of doing the wrong thing for what she considered the right reason, I pondered on my career and its contribution. Fortunately as a teacher you hardly ever have to make more of a life or death decision than if a student is going to be retained or not - and I haven't had to make many of those. As a school director, I had to fire a few people. The legacy of my career I'm figuring is in the immeasureable change in consciousness and thought of the kids, teachers, and parents I have taught, supervised, and advised. I believe those efforts were always done for the right reason (enhancing the quality of life and chances for success of a child) in close to the right way (thoughtful, caring, and  challenging). I am becoming contentedly resigned to the understanding that my impact will have been small, but ultimately positive.

Wow, this sounds like I'm bringing this blog, career, & life to an end now. I just counted 17 weeks of school to go and hopefully there are 20 or more years of quality life after that.

The Perfect Moment

Today the principal walked into my class and stood there just looking around for a couple of minutes. The 7th graders were at 4 different centers and everyone was on task. One group was developing a PowerPoint on a constellation that will be visible during their upcoming sleepover, one group was weighing, finding volume and calculating the density of various objects, one group was using the periodic table to answer questions about elements, and one group was watching a BrainPop video on the periodic table and completing a test on the video. I remember once when I was teaching 5th grade in about 1990 in a public school in Florida the principal popped into my room and stood there in silence for a couple of minutes while the kids worked at various centers. Later he spoke to me and said his first thought was the room was chaos until he started looking at each child and determining if they were on task. His rough calculation was that over 90% of the 32 kids in the class were on task. For this school which drew students largely from migrant farmworker families 90% was a good percentage of class involvement.
 But today at the moment the principal entered it was perfection - 100% engaged and actively involved in their self-directed learning. I looked around  and marveled at how sweet the moment was before going  over and chatting with the principal. He was looking for a student who was in another class. He possibly didn't even notice the perfect moment.

When You Least Expect It

I spent last night with a stuffed up nose on a couch in a hospital room. Probably needless to say, I haven't caught up on much needed post-holiday rest. My wife slipped on some ice over the vacation and finally went for an x-ray yesterday. The x-ray turned into an hour long surgery to put 2 pins in her wrist and an overnight stay in the hospital.
I'm in school today with her modified lesson plans and still winging it myself through this week. Today I have 2 double lab periods. I am adjusting, so I can leave quickly this morning when the doctor goes to visit my wife. I am the translator. The adjustment is simplifying 4 center activities and eliminating any need for technology (which can go out at any moment here.)
The medical care here has been excellent - and very reasonable ($12 for the x-ray).

Surprising Recall

The second day back from Christmas break and my attention and motivation are returning to pre-break status. I'm still winging it as (for some reason) my pre-Christmas planning doesn't seem to match with what is now needed. If I was ever going to do this again, I would stop to analyze why what I planned doesn't feel like it would engage the kids now. But this is it. I'm heading for that last round-up, so let the downhill coasting begin.
The 7th grade was supposed to start density calculations and preparing for science fair.Today I had them make a 1 cm. cube out of clay and calculate the mass of the water it would take to fill their cube. It was slightly unsettling that many could not think of how to calculate the mass of the water if they knew the mass of the cube with and without water. Hopefully this will build some understanding to support the concept of density.
Surprisingly yesterday as I did a review of what we had covered before Christmas break, most kids seemed to remember what we had been doing even (in some cases) to greater detail than I remembered. I suppose that is a reason to leave this profession. The memory is going. I even had a hard time remembering some kids' names without reviewing the gradebook.

Last Christmas Holiday Over

I dragged myself into my classroom my usual hour before school starts and stared blankly at outlines of my lesson plans on my whiteboard.  I read my last blog about my good ideas and wondered what the hell was I thinking- and now sit poised with eyelids as heavy as anvils to try and wing my way through the start to my last 5 months of teaching.
The futility of all the teaching I did August to December will soon be evident as kids will sit in silence  while I struggle to get them to recall why we did experiments on condensation (6th grade) and relationship between number of coils on an electromagnet and the strength of the magnetic field (7th grade) and how to calculate the number of atoms in a molecule (8th grade).