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An Unrelated Dog Story

May 17, 2012
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An Unrelated Dog Story

Time out. I just have to tell this story. Sorry, it’s about our dog. I’m sure I could find a way to connect it to teaching  and all, but really, I just have to share this one. Backstory: We got our current dog from the Humane Society about two years ago. Since he’s, you know, a dog, I can use his real name: Cosmo. He came named that way, and yes, it’s after the famed one-trick Seinfeld character. He’s a Jack Russell and MinPin mix (we think), and weighs in at a sleek 17 pounds or so. Late last summer, the boy volunteered for a week at the shelter and was put in charge of a dog named Kramer. Uh huh. Jack Russell mix, but leaning more toward the wire-haired side. No, it doesn’t just happen in movies… they were brothers. They were brought in together. So of course every says we HAVE to get Kramer too. Great. Two dogs. I’m in… I guess. But the shelter won’t let us just waltz off with him just because they’re brohans. There has to be a supervised meet and greet in one of the pens at the shelter. Fine. OMG. It was

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State Testing…and etc.

May 14, 2012
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Boy howdy, I’m really milking this one, huh? I think, after a week and a half, we’re up to number three on our list of teacher tips for state testing. (This pace reminds me of the classic Sr. Mary Elephant bit from Cheech and Chong back in the day: “Now class, Sr. Rosetta Stone has told me that your assignment for the past two months has been to write an essay…”  And then none of them have it finished yet.)  Sister Mary Elephant Ok. So far we have: 1. Teach ‘em to game the test. 2. Teach ‘em how to erase. So, on to number three. 3. Somehow get them to buy into the conflicting ideas that a) the test is important to them and b) not to worry. News alert: Unless they are gluey high-schoolers in danger of failing the graduation requirement...

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State Testing — Tips for Teachers II

May 9, 2012
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My drain is unclogged, but Survivor AND Modern Family are new tonight, so we gotta work fast. I realized, after I left Monday, that I might have been a little flippant about the  disutility of practicing for these tests. The kids do need SOME practice with these types of things, especially if they haven’t dealt with the multiple-choice (or closer to the middle school reality, multiple-guess) tests. This will be dealt with in the tips section, but I guess I was thinking of what our school used to do until just this year. Which was to mass-copy packets of questions (from previous years’ tests) from the Department of Ed website, and hand them out to everyone, so their kids could practice for the test. And at our school, we test the kids with their first period teacher, so here we have Mr. Grissom in shop class droning out the correct answers to...

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State Testing–Tips for Teachers… Interrupted

May 7, 2012
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First of all… as if. As if some last minute review, or “covering the material” one last time (or for the first time), right before testing, does anything at all. You really think they go, “Whoa, I’m sure glad we rushed through factoring before the test As if some sort of  epic  ”practice test” will do anything except get kids sick of the whole thing before it starts. As if.. d’oh, the sink is clogged, and House is on soon. Gotta go. I’ll finish this in the next post. But before I go, I gotta ask Heather, over in the the comments section, what the heck does SOL Test mean? I was checking out your blog page to see what your 8th graders are up to and I noticed “SOL Test.” Where I come from that has always meant, “$#!* Outta Luck. Maybe for some of them, that’s the end...

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The Titanic Finally Really Sinks! (Also: Sidekicks.)

May 3, 2012
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First year ever! No Titanic! O. M. G. The average is about 7 or 8. The record was the 1997-98 school year with, count’em, 27. There was a renaissance in 2010, with about 20. I’m talking about research papers. And finally, for the first time since I started at this school in 1993, I won’t have to plow through another “all about the Titanic” nightmare. O. M. G. I’m just going to savor that thought for awhile… until some clown “can’t find ANYTHING” on his/her topic, and I cave and say, “Just do the Titanic.” Yes, it’s that time of year once again, the dreaded (by me) research paper. You might ask how I managed to sink the Titanic as a research topic, even as James Cameron and other rich guys celebrate the 100th anniversary of the giant metaphor. I didn’t use it as an example topic. I went through dozens...

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Another Step Toward Self-Improvement?

April 26, 2012
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Yesterday I was saying that my favorite astronaut, “Tami,” took one of  her first steps toward self-awareness. Will self-improvement follow? If I were a Vegas bookie, I’d offer 2-1 against. But I’ve made worse bets than that in Vegas and won. So I’m hopeful. Her second step forward was earlier this week. We were talking about one of this week’s academic words, passive, and  I recounted something I’d read about how you burn more calories staring at a blank wall than you do watching tv. Boy howdy, that got the gears grinding. “What? How?” “Well your brain uses about 20% of your calories, so if you aren’t using it, it doesn’t need as much fuel. When you’re staring at the wall, your brain will at least start imagining and thinking about other stuff, and working and burning calories. Staring at tv? Not so much.” One genius thinks he’s got the next great...

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The First Step in Solving a Problem is Realizing You Have One. Usually.

April 25, 2012
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OMG they’re getting dopey this time of year. Like we haven’t had vocabulary homework due every week for 30 something weeks. “I didn’t think we had homework.” #@&^%(@OE(HFDP(*#Q(*$@&)(&)_@*_*_ (me – in a mincing sort of tone) “Oh, I left my head on the counter this morning. I didn’t think we’d be using those today.” “You too?” )(*)&*(^&*)^(*&(^70@#$$#@$#@!!!^#$#^%$@@@@@@!!!!!!! And our Queen of Dopey, our veteran astronaut–she with the attention span of goldfish proportions–is in rare form these days. To paraphrase the great Nigel Tufnel, “How much more dopey could she be? The answer is…none…none more dopey.” But recently she, like one of my other l’il darlings, has had a couple of flashes of insight. Whether these might light the way to self improvement is doubtful. On the Friday test a couple of weeks ago, I made a copy/paste mistake, and then printed 120 of them. I too have been a bit dopey...

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Classroom Royale

April 23, 2012
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Continuing yesterday’s breakdown of the classroom as casino metaphor. Hmmmm. We left off yesterday with Mr. Lee’s observation that casinos bombard you with lights and sound, and since this is the intro to his section on the physical setup of a “happy” classroom, I assume that he’s going to make some sort of connection. Are we to put up neon signs that flash “Free Drinks with any KBAR” and “Homework Pays 2 for 1,” and have speakers blaring sounds of pencils scratching across paper and the clacking of keyboards, with the occasional cry of  ”Yes! Winner! A+”? Can’t wait to see where this is going. I’m actually kind of starting to like the idea. His fourth observation about casinos is that the physical layout is supposed to get you lost between the door and the front desk. You’re supposed to get confused and disoriented, and presumably drop more money...

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Classroom as Casino

April 22, 2012
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Let’s just get to it. I’ve been itchin’ to talk about a few items, but I ain’t had time lately. (My dad’s actual 75th birthday, a new quarter starting–the final one; only 38 days to go, not that I’m counting or anything–the catch-up after a long break, and etc.) Go. Item One: The classroom as casino. As I said in my previous post, the big to-do (which seems to have passed) on the middle-L listserv turned me on to some new ideas and made me rethink some things. Mr. Lee, the young charter school whippersnapper has a couple of self-published books on LuLu.com. One of them is called, The Happiest Place on Earth: 7 Powerful and Proven Ways to Engage Students. His book was not one of the sources of ideas of which I speak. But he did give me some material for this here blog, so for that...

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Drama

April 16, 2012
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I hope you all are now loyal MiddleL subscribers now, what with all the action happening these days. And as always on the MiddleL list, I have picked up a more than a few ideas that I am actually going to use out of all this drama. Even from people I wouldn’t usually find myself agreeing with.  Here’s a “previously on” for those who ain’t in. In this corner we have a young whippersnapper of a teacher who obviously takes his job seriously and is good at it, but comes off a tad self-righteous. He has the point of view that we can measure intelligence and learning, and while our current tests may be a bit lacking, high-stakes testing is not inherently bad. He comes from a charter school sort of background and has about 10 years on the job. His name is Mr. Lee. And in the other corner,...

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Back to Work? Who Cares?

April 15, 2012
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Back to Work? Who Cares?

You all, I’m sure, know that feeling of dread that you get after a long break–like Christmas, or a two week spring break–where you had all these things you were going to get done, and you were going to come back so ready, and you weren’t going to last-minute it again, and you had all these new things you were going to try, and you ain’t done a thing except sleep in and eat out a lot, and now it’s “Sunset on a Sunday,” and you ain’t done your homework, and you know that you’re just going to go to bed because anything else seems too overwhelming, but then you won’t be able to sleep much because your mind is reeling with all the shtuff you didn’t do, and you start calculating how much time you need in the morning, and counting down how few hours you have left...

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Vacation Books

April 5, 2012
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Vacation Books

Can you tell I’m on vacation? I got up at 9:15 this morning… Usual time: 4:55. I went to bed at 1:00… Usual time: 10:00.  I have read several books. I am sore from doing “honeydos” for the past several days. I have taken 5.5 naps in five days, and had to make my own lunch for the same amount of time. There have been a lot of potato chips involved. The books: Ready Player One, by Ernest Cline. Set in a dystopian near-future where everyone spends most of their time in in giant internet-based virtual world called the Oasis, it follows the adventures (1st person) of a high school kid as he competes with the whole world to find the Easter egg hidden by the world’s creator/programmer. The finder inherits the guys trillions and controls the virtual world. Lots of ’80s pop culture references, so if you’re a child of the...

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Relief is Nigh (dot dot dot)

March 28, 2012
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Relief is Nigh (dot dot dot)

Every year for the past three I have voted against the two-week spring break, but right now that stretch can’t be here too soon or last too long. I’m crabby and ready for a long break. And we haven’t even had any actual bad weather this year at all, like you all in South Dakota and Virginny and places like that… Speaking of… Mrs. M, have you read Downtown Owl? It’s set in a fictional NORTH Dakota town in 1984, and features a noob hs history teacher. There really isn’t much of a plot, but it’s one of those books where you don’t care because the characters are so good. Well, not necessarily “good.” You know what I mean. Is there some sort of rivalry between North and South Dakota? Just wondering… Heather, over in the comments, says I’m brave to bust out Tom Sawyer this year. More like...

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Random Featured Post

You Gotta Have a Shtick (or a stick).

One of the things I like to say about teaching junior high is down at the bottom of this page in the footer. You’re too lazy to scroll, aren’t you? Fine. “Five shows a day, 180 days a year.” And there aren’t many crowds tougher than 7th graders. “This is boring.” The worst of all sins. Most of us who teach junior high have a shtick. A role we play, some isms we like to use again and again. Idiosyncrasies we play up for entertainment/attention value (oh the sharing I get when we talk about that word idiosyncrasy during “Monsters are Due on Maple Street“). The key is to make the shtick such a natural part of the classroom routine, that it doesn’t distract too much. Well, sometimes we need the distraction. There’s the Raffle King. There’s the Timer. There are the clickers. The Cage. Mental Floss. Nutty videos. MYOB. All of these are stalwart features of my classroom shtick. And as of a few years ago, there’s also the Quiet Stick. (four or five years ago – me visiting another teacher’s classroom before school) “Leenie! What the shiggy are you doing? Where’d you get this, and WHY ARE YOU [...]

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Mr. Coward has been teaching on the beautiful central coast of California since 1989.

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