Monthly Archives: October 2009

Nature or Nurture? Intriguing Question.

October 26, 2009
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The first quarter ends Thursday. It’s one of those so-quick-yet-so-long kind of things. The first quarter is over already, but we’re still working on The Outsiders. And I think the neediness of this year’s bunch is starting wear me down. I swear, it seems like the average age this year is about 7. Jeez Louise, I don’t know how elementary school teachers do it. Maybe the fact that they have 1/5 as many kids makes it worth it. But not even the tasty prospect of not having to learn all those names would make it worth it to me to have to…what’s the vocab word we just had? Nurture. I just can’t keep up with all the nurturing this crowd needs this year. Some examples: Half of them (well, not exactly half, but you know what I mean) still don’t put their names on the paper. The other half just put the first name. I have 3 Hollies, 4 Alexes (Alexi?) (from both sexes)…I have 2 Averies (Averys?) for Pete’s sake! They have no idea how ironic (and another -onic adjective) it is to, in the same period, not have the vocabulary homework, AND ask if “you have any extra

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Guest Speaker: False Assumptions

October 24, 2009
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Previously I have posted about the Middle-L e-mail listserv. I am again recommending it, especially for newer teachers, and those interested in education policy and the “big picture.” As I said before, sometimes you’ll go days without seeing anything new, but all you have to do is introduce yourself, and ask questions, and you’ll get answers and suggestions from some pretty intelligent and talented people. One of those people is Marion Brady. In fact, he’s the main reason I’m still a subscriber. Just Google “Marion Brady” and you’ll see why. He just had a column printed in the Washington Post that, as usual, hits the nail(s) on the head. I won’t reprint the whole thing here (even though Marion wouldn’t mind – he just wants the ideas out there), because I think you should also read the commentary after. Here are some choice excerpts. False Assumption 1: America’s teachers deserve most of the blame for decades of flat school performance. Other factors affecting learning—language problems, hunger, stress, mass media exposure, transience, cultural differences, a sense of hopelessness, and so on and on—are minor and can be overcome by well-qualified teachers. To teacher protests that they’re scapegoats taking the blame for

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Sunny

October 23, 2009
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I have one class that has 20 girls and only 7 boys in it. Obviously this class has a different dynamic, as they say, from my other classes… (Grammar Tip: I just backspaced, and changed “different…than” to “different…from.” It’s “larger than,” and “different from.” It’s kind of the same as… If you’re old enough to remember cigarette ads on TV, you’ll recall, “Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.” It was criticized in those grammar-respecting days as being incorrect. It should be, “Winston tastes good AS as cigarette should.” Then Winston followed with ads that sang, “Whattaya want? Good grammar or good taste?” Ah those were the halcyon days of TV. And I still think S. E. Hinton named Dally after the ciggie brand.) In that class, there is one girl whom I’m thinking will turn up here again (and again — actually, I’m guessing that most of my “seventh grade behavior” posts this year will involve this class or girl one way or another), so we’ll name her now.  “Sunny.” Sunny seems almost physically incapable of being unhappy. Unfortunately, she seems also incapable of keeping her mouth shut. She’s sort of like the female, seventh grade equivalent of Two-Bit.

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The Scream

October 19, 2009
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“Somebody in my PE class asked me if I was in Mr. Coward’s home base, and I asked him why he wanted to know. He said that he hears us scream every morning at the beginning of first period.” Suddenly half the class has a story to tell about people who have asked them about the Scream.  Since my classroom is in a solid, cinderblock and concrete building (during every disaster drill, I talk about how we’re in one of the safest places in the school), I figured that only the immediate neighbors could hear us, but I’ve been laggy about shutting the door in the mornings lately. So it seems that our daily Scream is getting a wider audience. It started as  a joke, as these things sometimes do. Every morning, either the principal or the VP gets on the intercom and leads us in the flag salute. Sometime (s)he also reads the bulletin that we’re already done reading, but that’s another matter. The problem is that neither of them uses a verb when they tell us to show our respect for the flag by placing our hands over our hearts. They shorten the phrase to… “Hand over your

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Guest Artist: Creating Memorable Characters (Also: Chapter 6 rerun.)

October 14, 2009
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Guest Artist: Creating Memorable Characters (Also: Chapter 6 rerun.)

You can tell Susan Hinton was young when she wrote The Outsiders. Even as I read it aloud for the 60somethingth time (and still laugh and tear up), I see the repetitions and the plot holes and the shmaltz. But I don’t care, and neither do the kids. It’s the characters she created that bring the book to life. They are realistic, sympathetic characters who represent all the things that kids feel. They can see parts of themselves in various aspects of Pony (loner, spacey, high expectations for him that he has trouble living up to), Johnny (pushed around, bullied, but protected by the gang – sort of the runt of the litter), Dally (rebellious and angry, impetuous, loyal, confident), Soda (blessed with charisma, but not school-smart), Darry (the provider, the rock, but still unsure of how to play his new role as parent), Two-Bit (immature, yet wise and funny), Cherry (trapped by her image, unsure of who the real Cherry is), and so forth. (Boy howdy, as Pony would say, that was one heck of a sentence.) So I like to remind the kids of this as we read the book. It’s really all about the characters. Steve Martin,

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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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Recent Comments

  • mrC commented on It’s Go Time!@Sarah-Most excellent! Keep up the good work, and don't let any of them talk you out of it. Glad to hear your kids recognize the value too. Fight the good fight!
  • Mrs. M~ commented on Illin’Feel better soon! There is nothing worse than being at school and trying to be "on" when you feel like death.
  • Sarah commented on It’s Go Time!I just came across your blog...I am a second year teacher and I am currently reading The Outsiders aloud to my seventh graders. I read it to them last year, too. I catch a lot of criticism for reading it to them...but they LOVE to have me read to them. I actually had a group
  • joan commented on Illin’I'm on day two of out-with-the-crud. I needed the rest. Hope you're in tip top shape by Monday!
  • mrC commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”That one oughta be strung up like they used to do to horse thieves.
  • Heather commented on “The Sub Used One of Your Sticks!”The last sub I had left no note at all and broke the arm of my spinny chair by leaning back in it so far that he fell in the floor. The kids all said he was the best sub ever. I politely asked the school secretary to never have him sub in
  • mrC commented on The Future of Space Travel@Heather: Gawd I hate that. I think I even posted about it awhile back. @Kelli: This reminds me of high school. I went to a Jesuit high school (all boys) and for our Friday football rallies, we would import cheerleaders from other schools to be a part of the rally. And the girls would always begin
  • Heather commented on The Future of Space TravelMy eighth graders just have the habit of prefacing every question with, "I have a question." And announcing "I'm done" when they complete an assignment.
  • Kelli commented on The Future of Space TravelIs it bad that I sometimes start my stories with "Okay, so...."...? I guess the kids have rubbed off on me. Sigh.
  • Kelli commented on Blogging the Scoring Session (Part I)Ugh! Been there. I have been to those "Scoring and Rubric" type meetings in two different states now... Not fun, and not entirely informative, either.
  • Meg commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)There was a district I student taught in that hand the no fail policy. I child could not be held back a grade, even if they did absolutely nothing the whole year, until they were in high school. It took most of the middle schoolers about 3 seconds to realize they didn't have
  • Kelli commented on No Groove Yet (Also: The Giver and No Homework Returns)You know, that whole "no-zero" policy goes hand-in-hand with the "no-failure" or "no-retention" policy, and my school district is a definite contributor to this madness. I can understand the desire to stop giving zeros and MAKE the kids do the work (giving countless opportunities until successful), but I have been in a situation where
  • commented on Obligatory Santa VideoWe have an unofficial "no zero" policy. It takes a little extra effort on the teacher's part to get all of the students to complete their assignments but we have made it work. The thing that was most helpful was instituting a "homework detention" that is separate from discipline detention. If a

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