Monthly Archives: April 2010

Classroom Mailbag II

April 28, 2010
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Classroom Mailbag II

So it’s not tomorrow… First, a correction. During the photo tour of my classroom, I said that I thought I had moved in about 10 years ago. My how time does fly. It was 1996 when I moved into my present digs. My 7th graders weren’t even born yet. (Scary thought, that.) I even found a photo of the room from the morning before the first day of school back then. The principal at the time was really stoked on our newly remodeled facility. She even took pictures of the rooms that didn’t get remodeled. Look how tidy! And empty. (Click for full-size.) I showed the kids this pic today. They all thought it looked “boring.” “Where’s the Popple?” Onward… I am not one of those teachers who says that there are no lame questions. I believe that we junior high teachers get asked plenty of lame and stupid questions. My standard response to lame questions from my 7th graders is, “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.” However, your question about the old “trade and grade” is definitely NOT lame. I’ve been wrassling (sic) with this for years. In fact, when I got my clickers a few years

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Classroom Mailbag

April 26, 2010
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Rather than replying to comments over there, I figure I can pad my post stats (this one is #201 btw) by answering questions over here. Yes, I am very lucky to have such a large room. It is a beautiful thing. Well, maybe not beautiful. About ten years ago our campus was remodeled and expanded, and for a whole school year most of us were in portable classrooms in the parking lot. (Aside) That was the year I had three students who each weighed 300+ pounds. In the same class. The portables were up on jacks, and the floors weren’t exactly rock-solid. Each of those boys created a wave that rippled across the room as he walked. I had to put them in separate corners so I wouldn’t crater the floor, and one kid had to sit sideways in his desk until I got him a little table. I guess it only looked little. One of them was actually Mrs. G’s (of nut-smelling fame) boy. When construction was almost over, our principal at the time went around to everybody with a map of the campus, asking which room they would prefer. This was during the “teaming” fad, so teams were

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Guest Artist: Marion Brady

April 25, 2010
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Here I go again, beating the drum for joining the Middle-L listserv. And once more, I’m linking to a Marion Brady article. I’ve also talked about Marion before. Here’s his latest article, at Truthout.org, about this whole “accountability”  issue that’s become the central feature of our educational system. He makes the point that today’s standardized tests that supposedly hold us teachers accountable really just test short term memory and “second-hand knowledge.” We seem to be over a barrel. To maintain educational quality, we need to monitor and measure performance. But learner qualities and capabilities most deserving of being evaluated are far too complex for our crude tests to monitor. Fortunately, the barrel is of our own making, and can be rolled aside. Philosopher and mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, in his 1916 Presidential Address to the Mathematical Association of England, pointed the way. “The secondhandedness of the learned world,” he said, “is the secret of its mediocrity.” When kids are merely trying to remember something read in a textbook or heard in teacher talk, they’re in the secondhand-knowledge business. When they’re figuring out how to make sense of something complicated and important that can be seen and touched, they’re in the

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Teaching is a Messy Business (Pics Part II)

April 24, 2010
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Teaching is a Messy Business (Pics Part II)

At least that’s my excuse. Here we go on part two of our tour of room D5. Be sure to click on each photo to see the full size. I added labels this time for your convenience. Where to begin? I found the Cone of Silence years ago on the side of the road while I was skating. It’s really a speaker dome, for use in places like museums, where you would step under it to hear something about the exhibit without disturbing the blurbs at the next exhibit. It looks just like one of the bubbles of the Cone of Silence on Get Smart. I have never really figured out what to do with it, but I can’t bear to part with it. The mannequin underneath is called the Target because of our “lockdown” drills. Ever since Columbine, we’ve had a once (or more) a year drill where we pretend there’s a gunman on the loose on campus. We shut off the lights and huddle in a safe place, while the admin check all the doors to make sure we locked them. The only windows in my room are tall and narrow and right next to the door. We

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Picture Day (Part I)

April 21, 2010
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Picture Day (Part I)

We’re sort of in the dog days of the school year. Instead of being hot and muggy though, it’s been wiiiiiiiindyyyyyyyy and cold, but there be laziness in the air for some reason. Maybe that’s why I’m so laggy on posting lately. The kids really haven’t been doing much of anything, and they’re rubbing off on me. We’re steaming through Tom Sawyer. This year I decided to increase the pace. I’m shooting for five weeks. Most years, with the vocabulary and the grammar pink sheets and spelling and all the rest we do along the way, I spend about seven weeks. We’re doing 2 chapters a night most nights and with the Moodle working nicely, things seem to be going better so far. Of course there is always a significant percentage who just don’t read it at home. At all. This year I’m trying to read a whole lot more of it out loud to them. “We understand it better when you read it. You act it out and explain it and stuff. Plus you read the dialog so we can tell what they’re saying.” “They do talk funny. And you mean you like my ‘acting’? I’m touched.” “We didn’t say that.

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Random Featured Post

Three-Word Phrases

Seventh graders “communicate” mostly in three-word phrases. If the phrase isn’t really only three words long, they can usually pare it down. “What’d I miss?” It sounds like  “Wuddeyemiss.” And it always comes right as you’re starting class. Raise your hand if you have had this happen in the past week. Past three days? Today? AAAAAARGH.  They want 54 stellar, well-planned and executed minutes of instruction summarized for them in 30 seconds as the class bustles in.  What did you miss? “Absolutely nothing. You might as well take the rest of the year off. CHECK THE WEB PAGE! COME BACK AT BREAK!” “Oh yeah. I forgot.” LOL (These days, they’re getting it down to three-letter phrases.) “What’s my grade?” This one is usually from the kid whose grade is in the bottom 15% , and s/he finally turned something in, and wants immediate gratification. And it always happens right in the middle of something else, something totally unrelated.  Yesterday we were talking about how Charlotte is finally seeing Captain Jaggery for what he really is. (Aside: If you haven’t read The True Adventures of Charlotte Doyle by Avi, I highly recommend it. I picked it up a few years ago [...]

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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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