Part of the job description for teaching middle school is the ability to answer the same question up to 25 times a day without strangling askers 11-25. But sometimes you have to draw the line. Years ago I got sick of handing back tests or essays or whatever and hearing the chorus of, “What grade is 28/40?” “Do the math.” “What?” “What’s the line in a fraction mean?” “What?” “The line. There’s 28 then there’s a line, then there’s 40. What does the line mean?” Finally…a few shout out, “Divide.” “Well then. Do the math. 28 divided by 40.” “What?” “I pity your poor math teachers.” I do not answer the question, “What’s x out of y?” Ever. “Just tell me.” “Never.” “This isn’t math.” That’s why I put a couple math questions on the end of year essential questions quiz (The YEE – original post here). I mean, even for 600 words (when they handwrite – even this bunch is savvy enough to find the word count feature in MS Word), they want to count every word instead of just doing some simple math. “Just count the words in a line or two, and see about how many words you’re getting
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Last night they read chapter two in Tom Sawyer, with the famous whitewashing scene. The “steamboat” kid was a topic of questions today. Ben Rogers is the first of Tom’s victims. “What was that two pages of noises? What is up with that kid…? “He was pretending to be a steamboat, you know, swinging his arms around like the big paddle wheels, and making all the bell and steam noises, and also pretending to be the captain giving all the orders.” I start “steaming” around the room to demonstrate, amid general laughter and such. The general feeling is that he’s a geek for acting like a little kid. One girl though, amid the laughter admits, “I still do stuff like that too.” A few others sheepishly admit to still doing some playacting and pretending. Then Big Joe strikes a professorial pose, stroking his chin, and says, “I’m sure we’ve all wanted to be a steamboat at one time or another.” Yes indeed. In another class they still thought he was being silly. “OK. It’s 1835 or 40. No electricity, no recorded music of any kind, no toys to speak of, not even running water in the house! Your town has maybe 200
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When I tried to put the ellipsis dots (…) as a title, my blog software couldn’t cope, and title in the permalink became 1903. So I’ll just call this entry 1903… Today I witnessed another sign of the continuing de-evolution of seventh graders – isn’t each succeeding generation supposed to get smarter? We were working on apostrophes, and they were doing ok until… #11. (Lets/Let’s) go to the store. Two-thirds of them picked “Lets.” And to add insult to injury, they thought I was joking when I reminded them that “let’s” is a contraction for “let us.” “Wha? Lettuce? What are you talking about?” OMG, second day back from vacation, and they’re already wearing me down… 46 more days… Awhile back I talked about how the head of our district instructional services department had to finally track me down in my classroom to get me to show up for an EL in-service. I suggested to her that the way things ended up — with her coming to observe me and then sticking around after to talk about the things she saw, and how I could incorporate some of the stuff she was pitching into my routine — might be the way
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I voted against the two-week spring break schedule. The union put it to a vote last year, and the two-week break won out 51-49%. I liked starting later in the fall, and spring around these parts is pretty windy, while fall is postcard weather. And it puts a big Christmas-like hole in the middle of whatever you’re doing this time of year. Etc. Right now though, it’s looking pretty good. I just realized that we’re eight days into April, and I haven’t worked a lick this month, and then some. I’ve been sleeping in every day, and even managed a couple of days of skiing. It was the first time in 12+ years, and I rented a pair of those short dog snow skates, 99cm, the better to imitate my fruitbooting experience, and didn’t crash…much. The weather was beauty, the snow was fresh, and everybody else was back at school, so the place was empty. I’m actually a bit tattered because I got so many runs in, and sunburned. So maybe next year I vote yes…? Obviously I’ve been lagging. That’s the problem with this two week break thing; you forget how much you think you’re going to do but
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This afternoon, I asked my friend and colleague, in his experiences with junior high, how many times he could remember seeing two seventh grade boys hugging. Sincerely. “Like a man-hug, or a real one?” “What’s a man hug?” “You know, you start out with the soul shake, and then you pull in and sorta bump chests, and then the other hand sorta slaps the back.” “Not that kind.” “Ummm. None.” “I knew it. It was a first for me too!” Milk and Cheese, the “True That” boys, were at it again. They were moving their desks closer together (again), like they like to do, and jabbering nonsense. Nothing major, and technically it was before class, but I said, “Well the quarter does end Friday, and I change up the seating chart every quarter, so next week I get to move you guys far, far apart.” One of our recent vocabulary words was crestfallen. I should have taken a picture of them to use as an example. Milk holds out both arms pleadingly (and it if it wasn’t sincere, he should be an actor) and says, “But…But…But… What about The Team?” OMG. The class is dying. Half of them are happy [...]
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That reminds me of those great SNL skits about the Sofa King. You know, how the prices are "Sofa King" low, the deals are "Sofa King" great, etc. (You obviously have to say those phrases out loud to get the joke.)