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Details, Details

August 25, 2011
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I think I figured out why I hate Twitter. I like the details. One hundred forty something characters ain’t enough to give the details. I want the details, baby. The details: First Day Scream As I “tweeted” yesterday, I had forgotten to explain to my new homies… (Aside: Our first period is ten minutes longer than the others, and that extra ten minutes is referred to as Home Base. The name is left over from when it used to be a separate class that was thirty minutes long and was supposed to foster that “connection” that is so important in the “middle school model.” Oh yeah, and we were supposed to teach citizenship and coping skills and whatnot. Now it’s when we listen to the bulletin poorly read, collect magazine sales, and-in my class anyway–watch nutty videos. But I never could bring myself to call it Home Base; it sounds so…so…geeky. The old school meaning of geeky, not the tech-savvy version. So I have always referred to it as Homie Base, and my first period crew as my homies.) …why it has been a thing with all my homies over the past few years to scream when we are asked

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Wish I had at least one this year…

June 9, 2010
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No, I’m not dead yet. Though they are slowly killing me this year. I haven’t posted much lately because: 1. The kids turned in their research papers last week. I have turn-in timed every year, so that if I read about 12 per day, I finish the day before the last day. This year it’s going a bit more slowly; I think due to the dearth of original topics. It’s been like this…Global Warming, Global Warming, Titanic, Titanic, Global Warming, Holocaust, Titanic, Titanic, Titanic, Global Warming, Ufo’s, Global Warming. Repeat. I was stoked when I got “The Impact of Herbicides in the Vietnam War” and “How Realistic are Shows Like CSI?” 2. My TV died, and I’ve been trying to fix it. I don’t miss the programming so much; it’s summer, which means mostly reruns, and there’s always Hulu. But I am sorely missing my Wii Pinball Hall of Fame (Williams Edition). When I’m in Vegas in two weeks, my boy and I are going to spend a whole day at the Pinball Hall of Fame. 152 machines! Anyway, it’s a big 60 something inch monster that I think I can fix for a few bucks. Wish me luck. 3.

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Politeness Girl

December 18, 2008
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One of my classes has only 20 students. That’s right on the verge of being too small for me. I had a class one year that, through attrition and other issues, was down to 12 by February. Not a beautiful thing. One: without enough voices and ideas, discussions are very hard to get going. Instead of eliciting ideas, I have to provide too many. Two: when there are that few, they seem to get the idea that class is like some family dinner, where they can just jabber out and “share” and not bother to raise hands and such. They drive me batty. That same year I had 12, I also had a class of 34. That class was nearly silent, and the Gang of 12 required the Quiet Stick almost daily. The upside is the greatly reduced paper load. This is nothing to sneeze at, but I like 20-25 in a class better. As I have said before, I don’t usually have a favorite class (although, now and then there is a least favorite). Most years, most classes have their own “endearing” qualities. I usually have a nickname for each period, although I never tell them their own nickname,

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Random Featured Post

“Do you love me?” (Also: Weird “Week”)

Wotta “week.” Considering how tired I am, I can’t believe it was only a three-day week – for some reason we had a 4-day weekend for Veterans’ day. And I done clean forgot that I was supposed to give the “District Benchmark Test #1″ (that’s a whole ‘nother post) by Friday. So we spent Wednesday darkening ovals to generate data for the district, AND there was a “multi-media” assembly that, amid the rock and rap, touted the beauty of trust and honesty (also: don’t do those things which I obviously can’t mention, because ads for them started appearing here). AND, yesterday was “parent visitation day.” Whole lotta scare quotes today too. Usually I get a pretty good turnout for these parent visitation days (it sounds like a Catholic holiday). Our previous principal (our present principal is an FNG, both to the job of principal AND to our school) instituted these as a sort of PR for parents. Many parents of ms’ers are more than a little leery of sending their little angels to the big bad junior high. (You should have seen the reaction a few years ago when the district proposed making our school 6-8. OMG. You’d have thought [...]

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

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  • 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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