Follow up

Follow Up

October 17, 2011
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First off, the Standing Girl actually took a break on Thursday. “I just don’t feel like standing today.” “No sore toe?” “No. I just don’t feel like it.” OK. Friday was test day–she doesn’t stand for tests–but she was right back on her feet today. “I just feel like it.” One of the yahoos spoke my own thoughts today, though perhaps a bit less tactfully. “Can’t you think of anything else to say? Maybe Iiiii feel like, you know…far-” “Quiet you!” Second, another round of kudos to the brave Mr. M. He threw himself on the landmine, and it didn’t blow up. The not-missus (I couldn’t resist) was dead-on when she said that we teachers are a defensive bunch. In fact, that was my cooperating teacher’s only real beef with me as a young buck: “Does not take criticism well.” Ouch. The truth hurts, as we used to say in junior high. So Mr. M,  it took a lot of guts for you to approach your colleague, AND you obviously had some tact, because she actually listened to you. That’s a one-two punch you gotta take advantage of. What else needs changing at your school? You should be working that

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Be-er?

March 19, 2011
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I’m going to try to tie together a couple of loose ends here.  A couple of  weeks ago (see how laggy I’m getting?) I was showing how long it takes me to actually finish some of these posts (haha, ironic), and I was telling the story of teaching the vocabulary word brusque. Let us resume the story… …One of the words on said vocabulary pretest was the word brusque.  I’m going over examples (“Think of  the stereotypical New Yorker”) and synonyms (“Kind of like a little pushy and a bit rude”), looking for them to give me the word for the blank on the homework sheet. One kid who really thought he knew that one guesses wrong, and when I give the correct answer, he looks even more puzzled than usual. With this guy, I’ve learned to wait a beat, and then the light bulb usually goes on. Sure enough, his face lights up, and he says, “I thought that word was brewski!” The whole class is dying. “I was wondering why people talked about brewskis all the time. Why would you talk about that? I was very confused. In DARE they talked about brewskis…” O. M. G. So now it’s a

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Friday Follow-Ups

October 3, 2009
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Just some follow-up on some things I noticed I’ve left hanging. *Still haven’t heard from the DA about my possible vandalism charge. Wait…I never finished that story, did I?  (Here’s the beginning of the story.) After the cop came to the school and didn’t get to talk to me, he came to my house the next day, Saturday. I get attitude from the git-go. He says the guy who almost ironed me wants to have me charged with vandalism for making a dent in the side of his truck with my wristguards. Lucky it wasn’t my head, and you’re interviewing me in a hospital bed. Vandalism is a misdemeanor. I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t exactly a pleasant conversation. But the bottom line seemed to be that, with no witnesses except those involved, he had a he said/he said sort of thing on his hands, and was trying to get me to crack and confess. When he left he said he would write up his report, and then the DA’s office would decide whether there was a case or not. Great. The statute of limitations on charging me is two years. The incident was in February. Supposedly, according

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Research This II. (Also: More Obliviousness.)

April 25, 2009
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Yesterday I whined about research papers. But I think I’m starting to get this research thing dialed in a bit.  It all starts with the right questions. Here’s the list from yesterday. We’re trying to decide which ones would be good research-type questions. 1. Why are flamingos pink? 2. Who invented the car? 3. What was the first video game? 4. Is global warming real? 5. Should I buy an Apple or a Windows computer? 6. What other explanations are there for UFO sightings? 7. How many rides have they had in the history of Disneyland, and what are they? 8. Why is the sky blue? 9. Does watching violent media make kids act more violently? 10. Why did the Titanic sink? The Answers: 1. No Dice, Cheese Slice. They eat shrimp. 30 seconds on Google, and etc. No thesis here, let’s move on. 2. Nyet, nyet, Soviet. See #1, except for the shrimp-eating part. 3. Oh Noes! Pong. I had it. It was boring. Still no research questions yet. 4. That’s what I’m talking about. On the surface, a yes/no question, but the research you need to do to come to that answer! 5. Yessss. Again, like #4, it

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Research This.

April 24, 2009
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Raise your hand if you are sick of teaching the dreaded “research paper.” Not to mention having to read the gems you usually end up with. I know,  I know, it’s my job to show them how to find the joy in learning how to research and prove their thesis that dolphins would make a great pet. But after a couple of weeks of pretending that it really matters that you format your work cited entries exactly like the latest MLA standard (God forbid you use the one from two years  ago),  and riding herd on them in the library as they complain that “they don’t have any books on my topic,” I’m ready to chuck the whole thing for a class wiki. I’m thinking next year, I hand the “research unit” off to the social studies department, who always complain that we English teachers don’t do it right. It’s all yours, baby. Every year my list of banned topics gets larger. Here’s this year’s list: No: skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, particular cars or planes, mass murderers/mafia/criminals, bios of sports stars, celebrities, or rock stars, animals just because they’re cute, video games, Disney or Disneyland, “all about” papers, “history of” papers.

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Random Featured Post

Oh Raffle King, Oh Raffle King…

(Sung — way off key, and sort of warbley — to the tune of “Oh Christmas Tree.”) I guess we need to talk about the King. On Wednesdays, after we go over the vocabulary homework, and discuss the words, I give them a vocabulary pretest. If they ace it (100%), they are exempt from the vocabulary portion of the Friday test. I used to have one of them flip a coin to decide whether or not I let them use their “cheat sheet” — the homework page we just went over and corrected — on the pretest. What they don’t believe when I tell them — even though it’s true — is that, on average, their scores on the pretest are lower when they use the cheat sheets, and fewer of them get an exemption. But they like to think it’s a security blanket, so I play along. Then I discovered the King. I would give you the URL of his creator’s web site, but he has some other, shall we say, inappropriate shtuff. (You can do a Google search if you really want to check it out.) So I took the liberty of “cloning” the King. If you click [...]

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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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