Guest artist

Hey Kid! (Guest Speaker)

August 17, 2009
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OK. We’re down to 9 days. We start in the middle of the week because our district is moving to – after two union-wide votes – a two-week spring break. I voted against it for just this starting-too-early-in-August-shtuff (among other reasons), but truth be told, I’m sort of itching to get back to work. It keeps me out of trouble. Though I am quite enjoying all the sleeping in. But ouch. Nine days. As I have said, I’ve been getting e-mails with questions, and over the next week or so, I’ll be covering more of those topics (600 words, more KBAR, grading essays). This will get me in the groove for the rapidly approaching school year, and that’s a necessary thing. Meanwhile, here’s a presentation from a guest speaker whom I respect very much. I “met” him through an e-mail listserv. Old school, I know. I signed up for the Middle-L listserv about 4 or 5 years ago as part of one of the requirements for the EETT grant we got back then. I’ve stuck around ever since. The list might go days or weeks with any action, but I’ve enjoyed reading almost everything that gets posted. My fave contributor

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Rookie Year – 1991 (Part II)

June 8, 2009
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Our guest artist continues with his glimpse back at mrC’s first real job – teaching independent study stylie – while mrC (his present self)  studies for Saturday’s CTEL test. 1991 – Rich (continued) “Do you have your history homework for me… today?” “I did it. ” It sounds like deed it. “But do you have it? Here? Now? At this place and time?” “I left it at my pad, eh.” Re: His American history homework. He is currently taking (which means he has a copy of the textbook) US History A. The district curriculum guide lists this as a semester-long course. The class is worth 5 credits out of the 225 that are needed to graduate from the high school. The book that he took home a week ago is about 200 pages long, with 44 chapters divided into 8 units, and purports to cover the time period between the pilgrims and the Reconstruction. Each chapter is approximately 3-5 pages long, and is followed by about 2 pages of MC, T/F, and fill-in-the-blank exercises, with some time-line exercises and find-a-word puzzles thrown in for variety. The time-line ones can often be quite entertaining. To introduce the concept, the book shows

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Guest Artist. From 1991.

June 5, 2009
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I got my credential in 1990. My last cooperating teacher of my student teaching days would have chastised me for using the word got, but there you go. Then I spent a year subbing (sorry, we call it guest teaching now), and I enjoyed that. It was also my in for my current job; someone I had subbed for a lot (another no no adjective for my old master teacher) suggested me for an opening 16 years ago. I also enjoyed being able to take the phone off the hook (can you tell I don’t have a cell phone?) if I didn’t want to work that day. In 1991 I took a job in a high school district about a 1/2 hour drive from where I live. This “commute” is one of the things that drove me to my hatred of the automobile, but that’s for another day. This is about the job. It was part-time, teaching what they called independent study.  For a while it was the perfect part-time job. I worked 8-1, and the last hour was considered pe, so I played hoops with the kids. We got free hot lunch trucked over from the high school (we

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Super Teacher! (Not me.)

January 28, 2009
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Super Teacher! (Not me.)

This one is about teacher behavior rather than student behavior. A colleague of mine this year decided to go for a change, and moved (voluntarily) from teaching 7th and 8th grade math at our site to teaching… SIXTH GRADE! ZOMG! Recess! The continual lining up! Covering all subjects! Feeling the love! Only 22 kids!  But this is not about that. This is about a joke he thought all his new colleagues would find funny. I know I laughed quite heartily.  But they took him seriously, when he spoke to them about… Super Teacher. I just came across the pics, as I was searching for something else, and well, I just had to share. Every year, at his new school, the sixth grade classes take a trip to Yosemite for several days. There is evidently an outdoor school there that caters to trips like this, and kids from all over California come for the program. My friend “Joey” was one of two teachers from his school who went. I guess the program handled most of keeping the kids busy, so the teachers (there were a bunch from the California central valley too) had some time on their hands. Joey and his

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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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