stories

Flash(way)Back II

February 12, 2009
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Ok, back to my story.  So after the fine phone call that started my Friday, I go up to the office to let the secretaries know that a representative of our city’s finest might be paying me a visit. First they think I’m joking, they they start razzing me, “Cops comin’ for you again Coward?” “Same same since seventh grade.” “What?” It was 1974, and I was late for school. I hate being late. For anything. Even school, even then. I was riding my bike as usual, and in 1974, we didn’t wear helmets, let alone worry about which side of the road we were riding on, and we thought stop signs were for cars and losers. Today, the road I was on the wrong side of is 4 lanes wide, and the light I ran controls one of the busiest intersections (the cross street is 6 lanes now) in my old hometown. Back then, it was a mere 2 lanes (plus the turn lane) I was crossing against the light. I got across without a care, though that was probably because I didn’t look. I was looking a block ahead, and I could see them lining up outside in

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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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OMG! Haircut!

January 5, 2009
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I’m going to dispense with the “oh noes, vacation is over, and I didn’t do anything except sleep in, install a toilet, and play Wii” in one sentence and be done with it. There. Also, before I get back to 120 Seconds tomorrow, I have another first to share. (That’s another beautiful thing about this job; even after almost 20 years, I still get surprised.) I have this thing about haircuts. I don’t like them, never have. I didn’t like getting clipped by my dad, I didn’t like going to the barber shop, I don’t like going to the salon. I always had to stuff my hair up into my headgear for wrestling, back in the day. I was a long hair (rock and roll stylie – middle of the back) for many years in the 80′s. I even did my first student teaching with hair like that. (Parent conferences were a beauty; parents with whom I had had fine phone conversations reacted quite differently sometimes when meeting me in person. I like to tell those stories during The Outsiders.) My wife has cut me now and then, but after a slip of the clip once, she has begged off.

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“He did?” (Also -ism #9: Am I exempt?)

December 11, 2008
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“Sometimes, I wonder why I even show up in the morning.” “It’s because you love us.” “Right now, not so much.” Among other things (The Midwife’s Apprentice, vocabulary therefrom, spelling, reading for information, and Latin/Greek roots), we’re working on possessive nouns this week. Or at least I am. During the week, I give them a series of pretests to practice, and to see who already knows what. Those that score high enough, get to be exempt from that section of the test. For example, this week they had a 2-sided “pink sheet” with a basic possessives lesson and some basic exercises. (These pink sheets, so called because I try to always copy them on pink paper, are the one thing that isn’t on the web site; I actually use the grammar workbook that came from our anthology.) Side one is due on Tuesday, and after we go over it and practice and explain, we have the first pretest. Wednesday, I give them a shorter one to review. Side two of the pink sheet is due Thursday, and then we have the last pretest. Usually the deal is 18/20 for the week, or 10/10 on the last one is the benchmark

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Exemplary

December 1, 2008
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I’ll continue the -isms tomorrow. I just have to interrupt our regularly scheduled program to tell about a classic I rediscovered today. I started at my present school in 1993. The last job I had before that was teaching 9th and 10th graders at a big high school about 30 miles away. This school and the city it’s in were (and sort of still are) known as kind of gang-ish. (I don’t know, is that delicate enough?) We had three full-time campus cops. I had a few obvious wannabes as well as some of the real thing, but things weren’t nearly as bad as it sounds. I had a great time there. One of my sophomores who was one of the real ones, was also one of the smartest kids I had. It was sort of a movie cliche. He was a leader in the hood, and we (his teachers) all tried to sway him to lead at school. We should have considered ourselves lucky he even showed up. He could read, and obviously did; just not much of what he was assigned. He was quick-witted and could argue/discuss with the best. He often made me laugh. He seemed to

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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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