Teaching

Beauty Snacks

November 17, 2008
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In life, many times it’s the little things that make it all worthwhile. I say that to the lunch ladies in the morning, who laugh at how stoked I am to see that they’re cooking breakfast burritos. (Eggs, potatoes, bacon – they make a special one for me without cheese – for 1.25 w/juice? That’s a beautiful thing.) And I know all of you out there know what I mean when I talk about walking into the faculty room, and seeing a pie, or a little deli spread with a sign that says, “Thanks from the Leadership Clas” (sic), and that feeling you get, like, hey this ain’t half bad. It’s all about the snacks. The best part of almost any in-service is the snacks. Usually that’s all I can think of to say on the little comment sheets at the end: “tasty snacks.” When I was a BTSA adviser, we had a director who always made sure there were snacks. And lunch. And beverages. One all-day training was out on the coast (a whole 15 minutes away) at a place called The Inn, overlooking the ocean. Lunch was chicken Cordon Bleu, merci beaucoup. One of our previous principals, who

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Mix It Up (but not too much).

November 10, 2008
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No school today. Or tomorrow. A 4-day weekend for Veterans’ Day? Not that I’m complaining, mind you. Weekends mean sleeping in; 9 am instead of 5, and I’ll take two extra days of that any time. It’s a good time for another (irregular) installment of tips for middle school teachers. (Here’s a link to the first round.) 1. “Say/Do That Again…and again, and again, and…again.” Most everybody has to be told something several times before it becomes “rooted.” (Especially teachers. No offense, but as the tech support guy, and the BTSA guy, and having given many an “in-service,” I have learned that teachers, as a rule, listen about as well as middle-schoolers. I have the e-mails to prove it.) I’ve heard the number seven bandied about; as in you have to see/hear/etc. something seven times before it takes. Anyway, ms’ers need a lot of repetition, but…it works a lot better if they see it, hear it, do it, do it again, in several different ways: Start with some warm up questions to see how much they know, then a “lesson” (I’ll have a post sometime on my dislike for that word), then practice, then homework, then more practice, then a

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Purple Cape

November 8, 2008
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A while back on my daily skate around town, I watched a police car make a quick u-turn in the middle of the street and then pull over to the side of the road in front of me. The driver did the cop wave for me to come to the passenger window, which was rolling down. I peered in warily. I first got pulled over in seventh grade. I was a little late getting to school, and I rode my bike the wrong way down the street, and I ran the red light at the nearby intersection. The cop stopped me in front of the whole school assembled outside for the flag salute. I haven’t had much better luck since, on a bike or on skates. So I was quickly reviewing the previous 5 minutes in my head as I approached. Nobody cursed at, no whacks on car hoods, I’m on the sidewalk where I belong. Nothing I can think of that would make a police officer interested in me. There was a smile below the cop shades. Good sign. Still… “Hey Mr. Coward. You remember me?” Phew. Just another former student. This one from my first year of junior

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SSI

November 6, 2008
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Since we’re reading The Giver, we’ve been talking about euphemisms. We’ve also been talking about the low scores on our Friday tests. Since the tests are largely made up of reruns of the warm-ups and pretests and pink sheets (grammar/mechanics) we’ve been working on (and copying into notebooks) all week, it seems like… “Well, I’m pretty much giving you almost all the answers to the test. Umm. How much easier could I make it?” A litany of what you’d expect. I should know by now. It’s like the robot Hymie, on Get Smart, or the one that parachuted onto Gilligan’s Island. They like to take everything literally. Knock yourself out. “”No, I can’t take the test for you…or just give you all A’s…or…You all know what I mean. How many of you actually study – even a little – for the Friday tests?” Two or three sheepish hands go up. All but one are probably lying. “Hello? My sympathy level for you is zero.” So. Finally I am fed up. Some of my best experiments emerge (academic word this week) when I am fed up. This is last Friday as we are looking at the scores from the test. (The

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Guinea Pigs

November 3, 2008
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I guess the term these days would be lab rats. Maybe Guinea pigs were too cute. Seventh graders make for good experimental subjects too. Kids think we do the exact same thing every year. And being seventh graders, they are of several minds. They think that would make things so easy for us (which is a huge plus), but also be “boring” (which is practically a cuss word for them). But when former students come back to visit, and ask what we’re doing, and I tell them about something new, I get the inevitable, “That’s not fair. We never _______.” (Insert: made web pages, read The Giver, had open mouth quizzes, used clickers, had discussion boards on Moodle, saw that video, made wikis, used the laptops, had homework be optional, etc. ) Open mouth quizzing is a regular feature in my class now, but just a couple of years ago, it was a fairly radical experiment for me. I even told them at the time that it was an experiment, and they were the Guinea pigs for future classes. “Can we vote on it?” “This is not a democracy. It is a benevolent dictatorship.” That experiment has worked out beautifully.

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Random Featured Post

A First!

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

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