Teaching

How do YOU do it?

November 9, 2010
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Math teachers have it easy. Everything is already sequenced; there’s already an organizational structure built in. The kids have to know this before they can do that. The tests are objective, you don’t have essays to read, and best of all, you don’t have to figure out what the heck to teach. The next thing  on the list is binomials, then there’s quadratic equations (or whatever), and so on… Math teachers have it hard. How do you mix things up when there’s a sequence you have to follow? How can you answer the “math is boring” people, when math IS boring the way American schools are forced to teach it? How do you answer the “why do we need to know this?” question when, after they’re finished with 5th grade math, most of them won’t need to know it? How many times can you watch kids come to the board to solve random equations? How does one actually get people to learn math? And  how the heck do you NOT do the old go-over-last-night’s-homework-then-see-examples-of-the-new-topic-then-practice-a-few-then-start-the-homework thing that math teachers have done for a millennium? Anyway, I’m sort of off topic and I haven’t even started. I was interrogating my servants today, getting

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Advice Rerun

September 11, 2010
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Advice Rerun

I’d like to again thank Megan Jones, our most recent guest artist, for her excellent middle school teaching advice.  It is also rather timely, because just the other day, a sister of a friend was very interested in getting advice for her first student-teaching assignment. She is embarking on a second career, after 10 years in the bidness world. A lawyer, even. What was Mr. T’s line? “I pity the fool.” Not really. She had already started her student-teaching gig, and seemed to have a good handle on things so far. Still, she was looking for advice on how to handle the classroom management stuff, and she eagerly absorbed every bit of wisdom I had. (She patiently listened to me rant; it was, well, happy hour.) I was giving her the Alpha Dog speech. (This one is from back in October 2008.) Advice for Middle School Teachers 1. Be the Alpha. Middle schoolers in groups are, in many ways, like dogs in a pack; they are always looking for the Alpha, and there’s chaos if there isn’t one to be found. Or worse yet, one of the kids will assume the role. Remember, MS’ers crave structure (no matter how they

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I knew it!

September 9, 2010
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I have always been suspicious of the whole “learning style” thing. You know, you’re supposed to match the style of teaching to the “learning style’ of the student. Here’s a typical quote: Tactile/Kinesthetic persons learn best through a hands-on approach, actively exploring the physical world around them. They may find it hard to sit still for long periods and may become distracted by their need for activity and exploration. Uh huh. Welcome to middle school, pal. They all wiggle, waggle, squirm, sway, pace, jog, skip, squat, flap, slap, tap, dance, and shake. They all have a need for the “exploration” of the desk next door or pencil sharpener across the room. You try to match your teaching style to that, and you are “done fer” as Huck might say. Anyway, I was just reading a great article in the NYTimes, about how much of the conventional wisdom about “study skills” and “learning styles” isn’t really wisdom at all. They quoted  researchers who looked at much of the literature about the learning styles fad, who said, “The contrast between the enormous popularity of the learning-styles approach within education and the lack of credible evidence for its utility is, in our opinion,

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BTSN ’10: A New Shtick.

September 6, 2010
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Thursday was my 18th Back to School Night here. Some parents have seen my BTSN act a couple of times; I had all five kids from one family, so they got to see the bit a few times. I usually ad-lib most of it–I only have to kill 10 minutes each period–and still usually manage to say (mostly) the same things every year. The night before mine, I attended my boy’s BTSN, and his teacher this year taught for several years at my school before moving down to the elementary level, and I had been in his junior high classroom many times. But his persona for the parents was decidedly different than the one he uses to teach. We’re talking PowerPoint and a tie. It was so…professional. It did keep him  less scattered than I can sometimes get during these things, and he had a lot more time to fill. I got to thinking… (I know; don’t hurt yourself.) There was no way I was going to use PowerPoint, and I don’t even own a tie. But… Pretty much on my way to the gig, I came up with a new bit. I wanted to go with an acronym. (Aside: Technically an

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Twits

May 4, 2010
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I just read a webnews headline that read: “Twitter is the New CNN.” Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket? If Mr. Coward were to “tweet” his way through a typical day period (which is about as likely as, oh let’s see, Hell freezing over is too cliche, how about…Bill Gates going broke.) 8:21- the homies r screaming since vp said hand over your heart 4 the pledge – oh the pain! I left the door open: some poor late kid in the hall looks alarmed 8:22- I gotta put a switch on the speaker: more drivel from some underprepared kid talking 2 close 2 the mic…sounds like the bus station back in the day 8:26- blue slip. since it doesn’t say NOW, I set it next 2 the Popple…probly forget it later 8:30- finally!! “share” time is over and we can start – don’t remind me that I told Vero she could share first tomorrow about something she will have forgotten by then if we’re lucky 8:32- checking vocab hw, 1/4 not holding…”why is my grade so low?” it ain’t rocket science people 8:38- correcting warm up…let one of them try to write on the shmartboard …you

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Random Featured Post

Best Faux Pas Ever. (Glad it wasn’t me.)

(Friday Flashback – Last Year) “Mrs. G” has been teaching in our district for over 40 years. She’s been at our school since it opened in 1980. She’s taught English, art, social studies, music, and much more. She is literally an immovable object, and doesn’t need to rise from her chair to strike fear (well, not exactly fear any more, but…) into 8th graders’ hearts. She doesn’t care what people (parents, admins, other teachers) think of her, and speaks her mind whether it’s “appropriate” or not. She currently teaches 8th grade US history, and has been going toe to toe with a particularly pesky student I had last year. Now, this “Steve” sends me e-mails about how the posts he’s reading in the discussion forums on our Moodle don’t have enough thought behind them, and he has a real brain. But he’s a loud-mouthed pain in the rear, whose parents it seems, are wrapped around his finger. I was probably the only teacher he got along with…until Mrs. G. He’s still a pain, and though, like me she recognizes and likes the Steve underneath, she’s not afeared of giving what she gets. So… Food is not allowed in our classooms. [...]

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

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