Tips

State Testing…and etc.

May 14, 2012
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Boy howdy, I’m really milking this one, huh? I think, after a week and a half, we’re up to number three on our list of teacher tips for state testing. (This pace reminds me of the classic Sr. Mary Elephant bit from Cheech and Chong back in the day: “Now class, Sr. Rosetta Stone has told me that your assignment for the past two months has been to write an essay…”  And then none of them have it finished yet.)  Sister Mary Elephant Ok. So far we have: 1. Teach ‘em to game the test. 2. Teach ‘em how to erase. So, on to number three. 3. Somehow get them to buy into the conflicting ideas that a) the test is important to them and b) not to worry. News alert: Unless they are gluey high-schoolers in danger of failing the graduation requirement or unless they have parents who take these scores seriously, right now there really is no down side to doing poorly, other than pride. Our VP tries to scare the 8th graders by saying the high school (yes, in our town there’s only one) will take away their electives and put

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State Testing — Tips for Teachers II

May 9, 2012
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My drain is unclogged, but Survivor AND Modern Family are new tonight, so we gotta work fast. I realized, after I left Monday, that I might have been a little flippant about the  disutility of practicing for these tests. The kids do need SOME practice with these types of things, especially if they haven’t dealt with the multiple-choice (or closer to the middle school reality, multiple-guess) tests. This will be dealt with in the tips section, but I guess I was thinking of what our school used to do until just this year. Which was to mass-copy packets of questions (from previous years’ tests) from the Department of Ed website, and hand them out to everyone, so their kids could practice for the test. And at our school, we test the kids with their first period teacher, so here we have Mr. Grissom in shop class droning out the correct answers to the practice tests, and kids are already thinking they’re going to fail the real thing because they got so many wrong on the practice, which was lame anyway and maybe they thought they had a few more right, but Mr. Grissom can’t answer their questions about “that English stuff” or “that

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State Testing–Tips for Teachers… Interrupted

May 7, 2012
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First of all… as if. As if some last minute review, or “covering the material” one last time (or for the first time), right before testing, does anything at all. You really think they go, “Whoa, I’m sure glad we rushed through factoring before the test As if some sort of  epic  ”practice test” will do anything except get kids sick of the whole thing before it starts. As if.. d’oh, the sink is clogged, and House is on soon. Gotta go. I’ll finish this in the next post. But before I go, I gotta ask Heather, over in the the comments section, what the heck does SOL Test mean? I was checking out your blog page to see what your 8th graders are up to and I noticed “SOL Test.” Where I come from that has always meant, “$#!* Outta Luck. Maybe for some of them, that’s the end result. I guess that’s what they mean by high stakes testing?

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The Long and Short of It

February 27, 2012
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All of us who have taught junior high for any length of time realize that one must have, in almost equal measure, the opposing qualities of the patience of Job (alert: Biblical reference) and the short, random fuse of of a steroided up cage fighter. Of course I exaggerate. Wink wink, nudge nudge. But you all know what I mean. You have to be able to say the same thing 20 or 30 time or more per day, and not act like it (too much). You have to be able to not go all Sr. Enda on them, and as a retired colleague of mine used to sweetly and unironically say, reteach the behavior. Again. Without screaming. You have to be able to answer the same question three times within five minutes…at least five times a day. Your tolerance for external stimuli and extraneous noise has to be exceptionally high. You have to actually like them…or at least find them entertaining. The kids, that is. Not to mention the job itself. And yet… You must also call them on everything from gum chewing to dress code to poking the person closest just because (s)he’s the person closest. And not just

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90 Times.

February 8, 2012
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I swear, their timing is impeccable. Just as I start to feel better and (presumably) get less crabby, the kids start to aggravate even more than usual. But I guess I should be happy that, for a couple of them, there might have been a breakthrough. And yes, I still call them kids. I crack up at the teachers who say, “OK children…” Gawd, we would have died laughing if Sr. Enda, or even the hippy art teacher, had called us children. The art lady almost didn’t come back after our reaction to her calling us playbabies. I have preached again and again in this here blog about how important it is to have a routine in a junior high classroom. Because no matter how many times they say they hate it when things are always the same, the reality is that they cannot cope without regularity and a routine.  So my class is built around the weekly routine: Monday: Go over/explain homework for the week. (Like I tell parents at BTSN, “If they come home on Wednesday, saying Mr. Coward just assigned this and it’s due tomorrow…it’s a lie. They get it all on Monday.”) Warm up that intros

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Random Featured Post

True That.

We had an open mouth quiz on chapter 8 today. One class has several boys who have a new phrase they’re trying out. Personally, I sort of like it. 4) On p127, we get an example of what seems to be foreshadowing. What is it? a) When Two-Bit says that Darry will kill him if Pony’s really sick. b) When Two-Bit says Darry could be a Soc. c) When Pony says he has a helpless feeling. d) When Two-Bit calls Pony chicken. e) When Pony says he’ll be well by tonight. “OK, number four. What’s foreshadowing?” The class takes care of that one for me. Most of them laugh, and one says, “I was wrong.” (Pony’s line at the end of chapter three, and a beauty example for them of foreshadowing.) “Oh yeah. Ok, so it’s C, right?” “True that.” “Number six. Darry, I mean Dally (they always mix up those names), right?” “True that.” (me, doing some “refocusing” of a gentleman off to the side) “‘Clark,’ could you focus your comments on the questions? Open mouth only applies if that mouth is talking about the questions.” “True that.” “And I think we’re done with that line, for today at [...]

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

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