Before I get back to the district assessment scoring day, I have to give props to the sub (sorry, guest teacher) who filled in while I was eating snacks and reading papers and “calibrating.” The scene when I announce that I will be gone on a particular day plays out the same almost every time. The following is from last year when I wen to my units’ 50 anniversary, but it could be from any time in the last 19 years. There’s a mixture of yeas and ooohs. I always play it up, “I see how it is. I’ll miss you guys too…” Then there’s the chorus of, “You should get ______. (S)he is the best!” (Insert three or four names of pushover-type “guest teachers” who resort to videos or games of Heads Up Seven Up.) Then there’s me saying, “I never request a particular sub, sorry–guest teacher; you guys will have to learn to cope with whomever they send at you. Sometimes they will send you a bonehead. In your life you will sometime, no doubt, have a bonehead for a boss. But guess what? He’s still the boss! So the watchwords are: silence and respect. If you end up with
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I don’t really make New Year’s resolutions. (I’ll wait while you go read that post. Really, you should. Then you’ll understand when I say, “Well at first I was like…”) OK. But I have made a December 7 resolution. I’m going to post 12 times between now and Christmas Eve. So here we go. On the first day of Christmas… I’m hoping we have some DEVO fans out there. I’ve been feeling a little crabby lately for various little reasons, and so the idea of ”Whipping it good” is rather appealing lately. So along comes this handy flowchart. But first you might want to rock to the song a bit before tackling the flowchart. NOW, you’re ready. Click for the full-size. Feel free to implement the procedure in your classroom. You’re welcome.
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Our tip of the day this time is from someone we haven’t heard from in a long while. In fact it’s been almost three years since this guest artist made his first and only appearance here. Since then he’s been spending a few years down under. And I don’t mean Australia. I mean 6th grade. But now he’s seen the light of day, and by luck there was a spot open again at our site, and so he’s back torturing both 7th and 8th graders in math (my boy included–who also had “mrJ” last year for 6th grade). And I’m back to stealing tips from him. First go read his first appearance here. Ok. On to the tip of the day. I know that when I have subs (sorry, they’re called guest teachers at our school), I always tell them to leave a detailed note about how things went. I also tell them to kick ass and take names, and I leave seating charts to make that easy. And I hate it when I get something like this: “All classes were great. Thanks for a great day. Hope to be back soon.” You are never coming back. Well mrJ had
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We got another STAR testing pep talk yesterday. There must be serious pressure from the new superintendent on our admins to bounce back from our dip last year. The way I see it, we’re lucky the damage wasn’t worse, considering the seventh grade bunch we had last year. A lot of them had trouble bubbling their names. (Seriously.) And the talk I hear from the eighth grade teachers is that they haven’t really wised up much, so that doesn’t bode well for this year. But I will say that the one period of eighth grade that I have this year (first time in 8 years, only the 3rd time in 18), which has four reruns–students I also had last year–is doing pretty well, academically anyway. They’re still a pain in the Heineken. So needy and whiny. They all seem to need a dad to kick some metaphorical a** on them. Statistically, half of them probably don’t have one at home. Anyway, this time our vp was all, “It used to be that our school was the one everybody tried to beat. When my boys were in jr. high down in _____ (a school in the county, but not the district),
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One of my favorite things about teaching junior high is blowing their minds. One of my fave parts of the week is Fridays before the test, when we do Mental Floss. Middle schoolers: they can’t hit the curveball. Like this: “When the day after tomorrow is yesterday, this day will be as far from Friday as this day was from Friday when the day before yesterday was tomorrow. What day is it?” All I asked was, “What day is it?” All the rest is obfuscation. But they always try to figure it out. “OK, so. Day after tomorrow is Sunday, so yesterday is Thursday…wait…How can it be yesterday?” And etc. This class is also the first time some of them contemplate the whole time travel paradox thing. “So if Stevo here is feeling all sporty, joyriding in his stolen car back in the past, and accidentally runs over his mom before she’s his mom…” “Ewww. Why would he do that?” “He didn’t know it was her. And speed kills. Anyway, now what would happen? If she never had him…” “He’d just disappear!” Most triumphant. “So how did he travel back in time to hit her? If he was never born
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First off: Ok, Ok. I’m starting to find my happy place with research. Thank you for the comments and suggestions; I think next year will be better. You guys gave me some good ideas. We’re working on outlines this week, prepping for research. Among other activities, I give them partially completed outlines and word banks to fill them in with. I strategically place a few clues in the outline, and they have to determine the hierarchy of the various entries I provide, and fill in the blanks. Like this (the stats are kinda dated, but it’s a topic near to my heart): Topic: The automobile has become the American Nightmare kills 265,000 and injures millions annually, road rage and reckless driving have increased, better city design to decrease auto dependence, leading source of air pollution, alternatives to the automobile, main means of transportation, too many people dependent on the car, large SUV’s: rollovers and danger to smaller cars, more cars and more roads mean more traffic congestion, average car: 5 tons of carbon dioxide each year, contributes to acid rain and smog, leading cause of death and injury, new dangers with 2 recent developments, public transportation I. Main means of [...]
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