Now that the boy is in seventh grade, his mom has been reminiscing about when he was just a little boy. (Phew… caught that one. The autocorrect thought I was trying too type little booty.) Since it’s Christmas time, of course she busted out his most famous impersonation. This is from when the boy was four.
I’d submit it to America’s Funniest Home Videos, but I think it might be too long for tv.
Ho. Ho. Ho.
http://mrcoward.com/xmas2k3.mov
I’m cutting this pretty close, ain’t I?
A few years ago, while we were reading Outsiders aloud, I was about to give them my usual “reading check” type quiz to make sure they were following along, thinking about what we’d talked about, connecting the literary terms to the examples in the book, etc. I can’t quite remember what my inspiration was (probably just to throw them for a loop like I like to do), but I decided to let them “cheat.” My quizzes on the books and stories we read are always open book, but this time I told them they could take the quiz, not only open book, but “open mouth.” I told them they could talk about the questions and answers as much as they want in any way they want, and decide however they want to, which of the answers to choose. “You can share what you know…or not. You can decide whether to heed the wisdom of the group…or not. You just can’t lie. You can’t knowingly tell everyone the wrong answer on purpose.” One class that day came up with the name Quiz for Dummies. The rest of the periods thought that was a little “mean,” so we’ve stuck with Open Mouth. [...]
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Alright…another teaching topic to discuss on the message boards. Hopefully I can get some good dialogue going as I did with my last dilemma. The following is taking place in my school:
New Principal. New Assistant Principal. The new administration has come in wanting to make a BIG change in the existing philosophy. That change…eliminate all zeros. The existing philosophy of the jr. high is that if a student does not do their work, they receive a zero. In sixth and seventh grade, the student might get an extra day, but in eighth grade, if the student does not have their homework, it is an automatic zero. This has been the way of the road for at least the last five years. They argue that the student is not learning anything by getting a zero and it is unfairly giving that student insurmountable odds of receiving a good grade in that class if they are getting zeros. The administration would like to make students complete the work during a “No Zeros Study Hall” which the teachers may have to take care of. The work will then be graded fairly and given credit for.
While this is just a small part of the new philosophy, I think that I am summarizing it enough to give the gist of it. Upon hearing this, I read a couple different articles about the pros and cons of this, but I am still not sold on it.
Any thoughts?
Our school implemented the “no zero” policy a couple of years ago, although it is not hard-and-fast. An occasional zero still slips by once in a while. None of the staff was really sold on it until we read ‘Power of ICU’ by Danny Hill and Jayson Nave. The two authors (who are real school principals) came and spoke to our district, and they had a big impact. We do not do the program full-force, but the parts we do have been working pretty well. We use the ICU lists, and it does help us have more of the students get the work done. Twice a trimester we have “ICU clearance days” where the kids who are caught up on their work get a fun activity while the kids on the ICU list have to get caught up on work. The book is worth a read.
We 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 student came to class without their homework, we e-mailed our assistant principal who called home to arrange for the student to stay after. This year’s group of parents have not been as cooperative about homework detention, so we have had to use the academic referral process which lands kids in in-school suspension if the work is not completed by the deadline. I am contemplating instituting some type of missing assignment contract next semester – if a student comes to class without their work, they will have to complete a form telling me when they will (during silent lunch, homework detention, or homeroom- those are going to be the only options). I am going to have to check out The Power of ICU.