Muji needs to move closer to the West Coast

My favorite pencil - one that I've had for nearly 9 years - died on my this month. I had fed it cheapo pencil lead, which breaks easily, and thus smashes into powder easily. Which then clogs the mechanism in my mechanical pencil. Boo to cheapo lead.

Luckily, I had some forethought and bought two more when I was in Hong Kong last summer. It's great because usually my fore-thinking is just worrying, since nothing that catastrophic has happened to me, for which I'm thankful for.

It's just nice to be reminded that thinking forwardly is useful, and not a waste of brain space after all.

Next up: use up that cheapo lead as fast as possible so I can get the good lead so my favorite, difficult to acquire, pencils won't break. Maybe give the lead to my students as a prize? What? They have cheapo Bic pencils. Not my precious, genius, and simplistically designed pencils.

Slow Food schools

I'm all about food. I never used to be as a kid - never appreciated it as much as I do now. Never was conscious of it as a kid.

But I'm really enjoying Slow Food Nation by Carlo Petrini. I'm learning lots about food, culture, economy, trade, agriculture, etc from this book.

It's a slow read for me. I get through maybe 15 pages a week. Just letting all the new info simmer and sink in, and rejuvenating my desire to make a school garden at whatever place will hire me.

Media Mondays: A Vision of 21st Century Teachers

Not as dynamic as A Vision of Students Today. Also, is it just me or is it kind of funny that teachers copied students for this project?

Standards Sundays: Grade 5 Wakko's United States

The final CA history/social sciences fifth grade standard:

5.9 Students know the location of the current 50 states and the names of their
capitals.

My elementary school had a huge map of the US painted on the playground black top. My teacher tested each one of us by making us jump from state to state, naming them and their capitols. It was exceedingly fun.

Here's another creative, quick way to help students memorize 101, sometimes very hard to pronounce (and spell) location names:

Positive pressure, part 2

A flurry of activity.
Speaking of positive pressure:

My Algebra 2 student is improving by leaps and bounds. She was getting an 18% when we first started five weeks ago. She's up to 45% now. I had crunched some stats for her (she needs a GPA of 3.75 to get a HUGE merit scholarship) to show her where exactly she stands and what exactly she has to do. At the rate she's going, she'll definitely make a B/B+ by the end of the school year - which will bring her GPA up to the needed points.

She had an awesome reaction to the news. Last night, she increased her online assignment scores by 10 points, an all time record.


I lit a fire under my reluctant Earth Science student last night as well. Really pushed him as far as he could go - which resulted in him scuttling out of the living room as fast as he can when the tutoring session was over. Poor kid. He desperately needs a backbone, preferably one with lots of energy. No worries, life will give him one. After all, life gave me mine, and not too long ago I was an even bigger sloth than he is.

In any case, kicking it up to full speed really worked. We got more done last night than in the previous three tutoring sessions combined.

And yes. I am not their actual teacher. I do not give them grades. But I WILL STILL assign them homework, and I will keep assigning them homework until the last tutoring session. These kids need more homework, not less.

Positive pressure

It's easy to enjoy the delicious final product, but getting there takes work. Hard work.
I tutored my NCLB student last night. It didn't go so well. Her math is coming along (albeit, slowly) but nothing else is. And by "nothing else," I mean her language arts: comprehension, vocab, writing, reading fluency, spelling. She's also rather lazy. Her teachers at school assign virtually no homework, which doesn't help at all.

Oh dear. I guess I'm much better at teaching math than at language arts. Need to work on that.

I only have 8.5 hours left with this student. That comes out to about a month, since she only does two session a week. THERE IS SO MUCH LEFT TO WORK ON WITH HER. There is just not enough time to help her get the results necessary to raise her knowledge, her grades, her confidence, and her test scores.

Well, I'm falling back on Mr. B's, my CT during phase 3 take 2, advice: Do what you can, and let go of the stuff that you can't control.

I'm kicking up her sessions to the next level. Much more writing. Much more algebra. Which means more homework for her. She hasn't been doing any of the homework - not since the first assignment. There's no pressure since I don't give her a grade. I CAN give her an incentive though. Would giving her stickers for each completed homework assignment be too juvenile? She's in 8th grade, but maybe she needs a goal like collecting stickers to fill up a "Finished Homework" chart. Some students do.

I also need to give her a little wake-up call lecture. Because no matter how much I do, it'll all be for naught if she doesn't put in the effort.

Pregnant Alzheimer's - no urban legend

Mo says, "Nuh-uh!"
Did you know THIS could happen to women when pregnant? Is that insane or what? I already knew, from a long time ago, that it's going to take an extremely special man to convince me to have a baby with him (not that I'm any where close to that stage yet).

Now, it's going to take an extremely special man who will ensure some sort of collateral - some VERY EXPENSIVE collateral - in exchange for MY BRAIN CELLS THAT WILL CEASE TO FUNCTION PROPERLY in the course of giving him an heir to his name.

Otherwise, it's to the adoption center, no ifs, ands, or buts.

It does explain why some of the moms of my students are the way they are though.

Another day, another dollar cut

Mo says, "Make kids smarter! Make less waste! And when you DO make waste, at least make it useful waste, like how you can turn my poop into compost!"
I got an email from my boss today about how tutoring for low-performing, low-SES students will potentially be cut from the 2010-2011 school year. I can't say I'm surprised. It's just another brick on top of the burden that is called "educating the nation's children."

This tutoring is free for the student and their families. When the program started, each qualifying child received 20 hours of tutoring which, on average, raised their test scores by at least one bracket (i.e. If the student was scoring in the Below Basic range, he/she would be lifted to the Basic level after tutoring). This school year, each child's tutoring hours were reduced to 18.5, and the requirements for qualifying were tighter.

I'm not saying that tutoring is the one and only thing that helps these students. I'm not saying that these students should get help only to raise their test scores.

I'm just wondering why the things that research has shown to work in helping students learn - music, art, sports, science, et al - are continuing to get cut. When the budgets of things that don't help students learn - more of those endless meetings, more paper to push, more diagnoses and less actual healing - are relatively pristine.

We are starting a petition among the parents, gathering success stories and signatures, in an effort to keep this tutoring service afloat. We know the hours per student will likely get cut (again) anyway, but that is better than having no tutoring at all for those who need it.

If you are interested in learning more about this. Let me know.

When students run out the door and don't tell me where they go

The kid center front is one of the shyest, most aloof kids I know, yet he was willing to go up on stage and share his kung fu - because he enjoys it.
This afternoon, I'll be going to my Tuesday art class. I've been teaching at this school, at this time slot, since August. I really like this school. I really like the students here.

So it made me a little sad when one of my students walked out on my class last week. Nelly* is a second grader and it's like pulling teeth to get her to care about each week's art project. Every other kid in my Tuesday class is self-motivated. They can draw and color for hours on end. But Nelly, she can't wait for 4:30 when I release them.

Now, there may be multiple reasons why she wants to leave so freaking fast, and hating art might not be one of them. Still, she shoots out of there so consistently, and always does such a half-hearted job, that I wonder.

Last Tuesday was an easy art lesson. There are so many perfectionists in this class that I wanted to have them do something simple, completely and well, rather than something more difficult and half-finished. I got some really good sample student work that day. I'm glad I brought my camera.

Nelly was the first to get through the lesson, messily as usual. Like usual, I prompted her to make a "good" piece of art better by going back and carefully covering up the white spaces she left behind, making lines connect with the other lines, coloring right up to the edge of the paper. I even sat down and did a little bit with her. A few weeks prior, I had spent nearly the entire coloring portion of the art class with her, encouraging her to push herself to a higher level. She did slightly better than week than any other time.

Last Tuesday, I didn't have that kind of time. My kinders, who were out sick last week, were back. Some parents were hanging out and had questions about the new session. One of the boys was being particularly high maintenance. Every single green marker decided to die on me that day so I had to improvise with telling students to "mix media" and tossed green color pencils into their boxes of markers.

The next time I looked for Nelly, she was gone. Backpack, jacket, person.

Oh. Thunderous. Crap.

Losing a kid in a crowd is said to be a parent's worse nightmare, and it probably is. I don't know, I've never been a parent, but I imagine it to be horrific.

Losing a kid, as a teacher, is heart attack inducing. The liability! The law suits! The firing from said job! Good grief, this must be what a principal feels when some green, n00b of a teacher goes rogue and does something totally unconventional.

I run to the door and looked around in the courtyard. No Nelly. I called her name. No reply. I had a hunch she was just around the corner of the building at the pick-up line which, I knew from experience, was within earshot of the door I was standing in. I called again, louder. Still no reply.

I couldn't leave the other students in the room either.

Luckily, a parent I knew walked by and I asked her to check to see if Nelly was at the front of the school. I was right, she was there. The parent brought her back and I had a quiet little conversation with her, telling her firmly that she needs to be in this room until 4:30 - even if she wasn't doing any art. She looked annoyed and relieved at the same time. I think she was afraid I was going to make her color that insipid picture again. I told her she could do her homework, or read a book from the shelves.

Thank the good lord art class is held in the library. The girl made a bee line for the shelves.

Those last ten minutes were long for me. They were probably long for Nelly too. When her parent arrived, I pulled them aside for a chat. After asking some questions and finding out that everything was "fine" with Nelly and "fine" with art class, I told the parent about the day's events. I said that I love to have Nelly in the class, that she's doing good work and improving her drawing skills a lot. But I also want her to want to be in the class too. And that if she's really not happy here, she should keep looking and trying activities that she would enjoy more - or maybe she just needs a break from after school activities, since sometimes kids get tired of doing so much (I had gotten a HUGE hint from one of the other students, he was Nelly's neighbor and he knew her goings and comings pretty well; apparently, Nelly has been shipped out to various places everyday and never went home until late - there may also be some traumatic family event, like divorce, going on). I told them they don't have to decide right away, and I'll still continue to do new things to try to make art more interesting for everyone, but it's ok if she wants to do other things besides art.

I know that I, as an after school art teacher, have the luxury of telling students to seek better things for themselves if they don't fit in well with art - or if art doesn't fit with them. No public school classroom teacher EVER has that kind of choice.

Nelly had been clammed up all day and I didn't expect her to say anything. But at this point, she burst out crying and couldn't stop. I thought it best to leave the conversation that day as it is and bid Nelly a "It's ok, you're not in trouble, get some rest, calm your nerves, and you can tell me more later, if you want to." They left, Nelly still bawling all the way out.

It really makes me sad to see kids not enjoying the things I'm teaching them. Sad for them, I mean. Sure, they may not be good at it right away, or even after a decent amount of time. But never have I taught a kid who didn't learn something, who didn't improve upon something they already knew.

It's sadder still when my students can't manage to find some sort of escape from whatever troubles they have (if they have any - and more likely than not, they do) in art class. It's meant to be fun, social, challenging-yet-accomplishable. I carefully shape the class so that students feel safe enough to unburden their worries at the door when they enter the world of art. Many students do, and the quality and quantity of what they learn/improve grows exponentially when they enjoy the time it takes to cultivate that knowledge/skill.

For Nelly, it wasn't enough. Which makes me think I wasn't enough. I didn't do enough to relieve her of her fears, not even for an hour-long art class.

Today is the first day of a new art session. I wonder if Nelly will be there?

*Not real name.

Media Mondays: Card games for fractions

Ace of spades!
This is quite a nifty idea to teach (or re-teach in many cases) operating with fractions. Math games with standard decks of cards are so much fun. Lots of mental math involved.