120 Students
69 F grades on Friday's Progress Reports.
Number of parent calls, emails, or conferences?
Zero.
Pathetic.
On an aside, we've had the past two Thursday evenings set aside for parent conferences. My team had quite a few openings in our schedule. We did get a few walk in's - including a mom who passed the school on the way home from work, saw the marquee, and pulled in, thank goodness, as we were going to call her to set up a meeting anyway. However, it never was busy.
Pathetic.
Why do I care more about these kids' future than their parents do?
Showing posts with label lack of effort. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lack of effort. Show all posts
Saturday, November 06, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
Putting the Hood to Work for You
I have a student in one of my classes we'll call a Stroll Boy. Stroll Boy never moves faster than a stroll, and that pretty much plays out in all aspects of his life. He's famous for doing nothing. At all. He's turned in maybe 2 assignments (classwork) this grading period. He fails every test. He won't bring his book, a pencil, a binder, a work ethic. If you pull his records you'll find that he's being raised by grandparents and biological parents are non-existent in this kid's life. His grandparents are feeding him, giving him a place to live, but don't seem to be all that interested in seeing that he's a success academically. They probably are overwhelmed at having to deal with a 13-year-old when they'd rather be retired.
So, Stroll Boy is mad at me because I took his locker away - again - because he won't bring his book to class. (This is a pretty much standard practice in the seventh grade - no book, no locker.) He's also mad at me because I have higher expectations for him than he has and doesn't want to hear the cold hard truth that he's not going to be playing in the NFL if he doesn't make the grades to play on his high school team in a year or two. Last I looked, he's not such a phenom that the scouts are already lining up to sign him. In fact, considering his work ethic and lack of speed, I doubt he'll even make it to the high school team.
His method of "punishing" me, is to be tardy to class. Now, we're not talking tardy by a second or two. We're talking a kid who comes in, puts his books on his desk, and then "goes to the bathroom", and shows up five or more minutes late to class. He just strolls in, ambles to his seat, and spends the rest of the period trying to look somewhat busy (without moving too much or making much of an effort). I actually find this kind of funny because all I do is write up a classroom referral for a tardy, tell him to get his pencil out (usually doesn't have one) and off we go with class. If he thinks he's punishing me, he's far off target. Rather, he's just showing me how sad and lost he is. This kid has been through every intervention program we have at school for at risk kids and he's one we just haven't been able to reach.
Anyhow, after the second tardy in a row, I managed, amazingly, to contact his grandparents and told them about the tardy issue, the missing book issue, and how I was worried about how he was probably not going to pass science if he didn't turn on the jets here shortly. I got a very non committal "Okay," from both, and tried to get them to schedule an appointment for a conference with no luck. (At this time I was lucky to even get to speak to someone considering our lack of success in the past). I figured, well, I made parent contact, they know what's going on, and we'll just keep doing the referrals and he'll end up in detention or something. No big deal.
So imagine my surprise when I get an email from one of the front office secretaries telling me that Stroll Boy's grandparents had sent down his uncle and he'd like to sort of spy on him and see how he's behaving in class. No Problem! I love it when I get parent/uncle/significant adult observers. I email back that that would be great, and to let her know what time to send him down.
Classes change and Stroll Boy walks in, drops his books, and takes off. I'm doing hall duty and don't see The Uncle, but figure he's found a place to observe (most likely guidance where they can watch all the cameras). The kids run to class, the bell rings, and I start class.
No Stroll Boy.
He walks in five minutes later.
And three minutes behind him there's a knock on the door. The Uncle. (Who saw that Stroll Boy was late, I found out later.)
I open the door and there stands The Uncle...and this guy is HUGE. He's nicely dressed, his braids are pulled back, but he's HUGE. I introduce myself, he introduces himself and I wave him over to a spare chair which happens to be by the lab group that Stroll Boy is in. And then I wonder if the chair will support him. Because he's almost twice as tall as most of my students and quite a bit heftier.
Stroll Boy's jaw drops and he looks like a deer in the headlights. He obviously wasn't expecting his Uncle, especially his Big Huge Uncle from the Hood (as we often call the neighborhood The School is in because, well, that's what everyone calls it). It was amazing (and really kind of funny) what a model student he was during this period...he had his pencil, he snapped to whenever I gave directions, he participated, he did a great job. He looked like a candidate for National Jr. Honor Society.
And then I noticed something.
This is my sixth period class, my largest class, and a class with a lot of unruly kids (every isolation seat is occupied) who have a lot of issues with self-control. They are loud, they tend to talk all the time, and they aren't the most academically inspired kids I've ever seen.
But on this day they were perfect.
Absolutely perfect. They didn't talk out. They raised their hands. They were polite. They participated. And we had a great time.
And then I realized why. Sitting in the corner of the room, was a Big Huge Dude from the Hood. A Real Big Dude from the Hood. And they weren't about to do anything out of line with the Dude from the Hood sitting Right Over There.
After class I talked with the Uncle from the Hood and had a nice conversation with him. He knows his nephew needs to get motivated and with the program, and he says he's going to work on that. Good for him. I hope he does. But in the meantime I invited him to sit in my class whenever he wanted. Seriously. I'd take a Big Huge Dude from the Hood in my corner any day.
So, Stroll Boy is mad at me because I took his locker away - again - because he won't bring his book to class. (This is a pretty much standard practice in the seventh grade - no book, no locker.) He's also mad at me because I have higher expectations for him than he has and doesn't want to hear the cold hard truth that he's not going to be playing in the NFL if he doesn't make the grades to play on his high school team in a year or two. Last I looked, he's not such a phenom that the scouts are already lining up to sign him. In fact, considering his work ethic and lack of speed, I doubt he'll even make it to the high school team.
His method of "punishing" me, is to be tardy to class. Now, we're not talking tardy by a second or two. We're talking a kid who comes in, puts his books on his desk, and then "goes to the bathroom", and shows up five or more minutes late to class. He just strolls in, ambles to his seat, and spends the rest of the period trying to look somewhat busy (without moving too much or making much of an effort). I actually find this kind of funny because all I do is write up a classroom referral for a tardy, tell him to get his pencil out (usually doesn't have one) and off we go with class. If he thinks he's punishing me, he's far off target. Rather, he's just showing me how sad and lost he is. This kid has been through every intervention program we have at school for at risk kids and he's one we just haven't been able to reach.
Anyhow, after the second tardy in a row, I managed, amazingly, to contact his grandparents and told them about the tardy issue, the missing book issue, and how I was worried about how he was probably not going to pass science if he didn't turn on the jets here shortly. I got a very non committal "Okay," from both, and tried to get them to schedule an appointment for a conference with no luck. (At this time I was lucky to even get to speak to someone considering our lack of success in the past). I figured, well, I made parent contact, they know what's going on, and we'll just keep doing the referrals and he'll end up in detention or something. No big deal.
So imagine my surprise when I get an email from one of the front office secretaries telling me that Stroll Boy's grandparents had sent down his uncle and he'd like to sort of spy on him and see how he's behaving in class. No Problem! I love it when I get parent/uncle/significant adult observers. I email back that that would be great, and to let her know what time to send him down.
Classes change and Stroll Boy walks in, drops his books, and takes off. I'm doing hall duty and don't see The Uncle, but figure he's found a place to observe (most likely guidance where they can watch all the cameras). The kids run to class, the bell rings, and I start class.
No Stroll Boy.
He walks in five minutes later.
And three minutes behind him there's a knock on the door. The Uncle. (Who saw that Stroll Boy was late, I found out later.)
I open the door and there stands The Uncle...and this guy is HUGE. He's nicely dressed, his braids are pulled back, but he's HUGE. I introduce myself, he introduces himself and I wave him over to a spare chair which happens to be by the lab group that Stroll Boy is in. And then I wonder if the chair will support him. Because he's almost twice as tall as most of my students and quite a bit heftier.
Stroll Boy's jaw drops and he looks like a deer in the headlights. He obviously wasn't expecting his Uncle, especially his Big Huge Uncle from the Hood (as we often call the neighborhood The School is in because, well, that's what everyone calls it). It was amazing (and really kind of funny) what a model student he was during this period...he had his pencil, he snapped to whenever I gave directions, he participated, he did a great job. He looked like a candidate for National Jr. Honor Society.
And then I noticed something.
This is my sixth period class, my largest class, and a class with a lot of unruly kids (every isolation seat is occupied) who have a lot of issues with self-control. They are loud, they tend to talk all the time, and they aren't the most academically inspired kids I've ever seen.
But on this day they were perfect.
Absolutely perfect. They didn't talk out. They raised their hands. They were polite. They participated. And we had a great time.
And then I realized why. Sitting in the corner of the room, was a Big Huge Dude from the Hood. A Real Big Dude from the Hood. And they weren't about to do anything out of line with the Dude from the Hood sitting Right Over There.
After class I talked with the Uncle from the Hood and had a nice conversation with him. He knows his nephew needs to get motivated and with the program, and he says he's going to work on that. Good for him. I hope he does. But in the meantime I invited him to sit in my class whenever he wanted. Seriously. I'd take a Big Huge Dude from the Hood in my corner any day.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Surviving Centers
I think I just survived two days of centers.
Mrs. Eagle and I had the great idea this summer that we would occasionally do centers instead of a unit test so that we could give the kids more hands' on experiences and also a different way of assessment. Mrs. Mallard, one of the most creative and amazing science teachers we know (she teaches 8th graders), is a big fan of centers and we saw the great results she got with them, so we thought we'd try them. I know a lot of teachers, in particular elementary, do centers, but it's not something we've done much of in seventh grade science.
So, we came up with four center activities dealing with our rock and mineral unit. We had a mineral identification center where they could identify a variety of minerals using streak plates, among other things. We also had a center dealing with the rock cycle that included labeling and diagramming. Another dealt with the three rock types and involved drawing a comic strip. The last one was a puzzle dealing with minerals and their uses in our daily lives. Pretty simple stuff and stuff that could be done, with a bit of focus, in two class periods.
One thing we learned from this is that large classes, small rooms, and center activities can be a challenge simply from a space and mobility perspective. The smaller classes seemed to be able to get on task a bit quicker, while the larger classes seemed to have trouble just navigating around the room without stopping and interacting with other kids. However, once they finally got going, they didn't do too bad.
Mrs. Eagle and I haven't graded the center packets yet, which is something we're going to do this weekend, however from what I've seen, they range from kids who barely did one activity to kids that rocked and did all four and did them well.
The big problem with most of these kids is they have absolutely no concept of time management (despite a giant timer on the screen, thanks to my Kagan Timer Tools software), and they are highly social and can waste an entire class period talking about cheer-leading and other important things. I ran laps around the room trying to get kids focused and helping them stay on track. It worked with some, but not with others.
Many of these kids seem to think that if they turn in anything, even if it's poorly done or incomplete, that they deserve a good grade. I think many of them will be surprised when they get their packets back and see that we actually expect some sort of effort and quality work out of them. Hopefully it will wake a few of them up.
And just think, progress reports come out next week.
Mrs. Eagle and I had the great idea this summer that we would occasionally do centers instead of a unit test so that we could give the kids more hands' on experiences and also a different way of assessment. Mrs. Mallard, one of the most creative and amazing science teachers we know (she teaches 8th graders), is a big fan of centers and we saw the great results she got with them, so we thought we'd try them. I know a lot of teachers, in particular elementary, do centers, but it's not something we've done much of in seventh grade science.
So, we came up with four center activities dealing with our rock and mineral unit. We had a mineral identification center where they could identify a variety of minerals using streak plates, among other things. We also had a center dealing with the rock cycle that included labeling and diagramming. Another dealt with the three rock types and involved drawing a comic strip. The last one was a puzzle dealing with minerals and their uses in our daily lives. Pretty simple stuff and stuff that could be done, with a bit of focus, in two class periods.
One thing we learned from this is that large classes, small rooms, and center activities can be a challenge simply from a space and mobility perspective. The smaller classes seemed to be able to get on task a bit quicker, while the larger classes seemed to have trouble just navigating around the room without stopping and interacting with other kids. However, once they finally got going, they didn't do too bad.
Mrs. Eagle and I haven't graded the center packets yet, which is something we're going to do this weekend, however from what I've seen, they range from kids who barely did one activity to kids that rocked and did all four and did them well.
The big problem with most of these kids is they have absolutely no concept of time management (despite a giant timer on the screen, thanks to my Kagan Timer Tools software), and they are highly social and can waste an entire class period talking about cheer-leading and other important things. I ran laps around the room trying to get kids focused and helping them stay on track. It worked with some, but not with others.
Many of these kids seem to think that if they turn in anything, even if it's poorly done or incomplete, that they deserve a good grade. I think many of them will be surprised when they get their packets back and see that we actually expect some sort of effort and quality work out of them. Hopefully it will wake a few of them up.
And just think, progress reports come out next week.
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Finally! Back to School
After three snow days we finally - finally! - went back to school on Wednesday.
Which was a really good thing because the teachers, at least, were getting stir-crazy.
Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I got together to do our lessons during morning planning and basically shifted three days, moved our test to Tuesday (which isn't ideal, but it's not like we have a choice), and then came up with three more days of a new unit. So, Wednesday was last week's Friday, Thursday (today) was Monday and tomorrow, (Friday) was Tuesday...Got that?
So even though it was Wednesday, and it felt like Monday, the kids had to turn in their weekly homework (due the previous Friday) and we had to go over our guided outline (also due the previous Friday).
Astounding how many kids honestly couldn't believe I actually wanted them to turn in their homework from last week.
"It's due today?" they'd ask. "Really?"
"Really," I'd tell them. "You had five extra days to get it done."
"Oh."
Many of my students in my Fifth Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself not only didn't have their homework, but they didn't have their outline.
Now we have these fun little slips of paper titled, "My dog didn't eat my homework, because this is what really happened," where the kids fill in their name, the class, what the assignment was, and why it wasn't turned in. I love these things. The look on parents' faces when we slide them ever so carefully across the table during parent meetings is, well, priceless. Nothing like seeing "I didn't do it", "Lost it", "Didn't feel like doing it," and so forth in their darling's hand to kind of wake them up.
Some of the comments written down yesterday were even more amusing. For example:
"I was snowboarding and couldn't do it." (For five days? Five entire days!?)
"It got hit by a snowball and ruined." (You want me to believe you took it outside to work on?)
"I didn't know it was going to be due." (I loved that one.)
"I was too busy." (Doing what? For Five Days??)
Of course, being the little dreamers that they are, they asked if I'd give them an extra day to get it done."
"Hummmmm, No." I said. "No late work. You had five whole days to do it."
Any guesses on how many studied their vocabulary cards?
That's what I thought...
Which was a really good thing because the teachers, at least, were getting stir-crazy.
Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I got together to do our lessons during morning planning and basically shifted three days, moved our test to Tuesday (which isn't ideal, but it's not like we have a choice), and then came up with three more days of a new unit. So, Wednesday was last week's Friday, Thursday (today) was Monday and tomorrow, (Friday) was Tuesday...Got that?
So even though it was Wednesday, and it felt like Monday, the kids had to turn in their weekly homework (due the previous Friday) and we had to go over our guided outline (also due the previous Friday).
Astounding how many kids honestly couldn't believe I actually wanted them to turn in their homework from last week.
"It's due today?" they'd ask. "Really?"
"Really," I'd tell them. "You had five extra days to get it done."
"Oh."
Many of my students in my Fifth Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself not only didn't have their homework, but they didn't have their outline.
Now we have these fun little slips of paper titled, "My dog didn't eat my homework, because this is what really happened," where the kids fill in their name, the class, what the assignment was, and why it wasn't turned in. I love these things. The look on parents' faces when we slide them ever so carefully across the table during parent meetings is, well, priceless. Nothing like seeing "I didn't do it", "Lost it", "Didn't feel like doing it," and so forth in their darling's hand to kind of wake them up.
Some of the comments written down yesterday were even more amusing. For example:
"I was snowboarding and couldn't do it." (For five days? Five entire days!?)
"It got hit by a snowball and ruined." (You want me to believe you took it outside to work on?)
"I didn't know it was going to be due." (I loved that one.)
"I was too busy." (Doing what? For Five Days??)
Of course, being the little dreamers that they are, they asked if I'd give them an extra day to get it done."
"Hummmmm, No." I said. "No late work. You had five whole days to do it."
Any guesses on how many studied their vocabulary cards?
That's what I thought...
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