Content

Each class’s focus on a theme seemed to work OK. Nothing fantastic, but it added a certain cohesion that I can build on next year since I carved a big part of that out already. We always knew that everything we were reading was read for a certain view of our theme and I like the idea of that a lot. I’m just not sure of the reality of how to make it more meaningful to the students. Also, book groups are a great idea if I structure them a bit differently. Groups of students, all reading the same book together, resulted in more students liking what they were (supposed to be) reading and commenting about that. Some negatives there, too, but it’s a nice development for the outside reading requirement.

Interactions

It’s the negative interactions that stick out and haunt me. Students probably think I say what I say and do what I do, never giving it another thought. But I agonize over ever word I’ve said, every action I’ve taken. Even if I think I was right, if a student feels I’ve done something wrong, a small part of me agrees because I should never make a student feel that way in the first place. I had a bunch of great students this year and a lot of positive connections with the overwhelming majority of my students. I keep telling myself this to make up for the few negative ones. The thing is, those negative ones are ones I keep having year after year. Oh, sure, the names and details change, but I keep having that one kid that really should get along with me just fine and, for some reason, doesn’t. I keep having that kid whose skills don’t budge at all the whole year. I keep having that student who loved reading at the beginning of the year and who hardly read a single book independently by second semester. I keep having these archetypes and I haven’t figured out a way to deal with them. Plus, I just need to pay more attention to the people I share fifty-three minutes at a time with. I get caught up in the content and ignore chances for interactions entirely too often.

So how about you? Can you tell me one good thing that happened in the 2010-2011 school year, one thing you’ll definitely do again next year? And can you match that with one thing you’ll do everything to avoid? The comments, as always, are open.Similar Posts:

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This summer, I want to:

1. Run an average of 1 mile each day (so far so good with 30 miles run in the month of June);
2. Write at least the beginnings of 2 short stories;
3. Record the CD that’s been at the back of my mind for the last 4 years (and that I just thought of a name for);
4. Figure out how to use Logic Express;
5. Buy a video camera and start those projects;
6. Help my girlfriend learn the cello;
7. Keep my house clean;
8. Read at least 5 novels;
9. Keep up on my reading of comics (Daredevil, Y: The Last Man, Fell, Powers, Astonishing X-Men, Girls, DMZ, etc.);
10. Watch more movies, at home and in the theaters;
11. Put in new kitchen cabinets and countertops, along with a new refrigerator (all already selected, I just have to get down to Home Depot to schedule it);
12. Cure the raging headache that will develop while reaching the previous goal;
13. Write that post about grades and what I will/will not do next year;
14. Figure out semester 2 of English 4;
15. Refine my blogging assignment;
16. Have a margarita party with my girlfriend;
17. Cook for my neighbors who graciously allow my cat over to their place every time I’m gone;
18. Have a BBQ for my friends from work — with lots of beer;
19. Get together with my friends at least once a week;
20. Juggle 5 balls for at least 1 minute nonstop;
21. Write at least 5 posts each month;
22. Review Japanese grammar and vocabulary;
23. Design that Web site for that organization;
24. Create complete unit plan handouts and calendars for the first two units in English 3 and 4 by the beginning of the school year;

I’m sure there’s more I want to and will do, but those are the bigs on my list at the moment. What are your plans?Similar Posts:

• Passion Is Contagious
• Summer Resource Teacher
• Looking Back At Winter Break
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Both Japanese teachers that I’ve gone on this trip with are passionate about their study of the language. They don’t simply know the language, blasé about their understanding; they both have an interest in the language and culture that I don’t see in many other foreign/world language teachers. Working with students on figuring things out, on explaining some new grammar pattern or new vocabulary, their interest in Japanese is practically palpable. And passion is contagious, so the students get more and more excited about their language study.

The Vast Expanse Of Summer

That passion is a product of a genuine interest and liking for a subject. As most of us teachers stare off into the seemingly endless mist of summer, let’s take stock of a few things. It always seems like it’ll last forever from this vantage point, yet always zooms past so quickly before we realize it. We all have passions and maybe summer is a time to develop those things that are otherwise ignored during the frantic rush that is the school year.

Remember “The Bigs”

First, what do you need to get done by the end of this summer?

It doesn’t have to be work related and certainly summer is a time to cultivate those interests outside of academics. Now that you have this solid chunk of time away from the kids, away from correcting homework, away from planning for the week/month/year, what are your Bigs? What things must you absolutely finish this summer?

Bread And Roses

Second, what do you want to do?

All this talk about “needs” is fine. “Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses,” right? A part of us dies if all we do are the pure essentials and nothing more. We need those essentials, but we need time to cut loose and have fun, too. What are your roses this summer? Sounds hokey, but what feeds your soul and keeps you going?

Time To Reflect

Third, how did the year go for you?

Before you forget everything of this last school year and before you get too relaxed to do this properly, try to carve out time for the next few days in which to reflect on how the 2005-2006 school year went for you. Think about your best day, your worst day, and exactly what made those two days so radically different. What new things did you try this year? What did you do the same as last year? If you had a DeLorean, what changes would you make? What can you learn about how to plan for next year? Care to pat yourself on the back? Care to send yourself to the corner with a dunce hat on? Try to write down all the painful and delightful details so you remember.

See This Film

Fourth and last in my little tirade, yet also working to tie all this together, what’s your passion?

My girlfriend and I went to see An Inconvenient Truth today. While I think some folks infer ulterior motives that aren’t there, there’s some truth to the objections. I’ll leave the argument over the quality for another day. As an educator watching this movie, I think I noticed something different than most.

As a more liberal-minded fellow, I’ve hated seeing Al Gore in the political arena that last decade or so. It always seemed to me as if he wasn’t really interested in the race, no matter which one he was in. He never stepped up the rhetoric to anywhere near as aggressive a stance as he needed; whereas I saw Bush commercials on a regular basis, I only saw Gore commercials once in a blue moon. Gore simply wasn’t as visible. That may be due to my blue-state geography, but I’m not sure. All I know for certain is that Gore never made many attempts to sell himself from what I saw. He regularly appeared lifeless and too willing to concede (and not just that ill-fated election specifically, but in general).

An Inconvenient Truth, however, shows a Gore full of verve and energy. He has passion for the subject and it shows. Gore is funny at times, convincing at others, and consistently appears to be enjoying himself. This shows Gore in his natural habitat (no pun intended); this is where he looks the most comfortable and at home. So maybe this is exactly what he should be doing instead of being the president (even though he clearly won the popular vote).

I’m passionate about music, education, relationships, good stories, certain political issues, literacy, movies, ethics, art. What are you passionate about? How can you work to develop that passion over the summer? Then, how can you then take that passion into the classroom? Passion is contagious, you know.Similar Posts:

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On the verge of returning to work, this Sunday evening is spent in quiet reflection… and frantic scrambling to gather plans underneath me in anticipation of the week. The grade period ends on Friday and I simply must grade at least one more set of essays and collect all of the work we’ve completed in class. Here’s what I’ve done:

During Winter Break, I:

1. graded 2 of 3 sets of essays collected back in January;
2. began to think about the possibility of when I will glance at those interviews and description/location pieces – this is to say that I read about 10 of each;
3. decided that this week will give me time to look at all blogs, viewing 15 each day, and that looking at those blogs during the vacation completely slipped my mind, despite my handy list;
4. didn’t even so much as re-read the back covers of Siddhartha or The Great Gatsby;
5. never opened Excel and, therefore, never updated the grades, online or otherwise;
6. spoke with my student teacher last Sunday morning to clarify the expectations for grading the schoolwide writing prompts;
7. came up with the idea that, for this first week back to school, the writing assignment will be “write something interesting and have it ready for me on Friday.” We’ll scour the textbook, bookshelves, other anthologies, stories and essays I’ve collected over the years, Writers INC, and online resources for what constitutes “interesting” writing, with the idea of looking back at the 2 collected pieces for ways to edit those and make them more interesting. The first 20 minutes of class will be spent on working up a definition and/or steps to take to make interesting writing, with presentations on Thursday and publishing of the guidelines created. We’ll then move to persuasive writing (English 4, the Perspectives Project) and a kind of “tell me your story” personal writing (English 3, using Cisneros’s “Straw Into Gold” from our anthology as the beginning writing) for the remaining 30 minutes of class, reading and writing;
8. battled a bit of songwriter’s block, losing the melodies for two songs during the drive from Vanessa’s to home. I dug a few songs out of my notebooks and practiced them to record them… eventually;
9. wrote about 2 paragraphs of a short story. Those 2 paragraphs are sitting in a notepad by my bed and have not been developed any more than the momentary flash of inspiration the night they were composed;
10. finished about 90% of the move to WordPress, with only the comments remaining to transfer to the new software, a surprisingly painstaking task;
11. set up a time to meet about that “other” thing and will know a bit more later this week. I did design 2 first-draft icons for the associated Web site;
12. did not run or play racquetball at all, though did a tiny bit of yoga this morning;
13. wrote about my accomplishments Sunday night;
14. did not cure cancer.

It doesn’t look like I did too well. A blog entry managed to appear everyday, though, so I kept to that unspoken goal. I’m glad I even got to 2 sets of essays, but pissed that I didn’t get to my own students’ essays (those 2 sets belong to another teacher, who is grading mine in return). With an entire week off, with nothing planned, with a list prepared ahead of time, I didn’t even accomplish a tenth of what I set out to do.

And just to beat you over the head with it, how many of our students have lists similar to what I created? How many of our students have to choose between personal projects and school? And how many of them choose the personal projects? It’s no surprise to me that the items I did accomplish on my list are the ones very near and dear to me. It wasn’t the planning, the reading, the grading. It was working on this site, the other “project,” and writing.

Think about this the next time you are shocked when students don’t do work. I’ll return to my “Faulty Comparison” series on Monday; charter schools are next.Similar Posts:

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I thought it fitting to summarize my plans at the beginning of this week-long break I’m staring down the barrel of. As a bookend, I plan to revisit this on the night of Sunday, February 26 and see exactly what progress I made on all these striking ideas. What irony it would be if I couldn’t even reach that goal.

During the current Winter Break, extending from February 18 to 26, I will:

1. grade all 3 class sets of essays collected back in January;
2. begin to grade the interviews turned in by my seniors on 2/10 and the loneliness/setting papers handed over by my juniors on 2/7 – this is to say that these writings will both be halfway read through;
3. read all blog entries from my students, leaving a comment with the appropriate scores mentioned, and work to evaluate the responses, ideally ending in a blog rubric that my students can use to guide their writing (I’m still not sure if I want to set such a restriction on the way they blog, favoring function over form in this case);
4. begin re-reading Siddhartha and The Great Gatsby, along with assorted other nonfiction pieces, in preparation for the return from break;
5. update the online grades so students know where their grade stands, in anticipation of the close of the fourth grade period on March 3;
6. make sure my student teacher knows what the expectations are for evaluating the schoolwide writing prompts, a set of essays based on an SAT-style writing prompt;
7. create a plan for editing the 2 collected pieces from all my English classes, thereby encouraging more attention to detail in future written pieces and possibly engaging in small grammar lessons;
8. record at least 2 complete songs;
9. write at least the first 3 paragraphs of a short story;
10. experiment with moving this blog to WordPress by attempting to create a template of this design
11. continue on with developing the “other” project (hey, I know what I mean);
12. run or play racquetball every other day;
13. write about my accomplishments on Sunday, February 26;
14. cure cancer.

That sounds like an awful lot, but now I have a list to remind me. If I can just do that last one, I’ll be really, really happy. As the kids left today, I told them all not to work on school work until Sunday night. I don’t think I can afford to wait that long, but I’ll also try to have a break somewhere inside this Winter Break.Similar Posts:

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