Parenting Students

On the first day back to school, our superintendent, Dr. Turner, challenged all of us teachers to treat our students like they are our children: to go the extra mile, to fight for them, to make sure they are nourished educationally, and to think about their future as citizens of this great country.  As teachers, to raise the next generation to meet the challenges of its day, we can inspire dreams by teaching students to manage their time, to follow through on their responsibilities, to see that their decisions do lead them down certain paths.  If we care about our students like parents care about their children, we will create lessons that will make students feel growing pains that cause them to even make startling statements like "I can't do this!" or "It's impossible," or "I need help" or "I'll hang out with my friends as soon as I finish my homework," or "I really like being challenged by this material."  Eventually, if we stick to our guns, students may reflect on their education and say, "I hated going through that class, but it taught me how to . . . " or "Now I see why we had to do this work."  Or perhaps they will even say, "Thank you. You believed in me when I did not believe in myself." Parents and teachers have a tough job filled with satisfying sacrifice and love like none other, and the adults of tomorrow deserve that sort of love so they can pass it on to the next generation.

See How They've Grown

When school dismissed for summer, I transplanted the two inch tall plants, which had been growing in my classroom since my homeroom students planted them in January, into the earth. Not all have survived: rabbits, deer, weeds and the issues of being started indoors all threatened their existence, but now, finally, they are starting to bloom. It is worth the wait. Soon the juniors who planted these seeds will start their senior year. I can't wait to see them on August 25th, the first day of the 2014-2015 school year.

Students as Teachers

Gabrielle took charge of the classroom.  She handed out small pieces of paper from a sandwich-sized Ziplock baggie.  She asked twenty-four of her peers to anonymously write down an insecurity on the paper.  Without hesitating, students wrote.  Then, following her directions, they fold the paper in quarters and submitted them to the box she designated.

Next, Gabrielle told students to grab an insecurity from the box and to make sure it was not their own.  Quickly and quietly all selected and were directed to write a letter of advice to the insecurity.  Students wrote with great focus and with much to say.  

When the ten minutes were up, Gabrielle called students one-by-one to read their advice.  The insecurities did not vary much and all could relate:  Seven of the twenty-five had issues with the perception of being fat, six had issues with the way they perceive their looks, one each feared being a failure, feared being alone, compared oneself to a boyfriend's ex-girlfriend, feared that life has no purpose and the advice was what each and every student needed to hear.

Jaleesa  wrote this:

“My Eyes”

What is wrong with your eyes? I see nothing wrong with them. They are actually very beautiful. The color that you have makes your eyes twinkle. I can tell when you are happy, nervous, or scared because your eyes always tell a story. Your eyes are special. They stand out like no other. You are a very mysterious person, but when I look into your eyes I know you have a kind heart. Please do not dislike your beautiful unique eyes because they are what make you “you” and you are a beautiful person. Embrace them.

Jocelyn wrote this:

Your Depression will lose

Who ever you are, I need you to know that you can conquer your depression. You can fight it! Whatever it is that is overshadowing you and making you feel the way you feel, please, know that there is someone out there that wants to talk to you and listen to every word you have to say. I don’t know if you do talk about your depression, but if you do and do not talk to anyone, you will just build up more weight on your shoulders. Let me tell you that I can understand how hard that can be; to find someone who you can trust and be honest to, but don’t give up. Find someone, let them know how you feel because letting out all your emotions will take some weight off. Please, I beg that you do this! Please!

I don’t want to say that I know how it feels to go through depression because I’m writing about you. Not about me, but I know what depression feels like. I wish I didn’t. HONESTLY I wish I didn’t. Depression is such a terrible state to be in! I hate it! With all my heart I do. I don’t know how bad your depression is but please, find what can free you from this. ASAP! There is someone out there that wants to support you and care for you. I am writing this in a serious matter. From my heart. I don’t know who you are but please don’t take this the wrong way. I love you. Whoever you are, I love you. Everyone is loved and needs to be loved. Love is what can help you escape from this. Love conquers everything. I believe it. To believe it, you need to love yourself and I hope that you do.

I’m sorry that you are going through what you are going through. Depression is hard to get through and I know you can fight it. I need you to believe that. I believe that you can do it.

Find something or someone that makes you happy and smile and laugh. One true meaningful smile can help with your depression. If drawing makes you happy; draw. If singing makes you happy; sing. If exercising blows off some steam or clears your mind; workout! Find your freedom. Find what helps you not ‘just make it through the day’, find what can free your from this forever.

If you need to speak, I am here. Please, do not hesitate. I mean it.

This timely exercise, generated by a student, had a carryover effect.  I tried the same exercise with my freshman English class, and with some guidance about taking the exercise seriously and maturely,the same results occurred.  Students opened up and their peers came through with good advice.It is a reminder that students with a say in their classrooms can create lessons that resonate with their peers in a much more profound way than any teacher could develop.

Growing Together in Homeroom

On January 24, to beat the winter doldrums, I wanted my 25 homeroom students to plant zinnias, so I bought an inexpensive starter kit that conveniently had 50 spots to grow seeds and I put together these instructions.

       

                                      

In a brief ten minutes, the students had the seeds planted.
Now it is February 11 and the seeds look like this:   

And we are collecting milk cartons so in a week or so we can transplant the zinnias.  Who knows, maybe they will bloom in the classroom.

A Novel Way to Write Creatively

We have just started the process of piecing together a novel in Creative Writing class.  Twenty-five students, each writing one chapter, are figuring out character sketches in the pictures below.  All will use the same information so their chapters make sense in the end, but for now, we are in the creating stage.

Backing up to the beginning of this project, students received several slips of blank paper to record ideas so we can randomly yet in an orderly way figure out the basics of the novel. A box was placed at the front of the classroom, and students submitted their ideas each time we had a decision to make about where the novel would go.  First we brainstormed on the board the potential types of fiction as a class; from that list, students individually submitted their choices. Fantasy was drawn by the student chosen to be the selector and the novel had a genre.  Next we determined settings for the movel, so the drawee selected five of the twenty-five suggestions for time and place and those places will house the entire novel's plot.    Then students wrote character names and brief descriptions.  We decided six characters would be plenty for this novice novel, and that's how we ended up with Jericho, John, Carson Clayson, Semilla, Julie, and Skylar.  Then students submitted ideas for the title, and voila, Broken Wing it is.  Finally, we chose chapter names in the same way.  Students submitted two ideas on two pieces of paper. Then we numbered the chapters, one per student, drew an option, and that became chapter 1; we also drew out a student's name to match up an author with a chapter.  Here is the first sketch of the  project's foundation.  To determine more fully who these characters are, the class was divided into six groups and created this for all students to reference as needed.  Finally, each student is assigned a chapter per day.  The first student wrote chapter 1 for Feb. 10th.  The second student will write chapter two for Feb. 11th and so on until March 17th when the last chapter is due.  I'll update the blog when that occurs.  Who knows what will become of this project.

Title: Broken Wing

Characters (6):

Jericho, angel, appears to be 18 age and origin unknown, black hair, blue eyes,

lean and wiry, wears jeans, a black plain t-shirt with a dark green jacket and

pale skin. His personality is cold, calculating, quiet and stern, observes and

speaks coldly, jerkish and moody

Semilla: origin, born in the underworld, sad, bipolar, hairy

Julie, red hair, blue eyes, short, 18, smart, shy but tough, loves to sing but only in

the dark alone, determined but scared but brave, can never balance the

two

John:  origin Italy, short, chubby, 25, fat arms, rolls around everywhere

Clayton Carson:  Manipulative, sly, works alone, sociopathic, seems personable,

from England, 19, birthday on June 4, tall, handsome, dark hair, blue eyes

attractive

Skylar:  lost, 17, girl, long blonde hair, green eyes, average, very sassy, listens to

music because she is alone, born in Illinois, impatient

Plot: Skylar is missing and many are out to find her for both good and bad reasons.

Setting: (see the last part of each chapter listed below)

Genre:  Fantasy

Ch. 1 Danny “Goodbye”  Italy 6829 AD

Ch. 2 Mariah “Tales of Draccosack” 2083 underground

Ch. 3 Kelsie “The End of the Unicorns” Spring time in the magical faerie forest

Ch. 4 Gabrielle “Fading Away” 1442 Bulgaria, midmorning

Ch. 5 Ivette “The Fantastic Wilma Wigoo” 1997, Edinburg, Texas

Ch. 6 Jessica “The Fearsome Adventures”Italy 6829 AD

Ch. 7. Esmerelda “Float”  2083 underground

Ch. 8 Jocelyn “The Fall” Spring time in the magical faerie forest

Ch. 9 Kelvin “Wonderland” 1442 Bulgaria, midmorning

Ch. 10 Erika “Expecting Trouble” 1997, Edinburg, Texas

Ch. 11 Jaleesa “Visiting the Neighbors” The Fearsome Adventures”Italy 6829 AD

Ch. 12 Fernando “Unicorn and the Castle” 2083 underground

Ch. 13 Kate “The Rival Kingdom” Spring time in the magical faerie forest

Ch. 14 Laci “Unicorn Lays Eyes on Rainbow Puff” 1442 Bulgaria, midmorning

Ch. 15Karen “Inside”  1997, Edinburg, Texas

Ch. 16 Juan “Fairy Underworld” The Fearsome Adventures”Italy 6829 AD

Ch. 17 Kimberly “Frozen” 2083 underground

Ch. 18 Alisha “Red Velvet Cake Time” Spring time in the magical faerie forest

Ch. 19 Sarai “The Floating Car” 1442 Bulgaria, midmorning

Ch. 20 Lizzie “Unicorn in Love” 1997, Edinburg, Texas

Ch. 21 Varinia “Turned 18 and Everything Changed” Italy 6829 AD

Ch. 22Diana “The Magical Discovery”  2083 underground

Ch. 23Raquel “The Found Remains” Spring time in the magical faerie forest

Ch. 24 Alejandra “Surprise”  1442 Bulgaria, midmorning

Ch. 25 DeAnna “Parallel House” 1997, Edinburg, Texas

We're Done Reading the Book, but Our Learning is Just Beginning

Since Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury has been a part of the Accelerated English curriculum for six years now, I have always wanted the students to do a project with the allusions in that book. The time has come for my dream lesson plan to be scheduled into an actual unit.  

For a quick summary, Guy Montag, the main character in Fahrenheit 451 is a firefighter in Bradbury's dystopian novel set in a future time of war. Firefighting has evolved to burning homes with books and even the owners if they refuse to leave their books behind.Throughout the course of the novel, many literary allusions are casually tossed around like frisbees just out of reach of the students' perception.  So after we finished reading the entire novel, it was time to teach them how to catch those allusions.  

First, students were individually assigned a set number of pages from the book(to avoid repetitious subjects), and they had to individually post allusions found on schoology.com under the discussion section so all students can access this information. 

From the students findings, I created this task to kick off the next phase of the project:

Directions:  Choose a pair listed below.  Research them. Find out pertinent information (who, what, where, when, why as best you can.  In your own words, post your information as a comment beneath the subject on the Schoology.com discussion.  The goal is for others to read the discussion and find out important information about your subjects. Be thorough yet concise.

____________1.  Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Darwin

____________2.  Walt Whitman, Alexander Pope,

____________3.  William Faulkner, Arthur Schopenhauer

____________4.  Bible (Old and New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John).

____________5.  Hercules, Albert Einstein

____________6.  Antaeus, Aristophanes

____________7.  Luigi Pirandello, Thomas Jefferson

____________8.  George Bernard Shaw, Albert Schweitzer

____________9.  William Shakespeare, Abraham Lincoln

____________10. John Milton, Gautama Buddha

____________11.  Sophocles, Mahatma Gandhi

____________12.  Aeschylus, Confuscius

____________13. Eugene O’Neill, Thomas Love Peacock

____________14.  Jonathan Swift, The Constitution

____________15.  Marcus Aurelius, Ecclesiastes

____________16.  Dante Alighieri, Little Black Sambo

____________17.  Benjamin Franklin, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

____________18.  Nicholas Ridley, Gulliver’s Travels

____________19.  Plato, Plato’s Republic

____________20.  Henry David Thoreau, Hamlet

____________21.  Thomas Paine, Cambridge

In class, I drew names out of a box and one-by-one students chose their topics (I had everyone write down who had which topic to help them all keep track).  Now students are in the midst of finding out who these people and references are.  In the next step, each student will select reading material by one of the authors or titles mentioned.  After that is completed, we will begin synthesizing all that we have gathered from the novel, the individual reading pieces, and tie it to our experiences as humans in the year 2014. Part of this process will include exploring questions like are these books worth saving?  Is knowledge of them dangerous?  Why is the society in Fahrenheit 451 so fearful to let people think for themselves, to feel their emotions?  Why is the goal to cram people full of distractions that keep them from thinking about someone other than themselves?  Is our current society like this? What does our society fear people will do? Is knowledge dangerous?

Ignorance of the allusions weakens the whole experience of reading the book. We finished reading Fahrenheit 451, but the learning is far from over.

Out Like a Lion

March 30, 2012, the last school day of the month, went out like a roaring, rampaging lion in my Composition II class.  Ironically, after yesterday's post, I thought, aaaah, I have teaching figured out.  Apparently, that idealistic arrogance was brought to humbling reality when yesterday I limped along like a first-year teacher (to those teachers who had marvelously smooth, intelligent and poised first years, please don't tell me, at least not until April). My first year of teaching was a thundering storm of natural and unnatural disasters from every possible NSEW direction combination that can ever, has ever or will ever be made, but before my post traumatic stress disordered memory kicks fully into gear, I suppose I should report yesterday's classroom failures--I do this not to torment myself, but provide examples of failure's necessity for improvement.


The day started fine.  I'd say until fifth hour rolled around, the day was a breeze.  But then came the unexpected monsoon during the dry season--chat and snack in Composition II.  I thought chat and snack would be a success.  I had promised to celebrate the end of the position paper unit filled with researching, annotated bibliographies, 12-15 page papers, pages long revision checklists--basically every English teacher's ideal unit of student growth, learning, and achievement--would be a nice transition to the next unit: the proposal to solve a problem.  So I had my 18 quotes from a variety of problem solvers copied and ready to go.  I even patted myself on the back for being a pale shade of green because I saved at least a twig from a tree by only making 25 copies, and to be 100% honest, I even expected student praise for that (I firmly believe in having high expectations so students have to rise to meet them). Anyway,  the plan included students furnishing the snacks and I proudly presenting the main dish:  the chat.  Who can resist discussing great quotes like    "The measure of success is not whether you have a tough problem to deal with, but whether it is the same problem you had last year. (John Foster Dulles, Former Secretary of State) or "Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into the world?'" (Marcus Aurelius).


Students dropped off their snacks before school, and one brought little smokies in barbecue sauce.  The smells made the other classes hungry when they entered the room.  I expected to hear students wonder why I was so mean to them and never allow food in their classes which is why I reminded the freshmen in homeroom that we have birthday treats and the freshmen in class about our "Inner Party" party after we finished reading 1984.  I ignored the sunshine's blatant sign of the most destructive storms that ever hit the classroom causing treacherous ruin to lesson plans and irreparable damage to students' delicate attention spans:  beautiful spring weather on Fridays.


Fifth hour is right before lunch.  The students prepared their buffet.  I was even smart enough to have students hand out the chat sheets. Thoughts of life's pleasantness rolled through my mind just as the summer breeze pushes clouds aside to clear the sky. Then the freeze pops started dripping, the cup of barbecue sauce had to be confiscated so a student would not get paid $5.00 to drink it during class, the glass of Hi-C punch had to be wiped off the floor.  Granted, students did share an example or two about selected quotations, but then food returned to being the lesson plan.  The students were happy and helpful; all was not lost.  Messes happen. Plans change.  I decided how to modify 7th hour's chat and snack to meet the Iowa core. Winston Churchill's wise words  "Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm" moved me forward with renewed energy.

The bell rang, lunch  was eaten.  I looked forward to the next class being conducted in a discussion-friendly circle of desks.  This time we set up the buffet, I passed out the chat sheet, we discussed for ten minutes.  Full of the confidence I feel when a weather warning times out, I sent the students to the decadently sweet banquet of student-brought cupcakes, ice cream cake, donuts and sugary HI-C.  They came back to our circle.  They ate.  They talked.  They talked.  They talked.  Discussion in the school setting of course means one person talks and everyone else listens.  But they talked without even expecting a response.  They talked. They talked. There was NOOOO listening happening. Sure, I quieted them down, but the same pattern returned.  I refused to cower to this storm; my mind returned to solution mode.


The entire 8th hour class must have skipped lunch because the students were downright angry when I told them we had to chat for twenty minutes before their buffet could be gobbled.  After holding my ground, and sending a student back to his seat when he impulsively rose to cut the rest of his fudge, students halfheartedly followed my directions while saving their glares for me and their attention to the food table which held center stage in front of their eyes.  Finally 2:20 rolled around, and my deep disappointment in the entire Composition II chat and snack failure was written in all of my actions and comments.  The students ate happily, and I admit it, I sulked a little. I visualized dainty tea party and intelligent conversation, not starving students gobbling food while the devastatingly most dangerous temperate spring Friday of any March 30th ever experienced in 2012 beckoned them with its advertisement that this day was not meant for scholarly discussion. But by the end of the period, the mess was cleared, the students were happy. Like the thunderstorm that breaks the humidity, the bell rang releasing the storm of open campus students to their weekend.


The day is done.  March in the classroom is done.  Marcus Aurelius's wise directive to toss away the bitter cucumber is enough to soothe the roaring lion.  As for the stormy setting to this day's events, before I headed to take tickets at the school play a beautiful rainbow filled the sky in a boldness that made me say "thank you" and reminded me to have hope in the future.  Monday is a new day, a new month, a new unit.  Learning shall return to room 67.