May musings

Well, with eighth grade graduation just over a week away and the end of the school year not far behind, the countdown has been happening for a while.  The official numbers say that there are 8 teaching days left, and 10.5 actual days of school left.  It's ironic that I am just now feeling like I am getting into the groove of things and can focus on how to teach these children to be creative and introduce them to the world through books.  I just finished reading novels with my four different grades and it was a success!! As with anything I would change it the second, and probably third and even the fourth time I do the unit. It was kind of hit and miss with the books I chose for the students.  I read The Giver with the eighth graders and they enjoyed it.  There was a lot of grumbling about the vocabulary I designed to go with the book but they really became engrossed with the story and enjoyed it (even though one of my eighth graders will never actually admit it-they liked it).  My seventh graders just finished reading Julie of the Wolves.  Somewhere along the line of this adventure I have been on all year, I realized that if I want to teach rich literature stuff like theme, character and plot, I need to drop the reading level of the book two or more grade levels below the grade my kids are in.  We talked a lot about character and learning about yourself with this book. I even did a book project (no...not a report-that's old fashioned and boring) that two out of my three students understood well enough. It's difficult to get my students to do anything from scratch; in other words, things they have to think of on their own.  This project was about identifying discoveries, setbacks and successes of the main character of the book.  The project was a success and the kids did well on it.  It was my first attempt at a book project from a handy dandy little teacher book I bought.  On to 6th grade!  With these students I read "The Egypt Game," an story about a group of middle school age-ish kids who create this imaginary game of being in Egypt.  This is a hard concept for my students because they live in such a literal world that does not involve having an imagination.  I picked the book because I have one sixth grader who is bored out of his mind due to his intelligence but for some reason doesn't want to admit that he's actually way smarter than any of the other sixth graders.  (I'm not talking about bragging rights here but just understanding that it is okay to be smart.)  This book was tough and lengthy for some of my sixth graders but in the end they understood the book and were able to fluently talk about the importance of plot and order of the plot in the story.  Lastly, with my fifth graders we read Indian in the Cupbord and they got a kick out of the way that the author "made the Indian to talk."  (For those of you who have not read it or it has been a really, really long time-the author stereotypes the indian and makes him talk very awkwardly and funny English).  They also thought the story was a bit silly because plastic figures don't actually come to life (what I silly idea, I know *insert sarcasm*).  They made it through and I gave them their last novel to read for the year and one of my students has already finished his (although he did so at the cost of not finishing his math). Oh well, there is always tomorrow to finish math work, right?  I am glad that I had the insite to finally do novels for reading because I realize that this is how I prefer to teach kids reading.  I must say, that the reading curriculum we have for the k-6 is a good curriculum and has all those nice qualities us teachers look for in a curriculum.  I just like the novels better because they are thematic and allow a lot more flexibility.  Yay for successes, right!! I just wish I had done it earlier. 
Over here we have gotten a teasing of spring and the last two days have dumped rain, which flooded the basement of the school again. The boys have been pumping water for almost two weeks now.  Spring is coming and the fields are finally green over here.  It is such a contrast to the brown fields that I have been looking at since I moved over here. 
I will leave you with some pictures of the bulletin board I created with my students' art work (taught by yours truly!). Enjoy and I will see you soon.

Each student did a flower and a bee.

The border around the bulleting board.

Sorry this is sideways. It's the flowe I got from the other class for May day.

It's official

So, as many of you may know, I will not be returning to Ryegate to teach my little rugrats next school year.  This was a personal decision based on safety and then the school board made it a little easier by not renewing my contract.  I don't really know why I officially did not get my contract renewed but rumor has it that there are a couple of people that do not think I know how to do my job.  That said, I know that there are things that I stink at when I am teaching.  One of those things is trying to figure something out when I have 16 kids shouting out at me to answer their questions because they think I should just drop everything and help them and only them at THIS MINUTE!
I do not consider this year a failure because I have learned so much about what it takes to make a small school function, how to juggle multiple grades and keep the parents happy.  I have managed to keep some of them happy, though not all. You can't spend every minute trying to make everyone happy right?? Right.  I did have a parent come in a few weeks ago and again tell me that I needed help so I told her that the two options were to have the colony pay for another person to be out here or come in and help herself.  I was quickly told "I have a full day."  My mouth said "well, that is your decision but it is an option," but my mind was thinking "And I don't have a full day???"  Scheesch!! 
Amoung the things I have learnd is that this is definately the right profession for me.  I have been approached with the question, "is this the right profession for you?" The answer is a vehemit YES!! I still want to inspire some kid to do what ever he wants to do.  Maybe some student I inspire will invent the space craft that will take the first living object to Mars.  Who knows?
As for next year I am going to go to graduate school full time and work a part time job. Right now Starbucks is looking to be my best work lead at this point.  I am also going to travel. 

Is it that time again?

Wow, yesterday was the end of the third quarter and today was the first day of the fourth quarter!!  Today was a bit chaotic, as some of my students were still testing and therefor did only some of the work and my lessons were all out of order, which drives me crazy because I like things to go step-by-step and in order and keep the routine the same.  I will be glad when it is Monday again and the rountine will be normal.  I think the routine change attributed to most of the behavior issues I had this week.  I cannot wait until spring break which seems like it is never going to get here because it is still six weeks away!!
We did art in my class again today but the students aren't appreciative of the art that I prepare for them.  They were very confused that I made them read an article and answer questions for an art lesson.  We did abstract expressionism for our theme. We learned about Jackson Pollock-my favorite artist. (Have you seen his work? It's at the SAM!)  One fun fact I learned while researching the article about Jackson Pollock was that he was born in Cody, WY which is not too far from Billings.  He also died in an alcohol related car crash. Yet another reason to not drink and drive-even though you make awesome paintings you still can't drink and drive.  Okay, that said and done, more teaching things.
This week, until spring break are all normal days and hopefully this will curb some of the irresponsible decisions that my students have been making.  I have yet to figure out why a change in the routine makes the kids go crazy.   It makes me crazy when they go crazy!! I guess my job wouldn't be nearly as exciting as it is if there were no questions for me to wonder about....

A short update after a long while

It is finally starting to feel like spring around here though I am trying not to get my hopes up yet that we are done with the frigid weather.  There hasn't been much to update on a weekly basis any more due to the breaks and behavior issues that still occur in my class.  I am beginning to think that there is a point when I have to just survive. I dislike this idea very much although with these kids, that's what they do. They do the bare minimum to survive.  I did, however, get to give them a taste of their own money today. It was great fun.  Yesterday, the behavior go so bad that I finally just told them that if they were going to waste my time and see the work as unimportant, then I had better things to do with my time.  There were a lot of quickly turning heads at this point in my day. I then called the other teacher to come over and let my kids explain to her why I was done teaching for the day. They all, not suprisingly, were able to identify exactly why I was done teaching for the day.  Each of them owed me and the other teacher an aplogy letter by 8:20 this morning or else the concequences would be sentences to copy.  So...................today, I handed over the reigns (constructively) to the students and told them it was their turn to teach.  I assigned all students a subject to teach and let them have at it! Suprisingly, everything got taught by lunch time.  I was a bit suprised.  What this tells me is that yes, they know the routine and actually do know what to do. They just choose not to do it.  After lunch, I had them write a reflection about what it was liek to be the teacher and what did the students need to do better to make it easier.  The number one thing that was said that the students needed to do better or was the hardest.......????? Drum roll please................interrupting students. Case closed.
Here are some lovely samples of student art. We did a lesson on positive and negative space. 

Here they are on display at the school in town.

conversations with my students

I know it's been a while but when you're in a routine and nothing exciting happens, then there is not much to tell. Here's what happened today.  It's a conversation/running dialogue of my students and myself.
student A: "Miss Stepp! The cows are out!"
me: What? 
student B: no, it's headed for your car!
me: (thinking, "should I be worried?") Who do I call?
student C : Call the cow barn boss!
Me: Okay..grabs phone, dials and can't get through. Multiple students then try to dial because they don't think I can do it.
Me: student B...run and tell the cow barn boss that the cows are out.
While we are waiting and watching, the students are trying to convince me that you don't milk a holstine cow. I'm thinking, isn't that why you raise them???
Student B returns and says "they left the door open, that's why the cows got out."
Student D: Miss Stepp, it pooped! The cow dumped next to your car (actually, it didn't). It stinks...like methane!
Me: yes, methane stinks, it also can be used to make energy.
Student E: Isn't that a drug?
Me: No, methane is not a drug.
Student G: yes, meth is a drug..don't do it.
Me: yes, don't ever do it.
It is these types of conversations that keep my room lively.  Hope everyone has had a good start to February. Welcome to the shortest month of the year!

Halfway there

I know, I know, it has been a while since you have seen a cheery update from Big Sky country.  I made it.  I have completed one half of my first year teaching with my very own kiddos. Pretty amazing huh?! There have been plenty of tears and questions and what ifs but to top all of those, there have been successes.  One of the big successes has been the change in my classroom management plan that I implimented in November.  I have no idea why in the world I had let the disruptions go on for so long before I began this plan.  The fake money in the classroom works super!  I really enjoy when I get to charge students to "buy" things when they need another pen or a pencil top eraser or a big eraser.  It finally gets an inkling into their heads that things actually do cost money and you need money to pay for them. We are still working on attitudes in my class and a couple of my students have had to get attitude adjustments this week.  The fine for whining or complaining in my class is now 150 dollars.  That is a stiff fine given that the rewards are usually somewhere between five and fifteen dollars. 
As the second half of the school year begins I am quickly jumping into the not so fun part of teaching . Standardized testing.  Need I say more???  I have three tests that I am supposed to be giving my students to monitor their progrss and then four times per year (once per quarter) I have to "benchmark" my students to make sure they are making Adequate Yearly Progress. I have to test my students one a week with three different tests and on top of all that there are other tests that I have to do to test all of the different aspects of learning (supposidly).  Yay for standardized testing.....not.
On top of starting the second half of my first year I have started Graduate school again!!  It is so much fun to be a student again and I am thoroughly enjoying my class I am taking.  It is all about reading instruction and what makes it effective.  I am already applying some of the concepts in my classroom that I am learning about in my class. The only thing I am dreading is writing the paper that is due in three weeks.   I had better get going!! 

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Welcome to my first post of 2011. Today was a four day school week with a break today (Thursday) for Epiphany. I was technically on the clock and so I busied myself with photocopying, planning and entering grades into the computer.  I also managed to do some of my homework for my master's class that I started. 
I am taking a reading class that analyzes the research that has been done on what strategies are the best to teach reading. So far, the class has proven to be very interesting. I read and analyzed a document that was published by the National Reading Board which did exactly what we are doing, analyzing reading instruction techniques. I was a bit apprehensive about reading a document that seemed to be filled with statistics but it turned out that it was not as dry as I had feared. I will just cut to the chase and not bore you with the details of the documents that I had to read.  Basically, much of the research that has been performed on trying to figure out what reading instruction method works the best all comes to a very general conclusion.  First, there is not one method that works better than the other, only a few can be scientifically supported and that there have been lots of studies on the individual strategies but not many on the combination of strategies that would work for specific groups of students.  Mmmmm...not much of this is new because teachers know that there is not one strategy that works to teach a group of students a single concept nor is a combination of strategies guarenteed to work from one year to the next! Duh...
This week has been iteresting in my class.  The days were spent reteaching my students their manners and the routine in class.  There have been a few shocking revelations in my class.  One, is that the pace of the class is picking up and the students don't like that. the second one is that the work is getting progressively harder and they don't like this either. And (shock!) I still will not let them copy off of each other. Startling, I know. 
Her's my crazy teaching story for the week.  Tuesday was the second day of science that we have had in a while.  However, this subject is no less important than any other subject. They were continually talking out of turn, interrupting me and telling me, "but I don't get it!!"  So, I told them that I do not like teaching students who are rude and they can either be polite or they can sit in silence and I will teach science after school.  Wonder which option they chose.  The latter, of course.  So, when the German teacher came wandering in, wondering where the kids were, I politely explained to him that the kids had chosen to be taught science after school for the aforementioned reasons.  Hopefully they won't make that choice again because it's  pain to have to teach after school hours.  I did get some grading done while they were sitting, mulling over their choice. On a  bright note, I think I hit the jackpot when I gave the kids mechanical pencils for Christmas.  They loved them and now I have fewer kids, spending less time at the pencil cup (remember.....the dull and sharp pencil cups.)  trying to "choose" a pencil and breaking the sharpened point off of them just so they could whine about not having a sharp pencil to use.  So sneaky and ingenius of me! Tomorrow is Friday and a short day. I just have to solve my problem of dealing with whiny students...off to google.....