Baking a Cake

I'm not a chef, but I really enjoy cooking and baking. I've come to realize that being a first-year teacher is a lot like baking a cake.

I spend a lot of time planning. Having never taught these lessons before, it's a lot like creating a recipe for a cake. Can you sit down right now and write a recipe for a cake? I have some resources, like recipes that have worked for other people before, but mostly I have some recipes by a few people who have tried to make a cake once and then never shared their revisions.

So, I borrow this once-tried recipe, fix it up a bit based on my baking experience and walk into the kitchen. Some recipes work really well, and some work terribly. I try to remember what works and what doesn't. It's hard to know before I get to eat the cake what it's going to taste like. I can usually figure out as I'm making it whether I need to add a little more liquid, but sometimes it's a total disaster from the start.

I know that next year, when I take out the recipes I've already tried, I'll be able to look at them with some experience. I will be able to tell right away what sort of recipe tends to work better, and fix it up even more. I'll remember which recipes worked well in the past and which have to be entirely revised. But until then, I'm just revising recipes that I've never really used before.

And sometimes, the baking powder has gone bad or I crack an egg and it ruins the whole batch or a kid comes home to an empty house every day, and the cake doesn't even rise.

I'm Baaaaaaaaack!

I took a few days off from blogging. Mostly, it was because Thursday was a beastly day and I needed a few days to recover before I could write about it in a way that would be appropriate for public viewing.

Remember that special program on Thursday? It did not quite meet expectations. The woman who was teaching my class had not only never been in front of a classroom before, she was also unfamiliar with the lessons. She spent a lot of time trying to figure out what she was doing next, while I battled to keep the kids calm. The kids tried hard, they really did, but it's really challenging to stay calm and seated in the same classroom for an entire school day. It didn't help that the material was well above their reading level. They did, though, learn a few useful things, like how credit cards can be dangerous and that career planning should begin now.

And, that day began with a crying student approaching me to share that she was afraid to go home because her mother was going to hit her and her baby sister. Legally, I am obligated to call DCF (Department of Children and Families), but since I had a big class for the whole day (without breaks), I had to call the school social worker to handle it. Luckily for me, the social worker was in school that day. She only works at our school three days a week, because Bridgeport can't afford to hire a social worker for each school full time. And then the electricity went out for a little while, and we were grateful it was a sunny day.

I had left the classroom for a little while to go to a meeting that day, and arrived to find my helicopter missing. Awesome. Fortunately, it was the end of the day, and I was able to usher my kids to the buses before running to my car to escape.

Friday was pretty unmemorable, and the weekend was glorious.

This morning started with my brand new alarm clock that starts lighting up like imitation sunlight 30 minutes before the alarm goes off. I woke up feeling like a new person. Then I got to school and couldn't use the computer until the students arrived because it was being remotely defragged. In the process, they uninstalled Chrome, so I had to re-install it while running homeroom.

Over the weekend, I did some thinking about my expectations for Science Fair. I changed some dates around, and I think it's under control now. Before I go back to grading papers, I wanted to share the letter I sent home with my students today:

Dear Parent or Guardian,

This has been a fun and challenging year in science class. However, our most exciting event is coming up soon: Science Fair! Each student has already begun the process of designing, carrying out, and presenting an original science experiment. On Thursday, January 19 your student will be presenting his or her project, and you are invited! I will be sharing more information as the date gets closer. In addition, students who win the school Science Fair will be invited to present at the district Science Fair at the University of Bridgeport in February.

I would like to make you aware of the due dates of the Science Fair project parts. Please bear in mind that since Science Fair is a DISTRICT REQUIREMENT and any student who does not complete a project will fail the second marking period in science.

Upcoming Due Dates:

Monday, December 19 …..........................................Pre-Experiment Science Fair Packet Due
(Including Background Research)

Friday, January 6.......................................................Post-Experiment Packet Due (It is
expected that students complete the experiment during or before Christmas Break)

Tuesday, January 10..................................................Science Fair Presentation Board Due
(Students can obtain their own
tri-fold presentation board or purchase one from me for $3)

January 16-18............................................................Classroom Presentations

Thursday, January 19................................................Wilbur L. Cross School Science Fair

Please sign and have your student sign and return the bottom portion of this sheet.

Sincerely,
Ms.
Science Teacher

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I understand the expectations of myself for the Science Fair and that if I do not complete them, I will fail the second marking period in science.

____________________________________ __________________________________ _____________________
Student Name Student Signature Date

I understand the expectations of my student for the Science Fair and that if he or she does not complete them, he or she will fail the second marking period in science.

____________________________________ __________________________________ _____________________
Parent Name Parent Signature Date

Sunshine!

I need sunshine! It's been cloudy and rainy for three days now. Something has to change.

Yesterday, I observed a couple of classes at a magnet school in Bridgeport. It was SWANKY. Not in the financial sense, but in the sense that students sat quietly and did their homework. The walked through the hallways without a ruckus. And if they misbehave, they get kicked out (and sent back to my school). The science teacher was incredible, and she gave us some advice on how to bring rigorous science education to a classroom that is not in a magnet school. I learned a lot from her and got a good reminder about how to keep holding kids to high standards.

Today was challenging and rewarding, like most days seem to be. Red class, the homeroom of legend, was good. Although I walked out of class frustrated that I spent 40 minutes battling with them to stay on task, I realized I did not spend a single minute battling with them to sit in their seats or talk quietly or be silent when I'm talking. Not at all. This marks the end of one battle (until tomorrow, of course) and the start of a new one.

Yellow class was extra tough today. I had a nice challenging worksheet to push them today, but I was surprised with two new students. I could never get the class under enough control to reteach the material to the new students, and of course they didn't sit patiently or ask a fellow student for help. What am I supposed to do? I can't stop the class to reteach the material, but I also can't ignore them. If I had known in advance, I could have come up with a makeup textbook assignment or packet.

Tomorrow is Junior Achievement Day, which is a financial/entrepreneur awareness program for kids K-8. Some volunteers from GE are coming into the class to teach all day. This is nice, because I don't have to teach, and theoretically I can sit in the back and do some much-needed grading catch-up. Right? Except that my homeroom class will be sitting in my room ALL DAY. It'll be a fun experience in marathon classroom management.

I finished my planning for the week, which is a nice treat. That means that I'm all planned through December. It's not too far until Christmas Break! Only 2.4 weeks, although we have JA Day tomorrow, a half day next Wednesday, and a half day the following Friday. That makes it about 1.9 weeks to go.

In other cusp-of-adulthood news, my boyfriend got another interview and my Memphis friend got into Harvard Law School. Yeah. Harvard Law School. And I got a curved shower rod and installed it myself. Big victories for some and small victories for others.

Road Rage

Since I had a day off today (not really, but I can talk about my professional development another time), I'm going to take the opportunity to not write about school. Today I'm going to share two stories of encounters I've had while driving that made me happy. I have plenty of complaints about Connecticut driving, mostly related to terribly engineered traffic patterns. Sometimes, though, people are nice and sometimes the little guy wins.

This weekend, I went to the mall with a friend. I know, it's not smart to go anywhere near a mall in December. But, we needed a place to hang out and maybe walk around, that is warmer than it was outside. Well, as one might expect around lunchtime on a Saturday in December, the parking lot was full. FULL. We drove around for a bit, narrowly missing out on a few spots here and there because someone else got there first. Eventually, we happened upon a really good spot. It was about 50 feet from the mall entrance, and it was filled with a minivan that was getting ready to pull out of the spot. The child was strapped into the car seat. And here's where I was shocked: as the car owner (husband) walked the shopping cart all the way to the shopping cart station, the other car owner (wife) pulled out of the spot so I could park, while she waited for her husband to return. What? Someone being considerate in a parking lot? At a mall? Before Christmas? And Hannukkah?

My second story is less heartwarming, but satisfying nonetheless. A few weeks ago, I was driving to work, as usual, at an hour far too early. On my way is a fairly new traffic light (put in service about 2 months ago) that has very little traffic so early in the morning, so it can be frustrating sitting there alone so early in the morning waiting for the light to change, when previously there was only a stop sign. That morning, the light was red as I approached (and would probably remain red for a while) and there is a garbage truck right before the light doing its business. I didnt mind, as long as it got moving by the time the lit changed. The car in front of me apparently did mind. It pulled around the garbage truck (on this narrow road) and pulled in front of it to wait at the light (at this point, nearly halfway into the intersection). The garbage men finished their work, while the light was still red, and being municipal employees, and pulled around the other car and crossed the empty intersection against the light. Ha. That'll teach the guy to pass a garbage truck. You'll never win. That tickled my road rage.

Sometimes I forget that I like writing. It's fun.

Model Teacher

I've had a lesson go really well, three times in a row now. It's the lesson that had gone well on Friday. It must be a really good lesson, and I made it myself! I think I worked so hard on it because it deals with a topic that I don't particularly enjoy, physics. Everyone knows Newton's Second Law of Motion. F=ma. It's easy. But, the challenge I saw, was making it so I didn't have 30 8-th graders sitting in a room saying, "Why are we doing math? I don't want to do math! I hate math!" I needed to make it relevant, so it wouldn't fail like my entire sub-unit on calculating speed, time, and distance. I spent extra time making sure the lesson had all of the important things:

1) A Hook. I get the kids interested by having them discover the force/mass/acceleration relationship themselves. I do this in two parts. First, I push my rolling chair lightly, and then shove it across the room. I lead them to discover that more force creates more acceleration. Second, I toss a tennis ball across the room, and then pick up the rolling chair as if I would throw it. I don't throw it, but I get some laughs anyway. I lead them to discover that as mass increases, acceleration decreases. A little later, I keep them engaged with a short video describing Newton's Second as it relates to football kickers.

2) Key Points. My key points are simple and explicit. Newton's Second Law describes a relationship between force, mass, and acceleration. As force increases, acceleration increases. As force increases, acceleration decreases. Force can be calculated by following these specific steps. Somehow, if I pretend to throw a chair, it's no longer math; it's science.

3) Modeling. This is my strength. I was complimented on it during Institute. I feel comfortable at it. I just forget to do it. I get distracted by other things. This time, I took a specific piece of advice from last month's district PD for new teachers. I outlined each step in an aesthetically pleasing diagram, with spots for the students to fill in the details as we went through it in class. It was photocopied in everyone's notes packets. That way, when a student says "I don't know what to do", I point to the diagram. I went through the steps for calculating force, given mass and acceleration, and then asked them to do examples. I've never seen more comprehension before. It helps when I explain things well enough for them to actually do it.

4) Wrap Up. Okay, I was lacking a wrap up. I was busy walking around the room and fixing the details (include UNITS!), and ran out of time. My wrap up was pretty much: "Behave well for the substitute tomorrow!"

Yep, district PD again tomorrow. Not only that, it doesn't start until 9:15! I get to sleep in! Maybe I can plan some great lessons in the future, but not today. I'm tired out by all the pretty-good-not-great-but-improved classroom managing I did today.

Weekend Class

There is no feeling of pent-up frustration quite like sitting in class on a Saturday morning.

This week I had a terrible and great moment in parent relations. The terrible moment was when a parent, whom I had called the previous evening, had stopped by to see her son in class. I spoke to her while my kids worked, about here son's behavior. Her son acts young. He's not especially smart or not, but he is immature. He needs constant personal attention, probably because his custodial parent works 4pm to 11pm every day. He will interrupt me in the middle of the lesson to ask for something specific to himself. He also invites bullying. As much as I hate to say that, because nobody deserves to be bullied, he does. He takes every opportunity to ruffle the feathers of his peers, even though he is one of the smallest boys in the class (in 7th grade, the sizes of the boys vary considerably). I've watched him plays basketball, and he throws himself under the other players, so it looks like they knocked him over. When he works in school, he can do well, but if he is having a bad day or if someone refuses to give him something he wants, he refuses to do work. He will sit there and scowl for a entire period. As I tried do describe his classroom behavior to his overworked mother, I saw her eyes welling up with tears. She walked out of there crying, and I couldn't do anything to fix it. I hope her son saw it, and I think he did, because he showed up the next day hoping to earn a Cougar Coupon and make his more proud.

That next day, another student earned a good phone call. One of my oft-suspended boys returned from his last suspension with a much better attitude. He certainly isn't perfect, but he sat in class yesterday and took notes and did the work. A the end of the double period, he proudly showed me the work he had done "with" one of my better-behaved students. I knew he had copied, but it's better than nothing. Even so, I wanted to probe. I pointed to a correct answer and asked why he chose "passive transport". He didn't even look at the paper before answering "I don't know". I asked him again, and then a third time, and he finally looked at the paper. "They're spreading out." "And is that easy or hard?" His eyes lit up. "It's easy, that's why it is passive!" And then I made one of the best phone calls I've had to make all year.

Thief

Today someone stole the custodian's cell phone. Nothing like an incident like that to really remind you where you work.

Today was a frustrating day. The kids were challenging. The last day of testing for the 8th graders couldn't be done soon enough. The change of routine is confusing for everyone.

Things are getting better though. I really see it everywhere. Disasters are not so disastrous. Bad lessons don't go quite so badly. And then during lunch I sit and make some lesson plans, and remember why I do this. I love science. I love teaching people science. I love watching a few seventh graders get excited when they feel their pulse for the first time, and then explaining how it will feel different after they go to gym. I'm here for a reason.

I don't much feel like writing today, so this is it. I'll be happy when this week is over. Happy Friday!