Thanksgiving in Florida

Thanksgiving in Florida

            This past Thanksgiving I spent my time with an old friend from high school since my family wasn’t having our usual big get-together. Another high school friend of mine that still lives in Oxford came with me and we had a nice little drive. The notion of leaving Mississippi for the first time since July was enough of a hook, but going to see EA was a big added bonus.

            EA is an incredible person. He was always one of the smartest kids in my grade. He did all of the honors and advanced classes and played sports. He’s very enlightened and can talk intelligently about almost anything. Even having lost his father in middle school and his Mom just this past summer, he’s still never changed who he was and he’s someone that I look up to. Oh, and did I also mention that he’s freakin’ hilarious. He’s full of witty/nerdy/awkward humor and we always seem to be on the same page whenever he’s making a joke... even if it’s about me.

            Anyway, the drive was fine. NN and I both love Arby’s and since we are deprived of it in Oxford, we both jump at any chance we get to eat there. Yeah, yeah, make fun of us for perpetuating the Mississippi stereotype. We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to Arby’s. That sweet, succulent roast beef piled high with lettuce, tomato, bacon, and melted cheddar cheese between two buttered and toasted sourdough buns is undeniably delicious. Well, we stopped at one of those old fashioned ones on the way is Podunk, Alabama. Everything on the inside was contemporary, but the sign was the old fashioned type. Being that we were in Alabama, I wasn’t surprised to see a bunch of wife beaters, mullets, and possibly inbred children running around. Nah, just kidding. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it WAS kind of bad. Once again, though, not surprising given our geographic orientation (sorry Alabama MTC’ers, I’m just a messenger).

            After making fun of the people in Arby’s, we eventually made it Florida. While there, we watched football, went to different sites and shops around Gainesville, had an incredible Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could possibly hope for, and went to Tallahassee to see the Florida Gators get stomped by the Florida State Seminoles.

            All in all, the trip was so much fun and such a great escape from school. Now, of course, it’s almost Christmas and EA will be making his way back into Oxford, so it will be nice seeing him again.

A typical day in the life

A typical day in the life

            Ok, so my alarm goes off at 5:20, then I hit the snooze button. 5:30, hit snooze again. 5:40, hit snooze again, 5:50, one more snooze. 6:00, very reluctantly get out of bed. Lately, I’ve gotten into the habit of getting a shower sometime after I get home from school (usually after a workout of some sort). Thus, by 6 in the morning all I need to do is stick my head under the sink with some cold water running, lather up some shampoo, and I’m good to go. While the hair’s drying, I brush my teeth and shave. Finally, I throw my clothes on and head up the street to my favorite gas station. There, I pick up a Luvel’s 2% milk (I know, I’m a fatty) and a breakfast biscuit with 1000% of my daily recommended sodium, and I’m off to Neverland

            I do enjoy my rides to and from school. They’re relaxing, just long enough, and I have the pleasure of listening to either Drake and Zeke’s country boy interpretations of happenings around the world or how everything in the world is going badly courtesy of NPR. Once I get to school, I adjust some desks in my room, turn on my computer and printer, and prepare my soul for my intervention period.

            Most of the students in my intervention class are notoriously bad students. It’s really a chore just to get them to take the work seriously enough to do more than two or three problems. Things have gotten progressively better, but they definitely keep me sharp. My first period class has recently become a bit of a thorn in my side. There are plenty of talkers who will get to work when I tell them, but won’t stay on task. Over half of them have IEP’s and my inclusion teacher is substituting in another room 90% of the time, so it can be a struggle sometimes. But that’s not to say that we don’t have our really good days too. I love my third period class because it’s one student who doesn’t show up about 40% of the time. My fourth period class has either been hit or miss all year. I’ve got three popular football players, one guy who’s been suspended at least twice for fighting, and one very obnoxious little girl. However, the ones I just listed are also among the smartest students in all my classes. My fifth period class has been my big challenge all year and, even though I’ve gotten much better at controlling them, they remain so today. Sixth period is still good. They’re my smartest class as a whole by far, but they are also talkative, which makes them just annoying in my book. Seventh period is a class where I either want to choke the kids or give them all $100. The way they approach my class changes every single day.

            After classes are over, if we don’t have a staff meeting, I get in my car and enjoy my ride back as much as my ride there. Afterwards, i work out and/or lesson plan, then go to my favorite place in the whole world... my warm bed.

Rinse, wash, and repeat                                           

Thanksgiving in Florida

This past Thanksgiving I spent my time with an old friend from high school since my family wasn’t having our usual big get-together. Another high school friend of mine that still lives in Oxford came with me and we had a nice little drive. The notion of leaving Mississippi for the first time since July was enough of a hook, but going to see EA was a big added bonus.

            EA is an incredible person. He was always one of the smartest kids in my grade. He did all of the honors and advanced classes and played sports. He’s very enlightened and can talk intelligently about almost anything. Even having lost his father in middle school and his Mom just this past summer, he’s still never changed who he was and he’s someone that I look up to. Oh, and did I also mention that he’s freakin’ hilarious. He’s full of witty/nerdy/awkward humor and we always seem to be on the same page whenever he’s making a joke... even if it’s about me.

            Anyway, the drive was fine. NN and I both love Arby’s and since we are deprived of it in Oxford, we both jump at any chance we get to eat there. Yeah, yeah, make fun of us for perpetuating the Mississippi stereotype. We just can’t help ourselves when it comes to Arby’s. That sweet, succulent roast beef piled high with lettuce, tomato, bacon, and melted cheddar cheese between two buttered and toasted sourdough buns is undeniably delicious. Well, we stopped at one of those old fashioned ones on the way is Podunk, Alabama. Everything on the inside was contemporary, but the sign was the old fashioned type. Being that we were in Alabama, I wasn’t surprised to see a bunch of wife beaters, mullets, and possibly inbred children running around. Nah, just kidding. It wasn’t THAT bad, but it WAS kind of bad. Once again, though, not surprising given our geographic orientation (sorry Alabama MTC’ers, I’m just a messenger).

            After making fun of the people in Arby’s, we eventually made it Florida. While there, we watched football, went to different sites and shops around Gainesville, had an incredible Thanksgiving dinner with everything you could possibly hope for, and went to Tallahassee to see the Florida Gators get stomped by the Florida State Seminoles.

            All in all, the trip was so much fun and such a great escape from school. Now, of course, it’s almost Christmas and EA will be making his way back into Oxford, so it will be nice seeing him again. 

Reflection Blog #2

Earlier in the year, even before we Had Dr. M’s class about cutting, a first period lesson didn’t go over too well, and during our second period planning the second year math teacher at my school, GS, masterfully concocted a new lesson about the Order of Operations involving paper cutting. It was the one where you fold hot dog style, then hamburger style, then hamburger again, and cut down the creases only on one side of the paper so that you have four flaps. We put P(arentheses) at the top, E(xponents) on the second, MD(multiplication/divison) on the third, and AS(addition/subtraction) on the fourth along with the accompanying information under each flap.

I really think the kids enjoyed it overall simply because it was a break from the norm which had already established itself even though it was still early in the year. They were pretty good with instructions and with the safety of the scissors. The activity also seemed to manage the kids for me. They seemed to occupied with cutting the paper and writing down the information to care about talking. Admittedly, I let some talking go, but it was the volume was low and controlled, which honestly gave the classroom a very comfortable environment.

Though I haven’t gotten to use another paper cutting activity, it’s definitely something I would like to incorporate into another lesson

Chapter 3: Class Discussions

Talking less... oh man, if I could only talk less during class. If I was spending less time at the board talking, then that would mean I would be spending more time sitting, which means my class would be more quiet because I would be comfortable enough to sit in the first place. Talking less would mean more student-centered learning such as class discussions, and I agree with the book that “students learn and remember best when they participate in a dialog about class topics”.

If there’s one thing about math, it’s that it can be a tad dry sometimes, and the whole lecturing/monitoring process of “I do, we do, you do” can be a bit taxing on the voice and stamina. However, this is also a very plain way of teaching and it’s something in which I have begun to be comfortable because I find it as an easier way to manage my classroom. My fear is expressed in this section of the chapter: “...teacher often respond that it’s never as easy for them as we make it appear. They are often hesitant to plan discussions because some of their students act immaturely... The reluctance is based on the fear that students will get out of control.” This describes me to a tee. I can barely fathom attempting a class discussion with competent students, much less students of my students’ caliber (i.e., students who fart in class and who can’t control themselves because of it for the next 5 minutes).

What I have had to learn the hard way is that setting the tone of the classroom early on is crucial for being able to exercise more advanced activities such as classroom discussions. I want active engagement so bad. I want students to discuss and even enter heated debates about the topic for the day. However, far from actually trying to moderate a class discussion without it getting out of control, I don’t think there are many topics in math that students could even get passionate enough about in order to induce a fiery argument.

Bottom line, I agree with the book that classroom discussions are a wonderful tool to help increase student comprehension. I also agree with this quote by Samuel Johnson: “The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.” However, a teacher strong in knowledge of content, discipline, and confidence is the only viable medium that I see through which a successful classroom discussion can be had.

Free write (10/27/10)

I was sitting at a new restaurant/bar in Como, MS this past Monday with some friends of mine. The atmosphere was genial, the company pleasant; beers were drank and great conversation was had. Not everyone taught at the same school, so, naturally, differences between schools was a common theme for the night. Someone from my school brought up a topic that was very interesting to me. Interesting not only because of how egregious its existence is, but also because it’s something about which I had never really thought.

So we’re sitting there and the subject somehow shifts to in-school assemblies and one of us goes on a justified rant about it all. While I am sure that we both agree that these are great little rewards for our students, in the end we are a school under conservatorship for having very poor state test scores. Also, our school has one of the lowest graduation rates in a state with low graduation rates. When we are constantly reminded of this and constantly pressured to improve our teaching and even berated when we do not perform well, does that not lend evidence to the argument that missing a period and a half or more for an unnecessary student body meeting about whatever is somewhere in the realm of being ludicrous? These kids need to know that they should take their schoolwork seriously. What they don’t need is to all meet outside for the entirety of first period to have three or four students say exactly the same thing and intermittently sing hymns, especially when we have an intervention period that’s just perfect for such a thing. These kids need to be aware of breast cancer and be told that domestic abuse is a terrible thing. What they don’t need is to miss the last two periods of the day on a test day watching skits and being talked to by the police department. Just today they missed second period and half of third to watch some skits and listen to some raps about not doing drugs. Once again, the message was great, but the students at a school with our school’s reputation should not be missing vital class time to watch this stuff. These are activities that I believe should occur in your “normal, everyday” high school, but certainly not in a high school under conservatorship. If they must happen, then they should be fewer and farther in between because the things I’ve talked about have occurred in the past two weeks and I feel like I am probably forgetting something (oh yeah... homecoming... I don’t even want to get into that one).

Anyway, it’s not that I had never actually noticed these things. I can vividly remember asking a couple teachers if we would ever have a “normal” day again (whatever that means) after having assemblies, homecoming, and what not for a week and a half. However, hearing this teacher go off on the matter really made me think differently about it

Content Literacy for Today's Adolescents Chp. 4

 One part of chapter four that I wholeheartedly agreed with was the section labeled “Effective Assessment Involves Students”. Though I would consider myself more along the lines of traditional when it comes to assessing student work (i.e., as the book puts it, thinking of assessment as something that a teacher “does to a student”), I can’t stress enough how much students themselves hold the most stock in their own education. Even not-so-great teachers like I currently am can still present the information to the students adequately enough for them to be able to understand it... that is, if they even care to understand it.  To use an apt cliche´, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. 

     Now, the book calls the student-teacher relationship an “equal partnership” as far as assessment is concerned, which I completely disagree with. How could working to create creative and engaging lesson plans (with formal and informal assessments inserted of course) for a customarily boring subject to be presented to apathetic, ungrateful, disrespectful teenagers ever possibly be construed as equal in any sense of the word? If it were equal, then I’d feel safe in assuming we would be doing equal amounts of work. So let’s see... hmm... I work all day at school and they begrudgingly do some of their own work. I win this round, and by win, I mean I lose this round. Though, it hasn’t really gotten out of hand yet. After school, I come home to assess their work, call parents, and lesson plan, while they... what do they do? Some of them go home and do work and that’s great. Individually, maybe there are some students who have an equal partnership with me, but I consider the student body to be just that, one body; they are one entity with whom this partnership exists. That having been said, the vast majority go home, and don’t do, or study, or attempt to retain anything thereby making this an extremely unequal partnership.

     The book says that students have a number of ways in which to increase the potency of my assessments:

1. “Recommend possible assessment activities”
2. “Assist in the creation of rubrics and checklists”
3. “Apply rubrics and checklists to their own work”
4. “Participate in self-reflection and evaluation activities that encourage them to relate their performances to the strategies they have used”

To make an addendum, I’ll put a fifth parameter:

1. Derrr, go home and do some frickin studying on your own and take this crap seriously

Honestly the only one of these that I would even consider at my school and especially at this point in my teaching capabilites is number one, other than that, this book is spitting out ideals at me that I just don’t care to hear right now.

Subject Area Reflection Blog #1

For my reflection blog I decided to write about my experience with the 15-minute mini lesson. Unfortunately, fully replicating the classroom environment is nigh impossible... especially with only six people there including myself. Not that I’m complaining, though, because classroom management typically isn’t one of my strong suits. Even so, classroom management nestled in on the situation, with DH being the main antagonizer.  I used my silent checks system introduced to me by AW and believe I did a much better job of being consistent than I have in times past. Most received one or two checks, but DH worked her way up to 4, which prompted me to pull her aside during independent practice to let her know her situation and to give her a choice with her behavior; i.e., either straighten up or receive a referral.

     As far as the activity goes, I really appreciated this chance to try out one of DH’s creative teaching tools. Through it, I realized that I hadn’t planned my instruction enough so that it would be obviously clear to the students what to do. Consequently, it led to a lot of talking by me that was, in reality, completely avoidable with better preparation. It made me realize that there are just too many things I take for granted when it comes to what I expect students to already know.  It’s very frustrating, and I think that the frustration these situations create in me can very easily permeate itself to everyone else in the room, and make for a not-so-fun environment.  Other than that, once everyone got on the same page as me concerning how to do the activity, I feel it went well. It was definitely refreshing for me to use a new method of getting information across.

     Things to work on: 

1. Continue working on and increasing my consistency
2. Prepare more on the instructions part of the lesson

Has the experience been easier or harder than you expected?

     I’m already annoying myself with this answer, but it has been both easier and harder. As far as the harder is concerned, this has definitely been one of the biggest, if not the biggest, challenges of my life. I remember being in high school and thinking that being a high school teacher was a very attractive occupation. Though I wouldn’t exactly be able to live like a king, I would have summers off and I thought that teaching really looked like a lot of fun and would be easy. That’s a big reason why I joined MTC. I truly believe that a person cannot be happy unless they do something that they enjoy. I’m sure it’s nice when that coincides with being paid a ton of money, but even so, teaching always felt like something that I would be good at and would enjoy. Even with close friends who had gone through similar situations, I came in naive and unprepared for what awaited me. After a year of tutoring and essentially no responsibility, simply waking up early enough in the morning was a challenge in itself at first. Then there were/are the classes, lesson plans, evaluations, role plays, classroom management... oh and the actual teaching; let’s not forget about that little facet of this job. All of these things will surely remain a great challenge in my life for at least the next two years. There is no room in this program for cowards, there is no room for backing down, there is no room for giving up, there is no room for stagnation. There is only room for improvement, and constant improvement is really hard work. 

     Now that I look back on it, of course, my high school-aged point-of-view of high school teachers seems like it must’ve manifested itself from pure idiocy. The beginning of getting used to all of my responsibilities has been very hard, and I feel that I was especially tried during the summer training. That having been said, here’s where the easier-than-expected portion of this blog comes in to play. I look at other teachers’ situations in my class and even other teachers’ situations in my own school and I am thankful that I have less of a burden than they do. I only have two preps, one of which meets only one time per day and half of the time doesn’t meet at all because there are only 2 students that have showed up thus far and they chronically miss school. This class meets after my planning period, and it’s become so bad that I almost get annoyed if I don’t have a second planning period in a row. Also making my life easier is the “infallible” Ms. Sharpe. I really have no idea where I’d be without her and she makes my life infinitely easier.

     OK, time for the cheesy, yet sincere conclusion. There are things I can complain about and things that I can thank God about, but in the end, I still have a Brobdingnagian amount of work to do, but will do it because I know that within me lies the potential to be a great teacher.

Is Mr. Wright a fair teacher?

Is Mr. Wright a fair teacher? Why or why not?

1. Yes. Why because he helps me alot with problems I don’t understand and I thank you alot Mr. Wright

Anonymous

1. Yes and no. He can be a little demanding at times when he gives up alot of math well algebra problems within little time. I hate that cause i don’t like algebra at all. But other than that he’s fair.

Anonymous

1. He’s a sometiming person.

I say that because he’s fair at some moments and he’s not fair at some moments. But he’s better than some of my teachers.

Meanwhile, he’s a fun teacher and I look forward to having a great year with him.

SW

1. No, because he have’nt gave us our treat yet and he keeps on giving my best friends writing assignments. LOL

Anonymous

1. Yes because I understand everything you teach sometimes the writing assignments they get a little out of hand but you still my favorite. You make the class interesting. You the best

Anonymous

1. I think Mr. Wright a fair teacher. Because when we get in trouble he give us the same consequences

Anonymous

1. Yes he is a fair teacher because if you disrespect somebody you should get a writing assignment! If it was me, I would send them to the office.

SE

1. Yes he a fair teacher to all of his student that come to him sometime he can be unfair to student sometime when he don’t bring the class there treat for fill up the marble jar. But afterall Mr. Wright is a fair teacher he is not mean to student he just want everybody to do the right thing

Anonymous

1. Mr. Wright is more than a fair teacher, because he trys to make sure everyone learns whatever it is they need to learn. He is a great teacher and doesn’t need to change.

JH

1. Mr. Wright is a fair teacher because he teaches us and trys his best for us understand.

VB

1. Yes, he does his work good and show different problem. In how you work it out. He do it step by step. I like his class very much we take our time and do our class work correct. This the fun class in the hole 10th grade classes.

Anonymous

Not too shabby I suppose, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Being one of the nicer teachers and one who doesn’t write students up or yell very often has its perks (e.g., the responses above which, I feel, are a fair representation of the responses as a whole). So, I think that some of my students ended up taking the question “Is Mr. Wright a fair teacher” and transformed it into “Do you like Mr. Wright”. That’s fine though. I know that I’m inconsistent and unfair at times, and the opinions of people who are immature even for their young age and who are just as inconsistent as I am, if not more, aren’t really going to sway my opinion of myself; of course, if they had all been very negative, then maybe I would’ve had some second thoughts. If anything, these responses served as a morale boost. I think the main thing I have to work on right now is being a little more strict and consistent while still keeping the kiddies on my side. It’s a thin line to walk, and those are things that I have been needing to work on ever since this summer in Holly Springs, but I can definitely see progress.