The Look is an important behavior management tool for both parents and teachers. It's usually very effective, and I like to think I've mastered its nuances. I use it all the time to control student behavior (most communication is non-verbal, we're (ironically) told).
But this fella has it down!, and could stand on my podium and quiet a class with this one move, I'll bet.
If only I had dramatic background music…
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Results Are In
According to mingle2.com. This rating is based on the presence of the words pain (2x) and kill (1x).
See, one doesn't have to be crass, obscene or suggestive to be wildly entertaining!
Saturday, June 23, 2007
School's Out
SUMMER
It's arrived, and it's luxurious already.
But I just got my jury summons in the mail.
Oh, well: at least I don't have to leave a lesson plan behind when I go in!
It's arrived, and it's luxurious already.
But I just got my jury summons in the mail.
Oh, well: at least I don't have to leave a lesson plan behind when I go in!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Strikeback
I was fine today until I got up too fast, and a rush of blood went to my head. Now the screwdriver is out, & my right eye is clamped closed against the throbbing. Exhaling intensifies the pain. The same thing happened when I carried two armfuls of groceries up the stairs yesterday.
Thought I was past the danger when I woke up with a clear head.
My Rx is two Tylenol and a glass of Shiraz-Cabernet. Maybe grapes will do the trick.
Thought I was past the danger when I woke up with a clear head.
My Rx is two Tylenol and a glass of Shiraz-Cabernet. Maybe grapes will do the trick.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
No 'Grain, No Gain
Another migrane.
Woke up with the dim threat of the approaching storm. Maybe coffee will clear this up.
Nope, here he comes.
This wasn't the fall-on-the-floor, writhe and moan for two hours in a dark room, seeing fireworks explode in my skull and hearing every sound on earth migrane. Those are horrible. This was the farm team: more like someone trying to pry my right eyeball out with a large screwdriver. Tylenol actually provided some palliation, though the demon couldn't be completely exorcised: it must leave of its own accord.
I sat in my livingroom all day with the curtains drawn and tried to get some work and reading done on the computer, getting up every few hours to pop another pair of Tylenol. A kind of uneasy, dug-in, WWI-type war of attrition. He let me see, walk, and think; I recognized his sovereinty over my nervous system and lived in visible fear of a major offensive.
Don't think this was a picnic. When I say "lived in fear of a major offensive," I don't mean to imply that I was distant from the battle No, siree. There was constant sniping and small-caliber gunfire, the ground was constantly vibrating from the mortar shells, and an occasional rocket attack, which felt like an ice pick had been plunged into the top of my head. Try to read the news, or get off the couch with an ice pick in your head. How about a little fire, Scarecrow?
I went outside and drove two blocks to the store about 7PM. Forgot to take sunglasses, and heading west into the sunset was a mistake. In the store, I was glad I had the shopping cart to hold onto after about ten minutes. I was getting a little shaky & shuffled along as if I had an energy-draining flu. I managed. And treated myself with ice cream.
So not debilitating, but still incapacitating to a great degree, and at it for more than twelve hours, which isn't at all unusual. I don't think the pain will keep me from falling asleep, so won't have to stay up most of the night until I'm so pain-exhausted I lose consciousness, and I'm grateful for that. And if I'm fortunate, everything will be rosey by morning. That's good, because I have a lot of papers to grade that I didn't get to today.
Woke up with the dim threat of the approaching storm. Maybe coffee will clear this up.
Nope, here he comes.
This wasn't the fall-on-the-floor, writhe and moan for two hours in a dark room, seeing fireworks explode in my skull and hearing every sound on earth migrane. Those are horrible. This was the farm team: more like someone trying to pry my right eyeball out with a large screwdriver. Tylenol actually provided some palliation, though the demon couldn't be completely exorcised: it must leave of its own accord.
I sat in my livingroom all day with the curtains drawn and tried to get some work and reading done on the computer, getting up every few hours to pop another pair of Tylenol. A kind of uneasy, dug-in, WWI-type war of attrition. He let me see, walk, and think; I recognized his sovereinty over my nervous system and lived in visible fear of a major offensive.
Don't think this was a picnic. When I say "lived in fear of a major offensive," I don't mean to imply that I was distant from the battle No, siree. There was constant sniping and small-caliber gunfire, the ground was constantly vibrating from the mortar shells, and an occasional rocket attack, which felt like an ice pick had been plunged into the top of my head. Try to read the news, or get off the couch with an ice pick in your head. How about a little fire, Scarecrow?
I went outside and drove two blocks to the store about 7PM. Forgot to take sunglasses, and heading west into the sunset was a mistake. In the store, I was glad I had the shopping cart to hold onto after about ten minutes. I was getting a little shaky & shuffled along as if I had an energy-draining flu. I managed. And treated myself with ice cream.
So not debilitating, but still incapacitating to a great degree, and at it for more than twelve hours, which isn't at all unusual. I don't think the pain will keep me from falling asleep, so won't have to stay up most of the night until I'm so pain-exhausted I lose consciousness, and I'm grateful for that. And if I'm fortunate, everything will be rosey by morning. That's good, because I have a lot of papers to grade that I didn't get to today.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
To Every Thing, Turn, Turn, Turn…
It's the time of year when everyone's frustration level is high, so if the tenor of my posts gets a little cranky, please bear with me. When you look here, you're looking inside my head, after all, and sometimes it just aint' pretty.
To Each His Own Kingdom
Another teacher uses my classroom during my conference period. Nice guy.
The class is comprised of seniors. and the combination of they thinking they are above the rules and this teacher's very lenient teaching style means kids act in ways that I would never allow if I were the teacher, including:
I've given up my room three years running, and it's wearing thin. I'm going to request that they skip me next year, and find someone else's room to use during that period. Sad that we even have to have traveling teachers in the first place, and I'm sympathetic to the roamers, but fer cryin' out loud, let's share the burden.
The class is comprised of seniors. and the combination of they thinking they are above the rules and this teacher's very lenient teaching style means kids act in ways that I would never allow if I were the teacher, including:
- eating food/drinking sodas openly in the class
- asking and getting permission expressly for the purpose of walking to the vending machines to buy the food/sodas
- bringing out cell phones/sidekicks for a quick e-mail check, text message, or whatever they're doing
- sitting on desktops
- the free use of vulgar language
- loud carrying-on of various description
I've given up my room three years running, and it's wearing thin. I'm going to request that they skip me next year, and find someone else's room to use during that period. Sad that we even have to have traveling teachers in the first place, and I'm sympathetic to the roamers, but fer cryin' out loud, let's share the burden.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
And Furthermore…
Oh, and because of a shortage of substitute teachers, four of the eleven teachers who showed up at the district office this morning were sent right back to their classrooms, so fewer of us got to do the same work in (virtually) the same time. Our school's contingent was missing two teachers, and we had to put in an hour of overtime (we're salaried, but we'll get 1.0 hr or our divided-up-into-hourly-rate pay. Having the two other teachers would have let us finish on time.
I spent three hours designing a two-day, self-contained lesson, including detailed instruction sheets for students, pre-chosen small-group seating charts, and question handouts with page number references, When I got to the DO, I learned that tomorrow's scheduled work-day had been postponed because of substitute teacher shortages. It's been rescheduled for two weeks from now.
Tomorrow, I'll be subbing for myself: I've committed my classes to a two-day lesson, and I have to go through with it: my students did half of a mini-project today, and it needs another day to complete. So much for my planning. They wouldn't have done the mini-project had I not been gone.
Of course, two weeks from now, I'll have to design another lesson plan to cover that second day away from my classroom.
On the bright side, my students are always glad to see me when I return from being absent. We're a team, they and I.
Our district pays substitutes less that the surrounding districts, by a wide margin. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to enlarge the substitute pool enough to cover our actual needs, does it? Why don't we try something like becoming competitive?
Even bureaucracies can't consistently escape market forces.
While they're at it, someone should draw a ten-mile radius circle around our school district, and check out teacher salaries. Our district is an embarrassment, and our turnover rate of good teachers leaving for higher-paying positions with similar commute times is high.
I spent three hours designing a two-day, self-contained lesson, including detailed instruction sheets for students, pre-chosen small-group seating charts, and question handouts with page number references, When I got to the DO, I learned that tomorrow's scheduled work-day had been postponed because of substitute teacher shortages. It's been rescheduled for two weeks from now.
Tomorrow, I'll be subbing for myself: I've committed my classes to a two-day lesson, and I have to go through with it: my students did half of a mini-project today, and it needs another day to complete. So much for my planning. They wouldn't have done the mini-project had I not been gone.
Of course, two weeks from now, I'll have to design another lesson plan to cover that second day away from my classroom.
On the bright side, my students are always glad to see me when I return from being absent. We're a team, they and I.
Our district pays substitutes less that the surrounding districts, by a wide margin. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to enlarge the substitute pool enough to cover our actual needs, does it? Why don't we try something like becoming competitive?
Even bureaucracies can't consistently escape market forces.
While they're at it, someone should draw a ten-mile radius circle around our school district, and check out teacher salaries. Our district is an embarrassment, and our turnover rate of good teachers leaving for higher-paying positions with similar commute times is high.
Speak of the Devil, and the Devil Appears
Today I was out of my classroom, at the district office, scoring the Quarter Writing Prompt— the on-demand essay that students write so that the district can gauge improvement in writing. Or, that's the official reason.
Anyway, I was to be gone two days, so designed a lesson plan that kept my students productive, but was easy for a substitute to administer, no easy feat (see my earlier post, Eeiny Meeiny, Miney Mo, for my take on substitute teachers).
When I announced to my classes that I'd be gone a couple of days, they naturally asked me if I knew who the substitute teacher was going to be (which I didn't), and of course, offered stories about other "subs" who remained in their memory. They mentioned one whom they described to me as, well, a doofus. A mouth-breather. They offered anecdotes of horror about what he'd done in other classes. Much of it revolved around personal hygeine. From their stories, I divined that they had no respect for him.
Guess who walks in my door this morning? Mr. Doofus.
Well, my lesson plan was pretty fool-proof (no pun intended): all it required was the ability to take roll, read a few instructions to the class, and have enough of a presence to keep kids quiet enough for the class to be productive. He even had the power of marking stinkers on the seating chart for decapitation later. Not much more needed than an opposing thumb, really. But still I worrried.
I rushed back on campus after school to discover that the room wasn't thrashed. Most of the work was done (sophomores seem to have accomplished more than juniors). and nothing was missing or had been broken. Not bad, actually. I was relieved.
He didn't leave much of a note for me, and there were no "off-task" marks on the seating chart. I can't believe that every kid was so sobered by my detention threats left on the board that no one had to "get a check." So I'm sure some kids got away with something, and even if I enlist mysquealers informants, I won't be able to punish anyone on just that testimony. I'll be limited to "I heard you misbehaved," in an I'm-just letting-you-know-that-I-know-what-you-did way, to take half the joy out of their self-satisfied "I got away with it!" smirking. It's the least (and apparently, the most) I can do.
So Mr. Doofus turned in a lukewarm performance, and earns a C+ or so. Randy gives him props, Dawg; Paula tells him to keep his dream alive; Simon, with arms crossed, thinks he's simply awful. Not terribly bad; but I'll never request him (he did leave a sticker with his name on it for my future consideration. Sorry, Bub: you're notsadistic firm enough to do it the way I want it done.
Another teacher told me that he spent the 30–minute lunch period asleep, or at least head down, at my desk. But that's his time.
I should have locked my desk.
Anyway, I was to be gone two days, so designed a lesson plan that kept my students productive, but was easy for a substitute to administer, no easy feat (see my earlier post, Eeiny Meeiny, Miney Mo, for my take on substitute teachers).
When I announced to my classes that I'd be gone a couple of days, they naturally asked me if I knew who the substitute teacher was going to be (which I didn't), and of course, offered stories about other "subs" who remained in their memory. They mentioned one whom they described to me as, well, a doofus. A mouth-breather. They offered anecdotes of horror about what he'd done in other classes. Much of it revolved around personal hygeine. From their stories, I divined that they had no respect for him.
Guess who walks in my door this morning? Mr. Doofus.
Well, my lesson plan was pretty fool-proof (no pun intended): all it required was the ability to take roll, read a few instructions to the class, and have enough of a presence to keep kids quiet enough for the class to be productive. He even had the power of marking stinkers on the seating chart for decapitation later. Not much more needed than an opposing thumb, really. But still I worrried.
I rushed back on campus after school to discover that the room wasn't thrashed. Most of the work was done (sophomores seem to have accomplished more than juniors). and nothing was missing or had been broken. Not bad, actually. I was relieved.
He didn't leave much of a note for me, and there were no "off-task" marks on the seating chart. I can't believe that every kid was so sobered by my detention threats left on the board that no one had to "get a check." So I'm sure some kids got away with something, and even if I enlist my
So Mr. Doofus turned in a lukewarm performance, and earns a C+ or so. Randy gives him props, Dawg; Paula tells him to keep his dream alive; Simon, with arms crossed, thinks he's simply awful. Not terribly bad; but I'll never request him (he did leave a sticker with his name on it for my future consideration. Sorry, Bub: you're not
Another teacher told me that he spent the 30–minute lunch period asleep, or at least head down, at my desk. But that's his time.
I should have locked my desk.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Now There's an Idea
Saw this on another blog, and thought, "If only they made them in high school size…"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)