Monday, December 15, 2003
Just another Monday...
Napoleon once wrote that the line between the sublime and the ridiculous was a fine one at best, "just a step," I believe were his exact words (albeit in Corsican French rather than English, but the idea's the important thing.)
Proof positive today with my last period class. A handful of students in there want to learn.
I try to teach them.
The rest of them are jerks who talk all the time, harass other students, and make life miserable.
I try to ignore them and continue teaching.
Such is the way of things.
Today, as always I had my students do some review questions based on the previous night's homework. It involves copying a few questions off of the board and writing an answer of approximately a sentence or two in length.
Originally I would have planned 10 minutes for this exercise, but experience has proven that 20 is necessary if I want to get even a few complete responses. (esp. true with the first period class that shows up on average 10 min. late!)
Today the jerks were noisy, the good students were getting antsy what with the holiday coming, and after collecting the work and going over them together in front of the class, I was becoming rather fed up. Having worked hard on a lesson plan the night before, I did not take kindly to standing up there, teaching my guts out, and having not one of my students pay attention. The room was filled with noise. Noise, noise, noise...it was an awe-inspiring bit of chaos actually.
But it had to end.
So...I did the unthinkable.
POP QUIZ!
Take out a piece of paper.
You have five minutes.
Write down the answers to the classwork we just finished reviewing.
The ones that I have repeated three times over your jabbering.
The ones that maybe half of you heard, and of those only half of you registered.
Wait...those answers?
Yes...those answers!
So I have one particularly troublesome student. Real son of a gun. 4 F's on his report card, all poor behavior grades...couldn't be prouder of it. And he raises his hand and says:
"You can't do that!"
No wait...I give him too much credit. No handraising. He just yelled.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yeah...you can't do anything that's not in your lesson plan," he responded confidently.
I stood there for a second in a bit of shock. The kid knew what a lesson plan was! Wow! How'd that happen? No clue. But again, little bit of knowledge that just shed light on how ignorant he was. I chuckled slightly.
"Yes...I can." I said. "You have 4 minutes."
That shut him up...for about thirty seconds before he started tlaking about somebody's mother or some rap star or something. Honestly, I confess to tuning out, focusing instead on what was coming next.
And the time ticked down and I collected my quizzes. Haven't graded them yet, but I'm willing to bet about half of them are rubbish.
Other than that and the fact that my physics students can't understand friction if I hit them over the head with it...life is going ok. (Yes, that's right...we're not done with dynamics yet. Yay...block scheduling!) Not great. Just ok. Finished a graduate course in methodology this evening with a fun sample lesson on vectors. Got a chance to hang out with some fellow teachers at a nice restaurant downtown last weekend. Vacation is nearly here...wondering if I'll go home.
But, for now, the reality of work looms large on the horizon. One more grad course ends tomorrow, and there's still a few more days of instruction left to plan and slam through.
As someone wiser than myself once said, "if I can make it through tomorrow, it'll be all right."
More posts, another edition of "Good Idea...Bad Idea", and additions to the list of Invisible Links coming soon...
Keep an eye on this page or you might just miss it!
(Oh...one last thing...What's New, What's Good got canceled this week in my last period class. They were talking that much. In my first period class it was much the same...only no eagles scores. They play Miami tonight. Go Eagles!)
Napoleon once wrote that the line between the sublime and the ridiculous was a fine one at best, "just a step," I believe were his exact words (albeit in Corsican French rather than English, but the idea's the important thing.)
Proof positive today with my last period class. A handful of students in there want to learn.
I try to teach them.
The rest of them are jerks who talk all the time, harass other students, and make life miserable.
I try to ignore them and continue teaching.
Such is the way of things.
Today, as always I had my students do some review questions based on the previous night's homework. It involves copying a few questions off of the board and writing an answer of approximately a sentence or two in length.
Originally I would have planned 10 minutes for this exercise, but experience has proven that 20 is necessary if I want to get even a few complete responses. (esp. true with the first period class that shows up on average 10 min. late!)
Today the jerks were noisy, the good students were getting antsy what with the holiday coming, and after collecting the work and going over them together in front of the class, I was becoming rather fed up. Having worked hard on a lesson plan the night before, I did not take kindly to standing up there, teaching my guts out, and having not one of my students pay attention. The room was filled with noise. Noise, noise, noise...it was an awe-inspiring bit of chaos actually.
But it had to end.
So...I did the unthinkable.
POP QUIZ!
Take out a piece of paper.
You have five minutes.
Write down the answers to the classwork we just finished reviewing.
The ones that I have repeated three times over your jabbering.
The ones that maybe half of you heard, and of those only half of you registered.
Wait...those answers?
Yes...those answers!
So I have one particularly troublesome student. Real son of a gun. 4 F's on his report card, all poor behavior grades...couldn't be prouder of it. And he raises his hand and says:
"You can't do that!"
No wait...I give him too much credit. No handraising. He just yelled.
"Oh?" I said.
"Yeah...you can't do anything that's not in your lesson plan," he responded confidently.
I stood there for a second in a bit of shock. The kid knew what a lesson plan was! Wow! How'd that happen? No clue. But again, little bit of knowledge that just shed light on how ignorant he was. I chuckled slightly.
"Yes...I can." I said. "You have 4 minutes."
That shut him up...for about thirty seconds before he started tlaking about somebody's mother or some rap star or something. Honestly, I confess to tuning out, focusing instead on what was coming next.
And the time ticked down and I collected my quizzes. Haven't graded them yet, but I'm willing to bet about half of them are rubbish.
Other than that and the fact that my physics students can't understand friction if I hit them over the head with it...life is going ok. (Yes, that's right...we're not done with dynamics yet. Yay...block scheduling!) Not great. Just ok. Finished a graduate course in methodology this evening with a fun sample lesson on vectors. Got a chance to hang out with some fellow teachers at a nice restaurant downtown last weekend. Vacation is nearly here...wondering if I'll go home.
But, for now, the reality of work looms large on the horizon. One more grad course ends tomorrow, and there's still a few more days of instruction left to plan and slam through.
As someone wiser than myself once said, "if I can make it through tomorrow, it'll be all right."
More posts, another edition of "Good Idea...Bad Idea", and additions to the list of Invisible Links coming soon...
Keep an eye on this page or you might just miss it!
(Oh...one last thing...What's New, What's Good got canceled this week in my last period class. They were talking that much. In my first period class it was much the same...only no eagles scores. They play Miami tonight. Go Eagles!)
