Friday, June 10, 2005
Final Friday 2005
Underwood High School has transformed into a strange sort of limbo during the past few days. The transition was not unexpected, but at the same time arrived with an inscrutable suddenness that even a "veteran" teacher like myself could not anticipate. It was obvious, for example, that student motivation would dwindle following the completion of final exams and the release of summer school recommendations. But unlike last year, when student willingness to be students seemed to fade away more gradually, this year, it's more like a switch. One minute kids are diligently studying for exams. The next, they're actively resisting anything that might bear some vague connection to appropriate student behavior. Even simple stuff like sitting down quietly.
With the exception of a single student, exams wrapped up on Wednesday. F-Day lived up to its name with average scores ranging between 45-53%. Top score overall, 88%. For most students, the final exam had little to no impact on their overall grades. For a few it would determine if they passed or failed fourth marking period, and for a fraction of those, their summer plans would depend entirely on their success on this test. Sadly, summer school recommendations had to go in before the exams were completed so we were instructed to recommend anyone in danger of failing. This led to a few angry students coming to me and demanding to know how they could be in summer school when they had a grade of X a few weeks before. Such complaints are more a nuisance than anything, and I tried my best to ignore them and push on to bigger and better things.
But what is one to do with a bunch of students who are forced to arrive at school during a week of sweltering heat and humidity. Just when I thought they couldn't become any more defiant, disrespectful, or fearless...well, you know the routine. My fellow teachers and I had various approaches to this problem. One "borrowed" my idea for a Science Alphabet Book project and had the kids work on a similar book on algebra for a few days. Another math teacher focused on tesselations, using a video on Escher and a lot of construction paper. Others were less creative, preferring merely to show movies. Originally, I fell into this category, planning to show the film Super Size Me. (Given their eating habits, myst udents could seriously benefit from it.) But despite obtaining an LCD projector to screen the film, the DVD I rented did not have English subtitles, so my students could not follow the film over the noise. Strangely enough, it did have Spanish subtitles. Why no English? I'm not sure.
Moot point, I suppose.
I eventually found a fun activity for the kids in the form of everyone's favorite computer quiz game, You Don't Know Jack. They had a tough time wrapping their brains around the idea of a Ticklish Testgum (Gibberish Question), but the humor and occasional raciness of the humor won at least a few kids over in each class. Another science teacher and I consolidated our classes on Thursday and even wound up having a tournament of champions of sorts where the top kid from each class got a chance to face off against either teacher. The kid from the other class, in a rare display of critical thinking, decided that since his teacher was smart, I obviously must be the better opponent from his point of view. Sadly his reasoning proved flawed and I was sorely tempted to paraphrase the Grail Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "You chose...poorly."
I had assumed that today, the final full day and the final Friday of the school year, would be a followup of Thursday's quiz game fun. Imagine my surprise however when homeroom time came around and there was utter silence on the floors. Could this have been the culmination of every teacher's dream? What if they gave a school day and none of the students showed up? For half an hour we waited, a bunch of us in a corner math room near the computer lab, waiting for any sign of students. And for half an hour, there was nothing to be heard but the sounds of giddy anticipation that maybe the students had taken the unspoken hint and stayed home. But then, they arrived...en masse. Suddenly, I had around a dozen juniors hanging out in my room. Did I know them? No. Fortunately they arrived with chaperones, but no one had any idea why they were being sent there or what the plan would be for the inevitable freshman horde.
The freshmen today reminded me of sad puppies who could not realize that they should stop following the teachers around. At 8:40 or so, an announcement went on that all freshman teachers were to go to the cafeteria for instructions. And there were my freshmen. Granted, attendance was down, but not there will still an inordinate amount of tables filled up. I attempted to ignore them, although one kid's obnoxious demeanor led me to make him a bet that if he could spell and define the word "obsequious", I would go and raise his final mark 10 points. (He couldn't...and he couldn't come up with a very effective comeback when I said that term would appear with his picture next to it in the dictionary. Battle of wits with an unarmed man and all that...) The eventual plan, settled everyone agreed at the last minute, was to divide the freshman up into groups of 2-3 advisories a piece and then place those students in rooms on the first floor, some of which were air conditioned. I was lucky to be in that setup. So today we ended up watching two Indiana Jones movies (Raiders and Last Crusade)...and by watch, I mean read the subtitles because the room was so darn noisy! Also got to impress a few kids with my mad origami skillz, but I'm not sure how many of them actually believed I learned how to fold paper from my mother.
It wasn't a particularly difficult job, given that there were 3 teachers, but still, holding 38 students in one place the entire school day except lunch left all of us with something of a headache. and it looks like mroe are in the future because this afternoon I received a most curious memorandum from the Powers that Be, this time in the form of our district's CEO. (Yes, we have a CEO. We're like a business that way, and depending on who you ask in many other ways to boot.) It was addressed to the city's school principals and noted that "earlier today, one of our high school students was severely beaten by some other middle and high school students, off school grounds." The blame for this lay partly with the students, but also with uncooperative schools dismissing students early.
I quote below:
"Let me be perfectly clear: the school year is not over utnil June 15th. Until that date, schools are to be open according to the full schedule adopted by the District, and students are to attend class and be engaged in active learning."
Furthermore, the CEO notes, schools must "remain active learning environemnts until the end of the school year. Classroom bulletin boards are to remain up and lesson plans should be implemented."
My principal scrawled a note at the bottom of the memo that we are going to be monitored so far as our compliance with this memorandum is concerned and entreats us all to devise "creative lessons that are engaging for our students."
However, the plan for the remaining 3 days of school is to be similar to today. Take all the teachers out of their rooms, shuffle them around so that two, three, or even four different classes are bunched together, in cramped rooms that will only get unbearably hot after they are filled beyond capacity with a bunch of hyperactive, undermotivated students. So, how are we supposed to coordinate effective lesson planning? In my room, for example, there were three different subjects (science, math, and English) represented. And for that matter, even if we could coordinate, how do they expect full engagement from students who know there is no positive consequence? The whole situation seems like it is setting students and teachers alike up for frustration and failure.
A few of my more cynical colleagues even commented that this might be a sham. The argument was that the main office was circulating this e-mail with the full knowledge of the chaos that breaks out at this point in the year in an attempt to enlist otherwise apatehtic administrators and teachers to stem the tide. While I can see the rationale behind such a scheme, I must unfortunately inform the Powers That Be that despite their best efforts, this plan will almost certainly fall apart. Becuase the teachers in the trenches know the reality of the situation. Our priorities now are no longer instruction-based, but rather survival-based. We are all of looking to the summer and a respite from the madness. Or in my case, summer and a chance to learn chemistry before I wind up teaching a class of juniors.
In any case, we screen Temple of Doom next week. Tune in for more fun news over the weekend, because I'm certainly not lesson planning. And neither should you.
Underwood High School has transformed into a strange sort of limbo during the past few days. The transition was not unexpected, but at the same time arrived with an inscrutable suddenness that even a "veteran" teacher like myself could not anticipate. It was obvious, for example, that student motivation would dwindle following the completion of final exams and the release of summer school recommendations. But unlike last year, when student willingness to be students seemed to fade away more gradually, this year, it's more like a switch. One minute kids are diligently studying for exams. The next, they're actively resisting anything that might bear some vague connection to appropriate student behavior. Even simple stuff like sitting down quietly.
With the exception of a single student, exams wrapped up on Wednesday. F-Day lived up to its name with average scores ranging between 45-53%. Top score overall, 88%. For most students, the final exam had little to no impact on their overall grades. For a few it would determine if they passed or failed fourth marking period, and for a fraction of those, their summer plans would depend entirely on their success on this test. Sadly, summer school recommendations had to go in before the exams were completed so we were instructed to recommend anyone in danger of failing. This led to a few angry students coming to me and demanding to know how they could be in summer school when they had a grade of X a few weeks before. Such complaints are more a nuisance than anything, and I tried my best to ignore them and push on to bigger and better things.
But what is one to do with a bunch of students who are forced to arrive at school during a week of sweltering heat and humidity. Just when I thought they couldn't become any more defiant, disrespectful, or fearless...well, you know the routine. My fellow teachers and I had various approaches to this problem. One "borrowed" my idea for a Science Alphabet Book project and had the kids work on a similar book on algebra for a few days. Another math teacher focused on tesselations, using a video on Escher and a lot of construction paper. Others were less creative, preferring merely to show movies. Originally, I fell into this category, planning to show the film Super Size Me. (Given their eating habits, myst udents could seriously benefit from it.) But despite obtaining an LCD projector to screen the film, the DVD I rented did not have English subtitles, so my students could not follow the film over the noise. Strangely enough, it did have Spanish subtitles. Why no English? I'm not sure.
Moot point, I suppose.
I eventually found a fun activity for the kids in the form of everyone's favorite computer quiz game, You Don't Know Jack. They had a tough time wrapping their brains around the idea of a Ticklish Testgum (Gibberish Question), but the humor and occasional raciness of the humor won at least a few kids over in each class. Another science teacher and I consolidated our classes on Thursday and even wound up having a tournament of champions of sorts where the top kid from each class got a chance to face off against either teacher. The kid from the other class, in a rare display of critical thinking, decided that since his teacher was smart, I obviously must be the better opponent from his point of view. Sadly his reasoning proved flawed and I was sorely tempted to paraphrase the Grail Knight from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: "You chose...poorly."
I had assumed that today, the final full day and the final Friday of the school year, would be a followup of Thursday's quiz game fun. Imagine my surprise however when homeroom time came around and there was utter silence on the floors. Could this have been the culmination of every teacher's dream? What if they gave a school day and none of the students showed up? For half an hour we waited, a bunch of us in a corner math room near the computer lab, waiting for any sign of students. And for half an hour, there was nothing to be heard but the sounds of giddy anticipation that maybe the students had taken the unspoken hint and stayed home. But then, they arrived...en masse. Suddenly, I had around a dozen juniors hanging out in my room. Did I know them? No. Fortunately they arrived with chaperones, but no one had any idea why they were being sent there or what the plan would be for the inevitable freshman horde.
The freshmen today reminded me of sad puppies who could not realize that they should stop following the teachers around. At 8:40 or so, an announcement went on that all freshman teachers were to go to the cafeteria for instructions. And there were my freshmen. Granted, attendance was down, but not there will still an inordinate amount of tables filled up. I attempted to ignore them, although one kid's obnoxious demeanor led me to make him a bet that if he could spell and define the word "obsequious", I would go and raise his final mark 10 points. (He couldn't...and he couldn't come up with a very effective comeback when I said that term would appear with his picture next to it in the dictionary. Battle of wits with an unarmed man and all that...) The eventual plan, settled everyone agreed at the last minute, was to divide the freshman up into groups of 2-3 advisories a piece and then place those students in rooms on the first floor, some of which were air conditioned. I was lucky to be in that setup. So today we ended up watching two Indiana Jones movies (Raiders and Last Crusade)...and by watch, I mean read the subtitles because the room was so darn noisy! Also got to impress a few kids with my mad origami skillz, but I'm not sure how many of them actually believed I learned how to fold paper from my mother.
It wasn't a particularly difficult job, given that there were 3 teachers, but still, holding 38 students in one place the entire school day except lunch left all of us with something of a headache. and it looks like mroe are in the future because this afternoon I received a most curious memorandum from the Powers that Be, this time in the form of our district's CEO. (Yes, we have a CEO. We're like a business that way, and depending on who you ask in many other ways to boot.) It was addressed to the city's school principals and noted that "earlier today, one of our high school students was severely beaten by some other middle and high school students, off school grounds." The blame for this lay partly with the students, but also with uncooperative schools dismissing students early.
I quote below:
"Let me be perfectly clear: the school year is not over utnil June 15th. Until that date, schools are to be open according to the full schedule adopted by the District, and students are to attend class and be engaged in active learning."
Furthermore, the CEO notes, schools must "remain active learning environemnts until the end of the school year. Classroom bulletin boards are to remain up and lesson plans should be implemented."
My principal scrawled a note at the bottom of the memo that we are going to be monitored so far as our compliance with this memorandum is concerned and entreats us all to devise "creative lessons that are engaging for our students."
However, the plan for the remaining 3 days of school is to be similar to today. Take all the teachers out of their rooms, shuffle them around so that two, three, or even four different classes are bunched together, in cramped rooms that will only get unbearably hot after they are filled beyond capacity with a bunch of hyperactive, undermotivated students. So, how are we supposed to coordinate effective lesson planning? In my room, for example, there were three different subjects (science, math, and English) represented. And for that matter, even if we could coordinate, how do they expect full engagement from students who know there is no positive consequence? The whole situation seems like it is setting students and teachers alike up for frustration and failure.
A few of my more cynical colleagues even commented that this might be a sham. The argument was that the main office was circulating this e-mail with the full knowledge of the chaos that breaks out at this point in the year in an attempt to enlist otherwise apatehtic administrators and teachers to stem the tide. While I can see the rationale behind such a scheme, I must unfortunately inform the Powers That Be that despite their best efforts, this plan will almost certainly fall apart. Becuase the teachers in the trenches know the reality of the situation. Our priorities now are no longer instruction-based, but rather survival-based. We are all of looking to the summer and a respite from the madness. Or in my case, summer and a chance to learn chemistry before I wind up teaching a class of juniors.
In any case, we screen Temple of Doom next week. Tune in for more fun news over the weekend, because I'm certainly not lesson planning. And neither should you.
