Classroom management is getting more and more difficult. The afternoons are just crazy. I've gotten some good advice from O, though (give them things to do IMMEDIATELY, minimize the written words) so we'll see if that helps.
had a fistfight after school today. as we were trying to get down the stairs. I turned around to get the girls in line and two of my boys were just ON each other. Punching, yelling, wrestling... it was all I could do to separate them. So now two of my seven-year-old children have a 90-minute detention tomorrow. Sigh.
I wish my aide were full-time. She leaves at noon every day to face the math block alone. It's just no fun. I'd love to do math groups, if only I had enough supervision... Blah. I'll see if I can work it out anyway.
I think I must be too tired to write -- I don't feel like I'm saying anything. (the reading teacher just yelled my name in the PD and scared me to death, but she was just using me as an example. Heh.) Hopefully I'll write something material soon.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Was any decent music written after 1985?
Haven't forgotten about yall. Busy organizing (never my strong suit) and writing lesson plans and attempting to prevent my kids from killing each other. Will write a post with content later; for now, I just wanted to record the amazing ability of classic rock to improve my mood. 3 cheers for 80s hair bands.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Kendall's Fifth Law1
In the context of class size, addition is inflationary by a factor of 2-2.5.
(Example: 20+6 is not 26. It's more like 32-35.)
We leveled today. I'm about ready to die.
1Kendall's Laws 1-4:
1. Nothing's ever simple.
2. Never trust nobody with nothing.
3. Geometry does not apply to wood.
4. No matter how much you sweep, there is always more dust.2
2"Men come and go, but dust accumulates."
-Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
PS. Professional development makes me want to stab out my eyes.
(Example: 20+6 is not 26. It's more like 32-35.)
We leveled today. I'm about ready to die.
1Kendall's Laws 1-4:
1. Nothing's ever simple.
2. Never trust nobody with nothing.
3. Geometry does not apply to wood.
4. No matter how much you sweep, there is always more dust.2
2"Men come and go, but dust accumulates."
-Terry Pratchett, Night Watch
PS. Professional development makes me want to stab out my eyes.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Leveling
L was out on Friday, so we couldn't finish preparations for leveling*... so much for starting the new classroom with the new week. Ah well. It'll probably happen by Tuesday... and it'll give me that last day to finish my DRAs. I forgot when I was doing them that the "high" kids are just as important as the "low" kids... I may have to trade one boy back from L and give her a girl, because she's probably too high to be in my class. He's borderline (I/J reading level) but given the involvement of her mother and her mother's insistence that her daughter loves to read and went to the library frequently, I'm betting she's at least a K by now.
This is all massively frustrating. There are lots of things (introducing the job chart, organizing guided reading groups, putting name tags on the desks) that I don't want to really get into until I have a moderately stabilized classroom... and as I said last time or so, I'm sort of feeling like I wasted the first week of getting routines underway and getting the kids settled since we're going right back into upheaval. I guess I could think of it as an opportunity to try it again and see if I can do it better... but the problem is that the core curriculum goes into full force this week, and I don't have the extra time in the mornings anymore.
I was about right about numbers, though. I'm losing two Cs and two Ds off the bottom, and two Js off the top, and gaining six Is and six E-Fs. This will give me, according to my current plan, four teams of five and one team of six (this makes more sense than four teams of four and two teams of five for space reasons, much as I like smaller groups) with two desks left over. I will have to give up on my plan to have morning circle until I can get more rug pieces, because currently my rug is just too small. (What I will probably have to do is move the rug out from the wall a bit, and have them sitting on carpet squares all around its perimeter. They'll actually sit on the rug when they're in rows for lesson introduction or read aloud.)
We'll have to see how it goes... providing it ever actually fstarking happens. Bureaucracy can bite me.
*I never fully explained what this was, did I... It's got a couple of meanings. On the one hand, they're trying to keep the kids organized by reading level, so that no one has to cope with TOO much differentiation in the classroom. O will have the lowest kids (B-D, K-early 1 level), I'll have the mid-range kids (E-I/J, mid-to-late 1) and L will have the highs (J-P, 2nd-early 4th grade level). To answer Naomi, who asked me this a week ago by now, this differs from tracking in that the kids are re-evaluated and placed every year, so if they improve they'll be in a different class for third grade).
It also just means leveling the numbers. I have yet to have more than 20 kids in my classroom, despite the fact that my roll sheet says 25. L has had 28, with a roll sheet of 30, and O has actually had 30. So by the time we're done, L and I will have 26, and O will have 25. (some kids on the roll sheet don't actually go here anymore.)
So that's that.
This is all massively frustrating. There are lots of things (introducing the job chart, organizing guided reading groups, putting name tags on the desks) that I don't want to really get into until I have a moderately stabilized classroom... and as I said last time or so, I'm sort of feeling like I wasted the first week of getting routines underway and getting the kids settled since we're going right back into upheaval. I guess I could think of it as an opportunity to try it again and see if I can do it better... but the problem is that the core curriculum goes into full force this week, and I don't have the extra time in the mornings anymore.
I was about right about numbers, though. I'm losing two Cs and two Ds off the bottom, and two Js off the top, and gaining six Is and six E-Fs. This will give me, according to my current plan, four teams of five and one team of six (this makes more sense than four teams of four and two teams of five for space reasons, much as I like smaller groups) with two desks left over. I will have to give up on my plan to have morning circle until I can get more rug pieces, because currently my rug is just too small. (What I will probably have to do is move the rug out from the wall a bit, and have them sitting on carpet squares all around its perimeter. They'll actually sit on the rug when they're in rows for lesson introduction or read aloud.)
We'll have to see how it goes... providing it ever actually fstarking happens. Bureaucracy can bite me.
*I never fully explained what this was, did I... It's got a couple of meanings. On the one hand, they're trying to keep the kids organized by reading level, so that no one has to cope with TOO much differentiation in the classroom. O will have the lowest kids (B-D, K-early 1 level), I'll have the mid-range kids (E-I/J, mid-to-late 1) and L will have the highs (J-P, 2nd-early 4th grade level). To answer Naomi, who asked me this a week ago by now, this differs from tracking in that the kids are re-evaluated and placed every year, so if they improve they'll be in a different class for third grade).
It also just means leveling the numbers. I have yet to have more than 20 kids in my classroom, despite the fact that my roll sheet says 25. L has had 28, with a roll sheet of 30, and O has actually had 30. So by the time we're done, L and I will have 26, and O will have 25. (some kids on the roll sheet don't actually go here anymore.)
So that's that.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
My perspectives on grade-level work are somewhat skewed
...as anyone who went to school with me would know. I came up gifted and talented, 3rd through 12th grade. This can make it difficult for me to relate to learning differences, or even average learning curves.
All of which makes the current situation even more frustrating for me. I supposedly have the "middle" class, while O and L have the "low" and "high" classes respectively. These classes were arranged according to reading level. SDP measures reading level according to the Guided Reading scale, which uses the letters of the alphabet, A being an emergent Kindergarten reader and Z being somewhere in the vicinity of eighth grade.
The "appropriate" level range for second grade is J through M. Now, I was under no misapprehensions that all, or even most of my class would be starting the year at a level J. I was also prepared to deal with the fact that few or none of my students would have made any advances in reading since June,.
What I was not expecting was for them to have slipped two to three levels over the summer. One student who was apparently reading at an F last year is now reading at a C. Another supposedly F-level student is at a D. One of my new admits is reading at a C.
These are kindergarten levels, people. I haven't finished doing my DRAs yet, and honestly I'm a little afraid to. It's not like it matters for leveling purposes anyway (gotta keep those homogeneous groupings, don'cha know) since unless they've dropped more than three levels they're staying in my class... but I do need to know what I'm dealing with. If nothing else, I need to go back and redo my 100 book challenge book selections, since 1 blue and 2 blue are obviously beyond us at this point.
I do not know how to cope with this. Activities I plan as independent work are way beyond them. They can't write complete sentences. They can't spell. They don't all use vowels consistently (as in, at least one per word). I'm going to have to drastically scale back my ideas, and it's difficult and frustrating and not what I was hoping to be in for. I always have a tendency to aim high... which I suppose is laudable, but there's a difference between "aiming high" and "going totally over their heads." Argh.
There's also the question of the core curriculum. We have topics we are required to cover... but if they can't do the work, what good does it do us to give it to them? It's setting them up to fail and it's gonna make me crazy. The middle years learning support teacher has this problem a lot worse than I do... at least there's not THAT much they're already supposed to know by the second grade. She's dealing with eighth graders who can't add 3-digit numbers, and she's supposed to be teaching them geometry -- is required to, in fact, lest she be written up. It's not even the second full week of school and she's already got a look of resignation on her face that's heartbreaking.
The other fun part, of course, is that whole "leveling" thing I so cavalierly mentioned a few paragraphs ago... along with the new admits who keep appearing every day. We've lost a few kids too, to transfers and interstate relocation, but not nearly enough to give us a reasonable class size... Or to allow us to feel like we've got any kind of stability. And my class is going to change by at least a third once we finish DRAs, regardless of new admits, because of the whole homogeneous-grouping trends. Gotta keep the percentile ranges together, apparently... so I'll probably trade three to L, and four to O, and get back probably twelve kids in return. Kind of makes one wonder why they bother having the kids in class for the first few days. Can't we just have them come in, do a day of diagnostics (DRAs, basic math skills, writing sample) and THEN put them in a classroom? It makes me feel like I just wasted the two full days I spent on routines and classroom procedures, since half of them won't need it anymore and half my new class won't have any fstarking idea what's going on.
In other news, I got a warning about not being outside by 8:30 this morning. If I was late (of which I am not certain) it was by like a minute... but at the same time it's nice to know that there are administrative types actually doing their jobs. Just like they tell us about the kids: consistency in consequences makes for a safe learning environment. Funny how it works for grownups too.
How did it get to be 10:18? Jesus. No wonder I never get anything done. This has been quite a rambling journal entry... maybe one of these days I'll actually have time to sit down and organize my thoughts into headings, and write a separate journal entry for each one. For now, though, I need to write my emergency sub plans, so rambling is what you get.
All of which makes the current situation even more frustrating for me. I supposedly have the "middle" class, while O and L have the "low" and "high" classes respectively. These classes were arranged according to reading level. SDP measures reading level according to the Guided Reading scale, which uses the letters of the alphabet, A being an emergent Kindergarten reader and Z being somewhere in the vicinity of eighth grade.
The "appropriate" level range for second grade is J through M. Now, I was under no misapprehensions that all, or even most of my class would be starting the year at a level J. I was also prepared to deal with the fact that few or none of my students would have made any advances in reading since June,.
What I was not expecting was for them to have slipped two to three levels over the summer. One student who was apparently reading at an F last year is now reading at a C. Another supposedly F-level student is at a D. One of my new admits is reading at a C.
These are kindergarten levels, people. I haven't finished doing my DRAs yet, and honestly I'm a little afraid to. It's not like it matters for leveling purposes anyway (gotta keep those homogeneous groupings, don'cha know) since unless they've dropped more than three levels they're staying in my class... but I do need to know what I'm dealing with. If nothing else, I need to go back and redo my 100 book challenge book selections, since 1 blue and 2 blue are obviously beyond us at this point.
I do not know how to cope with this. Activities I plan as independent work are way beyond them. They can't write complete sentences. They can't spell. They don't all use vowels consistently (as in, at least one per word). I'm going to have to drastically scale back my ideas, and it's difficult and frustrating and not what I was hoping to be in for. I always have a tendency to aim high... which I suppose is laudable, but there's a difference between "aiming high" and "going totally over their heads." Argh.
There's also the question of the core curriculum. We have topics we are required to cover... but if they can't do the work, what good does it do us to give it to them? It's setting them up to fail and it's gonna make me crazy. The middle years learning support teacher has this problem a lot worse than I do... at least there's not THAT much they're already supposed to know by the second grade. She's dealing with eighth graders who can't add 3-digit numbers, and she's supposed to be teaching them geometry -- is required to, in fact, lest she be written up. It's not even the second full week of school and she's already got a look of resignation on her face that's heartbreaking.
The other fun part, of course, is that whole "leveling" thing I so cavalierly mentioned a few paragraphs ago... along with the new admits who keep appearing every day. We've lost a few kids too, to transfers and interstate relocation, but not nearly enough to give us a reasonable class size... Or to allow us to feel like we've got any kind of stability. And my class is going to change by at least a third once we finish DRAs, regardless of new admits, because of the whole homogeneous-grouping trends. Gotta keep the percentile ranges together, apparently... so I'll probably trade three to L, and four to O, and get back probably twelve kids in return. Kind of makes one wonder why they bother having the kids in class for the first few days. Can't we just have them come in, do a day of diagnostics (DRAs, basic math skills, writing sample) and THEN put them in a classroom? It makes me feel like I just wasted the two full days I spent on routines and classroom procedures, since half of them won't need it anymore and half my new class won't have any fstarking idea what's going on.
In other news, I got a warning about not being outside by 8:30 this morning. If I was late (of which I am not certain) it was by like a minute... but at the same time it's nice to know that there are administrative types actually doing their jobs. Just like they tell us about the kids: consistency in consequences makes for a safe learning environment. Funny how it works for grownups too.
How did it get to be 10:18? Jesus. No wonder I never get anything done. This has been quite a rambling journal entry... maybe one of these days I'll actually have time to sit down and organize my thoughts into headings, and write a separate journal entry for each one. For now, though, I need to write my emergency sub plans, so rambling is what you get.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Right.
Got my school laptop today, which is in itself a big step up from last year (when they could supposedly have given me one, except they never got any power cords, or if they did no one remembered to check and see if I actually wanted a laptop, or to check and see if I wanted or needed anything *cough* I mean hi). Since I'm just now starting the insurance claim on my stolen laptop, this is not only an advantage but almost literally lifesaving, since I can now do things like level books and find PDF worksheets and look up information in the core curriculum documents without having to lug the books home.
Second grade this year. This is exciting on all kinds of levels, not least because one of my all-time favorite teachers was my second grade teacher. I spent a lot of time in his classroom in college and after, both volunteering and subbing, so I find myself drawing a lot from him when I organize my classroom and plan my day.
The kids are interesting.. very active, very chatty. I'm supposed to have 25, but the most I've ever seen so far is 17. This, of course, will not last, since the other two second grade teachers have closer to 30. I have the mid-range kids, too, so as we get an idea of their levels, they'll be offloading onto me anyway. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers and pray that the eight that haven't shown up yet have moved away and that I won't suddenly have a class of 33. Because, ew.
I spent some time this summer rereading my classroom management books, which has done me some good, although in some respects the assumptions they make are just frustrating. The idea of a flexible curriculum, for example... or a 30 minute recess, or enough classroom space (or few enough students, take your pick) for a morning circle (as opposed to a morning set of rows on the rug). However, I am learning to adapt.
Starting the year from day one has really made a difference too -- even if I only had one and a half days' lead time (my bulletin boards are STILL not finished, argh). We're setting up routines, we're practicing signals, I'm getting to actually implement things like time out... things are not going perfectly, of course, but they're going. I don't feel as completely overwhelmed and apathetic as I did last year. Just as exhausted, but not having to force myself out of bed in the morning. This is a promising sign, I feel.
With that, it's 10:35, and I haven't finished sorting through the three massive boxes of Stuff that my father brought ume over the weekend. (hanging folders, craft supplies, pencils, pens, paper, notebooks... a veritable treasure trove of Teacher Things (tm). God, I feel so old.) Further bulletins... well, hopefully more regularly than last year.
Second grade this year. This is exciting on all kinds of levels, not least because one of my all-time favorite teachers was my second grade teacher. I spent a lot of time in his classroom in college and after, both volunteering and subbing, so I find myself drawing a lot from him when I organize my classroom and plan my day.
The kids are interesting.. very active, very chatty. I'm supposed to have 25, but the most I've ever seen so far is 17. This, of course, will not last, since the other two second grade teachers have closer to 30. I have the mid-range kids, too, so as we get an idea of their levels, they'll be offloading onto me anyway. All I can do at this point is cross my fingers and pray that the eight that haven't shown up yet have moved away and that I won't suddenly have a class of 33. Because, ew.
I spent some time this summer rereading my classroom management books, which has done me some good, although in some respects the assumptions they make are just frustrating. The idea of a flexible curriculum, for example... or a 30 minute recess, or enough classroom space (or few enough students, take your pick) for a morning circle (as opposed to a morning set of rows on the rug). However, I am learning to adapt.
Starting the year from day one has really made a difference too -- even if I only had one and a half days' lead time (my bulletin boards are STILL not finished, argh). We're setting up routines, we're practicing signals, I'm getting to actually implement things like time out... things are not going perfectly, of course, but they're going. I don't feel as completely overwhelmed and apathetic as I did last year. Just as exhausted, but not having to force myself out of bed in the morning. This is a promising sign, I feel.
With that, it's 10:35, and I haven't finished sorting through the three massive boxes of Stuff that my father brought ume over the weekend. (hanging folders, craft supplies, pencils, pens, paper, notebooks... a veritable treasure trove of Teacher Things (tm). God, I feel so old.) Further bulletins... well, hopefully more regularly than last year.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
I was going to restart this blog for the new school year
...but this morning I left the door unlocked in my new classroom (at my new school) and my laptop got stolen.
So, not for a little while yet.
So, not for a little while yet.
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