Category Archives: Teaching Diary

These are posts about my teaching in a sort of stream of consciousness style. As the title says, it is a “diary” of my thoughts on teaching.

JUST STRESSED

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Thanks to Wm Rowe

I made sure that I paid my clear internet bundle bill before I headed off to work today. I have been so busy at the office lately that I have been forgetting to do everything around the house that I need to do. It has been really different than the way that I usually do things. I am usually on time with EVERYTHING. I have just been like that since I was little. I never went to bed with a messy room and always made sure that all my “ts” were crossed and “I’s” dotted. It has definitely worked to my advantage, because it helped me do well in school. Now, I feel like everything in my household is unraveling at the seems. I guess that I have just never been this overwhelmed or stressed before. I have taken on two new accounts that are completely swamping my time. They are really large accounts and definitely have given myself more financial income, but if I can’t remember to pay my bills, then it is not going to help me!

A Different Sort of Merit Pay

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There has been a lot of talk about “merit pay” for teachers. I’m not here to debate the idea but I can tell you it has existed for years. I know because I have received it. You might wonder just how much I got. Well, it hasn’t been monetary. I hope this post is a bit more colorful than bragging about incentive money. For me, merit pay comes through watching kids “get it.” Let me elaborate.

This is my audio visual desk where I do most of my teaching from. I also use a Mobi to travel around the classroom and control the laptop as well as the LCD projector remotely. These are all great tools but without a lesson plan strategy like EDI and a daily plan of what I plan to teach and assess, the fancy gadgets mean nothing. That’s why I treat every day as an achievable goal. I sketch out the focused objectives, aka standards, I will teach through explicit direct instruction, focusing mainly on guided practice. After I assess through the use of whiteboards, I can see who is getting it and who needs more guided help. At that point, the ones getting it, in theory 70% of the kids, go to independent practice while I take the struggling ones to the side where I have a large whiteboard and a kidney table.

As you can see, the “audio visual” equipment is not my primary tool for teaching. The most effective tool is knowing what they will learn and how they will show they know it. From there it is pretty much like washing clothes: Wash, dry, rinse, repeat. This is a simple vignette of what I and millions of teachers do every day. Sure, some do it differently than me but if you are true to your intrinsic values, you are always inventing, creating, revising. If you do it right, the kids advance. In my opinion, the thrill and satisfaction of that is the best “merit pay” of teaching.

The Art of Planning a Teaching Week

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Every weekend, after the laundry and wrestling with the pool safety net, I am faced once again with the same professional challenge: making a weekly lesson plan schedule. The obvious reason for this is to have a backbone for the activities and learning that go on in my classroom all week. The other reason is to ensure to myself and others that I am not just “winging it” without a plan. Good teachers make weekly plans. I have been at this for 13 years and I won’t say I am a “good teacher” I will let others say that if they wish. I have found that making weekly plans yields the high score returns from my students. Finding the weaknesses of my students’ scores as well as the way I have taught up to this point is the goal of my weekend planning time. Here’s a very broad presentation of how I do it.

NOTE: In this field, while I seek only to help teachers from a peer-to-peer perspective, there are an abundance of snooty types who seek to criticize and devour ideas different from their own. I would like it known that this is a very personal sharing post and is certainly not meant to be perfect nor the “only” way one can prepare for a powerful week of teaching. For you to get something out of it, you may have to do a bit of “read between the lines.” having said that, I would not be as excited to share this with you were I not extremely excited about what I do and they way I do it in this particular situation. Thank you for having an open mind as you continue. Now for: “How to Make a Weekly Lesson Plan Schedule.”

I Start with a rolling cart. I put a minimum of books and TE’s I need into the rolling cart so I have the access I need at home on the weekend. You may not be sure what to bring. In that case, let me give you my choices as an example: a math TE, the district pacing guide, ELA curriculum (Mine is a PDF so is always at home with me), a Google Calendar printout from the week below (read about how I make the Google calendar printouts here), the state standards blueprint, the state standards released test questions, and finally a printout of my students’ most recent assessment scores.

I start with their assessment scores. 1) I identify the lowest standards and write them daily into the lessons. This is often called “backward mapping,” whatever they tested low in, teach again. 2) Then I find matching curriculum and write that into the Google Calendar lesson plan. The former is pretty simply since I have access to Oars.net. This is a great online program that aggregates assessment data for teachers. I can see in an instant what standards are high and need only be spiraled and I can also see the low stuff needing intervention. The way I go through my day teaching these lessons in in almost constant evolution. Having said that, watch for a post in the next week or two where I will share how the weekly lesson plan looks in a given teaching day. What do you think about my art of planning a teaching week? Have you anything to add? That would be great.

Monetary vs. Non Monetary Rewards in the Classroom

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Here’s another topic for my teacher journal and I hope to get some external input in the comments on it. In every class there should be some sort of rewards system. Kids are small adults and adults work for rewards, why shouldn’t they? Incidentally, have you heard that thieves are stealing credit cards from your wallet without even taking them out? Check out a rfid shielded wallet that protects from that sort of thing. In teaching, I have found the PC and mainstream way most teachers take is the way of monetary rewards. Kids follow the rules and get junk the teacher buys with her/his own money or other sources. There is a problem I see with this monetized rewards system. If kids do right to get a tangible physical reward, they will only do right when they can get a reward. This is a poor way to prepare kids for life because many times in life we are not rewarded monetarily for doing the right thing.

I prefer non monetary rewards. When I was a Pizza Hut manager, the trainers told us that people will do more for a compliment than they will for a slight raise. People want to be seen. Again, students are small people so why wouldn’t they behave the same way grownups do? Throughout the day, I make sure I am giving high fives and compliments when they are warranted. I don’t go out and buy a bunch of monetary “prizes” for my students. Once in a while I will buy my kids stuff but I keep this few and far between because I know training them to crave non-monetary rewards is a more suitable training for the world we all live and work in.

It’s possible I’m a little bitter because in 1997 something happened in my classroom that really changed me. I bought a small mechanized Harley Davidson motorcycle toy to give away at the end of the month. (I also regularly bought monetary rewards for my class at that time). The $40 toy was stolen off my desk and I never retrieved it. The kids never revealed who and how it was taken. I decided pretty soon after that event that it was not the best idea to have monetary rewards in the classroom. That’s my view, what do you think?

Financial Aid Options for Teachers

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Paying for schooling can be hard for aspiring teachers and teachers who are trying to continue their education. However, there are many different forms of aid available to help cover education costs. Here are some of the most commonly used financial aid options for teachers.

Student Loans

There are two fundamental types of student loans: those sponsored by the federal government and loans taken out through a private lending institution. There is a third alternative, peer-to-peer lending, which is becoming more popular each year. Before you decide on the type of loan that will work best for you it’s essential that you research the benefits and potential downside of each.

Federal Government Loans

Student loans taken out through the U.S. government are called Stafford loans or Perkins loans. The money comes directly from the United States Department of Education. If you qualify for a government loan, the money will come to you through a participating school. However, you must meet certain criteria before you’re considered eligible for a federal loan. The first thing that you need to do to qualify is to be enrolled in an accredited college or university. You can also qualify by enrolling in a trade, career, or technical school. As a general rule, Stafford loans don’t have to be paid back until after you graduate from college. However, if you leave school without earning a degree, it’s possibly that you could be required to start paying the loan back immediately. You will have to fill out an FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and go through a review process before being accepted. Another federal loan program, the Perkins loan program, is need-based, and carries a fixed 5% interest rate throughout the length of the loan term, which normally runs for 10 years.

TEACH, a Federal Program

TEACH (Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education) is aimed at those who would like to teach at a public or private school for low-income families. It is a grant program designed to help defray the cost of receiving your teaching degree. To qualify, you must be willing to teach four full academic years out of the next eight at a school that encourages enrollment by low-income family members. This money is in the form of a grant, so it won’t have to be paid back unless you don’t meet their criteria. If you back out of the agreement, that money will become an unsubsidized student loan and the funds will need to be paid back, with interest. Part of the criteria for TEACH is that you must be willing to instruct low-income children in high demand subjects such as mathematics, foreign languages, reading, science, and special education. To be considered eligible for a TEACH Grant, you have to fill out the FAFSA. However, there is no need to prove that you have a financial need in order to be eligible.

Private Loans

A private loan is the type of loan you would get from a private financial institution, such as a bank or credit union. Money from a private loan need not be designated specifically for your college education, it is merely money loaned to you with the expectation that it will be repaid, with interest, at agreed upon terms. While the terms of a federal loan are pretty standard, the terms of a loan through a private lender can vary quite a bit. A private loan is almost always determined based upon your credit rating. If you have a good credit score, your interest rates can be fairly low. If you don’t have good credit, your rates could be very high–you may even be asked to provide a cosigner. The terms for a private student loan are left entirely up to the financial institution you’re dealing with–you either take it or leave it.

Peer-to-Peer Lending

Peer-to-peer lending is fast becoming a popular method of securing a student loan. Essentially it is a financial agreement between two parties–a financial lending institution is not normally involved–whereby one person borrows money from another. Once the terms are agreed to, the borrower is expected to repay the loan within a predetermined time frame–with interest. A peer-to-peer loan is a formal agreement, usually requiring the borrower to sign a contract laying out the terms of repayment. Most people that take out a peer-to-peer loan instead of borrowing from a bank or the government have a poor credit rating or low grades that aren’t high enough to qualify for a government loan.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer. Karen writes about online schools for BestOnlineColleges.com.

Assess the Entire Class in an Instant

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White dry-erase boards are an excellent way to check for understanding (CFU) during and after a lesson. They are also a great way to avoid wasting paper in your lesson plans. Of course, they are also very useful when stating the learning objective. Instead of printing up a class set of the material I am covering in a lesson, I print up one for each class I teach and project it on the screen. The students interact with me through dry-erase markers and white boards and it makes for an almost sport of a lesson.

This can be used in any subject. I teach the concept, use CFU throughout the teaching, then I model the concept in guided practice, asking students to gradually join me. Eventually I “release” them to do questions on their own and once again I CFU through the use of the white boards. I use the term “1 … 2 … 3 … show it to me” and then I can instantly assess a class of 33 kids. I can see if 80% or more are getting it.  If they are, I usually move on. 100% mastery is always the true goal though it isn’t always achieved. As I share anecdotes about my teaching, my goal is to help my readers achieve that goal. If we can get closer through teacher tips like this, we will be more effective in the classroom.

There are challenges getting the kids to leave the caps on the markers and not “doodle” on the white boards. It needs to be stressed to them that they are not doing “art” but rather they are answering questions to show me they “get it.” They get a kick out of it when I say 80% accuracy or better yet 100% accuracy. Sometimes they even cheer. While exuberant, they are focused. This is what makes white boards a great tool for classroom management.

I’ve written here before about how I am moving away from the use of copies and paper in my classroom. I think these changes have only benefited my students. It might be true to say that too much paper improves the presentation but widens the disconnect between the teacher and learner. Then again, this is just my personal experience. I know not everyone is ready for what I am calling “The paperless classroom.” I encourage the use of white boards for CFU. They are simple, always on hand, and you can assess the entire class in an instant. And when we’re through (in my classroom) we play guitar easy songs, it breaks up the brain strain.

5 Altruistic Values of Teaching

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Being a teacher is a wonderful career choice if you value the intrinsic rewards it brings. I’ve always thrived on the energy of seeing a human advance in a subject or in relational-academic skills. This is what I think of as the “human-profit” margin. For example, one of my goals is always to see each kid improve her/his standardized test score over the preceding year. There are many altruistic values of teaching that motivate and keep us on track in our job. If you are a new teacher, take a look at these occupational traits. They are five things I value above and beyond financial compensation that make me want to come to work every day.

  1. Kids are now what we once were and they will one day run society: This can be both exciting and daunting. Knowing one day the child I am teaching long division may one day perform open heart surgery on someone. On the other hand, they could become homeless and jobless if I don’t do my part to give them the skills and motivation to succeed.
  2. Many times you are the only role model of a normal life: I had a parent conference a few years back where the parent had told me right there at the table that all 5 of her kids had different dads. That alone is staggering. I grew up in a house where my dad was always there fore me: tucking me in, coaching my soccer teams, teaching me guitar … I know not everyone has it that good but this was a lighter shade of pale. I felt sad for the confusion the child must live with each day. I couldn’t be that child’s dad (who wasn’t in the picture) but I started paying more attention to him and giving him the best advice I could during that year about life and academics. I hope I made a difference. Each day I have that opportunity as an educator.
  3. Students need a frame of reference to understand art: We forget sometimes how much kids do not know about the world. Most adults can tell you the difference between classical and pop music … most 4th graders can’t. Unless someone explains the difference between an 18 century painting an something modern my a cubist such as Picasso, or Andy Warhol for that matter … it’s all just blurs of sensation. A person may go their whole life and never appreciate art until someone tells them about it.
  4. Students don’t always know how to be nice: We as adults get a million thoughts in our heads daily that are negative and self-defeating. If we are lucky (as I was lucky) we learn about positive self talk and talk with others. A person can go their whole life and never learn how to speak positively. I get to teach that every day (not always a walk in the park let me tell you).

Finally, kids need to learn respect for authority. A person can get to 15-18 or even 80 without that and suffer greatly because of it. As a teacher you are like a “soft” police officer, or judge. You represent authority and if you don’t teach then what respect is, chances are they will not have it when they are older. I like to think that every child who passes through my classroom in a given year knows how to respect her/his elders and her/his superiors. I know this will save them much trouble.

To close, these are 5 reasons I come to work each day. I am not rich by monetary standards but the reason I don’t feel poor is because each day I get to act on altruistic values. They are what give me the most satisfaction in my career. As a final note, I have found keeping an online teacher journal very helpful in measuring my progress toward altruistic goals, I highly recommend it. At the same time, it isn’t for everyone. Stay tuned for why I think that, in another post.

I’ve charted a more refined course for this blog

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I went in and changed the meta keywords for this blog and also added a plugin to create internal links with keywords. Why? Well, to be very transparent, this blog has grown a bit boring for me. Instead of selling the url or scrapping the whole project, I decided to refine its focus. It is a teacher’s blog with an emphasis on methods, tips, and occasional lesson plans right out of my book. I hope to create valuable posts with something worth YOUR while once a week of sooner in some cases. I want to that the 250 feed readers I have according to Feedburner. You guys are who I think about when I publish on this blog. I mean to do right by my contribution. To those others surfing in, you are important as well. I hope we can get to know each other better in 2012. I am going to focus on quality over quantity and I will always write by my motto of providing value for the reader. I see the reader as a teacher, out there, doing well or maybe stuck in a conundrum that most of us can relate with. I hope to help some out, if I can. See you in 2012. Thank you sincerely for being a reader of my blog. My first “new vision” post will come in a few days.

Charter Schools: the best school model?

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I was tagged in a post by writer Michael Kwan about the movie Waiting for Superman. In his article, he asked my opinion of charter schools. I wrote this post in response to that. To research, I immediately went back to read another article I had run across on Facebook called Whose Children Have Been Left Behind? I recommend reading it to get a truly reliable source’s view. I can only offer my inklings as a classroom teacher in a small district in California. Some people see Charter Schools as the Black diamond earrings of education. I say, the data is now here so let’s take a look at it. I know how to teach the standards and run my classroom but criticizing charter schools is not my usual blogging forte. Just the same, I do have some opinions about charter schools and here they are.

I know that parents in the inner city want the best teachers and the best school for their child. I also know perceptions of that can vary. When they are offered a charter school option, it probably sounds really good. If they can get transportation and it is an exciting move for their child, I never blame them for leaving. But I miss the kids that go. I work hard to make kids want to stay at my school but if they need to go and try the charter, I say bon voyage and good luck. We remain studying and working to meet our touchstone goals in my classroom throughout the year without them.

If you read the article I cited above you will see that after 10 years charter schools are more or less in the same predicament they aimed to solve. The achievement gap is worse in some cases. Based on that and my experience working as a public school teacher for 13 years, I don’t look to charter schools as the model that will save us.

We need more of the arts in our schools. We need more civil education in social studies so kids know how to act properly and kindly in the world. While I love teaching Language Arts and math, I think we need a more renaissance curriculum that prepares kids for the jobs that don’t exist today but will exist tomorrow.

Last, I admit I am biased but I think society as a whole needs to respect principals and teachers more. We spend a good part of every day with future citizens of the world. We have spent years in school to have the foundation but every day we learn to do what we do more efficiently. It isn’t easy. I don’t work for a charter school, but rather a plain old regular public school. I am proud when my kids improve and I work to meet their individual needs. I do this whether they be in a “race to the top” position or if they are illiterate (ie; from another country struggling to just read English).I know each teacher struggles with the same challenges, often without support or acknowledgement. Teaching as a career deserves the public’s respect. One thing people may not know who are reading this is that charter schools get to pick the students that attend their school. Traditional public schools like mine must accept any child living in their zone.

Ultimately, I feel there is no “catch-all” that can solve the needs of a classroom or a school. It’s a day to day struggle and sometimes you fall down but you always get up. That’s the only model I know that is universal. When we focus on what the children really need and the support the teachers need to give it, we see a lot of need. I think it is self-evident the Charter model is not the “Superman” model. Charter schools can be good and they can be bad, just like plain old traditional public schools.