Books for the classroom

I am wondering if there is anyone out there who can help me get more young adult novels for my classroom. Just point me in the right direction, tell me who I can beg from. HELP!

In Your Face

The reason for more engagement in the classroom is a simple one, but trying to provide it is pretty difficult considering the competition. Outside of school students are offered computers, video games, ipods, movie devices that fit into one’s pocket, action, violence, sex, cell-phones, drugs, and… Hip-Hop. I’m sorry, but it is impossible to offer Shakespeare as an interesting alternative regardless of how many power point slides one makes. The competition between what the world has to offer, and what teachers need for their students to learn is a very lopsided one in favor of the former.

Many believe that without educating our youth our culture, our country, and civilization as a whole is at great risk of collapse. Yes, I hate to break it to everyone, but things as we know them today will cease to exist very quickly, and it is not because our teachers aren’t trying to educate our youth, it’s because they can’t compete.

There is a reason all of the education gurus are so vague when they tell teachers that they need to be more engaging, because they don’t know how to be engaging either and no one can blame them. To date, no one has come up with a sure fire way to engage our students with academic content, especially since “discipline” took a back seat to a “kinder and gentler nation.” There is lots of drive in the education profession to employ PowerPoint, podcast, active games, etc. But lets face it, how interesting can Shakespeare be to a child who has access to the abundance of entertaining technology available in the free world.

Technology in the classroom helps, but it is not the panacea for a struggling education system. As a matter of fact I attempt to get my students involved in things like blogs, building websites, producing video presentations, and publishing podcasts on the web, but interest wanes when they discover that the subject matter is one of academia. I’m sorry, but I’m not in business to teach kids how to produce their own hip-hop videos or dramatic recreations of what they saw on last nights TV shows. I’m in it to teach “the three Rs” or what ever you want to call it. Technology has its useful applications, but no one can totally rely on it to help them sleep at night.  

After attending countless professional development classes promising to train me how to engage my students—with little success—I have begun implementing my own engagement tactics. I employ an “in your face” teaching style where I don’t ask my students to complete the assignments, I stand over their shoulder with my grade book until they are done. I also call on students, who prefer not to be called on, redirect clowns and talkers with humiliation and humor, and I don’t ask my students to participate, I require it. So far my procedures have worked great and I have the results to prove it. But I must add that it takes a lot of energy and persistence.

One big worry that many young teachers have is that tactics like these will cause the students to hate them, and in the beginning it will. My students try to get transferred from my class during the first few weeks, and some challenge me only to pay for it later. Toward the end of the first semester their hearts yield to my unconventional ways and they value their time in my class because they realize that they are actually learning something and making good grades for their efforts. I’ve even had many admit that they look forward to coming in my class, and when I accuse some one of skipping my class, they respond, “this is the only class I want to come to.”

Why does it work? Because many of our kids, especially in our low socioeconomic environment, have never had anyone push him or her like I do. It’s not always the parent’s fault, which a lot of people point fingers at, it society’s fault. Most of our nations young people, whether low or lower middle socioeconomic class, do not have the benefit of parents’ presence when they get home from school. Most of their parents work, and some work multiple jobs to pay the bills, and give their families a slice of the American pie that has been promised them since WWII. Parents don’t always have time to instill the degree of responsibility and self-discipline that we had when we were growing up, which is another topic all together.

I don’t claim that my way is perfect. I make my share of mistakes, but I keep doing what I know is right for the majority of my kids and ignore the few who don’t find value in my work. It does take a great deal of practice, a lot of energy, and many after school hours studying my kid’s attitudes and motivations. I also watch a lot of comedians on YouTube and TeacherTube for ideas on developing a sense of humor--that’s required.  

I encourage all teachers to consider what I have written here, picture it in your mind, get a feel for what an “In your face” classroom is like. You will be amazed at the results. Good luck.  

Literature Circles

At first I didn’t know what to expect from my students when I put them around a table with a novel for them to read. Based on all the horror stories I’ve heard and the attention spans of the modern student, I didn’t expect much reading to take place. I feared that nothing would get done besides getting caught up on the latest gossip, but I’m glad to say that I was wrong. My students attacked the project with nearly as much enthusiasm as their Podcasting projects and I was elated to have the opportunity to grade quality work.

Literature circles, or reading circles as some refer to them, are great activities that allow students to take charge of their own learning, with teacher guidance of course. Before beginning my literature circles I researched the concept to ensure my own understanding of what the activity is supposed to achieve. I found many wonderful resources including individual activities for each group member to complete during their reading. I let the students decide how they will assign the work among themselves, some choose to work on all assignments as a group; others choose to assign each group member the responsibility of completing one or more of the assignments on their own. Either way they’re in charge; it is totally up to them as to what grade they earn.

 When grading students’ in Literary circles I pay close attention to how the students work together, which ones are doing work, and if members are participating at all. In other words, observation is my primary method for grading. I must move around to check on students’ progress and get involved in groups’ discussions from time to time. The only objective grading that takes place is with the completed assignments. I base assignment grading on completeness, whether or not directions are followed, and if their work is thoughtfully developed and thought provoking.

There are two factors at play regarding my students’ interest in doing the work and earning a good grade. One is that they are in charge, they are empowered, something they have been striving for all of their pre-adult lives. They hate being told what to do, of course that is something they can’t avoid because of their age and inexperience, but if I can lend them a little power of their own, they are more willing do something good with it, and this I have seen.  Another is that the literature I provide relates to them. I have a collection of contemporary novels, mostly young adult novels that have characters like themselves that they get intensely involved with. I have never experienced reading of this level from any of my students, and its not because they don’t know how, it is because they are not interested in work that they cannot relate to. If they can’t relate to it, they have a hard time understanding it.

So far the results have been great. I believe my students will earn higher averages than they have earned all year. I’m kind of wondering what administrators will think when I turn in grades that are all A’s and B’s for this last nine-week period, but who cares, they earned it. I’m considering doing more of this next year with some of our regular literature; I’ll let everyone know how it turns out.  

A Podcasting Experience

We’ve been preaching technology in education for several years now and slowly integrating it into core subjects that have been taught the same for the better part of 200 years. Pencils, pens, paper, and textbooks are all so engrained into the classroom environment that it is hard to imagine a classroom without them. Not that I would propose to remove them any time soon, but we are now integrating a new item, the personal computer. In the old days computing was offered as an elective that only geeks and nerds took, but now computing technology is everywhere, in nearly every home, in every school, and coming closer to being in every classroom.

Technology is something that all of us teachers will have to embrace sooner or later, which means more training, more study, more intellectual development, and certainly a great deal of patients. Podcasting seems to be of the greatest interest to the profession of education, which is why I have been experimenting and decided to teach a unit on it this year. I’ve already provided a list of all the possible TEKS connections and was surprised to find out how much Podcasting fits into our cultures educational ethos.

Regardless of how far technology has come over the past 20 years, the fact that it is much more user friendly than it was in 1988, a teacher must prepare themselves for all the technical problems, level of student knowledge, and one’s own mistakes and misconceptions; as a teacher you must be ready to take on a learning experience of your own, ready to go in head-first and brace yourself for many challenges. It will be rough in the beginning, but by the time you’re through you’ll feel like your campuses new technology guru. This article is intended to help you prepare for taking the technological plunge. I hope it is helpful.     

Technical Issues

Even though I consider myself above average when it comes to technology I was nearly overwhelmed with the technical glitches I encountered during my Podcasting unit. The computers my students used were brand new Macs with top of the line creativity software. But as characteristic of any computer that is shared among many users, and is used as frequently as these, they did take on a sluggish attitude. During my instructional unit I got more than enough of exercise scuttling from student to student to help them unlock, reboot, or purge memory to get them working efficiently again.

There were other problems that I encountered that left me completely helpless, probably because of a virus or corrupted disk permissions. I was helpless because many of the programs I needed to correct some problems were inaccessible, for security reasons I’m sure. My only option was to shut the infected computers down and issue students different ones, hoping that they saved their work to their network folder or a thumb drive and not on the computer’s hard drive (it would then be unavailable to them).

Speaking of network folders, I had no idea that the folders even existed until one of my students pointed them out to me. At the moment I was desperately trying to teach everyone how to save their work over the network to my computer, which was a pretty involved task.  I became a willing student of my own student (something that no teacher should be ashamed to do) as she taught me how the folders worked. I was glad to know that there was a place where students could save their work and have it available to them on any computer that they log on to.

The network folder idea worked well for a about week, then randomly students began loosing their work. All files previously saved would disappear completely from their network folder, or not be recognized by the programs they were intended for. I finally broke down and purchased a 1GB thumb drive for students to transfer their work to and some students brought their own… problem solved, but I never found out what caused their files to disappear or become corrupted.

Student’s Prior knowledge
    
I expected a bit more technological understanding from my students that what I got. I have concluded that us Educators have taken for granted the fact that our students have been raised in the information age. Referring to our youth as “digital natives” does not mean they are computer experts, just that they perceive technology as the norm, like many of us perceived color televisions when we were young. The information age is theirs, and that can be a problem if we don’t guide them into it.

Many of our students are engaged in technology, but with little guidance. Because their minds are young they still have this great plasticity that we as teachers love to shape and mold. We understand that matter of plasticity will yield to the shape of the boundaries that have been put into place. In the case of technology, our young peoples’ minds freely yield to the shape of amusement; downloading music to iPods, emailing photos, playing video games, and building pages on Myspace is the extent of their computer knowledge. Although technology is part of our students’ everyday norm, we still must teach them how to use it productively. We need to teach them how to harness technological capability and use it toward progress and their personal success.

What I should have done
    
As they say, “hind sight is twenty/twenty.” The only way to truly develop a great instructional unit like this is to teach it and learn from the mistakes. My biggest mistake was in scheduling. I scheduled the unit for a four-week period without taking into consideration how TAKS testing would affect my seniors and our use of computers. During TAKS week several of my students were out for retesting, which automatically put a damper on the idea of group collaboration. Then I discovered that all available computer labs would be used for the whole week of regular testing. Needless to say, I did not react well to that piece of information.
   
Fortunately I have some very hard working students and they made the best out of the time they had left. They produced several very will written scripts, creative photography, theme music, and even a filmed skit from some very ambitious Podcasters.
        
Next time

Looking back I can clearly identify the changes I should make and the skills my students need to learn so they get better results from their Podcasting. I have already begun developing a sequential outline so that I teach the necessary prerequisite skills, efficiently schedule computer time, and prepare for technical difficulties that may arise. With confidence I can say that my next Podcasting experience will go great, and I can’t wait to share my students products on this server.   

Back to these Hallowed Halls

It's back to school once again. In service starts Monday Aug. 20th, but I have been making regular appearances all week long. I feel like it is good to try and absorb the place before before it fills with students and other teachers. I have prepared my room, planned my year, got an old MAC up and running, I am ready.

I'm looking forward to school this year. Last year was survival, it was my first year in the classroom. This year I feel like I have been battle hardened and stand a better chance of getting more things accomplished, shape minds more effectively. I'm anxious to to get my hands into the first gray matter that walks into my room.

It's hard to believe that last year is all a memory. I had a tough time, and so did many others. We lost nine teachers in my department; some were asked to leave, others left on their own. Overall we experienced a mass exodus from our campus, and are still short on new hires.

I wonder what we will do if there is not enough teachers. We won't be allowed by law to exceed the max number of students per class. We may have to take on an extra class to ensure that all balances out well. I was exhausted after five periods last year, I'm sure I could squeeze in another for this year.

A new procedure for us this year is centralized text book issuing. Over the years, as I am told, text book issuing by the teachers had become a daunting task. So many forms for the teacher and student to fill out, so many steps to take before charging a student for a lost book, so many books never being returned despite the efforts of recovery. This year books will be issued from one point, scanned in and out by bar code, and collected when a student withdraws. If any books are missing, letters home and envelopes with mailing lables will be computer generated and mailed out. Book charges to students will be computer generated and records and other transcripts will not be released until the fine is paid or the book returned. I'm so glad I do not have to mess with books this year. And I'm so glad that student accountability for the books has been streamlined. We should save a lot of tax payer dollars this way.

One piece of bad news thus far. Standardized test scores from last year have been released. Our school did very well in all areas except Math. We made progress from the year before, but not satisfactory to state standards. For that the press has labled us a "failing school."  Parents are angry, they want to remove their kids from our school, this may be good if it reduces class size. However, the press has put us in a bad light, which will make it harder for us to attract good talent for 07/08, and effect teacher and student morale in a negative way.

"Suck it up and drive on" as they always say. I'll do just that.  

 

     

Dazed and confused

• Can someone tell me how to access my private messages. I was in there just yesterday, but I can't remember how I got there.

Crisis Intervention

I participated in a very useful training program today. Nonviolent Crisis Intervention training, which was formerly reserved for SPED teachers, was open to all teachers this year. I would have taken it sooner had I known about it, but my campus administrators have a way of withholding more useful information from teachers. After speaking with one of the trainers today I learned that my administrators should have had me in the training within 30 days of an incident that I was involved in earlier in the year.

I suggest everyone take this type of training their earliest convenience, especially if working with a predominantly high risk student population.  The training covers many areas of self defense and how to gain a physical and psychological advantage over students with a potential for violent behavior. What I like best about the training is that they teach how to deescalate a situation before it ever turns violent. They also focus on safe, legal, and nonviolent restraint measures which would have helped me in my situation earlier in the year.

I was baffled by the fact that they do not offer this training to everyone, or even make it mandatory for all teachers. I truly believe that this should be taught in college, and maintained throughout a teacher's career. The way our district has it set up, a teacher becomes certified after two full days of training, and must practice twice monthly to maintain the skills and certification, but it is all voluntary. No one has to take the training unless you are a SPED teacher, and no one is required to maintain their certification throughout the year. If one chooses not to attend their by-weekly training, they just loose their certification. I can't believe that our district doesn't place more emphasis on NCIT.

Something I've Learned

Throughout the year I have been teaching high school seniors about English Literature. I like English Literature. I think that the evolution of our language and abstract thought is crucial to our understanding of contemporary arts and culture. But, it’s really hard to convince teenagers of this.

 

This was my first year teaching, and believe it or not, after five years of study, I hadn’t a clue as to what I should do. I didn’t know where to start. Fortunately, the department head had a thick binder full of materials that dated back over several years. I was told that the binder contained what I am to teach and how to teach it. I thought that this was a good thing, my work had been done by my predecessors, all I had to do was tweak it a little bit and I would be on my way to teaching.

 

The problem was that I could not get my students interested in the material. In my haste I found a few ways to modify the lessons and gain some interest, but not as much as I had hoped for. My greatest successes were when I used movies to show how ancient techniques are used in modern fiction. My students liked it, but I felt that they weren’t learning enough by watching movies.  Because I was sort of “teaching by the seat of my pants,” I continued along the same path and introduced other ideas little pieces at a time. In all actuality, I was like a scientist in a laboratory trying to figure out how my subjects would learn best.

 

My experimentation is by no means complete, but the results I have collected have inspired the idea for a new approach. I will share it with everyone although I’m sure many of my readers have thought of this before. I plan to use a comparative approach that focuses on modern world literature (film, poetry, and prose) inspired by elements and techniques developed by historic cultures. I will make the connections between modern and historic literature so students can grasp the importance, and see the influence that pieces like Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, Macbeth, etc., have on literature our students experience in their daily lives.

 

Part of this is a pretty common concept, but few people realize how historic English Literature influences the way we view our heroes, abstract perceptions, and values. Or, how modern writers and film directors use dramatic techniques established by the Greeks, and revived by western Europeans during the Renaissance. Then there are the more precise elements like metaphor, idiom, euphemism, paradox, etc., that students use daily, but have no idea as to what they are, or as to their origins.

 

Any way, I feel that if I focus more on their daily lives, and connect them with their earliest foundations, they will understand it and find it more interesting.  I remember learning about this concept in college, but could never make sense of it until now. Before I thought I was to take the curriculum and relate it to their everyday lives, but it is completely different to take their daily lives and relate that to the curriculum.    

Reflection

The year went by quickly despite all of my hardships. I went to graduation this past Saturday and it was great. Our district decided to let every one walk, even if they had not passed the TAKS test (standardized test). I have mixed feelings as to whether it was a good decision or not. On one hand I felt that there were several who walked, but did not earn the right as everyone else had. Then I thought about many of my students who excel in all of their classes, except Math or Science. I have students that score very well in ELA, History, and some in Science, but could not pass the Math portion. They've never been Math minded students. And, as everyone is familiar, there are those that never put forth an effort, a barely squeek by in there classes.

What the hey! It's summer now. I don't quite know what to do with all the free time. I have 24 days of professional development planned--I hate getting board. I've been off for almost a week now, I've worked on my website, my syllabus, and posters. I rebuilt my bicycle, watched movies and documentaries, read extensively, and played with my kids. It’s all great, but I'm not used to it. I prefer to make all of my time productive… else I feel I have wasted it.