Ye Olde Booke Summarie

The book that I read is called H.I.V.E (Higher Institute of Villainous Education) by Mark Walden. (pp309, ©2006, Aladdin paperbacks) It is has a recommended age of 10-14 years old. Its protagonist is a young genius named Otto. Otto has re-shaped his dilapidated orphanage into a livable home for himself, his fellow orphans and their kind but overwhelmed caretaker. Unfortunately, some of his methods are decidedly extra-legal. When his pocket empire is challenged, Otto deals with it in an explosively public manner. This brings him to the attention of H.I.V.E. Otto is abducted and taken to H.I.V.E. and instructed in Basic Villainy, Escape and Evasion, Evil Robots and Their Uses and Death Rays and Other Beams. Can Otto thrive here? Can he escape? Will he make friends?
I highly recommend this book for fans of the movies “Sky High” and “Mystery Men”. It would also appeal to anyone who enjoyed the “Wild Cards” superhero anthology or the “Watchmen” graphic novel. It’s not for all superhero fans but that group of superhero fans that wonder: “What would the world *really* be like with superheroes?”

General Classroom Shots

I like my classroom. It's very big. We have lots of room for fun activities.


This is a small part of all of the cool new toys that we've been getting for our classrooms.


These are my plants. I have a variegated spider plant (airplane) plant and a plant that I can't remember the name of but it's cool. (and hardy)


This is the short side of my classroom. Here are the set ups for a measurement lab with brand new equipment. If you look closely, you can see the screws at the base of the three small graduated cylinders that they used to deface the counter tops.



Here are my bulletin boards including the FRONT PAGE article on our rocket club.


Here are half of my desks. I've called it an "echelon" formation.

I feel so much better about all the chowder-headed stuff that happened today after looking at pictures of my classroom.......

More Highs and Lows

High: A generous handful of students radically improved their grades on this last test. I think that real world evaluations helped.

Low: A handful of students packed it in. They just quit. One went from a 34 to a 17 average.

High: Students really enjoyed the measurement lab today.

Low: A student broke a meterstick over another student. He wasn't trying to hurt him, just being a chowder-head.

Another Low: A student took a wood-screw and scratched obscenities into my lab counters. I didn't see them do it, but I know that some student did. The fact that it's directed at me is more than a little disturbing. I think that we will make it a group project to sand out the obscenities before that class is allowed back in the lab.

Christmas in November

We got our lab equipment today. It's almost $10K per classroom. It's totally awesome. There were six palettes of equipment. I'm so glad that we have it. It would have been really nice to have it in August.

Bullying

I was bullied in school. Not because I was little, but because I was big. (and poor) I was 6'2" in the 7th grade and anywhere from 4 to 15 guys regularly beat the snot out of me in 7th through 10th grade. Things have changed a lot since then. Boys now bully like girls do. Name calling, "getting in their head", stepping on shoelaces, unspecified complaints (Mr. XXXXXXXX whiiiinneee, can you move meeeeee, XXXXXXXX is being weird again), throwing tiny bits of things. It's stupid.

My own son has been the victim of this stuff. It seems like the smaller boys are the ones who like to partake in this pastime. They gang up on the bigger kids and keep at them like a band of yapping chihuahuas. The bigger kids aren't going to resort to that kind of infantile crap and when they are finally pushed to the limit, they explode violently. You can't condone or permit the violence. The victim winds up getting in trouble.

I'm working with the victim in my class to make sure that he comes to me as *soon* as the others do something unacceptable. Don't let the anger build to the point where there is an eruption. I'm going to be visiting the kid in ISS and having yet another "come to Jesus" talk with my class.

Gain and Loss

On Friday, I found out that one of my students who has made such marvelous progress in the six weeks that she has been at our school is being transferred to another foster family. That stinks on ice. I gave her a hug and told her that we were at the mercy of others in this instance. I gave her my card with my home and cell numbers on them. I'm going to make sure and write to her at her new school. This child needs to be shown how grown ups act when teenagers have problems. She's going to be in the system for a long time. I doubt either of her parents will leave incarceration before she graduates high school.

My second run-away of the year returned to school. She is so so bright and could really benefit from an education. I told her that an education was the ticket to doing what she wanted to do and that there were 3 billion dudes on the planet and she wasn't going to run out of time for dudes. She is going to do "home schooling" as soon as her court-ordered stint in ISS is over. *sigh*

One of my students was really struggling with Lewis Electron Dot Structure and really "got it" after I took 3 minutes to work with him. 3 minutes and he has the primary and secondary quantum numbers for an electron down! Woohoo!!!

Those moments are why you become a teacher.

1st quarter

One of my students begged me for a D today. She has a 34%. She *refused* to participate in a lab just two days ago. She just hasn't made the connection between the work and the grade. She insists that I'm just mean. *hunh*

A life or my school or my students

Does it have to be a choice? I took my kids to a birthday party for an hour and a half on Saturday and to a movie for just under two hours on Sunday. I needed it so badly. I haven't seen my friends in I don't know how long. I'm way behind in my obligations to my community groups. I am *completely* uninvolved with my own kids' schools. I knew that this program wouldn't be easy. I didn't know how hard it would be. I find myself yearning for some free time at the same time I beat myself up for every second that I'm "off-task". I also find myself resenting every strategy directed at elementary school. I was directed to spend two minutes with each student each day. That's all the time that I have all day!!! 6 classes * 50 minutes = 300 minutes
150 students * 2 minutes = 300 minutes
Did the textbook's author really think that one through?
Grrrr.

I don't get it. I just don't.

The other day I did a lesson where I just couldn't figure out how to get the information to them. I gave them a blank flowchart with a few prompts and we did classification of matter. I felt like the worst teacher ever. The students just sat there quietly and took notes.
"Who are these children and what have they done with my students?"

I've had two labs this week. One on fractional distillation and one on identification of substances through density. So many of the students *hated* them. What gives?

What teacher taught these kids to sit there and take notes? Who made them hate thinking? Why do they want to be spoonfed. It's SCIENCE. It's fun! I know that they all won't share my love of science but stinky things, shiny things, smoky things..... I just don't get it.

Classroom Diversity

The young man seated at the desk is paralyzingly shy. His IEP has *everything* checked. He definitely has *some* sort of learning disability, but he doesn't have trouble understanding science or expressing himself in terms of science. I'm his only gen ed teacher all day long. He scored a HIGH A on his last exam. I'm so tempted to give him an unmodified test. I won't, but I'm tempted. The girl with her back to the camera is an ESOL level 4 who has a serious attendance problem. She spends a lot of time in ISS and OSS. I'm not sure how taking truants out of the classroom is supposed to help. I really think that she has some serious body image issues. She is behind many of her peers in terms of physical development. That coupled with her behaviour in class makes me wonder if she doesn't spend her free time "trying harder".



The young man in the sweatshirt does not have a diagnosis, but has the worst case of ADHD that I've ever seen. His mouth is constantly in motion. It's not just a case of him being a verbal learner, he just cannot be quiet. We will goe through a rubber ball, skoosh ball, plastic slinky, rubber band, and a bendy pencil in one class. He has a twin who is dominant, popular and athletic. The girl kneeling to the left him is in constant need of attention. She will disrupt class at the slightest (or no) provocation. Her parents recently sent her to live with her Aunt until she brings her GPA up to at least a 1.0. She cares far more about social interactions with her peers than her schoolwork. (at least until 3 days ago)



These pictures were taken during a fractional distillation lab at school. The gentleman sitting on the desk is an ESOL and Spec Ed student. He has lots of challenges to his learning. Yet, he works very hard at making the most of his time in the classroom. He asks for help. He does extra work. He is a pleasure to have in the classroom. I think that his biggest struggle is the peer pressure to not participate in class to the extent that he does. Kids that try to do good work in school are pressured for being "not Mexican enough".


In order to include all of my students, I constantly self-monitor my language. I look for anything that might be racist, sexist or otherise biased. It it starts as a matter of trust between myself and the students. If I say something that makes them think that I have already judged them because of some group that they belong to or uniqueness that they have, I may never win back their respect and trust. My students that have trouble sitting still or doing mundane tasks are on 10 minute "check ins". Class goes a lot more smoothly if I ask them a question, have them perform a task, or anything every ten minutes. I try not to be too obvious about it. Right now, I'm having the biggest trouble providing scaffolding to my most disabled learners and providing challenges to my most gifted (and advanced).

They don't even understand that it's cheating....

We've given them so much group work for so long that they just give me dumb looks when I get on to them for copying homework. I find that I have to be very specific that I want *their* work and their work only on certain quizzes and assignments. I had assigned a crossword puzzle for a fun vocab activity for my Physical Science students. I was standing right over a kid a he copied his neighbor's work. He looked at me and said "WHAT?!?" I love group work, but I need to find a way to teach the difference between group and individual work.

Augh!

Friday was homecoming. I came home and finished my Journal Article review for Diverse Learners. Then I drove back to Rogers to hang out with my students at the game. Then the Team America Rocketry Challenge club cleaned up the stadium after the game. Then I chaperoned the homecoming dance until 1am. Saturday was my father-in-law's birthday. After we got back from the birthday party in Harrison, I drove out to Hobbs state park for the Astronomy stargazing. I got up today and got my papers graded and entered. Hooray. I go to upload my assignments and take my quiz and the website at uamont is DOWN! Augh! I need to do stuff, find out stuff and get my information to upload stuff. I've been trying since this afternoon. I didn't see any notices about an outage. I'll keep trying. Man, how frustrating.

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Kill the Fatted Calf!

What was lost is returned! My missing student showed up in class today. He was tardy. I hugged him, told him how glad I was to see him and gave him a tardy slip. I told him not to miss my class and that I needed him there every minute. I took him out in the hall and we got in touch with his special ed teacher and the counselor's office who are getting him services.

There is no way that he will be ready for the test on Thursday. Oh well, I think he's got more trouble than school. Maybe 5th hour physical science can be a safe place for one hour a day.

Also, my two most severely disabled students make me wonder if I'm providing adequate scaffolding. We'll see soon.
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In the beginning.

Call me Ishmael
It was the best of times; it was the worst of times
Gregor Samsa awoke one morning to find himself transformed into a giant bug.
Two households both alike in dignity
It is a truth universally acknowledged
It was a dark and stormy night

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