Stuck in the Middle

One thing that I've noticed as a teacher is that most parents don't exactly see eye to eye when it comes to their child's education. It seems that oftentimes one of the parents is a little more squishy about things while the other one is demanding results. You've got the parent who believes the cherub when she says she's done all her work (and doesn't bother to check) and then you've got the other parent who's demanding to see everything, checking the agenda, and is signing in to PowerSchool on an daily basis.

When they're living together - and communicating - everything usually works itself out.

However, when they aren't living together - and aren't communicating - it can be a nightmare.

This year, it seems, we have more parents who need parenting classes and family counseling than I've ever seen before. These people are not agreeing on how to raise their child and are doing their darndest to get us in the middle.

Two sets of parents come to mind - Cool Dude's parents, and Spoiled Princess's parents.

Cool Dude has one overriding goal in life and that is to be the hippest, coolest, hottest dude in the seventh grade. This kid has the hottest clothes, the trendiest hair cut, he is so cool he can freeze a six-pack of Diet Coke. He is also one of the laziest kids I've ever seen - he's absolutely perfectly capable of passing seventh grade, should he get over himself long enough to turn in work.

Cool Dude lives during the week with Cool Dad. Cool Dad does not really stress, as far as we can tell, academics. No one checks Cool Dude's agenda, no one checks to see if he's done his work, no one is harping on him to study for his tests (even though Cool Dad and Cool Mom are both getting our weekly emails and both have access to PowerSchool.) As far as I can tell Cool Dude and Cool Dad are just hanging out and chillin' all week long together. On the weekend Cool Dude goes and lives with Mom and it really hits the fan. She gets on to PowerSchool, checks his grades, sees all the missing assignments and fires off email after email to us about "What can we do to help him pass seventh grade?"

Cool Mom is a recent education graduate and has done some subbing recently for a special ed class. She has decided that Cool Dude must be special ed (after all, he's failing) and has demanded he be tested. Now keep in mind, Cool Dude has been tested - and he reads at a 12th grade level. He has Proficient and Advanced Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test Scores. He has, on multiple times, admitted to all of us (but obviously not to Cool Mom) that he's just lazy and he can do the work if he feels like it. However, we are having to jump through the hoops with progress monitoring, and data collection just to make sure all our ducks are in a row when we tell her that no, under the state and federal guidelines, your kid is not going to qualify for special ed. Last time we looked being cool and lazy was not a learning disability. (On a side note, when our special ed secretary called Cool Dad to invite him to a meeting, his comment was, "There's a problem at school?")

What I really want to tell Cool Mom is to get a change of custody so that she has Cool Dude during the week and can hammer him every night about his school work, and she can turn him over to Cool Dad and they can waste their weekends away together being, oh, cool.

We have never met Spoiled Princess Girl's mother. We have, however, met dad (many times) and Nana (although we're not sure how Nana is related, if she's a Great Aunt, a grandmother, a stranger down the block, no one has bothered to explain this to us.) Dad likes to drop in whenever he's in the mood, for impromptu meetings. Often times when we're in the middle of something like, say, teaching our classes.

The last meeting was interesting. Dad is harping on SPG about how she's not working hard enough (and waving a box of shoes at her that he's taken away and is returning to the store), Nana is saying he's too soft and She Wouldn't Have Bought Those Shoes as SPG Shouldn't Be Rewarded For What She's Supposed to Be Doing in The First Place, and we're sitting there watching the three of them squabble for what seems like hours with absolutely no result.

"Uhm, is there any way we could perhaps get SPG's mom in for a meeting?" we finally ask in the middle of the squabble.

"Oh, that woman, she won't come," Nana says. Nana crosses her arms and looks sour.

"She won't come," says Dad. "She says SPG is doing her hardest and that's all she's expected to do, and I know she can do better."

"And you know SPG is always gonna do what her mother says because it's the easy way out," says Nana.

We finally suggested perhaps SPG's Dad set up a meeting with the guidance counselor and see if SPG's mom could come and they could do some family counseling.

Which of course SPG's mom apparently refused to do.

Which leaves us...nowhere....

Are We There Yet?

I worked with a delightful lady Up North who once described the last few weeks of school as one very long car ride with a bunch of kids. "They all get along pretty good at the beginning of the trip, but by the time you get to your destination, they're all sick and tired of each other and are fussing and squabbling in the back seat."

She's right. And I wish I could reach into the back seat and slap some sense into them all.

We finished our Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests last week, so that's no longer hanging on the horizon like a vulture waiting for some road kill. Although we all sort of feel like road kill at this point in time. We are having our reward party tomorrow (lucky me, I'm getting to work the pizza booth), which should be fun for the kids and tolerable for the adults. We get to wear jeans (always a happy day), and basically just shovel food and games at the kids while they run crazy and spend their reward tickets on things like cotton candy, door prizes, and hair painting.

Personally, I love the idea of getting them all hyped up on sugar, loading them on the buses and sending them home.

However, we still have five weeks of school. I am still assigning work. I am still taking grades. And some of these kids still need to bust their tails in order to pass. Yet, for some reason, some of them decided earlier this week that bringing paper, pencil, their binder, agenda or book was just Too Much Work, and they began to show up to class with nothing. They'd sit there empty handed and just look at us as if they expected us to entertain them by pulling rabbits out of a hat or something.

So, we entertained those that brought their materials to class by watching those that didn't clean out their lockers and lose locker privileges for a few days. (It worked, they now are showing up, for the most part, prepared.)

And if that isn't enough, the kids are all getting really annoyed and fussy with each other. It's spring so it must be Fight Season. Lovely. Hall duty is never as much fun as it is this time of year. This week alone we had a fight in the 8th grade hall, another in PE, another at lunch, and a few down in the sixth grade. And those are just the ones that I know about.

So the question is....are we there yet? And will we make it there in one piece?

My Calculator Rant, or My Kids Can't Do Math Without One

Next week we take our Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests. Oh yipee.

Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I have taught like madwomen this year and managed, despite nearly twice as many standards as last year and those seven snow days, to actually get everything done by the time the VBDGMT showed up. We've spent the past two weeks reviewing like mad, but since our review tends to be something like a cross between a game show and a relay race, it's been fun for the kids and exhausting for us. We're pretty confident they have a fairly good grasp (as far as seventh graders with the puberty brain freeze can grasp) of most of the basic science concepts.

However, the math is going to kill us.

Part of our new standards this year include Newton's Laws of Motion and simple machines, and fun little things like acceleration, velocity, work, force and all that wonderful little physical science stuff which I find really cool. However, there's a lot of math and calculations involved, such as figuring out that work equals force times distance, and power is work divided by time, and momentum is mass times velocity. (Are your eyes glazed over yet?)

We're talking simple math here - multiplying and dividing. That's it. However, we began to notice on our quizzes, our tests, and our Benchmarks that our kids can't do math without a calculator. They can punch in numbers and solve math problems until the cows come home, but ask them to do math with a pencil and paper (and their brain) and they go into shut down mode. Heck, they're not even sure how to set up a math problem without a calculator. They would read a question, say, Power = work/time, and they'd write it out and then MULTIPLY IT. Not just a handful of kids, but huge numbers of kids. Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I were shocked...and promptly ran to our math teachers.

"Do you mean to tell me," I asked Mr. Math, "that without a calculator, these kids can't do math?"

"Pretty much," he said. "Welcome to my world. They don't know their multiplication tables by heart, and they depend on a calculator for everything. They may have learned their multiplication tables in fourth grade, but then they stuck a calculator in their hands and they promptly forgot everything. And we're encouraged to have them use calculators."

Oh good gracious. They don't even remember that a line between two numbers means to divide.

Math is one of those skills that you need to use to keep up with. When I was waitressing during my first round of college, I could add huge columns of numbers in my head and calculate a tip with incredible accuracy. I used math all the time and was darn good at it. Even today, I do a lot of math in my head and I was not - WAS NOT - a strong math student. (Algebra and I were not friends - it wasn't until I discovered physics that it finally clicked. Go figure.)

So, we have the kids learn their multiplication tables, and then give them a calculator. How stupid is that?

About as stupid as the State Department of Education's Decree that No Calculators Will be Allowed on Any Test Except for Math. Period.

We tried, when this first became apparent to us earlier in the year, to see if we could get the Special Ed kids that have "use of calculator" written into their IEP's permission to use calculators. Not only was the answer NO, it was a Big Fat NO.

I have kids who, quite honestly, cannot tell you how many times 3 goes into 24, who need calculators as a life skill because 2 times 6 is a challenge. These kids will be forced, along with all my other kids, to do math problems on the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Science Test, without a calculator. Even though they use calculators every freaking day in math class. And this year, about 20% of that test will be math. (I do have a few good special ed parents who are annoyed at this and asked me what to do - I suggested that as parents the state may listen to them a bit more than they listen to us teachers. Perhaps if they complained loud and long, we'd see a change.)

When we did our datachat for our last Benchmark, the kids did really well. Except for the standards that were math-based. They, bluntly, sucked. Badly. Why? They lack the basic math skills to do basic problems. And it's not just my kids, but apparently it's an issue across the entire district. And I'd guess, across the state, and most likely the country.

So, when Mrs. Eagle and I went and judged the science fair at the local elementary school a few months ago, and we found out that they'd spent some grant money buying calculators for their 2nd and 3rd graders, we pretty much told them to send them back and get a refund. They were appalled when we told them the issues that we were having with the lack of basic math skills. Again, if you don't use a skill, like doing math with a pencil, paper and your brain, you aren't going to be good at it.

Which is why our team remediation class has been doing multiplication practice, just like they did in fourth grade, several times a week (and grading those is frightening, they're so awful.) Hopefully, this practice will help a few of them.

However, I'm still incensed, that my kids are going to be, in a way, penalized because they don't have the ability to do math without a calculator. And at the same time, we stick a calculator in their hands and encourage them to use it. It makes no sense to me that they can use one for the math part of the test, but not the science part which also has math.

The politics of testing just irritates the bloody hell out of me.

Oh Yeah, I Am Alive

Sorry for the lapse in posting for a while. Didn't mean to run out on ya'll like that.

First we had our guest post April Fool's thing going, thanks to Mr. Teacher. (That Mr. Teacher, he's so silly!)

And then hubby and I went out of town for a weekend to do some Civil War battlefield touring in Georgia before spring completely sprung (you can't see earthworks much past late April due to the plant life!)

And of course Hubby's computer died and he's been using mine until we got a new one and got it set up.

So, I've been out of pocket for a bit.

And, what with dealing with the final review before our Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test next week, it's been a bit crazy.

And of course, there's always Nurse Groupie.

If this kid spent the energy she currently uses scheming for ways to visit the nurse or call home, on her school work, she'd be on the honor roll.

She survived one day without a visit to the nurse or a call to home after we implemented the plan where Mrs. Sparrow, our Assistant Principal, had to approve any such visits or calls home.

The second day she asked each of us to go to the nurse to get "personal girl things", which didn't work because we simply told her to sit down and Mrs. Sparrow would come deal with her. Which she did.

The next day she simply took herself to the nurse between classes to get her "personal girl things," and while she was there to get a baby aspirin (for who knows what.) The nurse, who usually doesn't do anything without a form filled out by a teacher, asked who gave her permission to be there, and she informed the nurse that Mr. Math did, and since she had a hallpass lanyard around her neck, the Nurse went ahead and took care of her. Only problem was she didn't ask permission, and the hallpass lanyard was really her house key on a similar colored lanyard.

Mr. Math was livid, Mrs. Sparrow even more so, and NG ended up in in-school suspension for a day. Mrs. Sparrow also called mom and informed her that it was not the school (or taxpayer's) responsibility to provide her with "personal girl things". Apparently Nurse Groupie's reasoning is that her purse is too little to carry such things so she simply wants to get them from the nurse (every class period, or every 47 minutes or so).

So today we get an email from Mom. Nurse Groupie has contacts. She also has drops with her, but mom says she's not to leave class to put the drops in. She also has some more allergies (and a new doctor appointment to get different meds) but she has a little tube of Vicks that she can rub on her nose as she's not to leave class. However, if a contact falls out, we should send her to the nurse to help her put it in as Mom doesn't want the contact lost. In other words, unless a contact comes out, She Is Not To Leave Class According to Mom.

Guess who's popping her contacts out and then wanting to go to the nurse/bathroom to put them back in every period?

Guess who now has to go to Guidance when her contact "falls" out and has to put them in under adult supervision and is then escorted promptly to class?

Yup, Nurse Groupie.

I wish, while Mom was at the doctor figuring out new allergy meds, she'd get the kid a psych eval to try to figure out this obsession with getting out of class to see the nurse, or to call home and go home. It's not like it's any particular class (it's all of them, even electives), or a kid bothering her, or a teacher she doesn't like, or whatever. Part of me is thinking she doesn't want to grow up and simply wants her mother to baby her and to let her stay home and watch television and do nothing. I don't know.

But man, she's wearing on our last nerve.

Use a Dartboard to Review Geometry and Probability

Recently, I was inspired to turn Jenga into a real life math lesson after seeing what people were doing to it at one of my local haunts. So it should come as no surprise that I found another practial mathematical application using another popular game there: playing darts.

A dartboard is a beautiful and dense geometric figure, where finding the area of of each part would involve multiple steps beyond finding the area of a circle. That's great practice for standardized tests where students are challenged to do the same thing with much simpler figures. Then, of course, there's the probability aspect of actually playing the game--and you know how much I love probability games.

The activity I designed has two parts: geometry and probability. In order to find the theoretical probability of hitting different parts of the board, you need to know the area that you're aiming for out of the total area of the board. Finding the chances of hitting a certain region of a larger figure is another typical standardized test question, but again I think it's much more challenging than anything test authors might include.

So in Part I, students find the area of the entire board, the inner and outer rings, the inner and whole bullseye, and of each numbered section of the board. I had them leave their answers in terms of pi, because when they go on to probability, it will cancel out of their fractions. I also told students to put all of their answers as fractions or mixed numbers, because in this case it is better conceptually than resorting to decimals.

In Part II, things start out relatively easy, with students finding the probability of hitting particular parts of the board with any given throw. Then, the questions move into the chances of hitting one of several parts in a given throw--such as nailing 20-15 or the bullseye in the traditional game of cricket. The final few questions deal with compound probability, such as hitting the same numbered section on three consecutive throws.

This is a challenging but not impossible assignment, and I think the real life connection of this idea will help engage students in the work. It should be appropriate for a well-prepared Algebra I class, but certainly for Algebra II, Geometry and beyond. I also think math geeks would have fun playing around with this as well--I certainly did!

If you want another hook to get your students to take on the challenge, bring in an electronic or velcro dartboard as a reward for hard work afterward. Actually, now that I think about it, I'd love to have a dartboard in class at all times, and allow students to play if they could find the probability of hitting whatever they were aiming for before throwing!

Dartboard Geometry & Probability (PDF)

You can find more ideas like this in Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition and the inspiration to create your own in my upcoming book, Teaching is Not a Four Letter Word: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Job.
Molly, the Classroom Manager!

In Case The Wild Animals Attack...

The Nurse Groupie strikes again.

For those of you who don't remember (or would like to forget like I would), the Nurse Groupie is a student who wants to see the nurse every single period of the day for one thing or another. Excessive doesn't begin to describe her desire to visit the nurse. We've had two parent meetings about it - Mom requested the second one because NG is failing several classes (including mine) because she's too busy scheming for a way to get out of class or her mom has picked her up and taken her home. I have her the last period of the day and she's absent from my class on average of at least once a week. (Oh yeah, and Mom emails me before spring break and asks if I would send some extra credit worksheets home with NG so she could do those since she's failing my class. Only problem with that, as I explained to Mom, is I don't have or offer any extra credit worksheets. Oh, says Mom.)

So, after the last meeting, which included our Assistant Principal Mrs. Sparrow, Mom emails Mrs. Language (who is NG's homeroom teacher) and informs her that she agrees with us, her daughter needs to stay in class and unless she's missing a limb or throwing up (and I wouldn't put it past this one to stick her finger down her throat to do so), we do not have to let her go to the nurse or call mom. Mom would stand behind our judgment.

Except now NG is coming up with new strategies to get Mom's attention.

Yesterday she comes in, jokes around and visits with her friends in her homeroom, and then informs Mrs. Language that she needs to see the nurse as she "doesn't feel safe."

Mrs. Language pulls her outside in the hall to find out what she means by this and NG can't explain. She just doesn't feel safe. Mrs. Language sends her to see Mrs. Sparrow. Mrs. Sparrow can't get anything out of her either so calls Mom. Mom leaves work, drives to school, and parks herself in Mrs. Sparrow's office for half and hour to talk to her child. What they talked about, we have no idea. NG went back to class and Mom went back to work.

Today during planning I head up to the front office to drop off some ISS paperwork, and who should I see at the phone calling home? You got it! Nurse Groupie! So now she's getting her elective teachers (that change every quarter) to let her call home or go to the nurse since her mean core teachers are on to her game. I find out who her elective teachers are, give them a head's up and then let Mrs. Sparrow know what's going on.

Apparently she had allergies and needed to go home.

Now, let me talk a bit about allergies. I've had them my whole life. I know allergies. We're talking years and years of allergy shots, medication, you name it. And I never, ever, missed a day or work or a day of school due to allergies even when I felt like death warmed over. And this kid has never sneezed, sniffled, or so much as coughed in my presence, and she certainly doesn't have the watery red eyes that most of my allergy kids (and myself) have on those special spring and fall days then the allergens are flying. So honestly, I'm not buying the allergy story AT ALL.

Anyhow, Mrs. Sparrow is now on a mission. This kid is staying in class. So she intercepted Mom (who picked her up so the kid missed a whole day of school, a whole day of review for our VERY BIG DEAL GOVERNMENT MANDATED TEST WHICH IS IN TWO WEEKS, and hell no, I'm not giving her any freaking extra credit (which doesn't exist anyway) and I'm sorry your kid is failing but maybe if she stayed in school she'd actually pass, but I digress.) and laid it on the line for both Mom and Nurse Groupie. Mom is missing work dealing with Nurse Groupie's desire to leave school and Nurse Groupie is missing class.

Mom supposedly agreed (we'll see). The new policy basically takes us out of the decision making loop. Nurse Groupie is not to leave the room. If she needs to call home or see the nurse we are to call Mrs. Sparrow. Mrs. Sparrow will come and make a determination if she is sufficiently sick enough to see the nurse or call home. End of story.

We hope.

Hanging Out With Molly

So my mom, who hates birds (don't ask), sends me an email a few days ago with a link to an article in a San Diego newspaper about a couple with an owl box in their yard. The kick is they actually have cameras in the owl box and you can watch Molly (the female owl) and her eggs as they hatch and she raises her family, while her mate McGee, supplies her with yummy little rodents to chomp on.

Oh yeah, I didn't know what an owl box was either...they're fairly popular out where my mom lives (rural San Diego county) because if you have a family of barn owls in your yard or neighborhood, chances are the rodent population will get significantly smaller. So, people put these wooden boxes on very tall poles and hope that a family of owls takes up residence.

Anyhow, in between working on school stuff, and taxes, and all sorts of things, I've been tuning in to watch the drama unfold here.

(Be careful. This is addicting.)

There's something of the weird science nerd in me that finds it fascinating to watch an owl tear apart a rodent and feed her owlets.

But the best part is listening to the bird sounds in the background. Talk about relaxing!

Spring Break!

Well, I'm not at the beach.

I'm not skiing.

I'm not on a cruise.

I've actually been - gasp! - at school working. Because, as soon as we get back, the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests On Which EVERY FREAKING THING IS BASED will be on the horizon and we need to start our two week review.

And, since over half our our standards changed this year (thank you, oh dear State Department of Education), we've pretty much had to rebuild our entire review program.

So Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I have been creating, copying, and generally getting all our ducks in a row so we can hit the ground running on Monday. Honestly, there's just too much to do during our planning periods, but once it's done, next year should be a lot easier. I hope.

At least the weather has been less than ideal. Begin stuck in a building during a gorgeous spring day would just not be a good thing.

And for the record, for all those nitwits (the folks that write nasty letters to the editor and comment on-line) who seem to think that teachers do no work outside of official school hours....be thankful you can read. A teacher saw to that.

So there.

Playing With New Toys

As a science teacher, I have a pretty strange combination of things in my room. Marbles, salt, corn starch, spring scales, model cars, bowling balls, and vinegar are just a few things that come to mind. All of these things, in way way or another, can be used to teach and demonstrate a concept. Suffice it to say, that if someone in the building needs something out of the ordinary, they tend to ask the science teachers. Chances are if you need, say, a hot plate, we'll have one (I have two.)

This year, with our new standards, we have had a bit of a void when it came to cool fun things to use with some of our new units. We didn't have much for genetics (although we had a good lab on how to make a model of DNA with pasta) and we had nothing at all for forces and motion. (This was before the donation of the bowling balls last week). We had dreams, of course, especially after going to the NSTA conference a few years ago.

We wanted the Crazy Traits. And that was just the beginning of the wish list.

Unfortunately, The School didn't have the money, so we'd been scrapping together a few dollars here and there through fundraisers at the Fall Festival and the like.

And then we got our new Assistant Principal, and former science teacher, Mrs. Sparrow who has the uncanny ability to find funding for things. A few months ago she sent out an email stating she had some funds to use for teaching materials and if you wanted anything, to let her know. So, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I decided to shoot for the moon and ask for a class set of the Crazy Traits.

And we figured, as usual, we wouldn't get it.

Not only did we get a class set, we got three! So now each of us has a complete classroom set of these things and we can play with them and teach genetics and just have a great time.

Amazing. Absolutely amazing.

And then she found us the super slinky.

We had actually pulled her in to ask for her input on our waves unit. It was a 6th grade unit last year (which she taught) and since we'd never taught that subject, we wanted a little bit of help. She gave us some great ideas (and lots of goodies such as plastic slinkys and pipe cleaners to make waves with), and then she mentioned this really cool super slinky her old school had that they used to show properties of waves.

Well, of course, we wanted one of those.

And again, we ended up with three.

They arrived on Tuesday morning, the day we were finishing up the unit and reviewing for the test. I had just enough time in each class period to lay this monster out on the floor and with some student assistance, create some wonderful longitudinal waves.

The kids were entranced. They loved it. They want to get it out every day and play with it and make compressions and rarefactions and just watch the waves jiggle back and forth.

Amazing how something so simple can be so fun.

Sorry to Run Out on You, but....

There's a really nasty stomach flu thing going around school the past few weeks which I why I haven't really posted much.

Because, you see, I ended up getting it.

Blech.

Wednesday I had a headache. No big deal because I tend get headaches which is one reason I go to a chiropractor every month. In fact, I went on Tuesday, and simply thought it was the result of my doctor having to really give my neck a good tweaking. Wednesday night and Thursday morning we had a series of thunderstorms rumble through, so I didn't sleep much. So Thursday I figured I was just tired and cranky from the headache and the storm.

Then I brought back my 5th period kids from lunch and everything went bad really, really fast. I had just finished going over their homework when I got really dizzy and extremely hot and needed to get out of that room before something really ugly happened.

Rule Number 73 of Teaching Middle Schoolers: Do not barf in front of your students.

I got Mrs. Social Studies to watch my class, made it to guidance and asked Guidance Goddess if she could find someone to watch my classes the rest of the day. It was obvious I wasn't going to be able to teach. I must have looked really green because Guidance Diva and Guidance Goddess wanted to drive me home. I figured I could make it home and after laying my head down on a table for a while and a long visit to the rest room, I did just that.

And then spent the next 48 hours sicker than the proverbial dog. Thank goodness I had an easy day planned for Friday (at least easy for a sub) and Mrs. Eagle was able to help the sub with any problems. No nasty notes about how horrid my kids had been - however, it helped that many of my trouble makers are currently in ISS.

Blech. No fun. No fun at all.

Oh The Aches and Pains!

Every year we have a couple of kids who qualify for that unique title of "Nurse Groupie". These kids will find a reason, no matter how big or small, to spend some time with the school nurse.

Nurse Groupies are not that unusual in middle school, although they tend to really flourish in elementary school with its corresponding numbers of boo-boos, infectious diseases, and just overall germiness. Elementary kids tend to actually need a school nurse more. Middle school students tend to become nurse groupies as a way of Getting Out of Class.

However, this year we have a student who quite truly tops them all when it comes to a Nurse Groupie. This kid doesn't just want to see the nurse once a day (which is pretty excessive), she wants to see the nurse Every Freaking Period of The School Day.

We noticed this the first week or so of school and quickly put a plan in place to keep track of her nurse visits in her agenda. Every other student gets a "go see the nurse form" filled out and off they go - Nurse Groupie has to have her agenda checked as well so we can see if she's already been that day. Mrs. Language has become, poor thing, an email pen pal with Nurse Groupie's Mom, and we had approval from her to limit the visits to once a day.

I do have Nurse Groupie the last period of the day, so by the time she lands in my room, she's already used up her visit. But there are times she'll ask to go, and it will run like this:

"Mrs. B, I need to see the nurse," she'll whisper (I can barely hear this kid talk even on a good day).

"Well, what for?" I'll ask as we have to put a description on the nurse form.

"I have a headache," or "My side hurts," or my favorite, "I need an aspirin for my allergies."

At the last one, I tend to blink at the kid and inform her that I too, suffer from allergies, and I've never needed an aspirin for them.

In any case, we've had two parent meetings with Mom who, on one hand, wants the kid in class instead of at the nurse because she's failing. (Big surprise, she misses instruction and then is absent a lot and never makes up anything.) On the other hand, she feeds into this constant litany of aches and pains and headaches and allergies and blurry vision and stuffy noses and.....

The last parent meeting involved the nurse, an administrator, and Nurse Groupie along with Mom. We basically said that she wasn't going to be able to go see the nurse unless it was a Dire Emergency because she was, again, failing and she needed to be in class. The Nurse backed us up and said the visits were, "just a bit unnecessary." Mom said she wasn't to go to the nurse again unless it was an emergency. Nurse Groupie blinked and nodded her head.

The next day Nurse Groupie said her side hurt. The day after it was blurry vision. The day after that it was a backache.

At this point I can't wait to see how she handles her 40's when every bit of your body can ache on a bad day.

In any case, Mrs. Language emailed her best Pen Pal, Nurse Groupie's Mom and informed her that NG apparently didn't get it.

The response...surprised us. It started off with an excuse about the blurry eyes (eye drops). She then, amazingly, grew a backbone and said that unless NG was on the floor throwing up, bleeding, or generally on death's door, she was not to leave the classroom to see the nurse. And mom, bless her heart, was giving us the latitude to make our own judgments as to whether she needed to see the nurse or not.

You can bet we printed that email out and put it in her folder as well as forwarded it to the Nurse and The Principal.

An interestingly enough...two days without requesting to see the nurse. Maybe she'll survive after all.

Update 3/9/10...Well, I was wrong. She requested to go three times today. Mom emailed and said she had a headache this morning and a stuffy nose. Of course, her excuse for me was she needed "girl products". Nothing about headache, stuffy nose, the plague...Oh good gracious.

Getting Twitchy

We survived our first full week with the Snowbird schedule, where we added on 30 minutes to each day to make up for all the days we missed due to the Winter From Hell. And just in case you doubt me, local stats point to this being the coldest winter in 30 years (I believe it). Since December we have had only 4 days near our normal temperatures. We are all sick and tired of being cold, dealing with rotten weather, and just winter in general.

Of course spring means massive amounts of yard work, tornadoes, and twitchy kids.

However, they're already twitchy, so I'm not so sure how much of it is actually spring coming.

The Guidance Diva informed me the other day that we've suspended more kids this week than she has ever remembered suspending. Is it that they now have 30 extra minutes to get in trouble? Doubtful. Those 30 minutes really go by fast and the kids don't seem to really mind it much. The only time I really notice the day being longer is that I'm used to wrapping up things after school for a bit and then going to the gym around three. Now I look at the clock and it's already four!

I once had a friend who said the last few weeks of school were like a long cross-country road trip with a bunch of kids. They may start out liking each other but by the end of the trip they are sick of each other and ready to go at it.

We're on a hell of a trip, apparently.

Unfortunately, Mrs. Reading got a phone call from her day care yesterday informing her that her little one was sick and "would you please come get him?" So, she typed up some fast lesson plans and went to get a sub to take the half day.

Except there were no subs available anywhere.

(Come on, the weather is decent, it's Friday, and who in their right mind would want to do an afternoon sub gig with Seventh graders?)

So, the only option was to divide her classes up and give the three of us left about ten kids each to add to our own classes.

Which meant, in some cases, kids sitting on the floor doing their work. I only ran out of chairs for one period, which is good. However, just having about ten more kids changes the complete dynamic of the class. It's Friday, they're getting worked up about the weekend, and then all of a sudden there's an influx of other kids for whom it's also Friday and there's nothing to keep them busy but seatwork which they finish in ten minutes (yeah, and you can just guess the quality of the work) and then they want to spend the rest of the time talking to my kids.

The last three periods of the day were just annoying beyond belief.

I sometimes wonder if Friday night happy hours were invented for middle school teachers to regroup?

Snow Bird Period

Since we have had so many snow days this year (we've been out for seven days, only have three built into the schedule, so we have to make up four), the district came up with a plan to add 30 minutes to the school day to help make up the time, before we have to take the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Tests this spring. After all, there really isn't much point in adding days at the end of the year when the kids have checked out mentally and there's nothing really at stake. The District, along with a parent focus group, also didn't want to take away spring break (although we did lose Good Friday) because so many people make plans and purchase plane tickets, and that would have caused more problems than it solved.

One thing that The District did was gave each school the leeway to decide what to do with these extra thirty minutes. We had a team leader meeting a few weeks ago and the fur flew as we tossed around ideas. There was one camp that wanted to add in the extra 30 minutes as a class period so we could actually teach a lesson, do an activity, and actually cover some content we haven't had a chance to get to yet. The other camp worried that the kids would get confused, wouldn't know where to go, would have problems in the hallway and just wanted to add the time onto the end of each period.

The seventh grade teachers were firmly in the extra period camp. The sixth grade teachers were firmly in the extra minutes camp. The eighth grade teachers didn't care anymore. (I know the feeling. I had those same kids last year). The Administration took what we gave them and came up with the extra period plan (with much whining and complaining from people that didn't like the idea of coming up with another lesson for their 30 minute block). Truth be told, yeah, it would be easier to just tack on the extra time, but if the goal is to actually teach these kids, the extra period is the way to go.

So today was the first day of the Snowbird Schedule. The idea is that the first day the kids will spend the 30 minute Snowbird Period with their 1st period teacher, the next day it would be their 2nd period teacher, the third day, their 3rd period teacher, and so forth. The best thing about the whole schedule was the fact that The Principal didn't want us just twiddling our thumbs during the 30 minute block when we didn't have a class (for example, seventh grade plans during 1st and 2nd periods, so today we didn't have kids coming to us - they were going to their elective classes). We were asked to pull kids - with the full support of the elective teachers - for remediation, extra help, and what not.

This worked out great! I pulled six kids who owed me a required writing assignment, plus a lot of missing work, and was able to work with them in small groups, help them get their writing done (and turned in), and generally spend some time going over what we're working on. It was wonderful! The kids worked, they didn't complain, they got work done. Those 30 minutes flew by.

The rest of the day was pretty busy and it didn't seem to be that much longer than our regular schedule. The one complaint the kids had was that our lunch is a bit later and they're used to eating at a specific time. They were getting pretty hungry by the time lunch came by - then again, I have kids that are ready to chew on the furniture by second period anyway.

The really amazing thing? My sixth period (my very tiny class of 13) was talking about the snowbird period and mentioned how they kind of liked it. This isn't a very high class academically so most of these kids had been pulled and had spent their snowbird period with one of their core teachers doing the small group instruction thing. They all pretty much commented that they really liked the fact that they got this extra help. In fact, one of them asked if he could come to my class for extra help tomorrow. I gladly added him to the list.

So far, so good...

Losing Curiosity

This afternoon Mrs. Eagle and I headed over to one of our feeder elementary schools and judged their science fair. We've done this the past few years and it's always quite a bit of fun. This year they were horribly short of judges as the snow days we've had managed to knock everyone's schedule out of wack and many of the schools ended up scheduling their fairs on the same day. The result was that there were only three of us judging the entire fair this year, Mrs. Eagle, myself, and a retired science teacher who works at the local university as a student teacher mentor.

We walked into the cafeteria and were confronted by the sea of science fair boards. I don't even want to estimate how many projects there were, but there were a lot! Since we had three grades to judge, each of us took a grade. Mrs. University took the 3rd grade, I took 4th, and Mrs. Eagle took 5th.

The quality of science fair projects has definitely improved over the years. I didn't see a single project on "what paper towels are the best", or "what diapers absorb the best", (although I saw way too many, "which chewing gum brand has flavor that lasts the longest). There were some interesting questions such as "Can I make a magnet to help pick up my mom's silverware?", or "Who has the most bacteria in their mouth, my dog, my cat or me?", and "What affect does erosion have on our local river?." It took quite a while to work my way through the fourth grade projects, but I finally pulled out eight, which were all pretty good.

We decided that we'd would all work together to narrow down our first round of selections, and that worked out pretty well. We discussed and picked out my top four and ranked them from first place to honorable mention. We then narrowed down the eight that Mrs. University had picked (including a great one on sled materials and snow), and ranked them as well.

And then Mrs. Eagle pulled out her four because, truth be told, she couldn't find eight that really were that good.

"I hate to say it," she said, "But look how much better the fourth and third grade projects are."

She wasn't kidding. It wasn't that the boards looked all that much better, but the content was much better. Much more interesting questions, better hypotheses, repetition of experiments to increase the validity of their results and so on.

"Do you think it's because that's when they're starting to turn into middle schoolers?" I said.

"Puberty," she said. "That's probably part of it. Plus the older they get, the less they play outside and the less curious they seem to be about the world around them."

Tell me about it. We have often complained about the incredible lack of curiosity about anything our kids seem to possess. They are not interested in anything outside of their social lives, video games, and electronic gadgets. And even then they aren't all that interested in how anything works.

However, it was fascinating, and a bit alarming, to see this jump to adolescence paraded right before our eyes.

Night Owls

Over the years as a middle school teacher, I've had my share of sleepy kids in class. It's not that unusual, especially among the boys, considering the amount of growth these kids go through when they hit puberty.

Sometimes it really impacts their grades and you have to get a parent involved. Usually we've discovered that our little Sleepy Heads have a television in their rooms and are staying up all night watching (usually inappropriate and very adult) television while the parents are blissfully snoozing away. Usually all it takes is the removal of the television from the room, and we see a much more alert and chipper kid in class. In some other cases, the problem is a computer in the room and the kid is up all night chatting or playing video games on line - sort of like Rip Van Winkle. Now, kids with computers in their rooms is another post for another day (can we say "online predators" anyone?), but it's still an issue, and, once again, once the parents figure out what's going on and remove the problem, we see a much better rested kid in class.

So, this brings me to a discussion that I had with my Fourth Period today. This is one of my smallest classes, and although there are quite a few of them that are, shall we say, a bit difficult in the personality department, they do have their moments.

Drama Boy, out of the blue, asked me if I'd every talked to a friend on the phone at night when I was a kid.

"Drama Boy, you need to remember that we didn't have our own phones back in the dark ages when I was a kid. We had phones attached to walls in the kitchen and everyone heard our conversations and there was no way I was allowed to use the phone after 8:00 pm."

This brought a chorus of "ohhhhhs" from the kids. They can't believe how tough life was for us in the old days.

"Oh yeah," he said, as if remembering that, yeah, teachers are old. "Well, I was texting this girl this morning around three, and..."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted him. "Three in the morning?"

"Yeah, three in the morning," he continued.

"You were on the phone texting a girl at three in the morning this morning?" I asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, and well my Dad caught me and busted me out on it," he said.

"Well, thank goodness," I responded. "I hope he took your phone away as well."

"Well, no, he didn't"

Idiot.

Of course the entire class is listening to this conversation and start putting in their two cents' worth.

"My mom took my phone away after my last progress report when my grades tanked and she found out I was up texting 'til two in the morning," said one of my girls.

"Yeah, I usually stay up texting at least until midnight," said another.

I was floored. I was hoping that Rip Van Winkle and Drama Boy were the exceptions to the rule, but the more I talked with this bunch, the more I found out that they aren't getting any sleep! They're too busy playing video games and texting all night long! Here they are, in the throes of puberty, when they need, oh, eight to ten hours of sleep a day and they're getting maybe, four? If they're lucky!

A few of the kids in this class admitted that they had set bedtimes and were usually in bed by eight or so, which is a good thing since we start school rather early (at 7:30). Interestingly enough, any guess on which group has the best grades?

Yeah, you got it, the ones getting to bed earlier are more successful academically.

So my big question is...where are the parents? Asleep? Do they not check the bills to see that their darling cherub is up at all hours of the night and day texting away? What's so hard with taking that phone away over night and giving it back in the morning?

There are times I just want to beat my head against a wall.

Crazy Girl and the Revolving Door

A few weeks ago Crazy Girl returned from her stint at Alternative School.

Truth be told I really never had any trouble with Crazy Girl. True, she chattered a lot but just about everyone in my Fifth Period Class From the Very Depths of Hell Itself has a talking problem. And yes, there were days when I wondered if she was on something or just crazy. But really, when it came down to bad behavior, I never had a lick of trouble. So having her back in class was no big deal. She came back, pretty much picked up where we left off, and began to get caught up on the first part of the unit we were working on.

Now when a kid comes back from Alternative School, they're set up on a 25 point behavior contract. Twenty-five points and you're out the door - expelled.

Crazy Girl did pretty good the first week. She did pretty good the second week. And then the third week she lost her mind, was rude, defiant and disrespectful to one of the lunchroom monitors, and ended up in ISS, with a 15 point write up.

And so she's in ISS, and although cell phones have to be handed over to the ISS teacher when they come in every morning (heck, they're not even allowed in our regular classrooms - they have to be locked in the locker and turned off), Crazy Girl didn't follow the rules and was caught texting her boyfriend (who's currently at home with an ankle bracelet).

Not a smart move.

So she's expelled for the remainder of the school year. Mr. Enforcer told me that Crazy Girl's mom is going to try to enroll her in local Christian school for troubled kids, which may not be a bad thing for her. I hope mom also starts considering therapy because, yes indeed, she's still cutting. And if Mom has half a brain, she'd find a way to break up this little romance between Crazy Girl and Future Felon and stop acting as a character witness for all his court dates.

What kills me is that this is a smart kid. A kid with tremendous potential, but she's so entranced with the dark side of life, with bad boys, and risky behavior that I really don't see a rosy future for her unless someone helps her get her head on straight and fast.

Amazing. Last year I had some of the most incredibly awful kids on the planet, kids I could have sworn wouldn't make it through the year without being expelled - and they never were. This year I have a kid who's not a lick of trouble (to me at least) and she's out the door. Something's wrong with this picture...

Waking Up Rip Van Winkle

There are times I really truly wonder if anyone is raising my kids.

We have a student this year whom I really truly like. A lot. He's a neat kid. He came to us the second nine weeks, and to say he has issues is putting it mildly. This kid probably has racked up more frequent flyer miles moving from relative to relative than most business people do in a decade of business travel. He is now, for the first time in his life, living with his biological mother.

When he first arrived on our team he tended to just wander off - he'd even leave the building and we'd get a call from the gas station mini mart across the street reporting that they had one of our kids. He also tends to not go to class and just would wander aimlessly through the halls until someone snatched him up. He has severe crying jags in class (and ends up in guidance), has days where he's shaking so hard we think he's about ready to have a seizure (and ends up in guidance), days where he swears he's sick and has to go to the nurse (she sends him back as mom won't come get him and he doesn't have a fever.) He does absolutely no work at all and will do anything to get out of class. He comes from a family with a history of addictions and I fear he's developing a few of his own, including a fairly serious addiction to video games. The only thing he's even remotely interested in is World of Warcraft.

His mother says he's perfectly normal at home and she can't figure out why we're having issues with him at school. Although she does agree that he plays way too many video games.

Whatever.

We've noticed that the past few weeks (when we're in school, that is and not on another flipping snow day) that he's exhausted. He cannot stay awake. If he doesn't have his head down on his desk, he's zoned out staring straight ahead in a nearly catatonic state. We had a snow day on Monday and he arrived Tuesday and was a complete mess. He said he'd figured we'd have another snow day on Tuesday so he stayed up all night. Today was even worse (and it didn't snow so he didn't have that excuse). He could not stay awake. The bell would ring for class changes and he'd be out cold. It was so bad that the other kids started teasing him about it. He nearly missed lunch and nearly missed his bus.

So where on earth is the parent? Why is Sleepy Boy allowed to stay up all night, mostly likely playing video games? Is his mother home? Is she even aware? Kids this age need sleep - a lot of it - and this kid is getting none, outside of what he's getting in our classes.

I've turned the issue over to Mr. Enforcer and Guidance. Perhaps they can get to the root of the problem here.

Finally! Back to School - Again

So yesterday, President's Day, was supposed to be a holiday.

However.

The School Board voted last week to have us attend school, just like normal, in order to make up one of the four snow days we have had over our meager allotment of three.

So you know what happened, don't you?

It snowed.

And we didn't go to school.

So we lost our makeup day.

Sigh.

The good news is that today we managed to get to school. Granted, it was with an hour delay - and some of the bus drivers said that a two hour would have been a bit safer with the black ice that's still out there - but we still had school.

Finally.

The forecast? No snow until the weekend.

Oh, and our regular average temp for this time of the year? 51 Degrees. We haven't seen 51 for a month or more.

Some Very Good Advice

Our eighth graders have been meeting with counselors from The High School down the road that they will be attending (we hope) next year, and from what some of my former cherubs tell me, it's been interesting. Fortunately I have a few from last year who can actually think about a future beyond lunch and are seriously considering what track they're going to take, what career they may want, and how they can afford college or trade school.

So I'm going over our new unit on force and motion, and giving the kids an introduction, when this nice young man comes to the door and waves at me.

It's one of my kids from my second year, Soccer Boy! Soccer Boy entered my classroom in as an ELL student. He was originally from Mexico, but his English (and his writing skills) were amazing. He was a fantastic science student, a great, sweet kid, and one of the nicest young men I've ever had the pleasure of teaching. He's also made a point of keeping in touch with me each and every year to know what he's doing. I appreciate that.

"Oh my gosh!" I yell as I give him a big hug. "What are you doing here today?"

"I'm here talking to the eighth graders about the AVID program," he says. He's as neat as a pin with dress pants, sweater vest, and a tie.

Meanwhile, my fourth period, a class of low achievers if there ever was one, is staring at him, mouths agape. Seniors in high school, to many of them, are like creatures from another planet.

I get my kids working on their unit and spend a few minutes catching up with Soccer Boy. He's been accepted to a small university in a nearby state, with a scholarship or two, and plans to major in Business Management, and then take his love of science and perhaps get into the medical field somehow, perhaps in pharmaceuticals, or something. He's still playing soccer, and will hopefully play in college. And he's still as nice and polite as he was when he was a twelve year old (and probably should have been a little stinker then but his parents did a great job with him).

He had to leave to go talk to some my eighth graders, but said he'd swing by before he left. He did, and fortunately chose another one of my lower classes to pop in.

"Hey, can I talk to them a minute?" he asks.

"Sure, why not?" I answer. He could read the phone book and they'd listen.

"Hey kids, do yourselves a favor. Listen to your teachers, take notes, study, and work hard. You're going to need it in high school and life. Trust me."

Their heads nod. They blink. Not a peep. Good gracious! They may actually have listened!

Another big hug, and off he went. The good thing is, I know he'll be successful. He'll be fine. And it's nice knowing I may have had a tiny bit of a part in that.

You're Going to Have To Drag Me Out of My Room Kicking and Screaming

Finally, we were back in school today after what seems to have been day after day after day of snow days. It's still cold out (didn't get above freezing today, about, oh, 15 degrees below normal) and the snow isn't melting much, but it's not on the roads and the buses can run so we're in session.

And we're so freaking far behind that it's nearly giving me hives.

This whole year has been a race from the get go. Not only did we get new, tougher, standards, but for some reason seventh grade ended up with a lot more material to cover than either sixth or eighth grade did. We can't quite figure this out. You would think the Powers That Be would have evened it up a bit, but NOOOOO, they had to give the most content to the group that is probably the least capable of learning anything, and that's seventh graders. It's the hormones.

Anyway, we've had a dickens of a time trying to keep up with the pacing guide established over the summer and now, after seven snow days, Mrs. Eagle, Mrs. Hummingbird and I just looked at each other, tossed it aside and said, "Screw it."

Yeah, well, we may not be ready for the third benchmark but at this point We Don't Freaking Care anymore. We'll be ready for the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test come April, but it's going to be a battle to get there. We don't need any more snow days, and God forbid, any of us get sick and have to turn our classes over to a sub. We need to be here, in our rooms, teaching like there's no tomorrow.

Which makes me wonder why Mrs. Standards wants me to come to a meeting at Central Office to help some other seventh grade teachers put together a Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test review program.

Let me step back a bit. About five or six years ago, Mrs. Eagle and I, along with our other seventh grade science teacher at the time, Mrs. Robin, asked Mrs. Standards if she could help us come up with a really good two week review program for the Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test. Great idea! So we put this program together, which is basically a theme/standard a day, lots of mini-labs, mini quizzes, hands on, keep them so busy they can't even think of getting into trouble, review. It kicks ass. It's complete chaos and it's exhausting, but the end result? Best damn scores in the county.

So, this year I've helped Mrs. Standards with some tech stuff on the new textbook, even taught an in service on how to use the online features (I swear, I can't believe how many teachers aren't even using this, but that's another story for another day) and now I'm apparently her go-to person when it comes to seventh grade stuff.

So, apparently some of the other seventh grade teachers in The District had heard about our program (and probably wondered "How in the hell did they get those scores out of those little gangbangers over at That School?") and asked if I could help them put together something for their kids.

Hey, no problem, I'm glad to share.

Except I find out that she wants me to take half a day (of course the half when I'm teaching and don't have planning) and leave my room to go help these other teachers.

Which I'm not willing to do. We've lost seven days - that's SEVEN DAYS - so far to snow (and more coming), and I'm not leaving my classroom when I still have teaching to do.

So, I email her and inform her that Mrs. Eagle and Mrs. Hummingbird are actually working on The Program (we're re-writing it with all the new standards, and since Mrs. Eagle is Mrs. Hummingbird's mentor, they're using this as mentoring time too) every Friday and we'd all be glad to have anyone come over and work with us, but it will have to be after school.

Because we aren't leaving our classrooms until that Damn Very Big Deal Government Mandated Test is over.