He’s well-mannered. Quiet. He comes in, sits down, and waits patiently for class to start. If there is drama in the room, he avoids it. He might talk quietly with a friend during group work, but he’s never loud. The moment you ask for attention, he becomes quiet and, by appearances, pays attention.

But he’s not about to do his warm-up (bellwork). He’s not going to do his homework and he’ll tell you so straight-out. During classwork, with enough prodding, you might get him to answer one question as you hover over him. Today he informed me (kindly despite all my nagging) that this is his last trip though LE… if he doesn’t pass he won’t come back. So I said “Sweet. Let’s make sure you pass. I’ll see you during lunch, right?” (You know the rest of the story… no Student X during lunch).

So, my fellow cohort members and surrounding support network that diligently read my blog posts, please offer me advice on the following:

1. How do I motivate this student?

2. How much is too much when it comes to helping during class? How much hand-holding is acceptable?

It seems to me that high school students are a bit more difficult to motivate. Perhaps it’s because I’m just starting my new placement and I don’t know these students as well as I will in a few weeks or perhaps it’s because they are so sick of not doing well in school they just give up. Either way, I NEED to figure out how to get to these X’s…..

… and my first thought was of GRS and Warner.

Why? Well, as I said to the pushy lady on the phone: “I don’t watch TV; I don’t even have cable”. (Incidentally, I ignored their phone calls for two weeks before finally picking up the phone to address the issue – these people are really pushy). I don’t have time for TV. I don’t have time to play video games. I don’t even have time to pick up all the matchbox cars on the floor anymore. In fact, I’ve pretty much developed the peripheral vision of a horse on the lookout for groundhog holes to avoid tripping.

Why does this remind me of GRS/Warner? Well, it is the eve of a class discussion about the new expectations (which I call the WLP Debacle) and I am nervous. This is because I have already given up so much to become a teacher and I do not think I have any more of my life left to sacrifice.

That sound tremendously whiny. And perhaps it is, but it is justified (at least to some extent). I am writing this so that my children will be able to look back at it and realize that there was a purpose behind me missing out on all the little cool things we used to do all the time that we no longer get to do. That purpose is a love of teaching science and connecting with students of science.

I used to get the kiddie pool out and place it in the kitchen in the middle of winter, crank up the heat, and have a beach day with my kids. Now there is no time to even conceive of doing that or cleaning up afterwords. I used to bake cookies with my almost 3yo. Now, I am cramming in a few moments of resume tweaking between unrolling the refrigerated premade cookie dough or passing my (imaginary) apron over to my husband. I used to bring snow inside the house. Now, I toss play-dough on the table and just hope they don’t eat it.

Bottom line: I used to be number one with my kids (all of them). Now, it is daddy-this and daddy-that because mommy is always on the ‘puter working or “at school”.

My fear is that the purpose behind me missing out on all of these (awesome) moments is getting lost in a shuffle of requirements that may have a purpose (I am sure they have a purpose) but yet serve no purpose. And I am not just talking about requirements from GRS and/or Warner but from NYS as well. For example, the advice “writing to a rubric”… well, it’s great, but it means I am writing what someone wants to read rather than what I really think. There is a danger to that that I dislike – I understand the need to demonstrate that I understand XYZ, but wouldn’t it be great if there were multiple modes through which one could demonstrate that understanding? Isn’t that what reformed-based teaching is, at least partially, about?

For me, that purpose was making the experience of science engaging and accessible for everyone in the classroom. To do that, a teacher has to make connections with the students. To do that, the teacher must be available beyond the time and location confines of the school. TO DO THAT, the teacher must have time well, I need time to stretch their creative muscles and put them to work. And for that to happen… I need time. Lots of it. Time to design, to plan, to collaborate. Time to build those relationships. Time to explore the content and ways to make it connect with my students. Time…

… maybe even enough to watch some TV every once in awhile (maybe even with my boys).

This counts as my vent for the semester.

… and other tidbits of information gleaned from my first field placement. From me to you, with love.

1. Watch out for Google image searches, even if the safety is set really high! At the end of a microscope lab right before Christmas break, I had about five minutes of extra time while the students were eating donuts and drinking juice. I decided to use my computer and the smartboard to stump them with microscopy pictures… and one of the hits (which was very visible on the page and smartboard) was really…. bad. Not at all related to my intended search (which was something like ‘SEM images bacteria’).

2. THINK! Before you DO!. For example, if you’re bringing sand into your placement and your classroom is located on the third floor furthest from the parking lot… triple bag it (double is not enough). People notice trails.

3. Dead fish smell. Osmosis eggs and red onions smell as well. Have lots of garbage bags.

4. Don’t put off the inevitable. For example, if you have a tank of decomposing dead fish because you’re not sure what to do with them (and they are kinda cool to look at)… get a game plan together and take care of it…. because, after all, dead fish smell.

5. Be prepared. Be very prepared. For example, be ready to talk about hermaphrodites, convulsing fish, or weaves if appropriate (see really far below).

Finally… MOST IMPORTANTLY (…. and closely related to #5):

6. Always have a plan. Plan for everything and anything and then plan some more. I’m not advocating for the WLP but for contingency planning.  (Because, you guessed it, dead fish smell).

—————————————————————————————————-

So the rest of this post is for me. I kept track of both science and non-science memorable quotes. Most of these are non-science and still make me smile…. Given the email I just received regarding WLPs, I need something to smile about.

1. “bout time we had a lady teachin’ us some science” – A female student of mine when she discovered I’d be permanently teaching for the next four weeks.

2. “Miss Geary, you be trippin if you think I’m going to do that” – A male student responding to my cancer homework packet (yeah, it was a packet). My response: “Does it look like I’m falling over?”.

3. “My fish is convulsing. He’s dying RIGHT NOW!” – A male student during an exam…. all 32 students got up to go check it out (so did I).

4. “You are crazy…” – A female student of mine after I took a page out of Logan’s book and jumped on a desk (in sneakers) to demonstrate the difference between active and passive transport.

5. “I heard about you” – The above student’s mom, when I called home a few days later.

6. “Stop drillin’ on me ’bout my homework” – A student that I followed down to the lunchroom in search of an understanding as to why he never turned in homework. My response at the time: “What do you mean, drilling? I’m not even touching you!?”.

7. “Salt does what? It sucks? What does it suck again?” – A male student during our osmosis discussion.

8. “Watch out – Mrs. G had alotta coffee again today” – A male student to other students entering my class one morning when I was super excited about a project.

9. “THERE’S NO RIGHT ANSWER IN Mrs. G’s SCIENCE CLASS! HOW MANY TIMES DOES SHE HAVE TO SAY IT?!” – A male student in response to another student asking me if they had the right answer!

10. “The snail is eating Fishie – Fishie isn’t dead…the snail is EATING him ALIVE!” – A female student upset about her fish, which was in fact dead.

11. “You better watch your back. She’s mad crazy. She’ll call your mom, dad, grandpa if you don’t get your work done.” -A female student of mine who thought I wasn’t in the room at the time.

12. “What you doin’ in that shirt? That color does NOT look good on you… it match your face when you all embarrassed and stuff.” - A female student in response to my new (red) shirt one morning.

13. Memorable quotes from sexual reproduction (meiosis) day:

A. Student: “What’s a hermaphrodite?” Me: “That’s for Mr. P to answer during  reproductive systems of the human body in a few months.”

B. Student: “Are sperm and semen the same thing?” Me: “No.” Student: “My health teacher last year told us yes.” Me: “Well, he’s not correct.” Student: “So, what is the difference?” Me: “That’s for the discussion on the reproductive systems with Mr. P later this year.”

C. Student (regarding a SEM image of sperm fertilizing an egg): “How does it get inside her?” Students laughing (all boys) hysterically. Me: “Great question… this sort of stuff is done a petri dish, like a cook mixing up a cake…”

This is difficult for me to write.

Today was my last day at my first placement. Mike & Chris Young along with Carli passed along the idea of doing an evaluation for my placement. So I decided to implement their idea (and pass it along to others:-).

For those of you that don’t already know, I have (had!) three preps at my placement. For those preps, I had two main sets of students: honors and “regular/inclusion”. The two groups varied widely in their behavior. Overall, I’m ashamed to say that I enjoyed my time teaching much better with one set of students over the other. I felt much more connected with that certain set compared to the other and that my efforts to make class as interesting/engaging as possible were well-received.

So I handed out my first set of evaluations yesterday (I only see most of my students every other day) to my honors students. They gave me great, insightful feedback – I was pretty much bombarded with complements and hugs and little notes. But this is not the point of my post.

I hesitated handing out the evaluations today, to my second group of students… for a million reasons. I didn’t feel as connected to these students and/or that they felt connected to me. I made huge efforts in the beginning to make the class as engaging as possible but more often than not, my efforts seemed (to me) to fall short. The lack of attention and overall “mayhem” that seemed to be present each block… frustrated me and led me to think that I couldn’t “do” with them what I could with my other classes. I heard Jay and others telling me to “make it interesting” or “hook them in” and I tried… I really tried… but it never seemed like I was doing anything other than surviving. So, in short I hesitated because I thought they either wouldn’t bother to evaluate me (”You got MORE work for us, Miss?”) or would slam me with negative comments.

I was so wrong it hurts to write about it.

I got the most wonderful comments from these students. Every single one of them wrote something to me that was meaningful. Two students came up to me after school and said point-blank that they were going to miss me even though I was always “in their face” or “on their backs” or “giving them attitude about their missing work”. They wrote that they liked my class because I cared about them, I gave them extra time to work on homework or alternative assignments, stayed after school, came in earlier, called home, sent home notes, and bothered them all the time about science.

I was and still am overwhelmed with emotion. I’m embarrassed that I kind of dreaded the weeks where I was responsible for seeing these students three times instead of only twice. It’s not that I didn’t care about these students. I actually believe that I harassed them (e.g. called home, sent notes, followed them to gym class and their lockers, went to their games/concerts) more than my honors students. It’s more that I didn’t do MORE for them. I didn’t do cool projects because I didn’t think they cared at all about science or learning (for the most part). In fact, I canceled my drosophila project (they didn’t know about it) because I didn’t think I would be able to manage them through it.

My point is that I believe I “gave up” on my (tougher?) students. I never stopped being energetic and trying to find something engaging… but I did not put as much effort into coming up with cool projects for this prep compared to my other preps by the end of my time at this placement. It’s hard to admit, but I know it’s true.

I’m writing this down and putting it out there because I want to be able to refer to these thoughts at my next placement when the going gets tough… So here are some suggestions (for myself):

1. Don’t mistake the behavior of 12-15yo as a failure on your part. These “acting-out” behaviors should not be taken personally.

2. Don’t judge! Don’t assume! Just because it seems like you’re not making a bit of difference, you are without a doubt having an effect.

3. Don’t (unknowingly) give up!

4. The little things actually DO make a difference. The student that I made podcasts of the homework for gave me a (painstakingly) hand-written note of thanks today.

1. “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore” (?) → The world of education has changed (a lot) since I’ve been a student at one of the little desks.

2. “They’re here” (?) → First day jitters… that lasted for a few weeks.

3. “Good morning, Vietnam!” (?) → For me, this represents my first “uh-oh” moment: when my CT tossed me the dry erase marker and left the room, at the beginning of a class, without telling me anything. Every single day after that, I entered the room prepared for whatever else might come my way.

4. “I love the smell of napalm in the morning!” (?) → Loving your job….

5. “Snakes! Why did it have to be snakes?” (?) → … even when you are forced to face your worst fears.

6. “Go ahead, make my day” (?) → This one goes out to that first student whom I had to ask to leave the classroom (the one who refused to change seats) but I stood my ground a la Dirty Harry (not really).

7. “I’ll be back” (?) → Every day, no matter what happened the previous day.

8. “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate” (?) → How many times have we all thought this? Here’s to learning to become more clear more often more quickly.

9. “Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue” (?) → Everyone has a really bad day (right?). Maybe it’s because….

10. “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” (?) → Yeah, it’s our job as teachers to be innovative and cool with our lessons. Make science awesome… because it is awesome. In other words….

11. “Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads” (?) → Make (every) lesson interesting. Think outside the box. Be (eeek) creative.

12. “Houston, we have a problem” (?) → Well, problems are everywhere. No one is in a perfect situation, right? I mean, I don’t even have a sink in my classroom. But….

13. “They may take away our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom!” (?) → Work around that problem!

14. “Your faults as a son are my failures as a father” (?) → When the lesson goes wrong, I (as the teacher) am to blame. There are no excuses.

15. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it” (?) → Don’t sweat those bad days because….

16. “We came. We saw. We kicked its a**” (?) → Oh yeah, this one is for those days that went SO WELL! Because, after all,…..

17. “You’re so money, and you don’t even know it” (?) → Enough said!

Directions: Please read the entire post critically and carefully before you begin to answer any questions on this examination. Good luck.

1. Please check out the right side of my blog. There you will find three sections where I had previously posted links to websites I love (journals) or find useful for teaching (cool science links and teaching tools):

A. Cool Science Links………………………………………………… –> (look right AND down)

B. Journals……………………………………………………………….. –> (look right AND down)

C. Teaching Tools……………………………………………………… –> (look right AND down)

2. Okay. I don’t know who Eskimo Bill is… but he has an AWESOME and FUNNY page of resources…. I spent (wasted) hours checking this stuff out. To warn you, it’s not 100% clean-cut.

3. Apparently, Google knows about this assignment… There is a specific Google for Educators –> Check It Out!

4. Once you have…:

A. Landed your dream teaching job  AND

B. Have tons of spare time on your hands

….please feel free to connect to the following websites to start writing your own grants for that classroom (even if it’s a non-science classroom! SEE MY VENT).

*Toyota Tapestry

*NYS Teaching Network GRANTS PAGE – LOTS OF GRANTS

*Who says the South doesn’t care about education? UNC Grant Page

*What! You bought a Toshiba?!

Oh, yeah. I’m just kidding. It wasn’t a test. Just another shout-out to Kristine, who I am sure read this entire post very carefully.

This purpose of this post is to officially vent about a topic in education that gets under my skin, drives me bonkers, eats at my insides… however you want to say it. Here it is: teaching science with a large group of students in a non-science classroom because of “budget cuts”.

I am required every single day to try to plan innovative and interesting science lessons for either grade 8 general science of grade 8 (honors) Living Environment.

1.My room is not a science room. There are no sinks… no eyewash stations… I could go on.

2.The prep room is 48 foot steps away from the back of my classroom, making it a two to three minute trip in total to get supplies. There is no cart and so I often make 10 – 15 trips for setting up a single laboratory prep. I have to cut behind another classroom, often in session… thus creating a distraction. It takes me an hour to set up and break down a single laboratory activity.

3.What’s even more offensive is that I have 31 or 33 students in each of my two honors classes! In a regular sized classroom! It is so packed in there that the temperature of the room changes by about 5 degrees (centigrade, obviously) from beginning to end.

I am so frustrated by this situation. What’s worse is that I know I’m not the only one dealing with this issue. While I could vent about the elusive budget for education (or lack thereof), I don’t want to ruin the rest of my weekend. But seriously… how is it that students in my school (which happens to be located in the city) are forced to do science in a non-science classroom (with NO SINKS!) while students out here in the ‘burbs have deluxe science classrooms (sinks! chairs! benches! gas hookups! COMPUTERS!)? How is that fair? We all know it’s not fair, it’s egregious, but yet I work with teachers that seem okay to just accept it for what it is… and that brings me to the real purpose of my vent:

Get off your teacher’s chair, sit in a student seat, and realize how crappy your science class currently is… really, it’s no wonder you have discipline issues! I, receiver of no detentions my entire educational career, WOULD ACT UP IN YOUR CLASS – IT’S THAT BORING. For goodness sake!

I hear from other teachers all the time (when I’m in the prep room)…. “this is why I don’t do labs”. I have to stop myself from barfing in the sink. Come on! It stinks but how can you not do labs because of the situation you’re in? The only way to combat the problem is to do labs, have administrators come in to your room to see your students doing labs, and then discuss the PROBLEMS WITH THEM. How else can you expect change?! If you don’t expect change then why are you in the profession in the first place? Advocate for your students!

In summary, please do science in your classroom, even if you have to walk two miles to the prep room, up hill both ways and through knee-deep (no NECK-deep) snow in a blizzard to do it. I am begging you, all of you, to take on this challenge – do real cool science in your classrooms!

Perhaps, just maybe, I will be an “agent of change”. We’ll see…..

This week at Stars flew by in a flash; we had six girls to assess on video, so we had to work really quick to get to them all! This week, we divided up into two teams – I video assessed the girls and Laura finished up data collection, graphing results, and data analysis. Overall, the girls seemed to really enjoy the day and REALLY got into the video assessments. They all wanted more questions than I had time for and each girl re-entered the room after her assessment with confidence and a smile, ready to share her story with the rest of the group. It was great to see the girls get so involved in the assessments… they really were excited the entire time. In fact, the title of my blog post is a direct quote from one of our girls… She was joking around with me about the assessment questions and getting ready for me to turn the camera on. It was so much fun to see her, so excited to show herself AND her knowledge.

So, onto our →’s:

1. Location for Assessments – I should have found a better spot. There was a lot             of hallway traffic and thus distractions.
2. Timing of Assessments – I let the first two girls go a bit long (12 minutes) and             so the last two girls got cut a bit short (8 minutes).

Our +’s

1. The girls were PREPPED for their assessments and so it was an enjoyable                    process for all involved.

2. The girls LOVE to graph! While Laura “oversaw” this activity, they owned it!

3. “Can we take the plants home?” – Enough said! They owned their project.

For this week, our STARS had a lot on their plates. At Wilson we had to finish up the nutrient testing of the soil as well as introduce an activity where we had the girls compare the human food pyramid to a plant nutrient pyramid that we helped them to construct. In addition, we had to tackle data collection and start data analysis…. AND practice the video assessment questions for next week. Whew…

Everything went fairly well other than we did not have enough time to really delve into data analysis and we completely ran out of time for practice assessment questions. For the former, we will be paying in the next session because we are going to have to complete data analysis at the same time as video assessing… but I know we can do it. As far as the latter goes, it wasn’t a big deal because Laura had practiced with the girls during the previous session (see Week 8). **

Importantly, East had some issues with their data collection in that their girls forgot to water their plants. While this was a pretty big hit to our project, it provided an awesome opportunity for our girls to really understand the importance of data to a scientific investigation AND it also allowed the girls at Wilson to have some power in the videoconferencing discussion with the girls at East, which is something that we have struggled with finding for them, since they are two grade levels lower than their counterparts at East. So instead of being destroyed over the data collection issues, we took them in stride and incorporated them into our discussion about NOS. Go Team Purple!

So, our →’s:

1. Time Management – Time and time again, this one is up on my list. I think I over plan, which is necessary, but I also think I need to work on cut-offs. This is hard, thought, when the girls get interested in something…. it’s not school! So why shouldn’t we check  out that work under the microscope?
2. Low Energy – For both Laura & I AND the girls, too. We were missing our most    boisterous student but overall, everyone was just… slow and quiet. As teachers, it’s our responsibility to keep the girls excited… we failed at this week, but next week we’ll be better.

Our +’s:

1. Girls LOVE Science – Enough said. They loved testing for nutrients.
2. Videoconferencing – We couldn’t pull them away from the computer. They loved sharing their version of the story with their half-team.

**On a side note, I am getting so used to referencing and cross-referencing my work because of the innovative unit assignment that it seems to come naturally to me now, to the point where I am referencing things in blog posts. Pretty soon I’m going to be cross-referencing my grocery list with my to-do list and/or my menu for the week (Yes, I plan a menu. You would, too, if you had a lot of little kids, a husband, a dog, a new kitten, and were taking part in an insanely intense teacher training program).

Yeah, that’s right. I’m Mzz with two z’s because I am that cool. Wait… I’m mad cool.

A few weeks ago, I put up a Science Word Board in my classroom. The purpose was two-fold: one, to provide a place for students to write down words they didn’t understand (e.g. hydrolysis) and two, to challenge them to start integrating that vocabulary. My students have all reacted really well to the board – I frequently have students from other classes visiting me during lunch and asking questions (e.g. what does hydrolysis mean?).

A few days ago, some students created a Mzz Geary Word Bank and put it up right next the Science Word Board. This started when I was told by a particular student that I was always “frontin” on him about his homework. I had to ask what that meant… and my students thought it was hilarious. Since then, I’ve been introduced to new words daily. I think the students get as much of a kick out of me using “their” favorite words as I do when I hear “my” favorite words (e.g. hydrolysis, independent variable, or (my new favorite) osmooooosis).

I also have this policy where I’ll let students leave to get a drink of H20, but not water. They have to specifically ask me for H20 – if they say water, I say “I’m so sorry, so-and-so, I can’t hear you”. Recently, if I say “good job” or “awesome work” or similar, I get “I’m sooooo sorry, Mrs. Geary, I can’t hear you” until I say something deemed more appropriate (sweet, tight, mad cool, etc).

Anyways, I’m sharing this story because even though it’s Friday night and I am hard at work on my innovative series of 3, I’m smiling thinking about what I’m going to learn on Monday… and the idea that maybe some of my students are looking foward to science for similar reasons.