tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-91144285754376329402011-06-17T01:22:24.247-05:00Joelnoreply@blogger.comBlogger391100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-24313231132954580082008-08-26T21:49:00.002-05:002008-08-26T21:52:37.479-05:00

So as any teacher knows, you tend to get a lot of unneeded emails. Our school has recognized this and has the technology committee spearheading a new folder system in our inboxes that will simply post a message to a separate folder. This folder will be for selling items or other trivial things. In any case, the tech committee was supposed to test it out so here was the post I put in there:Subject

Joelnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-58948907047688577302008-08-14T18:55:00.003-05:002008-08-14T19:09:19.132-05:00

Today was my first day teaching in my new school. It was somewhat of an early start, but I've been eager to get back in the classroom. Since this was my first year teaching 6th grade, I wasn't sure what to expect. The students seem pretty excited to be there. Today was all sorts of hectic because I had to assign lockers, hand out a million forms, take attendance and also fit my first days

Joelnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-73139409944949126362008-04-25T10:25:00.004-05:002008-04-25T10:31:16.210-05:00

So far, today has been a pretty good day in front of the class. I haven't had any issues and the students have been enjoying the work we've done so far. I think part of the reason has to do with the amount of sleep I got last night. I got 7 hours instead of 4 or 5. As much as I hate to admit it, my overall health, both mental and physical affects my teaching. If I'm coming into the classroom

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-54223140583122982472008-04-20T21:09:00.001-05:002008-04-21T00:55:23.769-05:00

My school recently brought in a public speaker who spoke on the dangers of having sex outside marriage. To illustrate her claim, she described how she contracted HIV the first time she had sex. She didn't find out about this until after her current husband proposed to her. She decided to get tested for STDs just to be sure she was free and clear. As it turns out, she was not. It's an unfortunate

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-12558210247277922642008-04-07T19:09:00.004-05:002008-04-07T19:13:47.977-05:00

I was recently hired to work in Parkway Northeast Middle School in Creve Coeur, MO near St. Louis. I'm excited about the job and will be teaching 6th grade communication arts. The administration seems really supportive and I'll also be working with a friend I went to college with. We'll be on the same middle school team. Unfortunately, I've had to tell my current students this and it's been

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-3757241181965466932008-03-19T23:28:00.002-05:002008-03-19T23:34:50.829-05:00

It's always nice to find out that your students are thinking about the things we learn in class. During a field trip today, one of my students remarked that the hotel/arcade we were visiting reminded him of the book Fahrenheit 451 because of number of TVs and flashing lights meant to grab your attention. Very astute observation, and one that I didn't even make myself. He's a surprising student at

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-87428803172771679732008-03-12T16:09:00.000-05:002008-03-12T21:03:18.553-05:00

Pretend for a moment that I'm a parachute instructor. I'm going to show you how to pack your parachute, jump out of a plane and, and make a safe landing. Now I want you to do all of this yourself, flawlessly of course. You will also need to provide your own plane and parachute. Now don't try and complain because I'm going 50-50 with you. I'm meeting you halfway aren't I? I showed you how to do it

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-78460092234146619442008-02-27T19:48:00.003-06:002008-02-27T19:53:59.047-06:00

I've known for a while that I wanted to teach freshman English, but I hadn't yet been able explain why, at least in short and simple terms. A recent conversation brought about a metaphor to explain my reasoning.The English teacher who teaches honors English or AP English is a stone polisher. They take a finely cut stone and make it shine. The freshman English teacher is the gem cutter though.

Joelnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-22361233672542056422008-02-25T19:06:00.007-06:002008-02-25T20:29:32.144-06:00

It seems that a lot of my posts involve facebook and now I'm going to talk about it yet again. I have found another reason why it isn't in my best interest to be friends with students on social networking sites such as facebook. As you may know, many employers use facebook to snoop in on their employees. Schools are no different and some schools including the one I'm at, access facebook in order

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-9418504084768931222008-02-18T18:03:00.006-06:002008-02-18T18:29:48.692-06:00

People who never experience failure or difficulty in their early life, have a habit of crashing hard later in life when they are faced with challenges. Not developing any sort of resilience is detrimental to personal growth and the only way to develop this sort of personal fortitude is through failure. As Bruce Wayne's father says in Batman Begins, "Why do we fall? So we can learn to pick

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-81043450284020988012008-02-14T23:37:00.003-06:002008-02-15T19:05:17.195-06:00

As you may recall, I've already stated my opinion that teachers should be wary about being facebook friends with students because it creates a disparity in the student/teacher power structure. This is more true with younger teachers who are having to deal with challenges to their role as an authority figure.A new bill is being introduced into the Missouri congress that would ban teachers from

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-55614028983748008322008-02-14T22:16:00.006-06:002008-02-15T19:08:26.027-06:00

I do not want to be a newspaper adviser, at least as things are now. Print journalism is dying. It's a noble medium but the internet has surpassed the printing press. As advertisers catch on to this simple fact, expect more and more daily newspapers to go under. It's happening already as major newspapers such as the Washington Post and L.A. times cut staff members. Asking me if I want to be the

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-78967996383475961092008-02-12T16:47:00.000-06:002008-02-12T17:06:50.739-06:00

It's tempting to ignore things that reflect poorly on your teaching when you're writing a blog, but when I started this project, I decided I wanted to be honest and open about my experience. With that in mind, I'd like to share something a student wrote about me in the classroom. The assignment was to rewrite something they wrote from the perspective of another person. This student chose me and

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-91499976398969310792008-02-09T21:12:00.001-06:002008-02-09T21:23:57.281-06:00

It's been a long time since I've written here, almost a month in fact. Were it not for the fact that the number of readers for this blog is so low, I would feel a bit guilty. In any case, things have been progressing normally. Second semester is going smoothly. Since I've last written, I caught the flu which knocked me out of commission for two days straight. It was a pretty horrible time

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-37496992718920719262008-01-13T12:07:00.000-06:002008-01-13T13:55:54.665-06:00

Perhaps I shouldn't segregate books by sex, but let's face it, some books are more appealing to boys and some books are more appealing to girls. As I discussed earlier, there are many more young adult books directed at girls opposed to boys. My own personal library reflects that and to be honest, they're still pretty good books. The boys in my class complain that these books have female narrators

Joelnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-19543063506790813842008-01-09T23:06:00.000-06:002008-01-09T23:17:30.305-06:00

Have you ever tried writing notes in the margins of one of those tiny pocketbooks? You know the ones I'm talking about, the paperbacks that you can palm in your hand without a problem. They're great for travel and handing out to your students, but they're the worse type of book imaginable if you like to jot down notes for future teaching moments. I was watching this show on TV over winter break

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-39917606147602564192008-01-06T20:32:00.000-06:002008-01-06T20:47:51.365-06:00

As I was typing up a brief biography, I accidentally wrote that I was in edification instead of education. I make a lot of typos and squirrel around a lot of words, so this is nothing new. (In fact, it took me about 30 seconds to spell squirrel correctly.) I quickly corrected my mistake, but after thinking about it for a moment, being an edifier isn't that far off from what I do. An edifier

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-17964249679465414622008-01-05T20:08:00.000-06:002008-01-05T21:50:49.282-06:00

Whenever I go to the bookstore I always hit the young adult section to see what's new. Most of the time I leave with an armful of books, but I've noticed something rather vexing. A lot of the books tend to sparkle and shine with playful pastel colors. To be blunt, these are books directed at girls.Now before you make fun of me for my reading choices, keep in mind that it's professional

Joelnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-34887798770615896822008-01-05T01:41:00.000-06:002008-01-05T02:23:35.576-06:00

Some days your students are simply going to get the best of you. There are more of them than you and if you're not careful, they'll conspire to bring about your downfall. I say that half-jokingly, but there's a good deal of truth to that statement as well, because your students can make your job much more difficult if you let them.If you have a rowdy class, some days you can roll with the punches

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-31884842510622904722008-01-04T23:38:00.000-06:002008-01-05T01:28:57.946-06:00

I am reminded that I am not too far removed from my student's age on a regular basis. We listen to similar music, go to similar movies, and even wear similar clothing when not in school. I'm not trying to say that I'm particularly cool, just that the generational gap between my students and me is easily bridged. Give it a few more years and it'll grow into a chasm.One of the dangers of being so

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-55941332425846033552008-01-02T19:26:00.001-06:002008-01-03T10:20:09.693-06:00

For most people, solutions to problems don't always make themselves readily apparent. In fact, not even the most gifted individuals hit the mark on the first try every time. After all, to err is human. I've found that individual brainstorming is a great way to generate possible answers. Just write down the first thing that comes to your mind and try not to weed out any of the suggestions mentally

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-68915843391711512842008-01-02T14:49:00.000-06:002008-01-02T15:15:58.695-06:00

Winter break (Yes, I'm using the Pagan designation instead of Christmas) ends tomorrow and it's back to school for me and my students. I'm frankly looking forward to seeing them and getting back into the swing of teaching. Sure this break has been nice but there's only so much free time one can have without going batty. One of the things I'm really looking forward to is the addition of a

Joelnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-39932845655457958142008-01-01T03:19:00.001-06:002008-01-01T03:34:18.350-06:00

I didn't plan on starting a teaching blog; it just sort of happened. I often found myself writing about my experiences in the classroom as a first year teacher, but I didn't think I had enough material to really fill an entire blog by itself. Boy was that a silly thought. After noticing that my other blog had 1/3 of its posts centered around teaching, I realized it was time to find a more

Joelnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-22605194743581453772007-12-24T10:48:00.000-06:002008-01-02T21:33:28.883-06:00

So here's a quick classroom management/rapport building technique that I use pretty much all the time. Whenever I have an errand to run whether it's delivering a note, making copies, or going to the library, I always ask my more ornery students to do it. Now I don't do this as any sort of punishment. I usually say, "I think I need some copies made." By now my better behaved students are breaking

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-20385311107188742292007-12-16T10:40:00.000-06:002008-01-01T02:52:04.396-06:00

If I had to use one word to describe my teachings these days, it would be rapport. By now, I know my students really well. I know about their families, their likes and dislikes. I know what students can sit by what students. I know which students I can trust to sit by their friends and which ones need to be more isolated. I have developed that really lame term called "with-it-ness" which means

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-65538820501205959612007-12-07T18:30:00.000-06:002008-01-01T02:53:55.051-06:00

There are moments when I'm teaching when I can see that there is some good in humanity, that today's youth may provide some hope for the future. Yesterday we had a fire drill during lunch so all the students marched outside in the cold. My plan period is during lunch so I didn't have any students to watch. Being the good teacher that I am, I went outside to supervise and keep order. Most of the

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-78791482855732401652007-12-03T11:00:00.000-06:002008-01-01T02:55:42.643-06:00

Ok class, how many of you would be willing to vote for a gay president?(six hands out of twenty go up)Today during class we had a discussion about how ideas or concepts we aren't used to make us uncomfortable. Somehow we got onto the topic of whether or not people would vote for a woman president. A lot of the class said no, that women were too emotional. I asked the same thing about a black

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-17278349641809798672007-11-07T19:34:00.000-06:002008-01-01T02:57:31.200-06:00

Here's an activity that incorporates vocabulary, spelling, communication, and dictionary use. I thought of it about 10 minutes before class one day, and refined it for a different class later in the day.Start off the class by asking if anyone can stump you with a word that you don't know. Do this for about five minutes and then talk about what ways you can build your vocabulary and where you can

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-79968682553742240522007-10-31T17:00:00.000-05:002008-01-01T02:58:53.476-06:00

Today for Halloween, I had my students write ghost stories. One group of girls came to the front of the class and started their story like this:Girl one: Once the bread popped out of the toaster, nobody knew what to put on it. Jelly, margarine, cinnamon-sugar. Girl two: He said write a ghost story, not a toast story!

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-960832496517540092007-10-20T02:58:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:01:06.991-06:00

This week I was teaching a lesson on credibility in writing. We were specifically looking at types of evidence and fallacies of argument, but that's not too important right now. What I remember saying is that if your readers doubt your credibility, then they're going to have a hard time taking you seriously or believing anything you say.As teachers, we have a certain amount of credibility with

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-74456801441317794452007-10-18T20:00:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:02:12.282-06:00

As I begin typing this, I'm sitting at my first high school basketball game at the school that I teach. It's between games right now, so don't worry. I'm not typing this during the game. I'll finish typing most of the post at home. I just watched the girls slaughter the opposing team and I'm kind of impressed. It's funny because every single one of the girls who played are students of mine. My

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-11062105741628189072007-10-17T13:02:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:03:21.510-06:00

My seventh and eighth graders turned in their personal narratives today and after reading over them, I am so damn proud of them. Most of them really took hold of this assignment and ran with it. I have some really excellent pieces of writing and it's neat thinking that I had something to do with them. In total, we've spent two and a half weeks with these things and I think the extra time really

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-21690956920424291862007-10-15T21:00:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:06:15.785-06:00

Why just complain about the state of education when you can do something to actually help? I want to plug a fundraiser brought up by my friend Chris, who is a phd candidate in computational biology. To quote the man himself:"In an era of increasing politicization of science, it's more important than ever to teach children about how the scientific method works. Science teachers are on the front

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-78875119264516992007-10-09T09:08:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:09:04.574-06:00

Today I was remind of the very strong undercurrent against success in public schools. One of my students, who we'll call Randy, was openly mocked today for two things. One, he was able to make inferences from the reading about future events. Two, he liked the reading enough to talk about it in class. Now Randy is a smart kid. He's probably the smartest boy of his social group. The problem is that

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-73253514091769419712007-09-25T10:09:00.000-05:002008-01-03T15:40:52.672-06:00

This is so far a pretty slow week at school. We're doing testing so I don't have to teach half of my classes. I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't enjoying the pace. My eight graders are reading a book called Squashed. It's a book about a high school girl who is in a pumpkin growing contest while at the same time trying to win the love of her life. I know, it's an awesome sounding premise. But

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-61098306431427189882007-09-19T03:11:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:14:27.906-06:00

The cold I caught from unnamed sources has hit my ears. As a result, I've had a somewhat difficult time hearing today. One of my ears seems to be perpetually clogged so I had to ask my students to repeat themselves a few times. Being under the weather and trying to teach is a pretty abysmal experience. The most difficult part is keeping this knowledge from your students. If they sense weakness,

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-41365665233406753562007-08-28T11:15:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:15:50.286-06:00

You catch glimpses of insight into the lives of your students, though they don't always tell you outright what's going on. I had my creative writing class come up with a list of 30 story ideas. Mixed among a cache of writing ideas that ranged from "My family" to "The summer playing softball" was something that made me stop and reevaluate one student."Being lonely"There was no other explanation

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-1906036297719372822007-08-27T09:16:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:16:51.419-06:00

I am a more meticulous teacher than I would ever have expected. Not everything has a place in the classroom, but I keep a mental catalog of things. I keep track of students who will help me keep order. I remember students who need an extra nudge. I organize students into groups of leaders and followers. There are dozens of these groups in my head, some of which I'm not even really consciously

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9114428575437632940.post-7294807763509234492007-08-25T03:17:00.000-05:002008-01-01T03:17:49.973-06:00

Just so I don't have to repeat this so many times:1. My first week of teaching was great. I really enjoyed it. My kids are pretty well behaved and only my 8th graders really give me any trouble.2. I'm teaching 7th grade, 8th grade, 9th grade, creative writing, and 8th grade reading and writing. My class sizes range from 9-23. There was a lot of last minute enrollment which increased a few of the

Joelnoreply@blogger.com0