The Joy of Learning and Playing the Game

This is a lot rougher than I would like, but its been two weeks and I haven't found time to get back to this post.  

A former colleague's post on FB last night really saddened me.  I lay awake in bed thinking about it for a while before I could fall asleep.  She shared that her son he hates school now.  Recording and graphing his reading minutes has stolen the joy of reading.  Other content is disconnected and pointless.  Another FB friend commented that her fourth grade son was kept in from recess because he forgot to make notations while reading because he was lost in the story.

These posts saddened me for several reasons:

• I used to assign these joy killing assignments. 
• I feel sadness for these children who are losing their enthusiasm and curiosity, yet have years of formal schooling ahead of them. 
• I am scared that in a few years I will make these comments about my own children. 

Eventually, I came to the idea of "playing the game" and that allowed me some peace last night.

Several years ago at some sort of collaborative meeting, my group got on the subject of "playing the game of school."  We debated about teaching students how to play the game.  Is it right to teach students to play the game?  Aren't students who know how to play the game at an advantage?  Should we be spending valuable class time on this?

Playing the game means knowing how to navigate school.  It encompasses a lot of things.  In this case, of the tedious reading assignments, its a matter of purpose.  The little boy who was kept in from recess needs to be taught the difference between reading for pleasure and reading to practice skills.  Then, he needs to be taught that if he gets lost in his reading, he can "play the game" by just going back and writing out his annotations before the teacher checks.

Playing the game also includes skills like knowing the textbook questions go in order of the chapter or knowing how to look up a SparkNotes summary of the reading you didn't get to do before you go to class.  Playing the game is knowing that school work is just that - work.  It isn't always fun or personally interesting, yet you still have to find a way to get it done.  Figuring out how to cut corners on that work is part of playing the game.  

A lot of how to play the game can be taught.  There are many study tips and skills that make school just faster and easier for the kids that know them.  But, there are aspects that are more about values.  The perfect example is a student I had my first year of teaching.  GC was dependable and well behaved.  But, when I started to read his work, I quickly learned that he hated school.  But, GC knew had to play the game.  He knew that even though he didn't like what he was doing, he had to get his work completed to get an acceptable score.  He would use 10-15 minutes of every advisory period to get his journal entry done for my class so that he didn't have to do it at home for homework.  That is playing the game.  

It seems wrong that learning to play the game is even an issue.  Education should all be about the joy of learning and the wonder in the world around us.  But, school involves hoops that need to be jumped through, for students and teachers alike.  There is mandated curriculum.  There are tests.  There are grades that must be assigned. Teachers are expected to give homework that practices what they taught during the day and to then use the scores for those assignments to determine the "final" grade of the term.  Its very easy to loose sight of whether the practice is needed or if the type of assignmen is the most effective or even fair way of assessing the skills.  But that is where public education is today.  Teachers and students have to play the game. 

But the discussion we had about playing the game was about high school students.  It seems like it would be very confusing for an elementary student.  Its contradictory.  Do some work one way because you  love it, and then do other work because it is just part of being in school. 

As a teacher, I hate that I have to play the game.  Over the last year of my time in the classroom, I started to believe in workshop approaches and standards based grading.  While I still feel strongly about using rubrics that anchor my assessment, I don't feel like a lot of the work I'm asking the students to do should have scores or grades that will go towards their final grade for the term.  Ideally, I want to gather data through conferencing and many small assignments that lead up to a few big assignments at the end of the marking period.  Lots of practice that is manageable for teacher (to plan and review) and student (to produce) before the big performance.  But, parents, administrators, and students feel uncomfortable not knowing their grade, especially in an age of online, live grade books.  So, I was forced to play the game of school by giving out scores and calculating them all into the final grade.  It was a huge headache and waste of my energy and time compared to how I wanted to be teaching.

But I'm an adult.  I might be annoyed, frustrated, or even infuriated about having to teach this way, but I understand its part of what I need to do to keep my job.  How can you ask a ten year old to get that same concept?  How do you ask a fourth grader, or even a nineth grader, to do work a certain way because it is what the established system requires?  I want to teach them to buck the system!

It was really hard for me to learn to let go of my assignments I'd spent four years creating.  See, my first four years of teaching I learned how to teach reading and writing skills.  I learned about prior knowledge and modeling revising, about inferencing and writing goals.  These were things I felt I should have learned in my undergrad, but instead learned about in my graduate work.  But then I went back and read Nancie Atwell again, the beginning of In The Middle and all of The Reading Zone.   It was then that the work of my master's really made me decide I was going to give up most of the work I'd done and move to a completely new-to-me workshop structure using standards based grading as much as possible.

One of the biggest changes for me was getting rid of the "proof of thinking" that I used to require with all the reading my students did.  It was the same sort of assignments that my collegues FB friend mentioned.  I had the kids doing journals or post-its.  The idea behind it was solid.  I wanted kids to thinking about what they read and record that thinking later to be used in discussion or writing papers.  But, the kids didn't understand the purpose.  Either I had students who avoided reading or students who read tons for pleasure.  Neither group understood the point of the post-it notes.  But, I found when I did reading workshop, that the purpose of the assignment was much more valid.  Previously, the post-its were proof to me that the students had read.  Kids dutifly filled them out to get their credit knowing I couldn't read them and only did a spot check.  There was lots of room for playing the game to get their credit.  When I switched to reading workshop, the kids read primiarily for pleasure and practice.  There were no post-it or journal requirements, but they did need to be able to talk to me about what they were reading at any moment and they had to a writing assignment about it a few times a term.  In other words, the joy of reading was not squashed, but they still had some accountablity.  But, a few times a year, we all read the same text.  This is when I required the post-its or journals.  We read a text like Animal Farm or Huck Finn to analyize through discussion and a major thesis driven essay.  Now the post-its weren't a tedious exercise that had become reduced to a homework check but were what they were meant to be: A meaningful record of thought.  I taught the students the difference in purpose.  We were not reading Huck Finn for pleasure.  It was great if they enjoyed it, but that wasn't why we read it.  We read it to have a text to study and pracitce literary analysis essays.  We were attacking Huck Finn like you would a history text book or a set of algebra problems. 

Over the course of five years, I came to feel that about three books a year requiring this type of annotation was fair; we also would read some short texts together like poems, short stories, or articles that also required that type of attention.  Previously, we had treated every text we read all year as a serious exercise in metacognition and annotation.  It was overkill for freshmen and sophomores.  It must be exceedingly draining for elementary students. 

Interview Questions

Its years away, but I can't help thinking about it already.  Hell, I'd be reading tons of education books (if I had time) and making rubrics if I could!

This is where I started my search of what to ask in a teaching position interview.  This is the top local college for teachers.  Next, I looked at a list of questions on Yahoo!  And then, I found this page, and I spent a lot of time reading and thinking about the sample questions that might be asked at an interview. 

Basic info about the position:
How many classes will I teach?
What is your average and maximum class size?
Do you use heterogeneous or homogeneous grouping?
If heterogeneous, can you describe the levels?
If homogeneous, what support is available for classroom teachers?  (GT advisory, aids, ESL)
What other duties will I have other than my class load?  (study hall, advisory, duties)
How long are class periods?  How do classes rotate?
What is the make up of the student body?  Particularly, ESL, "honors" and low income families. 
May I have a copy of the student handbook?
May I have a copy of the course book?
Do you use semesters or trimesters?
Do you send out mid term progress reports?
What is your administration's view on when a student should be sent to the office?
What expectations do you have for teacher-parent communication?

Questions geared to my teaching ideals:
Will I have my own classroom?
What is your support systems for teachers new to the school / district?
When is there collaborative time for teachers? 
Do teachers ever collaborate: interdisciplinary?  district wide?
How is standardized testing preparation handled?
What skills and initiatives has the staff been working on recently?
Is your report card traditional or standards based?  Is there any talk of it changing?
Do you have a literacy specialist?  What role does he / she play in the school?
How is literacy across the curriculum implemented?
Do you have a peer tutoring program?
What steps are in place for remediation?  (summer school, specific courses)
Do any of your teachers team teach?
Do any of your teachers loop their students?
What is your homework policy?



Other:
Do teachers new to your district have any additional obligations?  (such as perimeters at LAHS)
What technology will be available? (classroom use, lab, programs for students)
Do you have a venue for me to create a web site?
What training is available for me regarding technology I'm unfamiliar with?
What oppertunities are there in district for professional development?
Do you reimburse course tuition?
What are the large annual events at your school?  (Homecoming, arts festivals, etc)
When were you last accredited?  Is this or next year an accreditation year?
Do you offer AP courses?
Do you partner with any other schools to  provide additional educational opportunities? 
How are teacher observations arranged? 
How would you describe parental involvement at this school?
How do I order supplies?  Will I have funds to use during the school year? 
Does your school recycle paper?
What are the procedures for making student handouts?  (copiers, printers, etc)


Questions specific to ELA:
Is there a textbook?
Is there a prescribed reading list?
May I have a copy of available texts?
Will I have any department allocated funds for books or other materials?
How are the texts available distributed over the courses?
Do you use any common rubrics?
Do you use common assignments across the grade level?
How are research projects handled?  Is it mainly this departments job to teach research?
What work has the department been doing together over the last year?
Do you have a literary magazine?  (if yes, can I have a copy?)
Are there any mandatory assignments for the classes I would be teaching?
What is your approach to teaching grammar?
What writing courses do you offer? 
How do teachers approach writing in the grade level courses?
Do you have a drama department or does ELA cover those topics? 
What do the students leaving the middle school mastered and what do they need to most work on?
What does homework typically look like for teachers in this department?
Do you offer many electives?  Are they available for all grade levels?

Questions related to my family needs:
What is the schedule for after school meetings?
How many sick hours / days are available?
How many personal days are available?
May I have a copy of your pay scale?  Where is a copy of your pay scale available?

Still Three Years to Go ...

After five years, I really started to feel I knew who I was going to be as a teacher.  I was very happy with the direction my teaching was taking.  I had procedures and routines that worked well for me.  I started to establish solid beliefs about how I want to teach and on the direction of education in general. This is a wonderful place for a teacher to be as she enters into the "veteran" status. 

But, job hunting after seven years out of education is not just starting up another school year in September. 

Ideally, I want to find a school that matches me and what I believe and want to accomplish.  But, and this is a big one, I have other responsibilities now.  I need to find a job to bring us back to two incomes.  Sure, we saved and are getting by on one now, and could cut and manage for longer on one if we really had to.  But, we want to save for the kids for college.  We want to be able to take some real vacations as the kids get older.  And there is plenty of work on the house that we want done or that just keeps popping up needing to be done.  When I go on my interviews, my primary goal is going to be actually getting an offer. 

Now, this is really scary for me.  Right out of college, I applied for maybe twenty jobs.  I got one offer.  At the time, this concerned me, but now it is frightening.  What if no one wants to higher me?  I've been told that my lack of offers previously was mostly likely because I was from "away" as Stephen King will tell you Mainers call non-Mainers.  While you need to live here for like 50 years to finally be called a real Mainer, no one will know I'm from Massachusetts when I send in my applications this time.  My undergrad degree is from Framingham (not Farmington), but many kids go out of state to school. 

I also shouldn't sell myself short.  I know have five years experience.  And it will be clear I chose to leave, and was no asked to resigned.  Additionally, I have a new degree: my Master's in Literacy Education.  Sometimes I feel guilty that my old district paid for 90% of that degree and then I left, but they did get the benefits as I was learning.  In fact, it was pursuing that degree that made me a better teacher.  My undergrad work taught me how to survive teaching, but it was my grad work that taught me how to flourish. 

Other stay at home moms who are / were teachers (are you ever not a teacher once you've become one?), worry me about what my resume will look like when I return with a huge gap in emploment, particularly away from education.  This worries me, too, and it increases every time one of them mentions it.  I'm also worried about explaining a lapse in my license.  Maine has a law that all teachers must take a specific course on special needs.  I never received any notification from the state saying I needed to take the course, so I assumed that a similar aspect of a course in my undergrad work out of state fit the requirement.  Then my application for renewal came back six weeks before William was born.  After crying over the phone to someone at the department of education, I was told that it I just need to take the course, submit the transcript, and my license will be renewed.  Well, its a year later and I'm just looking into taking the course.  Breastfeeding William exclusively has hindered my ability to take a class.  I still worry how Mike will get them both to bed alone if I were to take one this fall. 

At the root of all this worrying is that I need to get hired to help take the financial pressure off of Mike. 

But that isn't the only way this job search won't be ideal.  Before, I only had to worry about myself when getting a job.  I wasn't yet married or even engaged.  I didn't feel any obligations to Mike that would restrict where or how I worked.  This is completely different now.  Just yesterday Mike and I were trying to figure out how we will get the kids to and from school five says a week.  I used to stay after for hours since Mike didn't get home until much later.  Now, I'll be running out the door to meet the kids on the bus.  I used to get to school half an hour before my duty.  Now, I have no idea how it will work, not to mention where the kids will go when I have to stay after roughly once a week.  Any new job I have is going to have to be able to meet the family's needs before my preferences. 

Yet, even if I took away my obligations to my family (both money and time wise), where I am as a teacher makes finding a job harder now than it did fresh out of college.  When I graduated, I was happy to get any job.  Now, I know what I want.  I am very worried that I will have a difficult time finding schools that match me as a teacher.  The first time around, I asked no questions during the interviews, but I'm already thinking about what I will need to ask when I start searching.  (Which is the idea that got this post started). 

Ultimately, I'm worried about having to settle for a position that I know I will dislike to tide us over until I can find one I do like.  I want returning to work to be positive and exciting, but if I know it isn't going to be a good match, I'm afraid dread will be my main emotion.  With all its hassles and headaches, I enjoy teaching and want a job that will allow me to keep enjoying it, but even more so, now that I am a mother, I want a position that will not make me feel like I am wasting my time.  It will be seven years since I taught when William starts Kindergarten; just in the three that have already passed, I identify myself as a mother before anything else.  Teaching, especailly ELA, is time consuming and potentially emotionally draining.  I do not want to take the time and energy away from the hours I have at home with my children for a job I dread going to every morning. 

Time Saver: Absent Folder

I LOVED this idea once I put it into practice.  Most of my school's math department used it, and after visiting their rooms during standardized testing, I decided to give it a try. 

For each of your class periods, post a folder.  I actually stapled file folders to a bulletin board to make pockets, but you could use a different system such as stacking bins, a binder, or other folder system. 

During "attendance" collect a set of the day's handouts for each student who is absent.  If there are multiple handouts, paper clip them together.  Write the students' names on the handouts / groups of handouts.  Then put these into the folder.  Whenever a student is absent, it is his job to go to the folder to get the handouts. 

Here are a couple ways to make it work even better:

• Put paperclips on the edge of the folder to hang notes to students who are out. These notes could be about a missed test or quiz, a reminder to turn in textbooks, or a note to see you to pick up graded work.  
• You can put graded work in the folder, but stick to work with only feedback, not actual scores.  The only time I broke this rule was if I found the work on the floor. 
• Write up a summary of class or type up notes.  Print copies for absent students and put them in the folder.  (You can make this a student's job each day, too).  Having notes and summaries like these are also useful for students with certain learning disabilities, helicopter moms, and a binder you keep in the classroom for you and your students to reference. 

Time Saver : Hall Passes

Permanent passes are not a new idea, but depending on your school's pass protocols, they can be a huge time saver. 

The idea of a permanent pass is that you have an object that stands for the pass so that you don't have to write passes during the class period. 

I used to have a pass for the boy's bathroom, the girl's bathroom, and for general hall travel.  If the pass was missing, then the student had to wait until whoever had it got back. 

If your school is really lax, than these probably won't be necessary.  If your school is extremely strict, than these will not be good enough. 

If your school requires a pass with the exact date, time, and location written on it, here are a couple of ideas. 

• have your class procedure be for students to write the pass and you just sign it.  This interrupts your teaching the least.  
• photocopy passes that have as much information filled in as possible.
• make permanent passes that have a way for entering this information.  Maybe an area to write the date and time with wet erase marker.  This allows you to change that info quickly and easily, but is harder for students to alter it in transit. 

Time Saver: Grade Book Tips

Paper Grade Book:

• Skip a line between names, or even two lines if a class is small.  That way you have room to add in new students alphabetically.  
• Don't set up your grade book until the second week of school.  Too many class changes happen before then and you might have to go a whole marking period with mistakes or redo it.  
• When an assignment is missing, outline the box.  This makes missing work stand out at a glance.  
• When you enter scores into the computer, highlight them in your paper book.  Then you will immediately know what needs to be entered when you open your grade book.  
• If you give homework passes, write "pass" in the spot the student chooses to use it or you might lose track if its been used or not.  
• If you want to keep track of who has handed in an assignment, but haven't yet graded it, here are two ideas.  Make a separate column for handing in the assignment.  (Sometimes I would could turning big in on time as a homework grade).  Or, put a small dot in the boxes of students who have the work.  Then go back and outline the boxes without dots.  I found this allowed me to quickly look at the grade book rather than locating and flipping through a file of work. 

Computer Grade Book:
I have only one real tip for your computer grade book, but its a big one.  It might depend on the program you use for it to work.

Creating grading codes is a great time saver for you.  It might take you a little bit of time to enter the codes, but it will save you time dealing with students and parents.

Here's the idea.  Create some codes that represent typical situations that students and parents ask (or nag) about.

For example:

NHI = not handed in

NGY = not graded yet

These two are very helpful to show parents in particular that either yes or no to if you have received certain assignments. 

When you use these codes all the time, then any zeroes in your grade book will only represent real zeroes earned on poor work or work that will no longer be accepted.  (Actually, you could come up with a code for a closed assignment, too.  I used to use ND = not done).

Time Saver: Reusable Rubrics

I used this idea for daily class participation rubrics, but really it can be used for any form you use frequently. 

Instead of having students use a new form each time, laminate enough copies of the form for two days.  Then, stock up on dry erase markers. 

If you are using the form daily, make it part of the class procedure for students to pick up their rubrics and markers and to fill them out and return them to a set location. 

After you have recorded the information on the form, erase the rubrics. 

After a while, the rubrics will get a bit dirty.  I more than once had detention or study hall students with nothing to do wash my rubrics with a cloth and board cleaner. 

I often considered using this for rubrics I filled out while grading, but never did it because I wanted the students to have to copy of the rubric with items circled to provide the easiest feedback as to why an item earned the score it did. 

Time Saver: No More "Take One, Pass it Back"

I remember being taught during student teaching to hand out papers with "take one, pass it back" or to the side or around or whatever.  But in  practice, this still means you have to count out the papers for the rows and wait for them to get back to the back of the room.  I used a lot of handouts, so this was a significant waste of time for me and disrupted flow making transitioning harder. 

I soon decided to put all my handouts for the class period in one set location in the room.  Students quickly learned to pick up their handouts as soon as they entered the room. 

Occasionally, a student would forget to pick them up, but then that student just got up and got what was needed. 

When I grouped work for absent students, I just picked up one from each pile and paper clipped them together. 

Another idea for saving time with handout distribution is to make one big packet of handouts for a whole unit.  I did this once or twice and really liked it.  But, there are two downsides.  First, you have to plan it out well in advance to get the copies made in time.  Second, students can easily leave the packet at home and not have any of the handouts needed for the day.  This second problem can be addressed by having classroom copies available that students borrow during the class period and return before leaving.  I used to keep this stuck to the white board with magnetic clips.  When a student borrowed one, he would write his name under the clip. 

Discussion Chips

One of my big challenges in my daily teaching was balancing class discussion among all members of the class.  This is a trick I picked up somewhere along the way, wish I could remember so I could give credit.


Give each student four poker chips: 2 white and 2 colored.  The white poker chips were for answering questions or making comments, and the colored ones were for asking questions.

In order to speak, students had to "pay" with a poker chip.

This method helps balance discussion in a few ways.

First of all, if you have one or two students who dominate discussion, they will either save their chips for when they have something really important to say or they will spend them immediately (and probably try to speak anyway!).

Once your usual talkers are forced into silence, there will be other students who will step up, either because they have ideas to share they would usually keep quiet or because they can't stand the silence!

There will still be students who refuse to spend their chips, but I've found it is less than in a regular discussion.

Your job as facilitator during this kind of discussion is to collect the chips cuing that a student can speak.  Also, keep watch for your quiet students.  As soon as I saw a quiet student raise her hand, I would make sure to get to her as quickly as possible. 

I've coupled this with writing a line up on the board of who can speak next so that students can focus on what is being said versus when they will be called on.  So, if I go around and take chips from Tom, Emily, Kendra, and Casey then I write their names on the board in that order.  I keep adding to the bottom of the list as we go, and periodically erase the names of students who have taken their turns.

If you are working with older students (such as late high school) or a group that is very mature and in tune with each other, you can try stepping back.  Students could instead deposit their chips themselves, maybe by tossing them in a central pot or by passing a bucket.  This adaption allows students to work on the flow of their discussion.

Whenever I did this type of discussion, I would leave several minutes at the end for students who have been forced to be silent to speak again.  Usually, at least one student bursts saying a million things she's kept bottled up.

A couple more points before you put this into practice.

Before you begin, you have to decide on rules about trading and donating chips.  I don't have a problem with students trading the colors of their chips, but I don't allow donating of chips because it goes against the purpose of balancing discussion.

You also might decide to make the colors mean different things.  If you are working on a specific skills, you can make one chip color represent that.  Examples of types of contributions your colored chips could represent include: questions, textual evidence, inferences, facts, opinions, rebuttals, piggy backing, or going up to the board to write or solve a problem. 

Four chips worked well for my classes of about 18 students where we planned to discussion reading for 30 - 40 minutes.  If you want a shorter discussion or have more students, you'll want fewer chips.  If you have a small class of ten and want a long discussion, you might need more chips.

You shouldn't do this type of discussion ever time or else it will become boring and tiring.  But, if you include it regularly students will get used to the procedure and fall into it more quickly each time. 

Time Saver: Eletrical Tape Chart

I picked this tip up at my husband's old office. 

If you need to make a chart on the white board for which you'll be erasing items in the boxes frequently, this is a great time saver. 

Instead of drawing the lines with marker, make the lines with electrical tape.  No matter how much you erase or how sloppy you erase, your chart will stay behind with dark, fresh looking lines. 

I used this for a reward chart we used over a period of weeks, but there are many other uses. 

Now that I think about it, you could use this for any type of line you want to last, not just charts.  For example, you could use it for lines that segregate areas of your white board or to draw a number line, y and x axis, or time line.  My old middle school had a chalk board tool for making sheet music lines, so I'm sure some product exists today to serve that function, but you could also make the lines for music with electrical tape.

(You could also try using wet erase marker instead of dry erase marker to make chart lines that last). 

Dressing for Student Teaching (Women)

My number one tip for a woman about to start student teaching is to get a full length mirror.  Before you wear any outfit, you need to step back and lean over all the way at the waist.   Lift up your head to see if you can see down your shirt or see your bra in anyway.  Teachers lean over desks all day long, so you must check that this line of sight is G rated. 

Next, you need to get as good a view of your butt as you can.  Do you see your bra through the back of your shirt?  Can you see your underwear?  Are your pants too snug on your butt?  (My personal rule was that snug fit on the top of my butt was okay, but not rounding down to my legs).  When you lean over or squat, does your underwear show or even worse your butt crack?  If you feel the need to put your hand to the back of your pants as you lean down, then this outfit is probably not okay.  You either need longer shirts, higher pants, or better underwear. 

Where I taught, the student dress code was no Bs: no backs, bras, bellies, or butts!  As the teacher, you shouldn't be breaking this rule! 

Here are a a few tips about specific items of clothing:

Bras - My student teaching adviser addressed the whole group of us about to start our student teaching and talked to us about nipples.  She told us that when you are nervous it is not uncommon to get visible nipples.  If you teach Kindergarten, maybe no one will notice, but teaching teens, well, that is a bit of a nightmare.  The simple solution is a slightly padded bra.  I used to always have a cardigan sweater handy because I get a chill easily, which leads to the same problem. 

Underwear  - Right now (2012) low rise pants are still fashionable, though I did see them say on the last season of Project Runway that high waisted pants were fashion forward.  (I hope that is wrong because I find low rise so much more comfortable).  Get bikini underwear, and get it low cut.  This will prevent worry about your underwear showing when you lean over.  I also recommend trying boy cut briefs instead of thongs to prevent pantilines.  I also recommend pantiliners, especially around when your period starts.  Teachers do NOT have the luxury of running to the rest room if they feel something might be starting.  A pantiliner should get your through until you can get someone to watch your class for a few minutes or a natural break. 

Skirts - As a teacher, there is a distinct possibility that you will be back lite when you walk around the room in front of your windows.  Make sure that any skirts you wear aren't going to be too transparent.  Also remember that you may be sitting down in front of a room full of students who are almost at the level of  your crotch.  Your skirt must be long enough so that they aren't looking right up it at your underwear.  I also used to worry if my shirt was showing too much when I walked down stairs as students were walking up them.  I know slips are out of fashion, but a slip will help you feel more confident in all these areas, and also prevent pantilines. Any skirt that doesn't reach the tips of your fingers when they are held at your sides is too short (unless you have unusually long arms). 

Shirts - Obviously, nothing should be too tight or low cut.  As I mentioned above, lean over in front of a mirror in any shirt you plan to wear teaching.  Also, raise your arms all the way up to see if your shirt moves up more than you feel comfortable.  Also be careful of fabric that is too see through and shows your bra outline.  Lastly, if you wear a button up shirt, make sure that nothing can be seen through the button gaps.  You can use fabric tape to close gaps between buttons.

Shoes - Sensible shoes are most important.  You might be standing a lot of the day.  You might have to run or at least walk swiftly.  You might have to go up and downstairs several times.  No stripper shoes!  I'd also say to leave the very causal flip flops at home until you are well established.  

Make Up and Hair - Keep it low key.  Anything  over the top can bring out the worst in kids to pick on, either to your face or behind your back, and even if that doesn't hurt your feelings, it distracts from your teaching.  If you are teaching high school, avoid hair and make up that makes you look too young.  I used to wear my hair up and avoided funky nail polish and glittery make up while teaching.  I saved those for weekends, or causal Fridays a couple months after school had started. 

Top Writing Mini Lessons

Effect / Affect

Homophones such as the theres

Punctuating dialog

Complete Sentences

Expository paragraph template

Funnel paragraph introductions

Conclusion template

Formatting titles

Comma rules

Semi colons

Colons

Ending with a preposition

Passive voice

Parallelism

Removing I from formal essay writing

Strong verbs / removing "to be"

Removing vague words using banned word list

Plagerism

Summarizing

Paraphrasing

Quoting

Citation

Note Taking

With a toddler and an infant, I don't spend much time these days thinking about my professional self.  But still, every once and a while thoughts come to me about how and what I will teach when I return to teaching after the kids have started school. 

Just now I was doing some needlepoint to pass the time while waiting for Craiglist ads to load.  I thought about how long its taken me to do this block project (about 5 months) and if it would take longer if I was teaching, but the kids were older.  That got me thinking if I could do any needlepoint while at school when I would be listening.  It didn't sounds absurb, especially since I've had students knit in class before.  However, that made me think about what you should be doing with your hands while your listening to students in class, and that is usually taking notes to grade.  Likewise, students should be using their hands to take notes in class. 

Thus, the subject of this blog occurred to me: Note taking. 

In my five years of teaching, students at all levels had pretty much no note taking skills.  I usually would try to teach kids about different types of note taking over the course of the year.  We'd cover note taking while reading, while listening, and for research projects.  But thinking about this subject now, I may have found the root of the problem.  Students don't understand the purpose of note taking.  Some don't understand the overall reason, but what I really mean is what is driving them to take these specific notes. 

When I return to teaching, one subject I must cover is how note taking for English is different than for other subjects.  When I would teach students about taking notes while reading, they would take comprehension notes.  They were taking notes on content of the plot, much how they would take notes from a history or science textbook.  But in high school English especially honors, that is not what is important.  Reading notes for English are about how one reacts to or thinks about the text.  These notes should be about patterns, questions, connections, predictions, symbols, and language.  Going back over plot notes will probably not help one find an idea to contribute during class discuss or find a topic to write a five page essay.  But, notes that show thinking about the text are a much stronger place to start. 

In the past, I tried various types of journaling and post-it note requirements to get students to record their thinking about a text.  At first, I required both for all reading, but I soon learned that it killed any joy in reading.  By my last year of teaching, I decided we needed to differentiate the types of reading we do in my classroom.  Most of the reading was for pleasure and practice.  Students did not have to take notes on these books, but did have to pick one every month or so to discuss with other students via the web.  But, a few times a year, there were texts on which all students needed to take notes that recorded their thinking on the text.  These were the texts we read together to discuss at length (for my freshmen they were Animal Farm and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; my sophomores analyzed To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby).  One of the most important parts of this change was the difference in how we read different types of texts.  When I read at home for pleasure, I do not take notes, and if I did, they would be sparse emotional reactions.  But, when I read knowing that I must discuss what I'm reading or write about it later, I take copious notes to record what I'm thinking as I read.  Students need to see this difference in reading to understand why I am making them take these notes. 

Even my best students did not take notes during discussion.  When I actively taught the topic, and collected notes, the results were poor for most students.  They had a very hard time pulling out the key ideas from a discussion of a text.  Most students would instead try to write down everything (often including who said it making almost a transcript) or only a few scattered ideas.  Some students wouldn't even copy down information written on the board!  Again, one of the keys here is that discussion of a text is different than a lecture given in another content area classroom.  Students need to learn how the teacher guides students through the most important parts of the text being discussed.  They need to see that as the text is discussed, they should jot down their ideas that stem from discussion because these will give them a base for their later work with a text. 

Research notes are still different.  I'm very old school when it comes to how I teach research notes for a large project.  For short texts, I spend a lot of time teaching students how to high light and annotate in the margins, again focusing on their thoughts about a subject rather than repeating content.  But, when the rest of the school drops the huge annual research project, we need a different approach.  Suddenly, content is important. While a high school research project becomes excellent when it includes student thinking rather than restating facts, most students still need help keeping track of all those facts.  When students don't, plagiarism runs wild.  So, when teaching note taking for a big research project, I go old school.  I make students fill out index cards where they must summarize or paraphrase the text with only one idea per card and include the citation information at the top.  Then I show them how to organize the cards to form their  paper.  Most students resist!  They would rather cut and paste from their Google print outs, which usually results in no mixture or sources and no analysis either.  Every year a few students would tell me that once they embraced the process, they really saw how easy it was to draft their paper.  Again, it comes to the purpose of the note taking.  Students were failing to see that their notes need to facilitate citation, synthesis, and analysis. 

After today's thinking, I am ready to return to the subject of note taking with new vigor and the next time around, the key will getting students to see the difference in purpose for each note taking experience. 

Student Teaching

I saw a former student last week who is starting her student teaching today.  Of course, seeing her got me thinking about the biggest lessons I learned from my student teaching experience.   


I didn't have the best student teaching experience.   It could have been much, much worse, but overall I didn't get anywhere near as much out of it as I could have.  A lot of that had to do with my personality, but it could have been better with better mentors and just different circumstances. 

The most important lesson I learned from student teaching was that you can't be any other teacher.  You have to create your own rules and consequences, your own procedures, your own lessons, your own grading system.  You can not just adopt these from another teacher.  True, teachers borrow from each other all the time.  But when you do so, you make adjustments.  You can't just take everything one teacher does and try to do it yourself.  During my student teaching, I was trying to just fill in the shoes of my mentor teacher instead of figuring out who I was as a teacher.  As I said, some of this was the circumstances of when I took over teaching because my mentor suddenly was out with pneumonia and I had to take over several days earlier than we planned.  Because of that and my timid personality, I spent most of my experience feeling more like a substitute than the real teacher.  But, I learned the lesson.  When it came time for me to have my own classroom, I was very ready to figure out how to do things my way. 

Other than this big lesson, I would say that student teaching is a great experience to just get you used to the feel of teaching everyday.  Doing attendance, writing passes, using a grade book, writing on the board, handing out papers, figuring out when to go to the bathroom, using the xerox machine, and dressing appropriately (which is a bigger deal for a young woman than a man).  There are the other bigger jobs that one always thinks of, namely writing lessons, grading, and discipline, but these small jobs are important to get the feel of and student teaching provides just that.  And, if you want it to, student teaching also is a great opportunity to try: experimenting with new technology, network with other teachers (both in and out of your discipline), work with administrators, get involved with extracurricular activities, and communicate with parents.