Pop Quiz

Over the weekend, I gave my students a handout on New Deal Agencies and 15 questions to answer about the  agencies listed. At the start of class today (in each of my classes), I asked if there were any questions whatsoever on the homework. If anything needed clarifying, or anything else along those lines. Then all the students (who did their homework) passed it in.
Next I asked everyone to clear their desks and I gave them a pop quiz - 10 questions as they appeared on the homework. So far, the class average for all of my classes has been about 4/10.


well done kids.

more solutions:

• write screenplay to Titanic
• write screenplay to Annie Hall
• write a letter to Salvador Dali asking for money for a personal art studio (lie)
• get a roommate, and convince them the bill is higher to get a profit
• entertaining children at birthday parties because the industry is probably virtually nothing
• invent something revolutionary - like the slap-chop

Scenario

In order to learn about the Great Depression. I created scenarios for the students to get a sort of "in their shoes" type experience. After doing a few different scenario activities in class, I gave them one more to do for homework.

The Scenario:
You live by yourself in an apartment in New York City in 1930. Last month you couldn’t pay the electric bill, so you’ve been struggling to get by without power for the past few weeks. The heating bill is due soon and you only have $2.30 for the bill that costs $10.50. You’re nervous about what will happen if you don’t pay the bill because it’s now the beginning of winter and it’s only going to get colder over the next few weeks/months. What are you going to do in order to pay the bill? You have no family to turn to, no car to leave with, you just got laid off from your job, and you’re running out of options. What is the best and most feasible/realistic solution to your predicament?

The Solution:

• Let your heat shut off to save money
• build an illegal firepit in your apartment (solves lighting issue)
• go to charities for blankets (you'll use them to cover your doors and windows so the smoke doesn't escape)
• need food money? lonely? - find a dashing young man and ask him to live a life of crime with you robbing banks and mugging apple sellers. You'll also be famous and people will come up with some catching crime team name for you and post it in the paper (or get a dog if the dashing young man rejects you)

Another Solution:

• First I would think back to the high school that I attended. I would contact the man who had the best way with the ladies. I would have him give me lessons; almost like we were in the movie "Hitch" and I was Kevin James and he was Will Smith. I would have him help me char a rich, beautiful woman, such as Eva Mendez, and she would marry me. We would move into a handsome, heat-filled home, have a myriad of children, and live happily ever after. I don't think there is any other solution more reasonable than this one.

overheard in the cafeteria

As a girl is petting a guy's head. "I wish every guy's hair was this soft. It's just so soft? How do you get it so soft? It's the perfect texture, with a rich color, and great consistency. It's just so soft. I wish every guy's hair was like this."

Then she curtsied and said "goodbye" in a horrible British accent.



What is wrong with these kids?

how to: fail a midterm

How do you fail your US History midterm? Easy. Don't answer half of the multiple choice questions.

I love when kids don't read directions! Kidding, I'm actually pretty upset with this kid know because he was doing generally well on the test and he was on track to get a B+, but when you don't answer 5 short answer questions, it really messes with the whole "passing" thing.

seriously.

vocab!

Midterms started today, and I used a test generator for part of my test. All the questions are on point, but the test generator uses some vocabulary words. So over the course of the hour and a half test period, I've had many students ask questions about what words mean. I guess this is just a running total, for future reference for myself - also, I assume this list will be added to as the week goes on.

• upheld
• malice (x2)
• statutes
• bipartisan (x2)
• reactionary
• curtailed (x5)
• typifies
• regression
• diplomacy
• subjugation (x6)
• amnesty
• high ground
• civil liberties
• inferior (x2)
• reparations
• abolitionists

Found it!

Over the weekend, I decided know is as good a time as ever to start to try to understand and tackle student loans. Since signing up for them about five years ago, I haven't paid attention (or money) at all. I'm still a full-time student until June, and payments wouldn't start until November/December so I'm good there.

But when I checked over the weekend. I found out I owed $18,000 less than I thought it did. Awesome right? Sadly no. I found all the money I owed this morning, so everything is now back to normal.



yay.

closure

Ended up finding technically 9 cases of plagiarism in those research papers. Some were a very minor degree (forget bibliography & no quotes were used in paper), used one definition from the dictionary, took something from the internet word for word without quotes although there was a proper citation in the bibliography, etc.

One case, a girl took direct lines (phrases up to multiple sentences) from 5 different websites. After meeting with the academic vice principal, we decided to only pursue 1 of the cases (the egregious one) in terms of an "academic integrity" issue.

The girl got a zero on the assignment (worth 45 points total), has to serve multiple detention hours, and cannot be inducted into an honor society (NHS or subject honor societies) in the next round of inductions (April).

Her class was first period yesterday, I had to explain what plagiarism was (by order of the VP) and go over proper citations. I didn't look in her direction the entire time. After that we started reviewing for the midterms coming up. I asked the class a series of questions, called on people randomly (including her) and the class went smoothly. I think she appreciated I was in no way making a scene or calling attention to her.

So here's to a smooth rest the year.

plagiarism

Yay plagiarism!

In these research papers, so far (one class left to go over) I've found one girl who massively plagiarized and six other students who plagiarized in a smaller degree.

Why are kids to dumb?

Research Papers

On December 15th, I assigned a 3-4 page research paper about WWI on a topic of the students' choosing. The assignment was due January 5th. I've graded one full class so far and generally they've been good until I came to the last student of the class's paper.

Requirements: 3-4 pages, 12 point Times New Roman font, 1" margins, etc.
First off, he handed in his paper a day late (the penalty is that 10% of the total points is subtracted from your grade). Secondly, if you are ever going to email a teacher your paper - send it as a PDF so that all those little tricks you used to make your paper longer can't all be fixed back to what they should have been originally.

This future leader extended the margins and used justified alignment. But the paper still looked weird, the font was TNR like it was supposed to be and was 12 point the whole paper. I talked to one of my roommates and we discovered you can change the spacing between each word too. This kid had set it to "extended spacing" so that his paper was that much longer.

First is a picture of how his paper was formatted when he submitted it. Second is his paper with proper formating.

kids are great.

Odd

A group of students during study hall, called me over to ask a question about calculus. Most times, I can manage to figure out how to help the kids with what they're working on whether it's history, math, spanish, or science. Other times, when I have no idea I have one of two options that I turn to depending on my mood:

1. Tell them I have no idea and I can't help them
2. Make it up and sound convincing

The group asked me what a specific term in their Calculus textbook came from. I felt like making stuff up ... so I did. I explained an elaborate story of an Italian mathematician in the mid 1600s and the hatred of an ex-girlfriend who he wanted to shame for the rest of history. The kids believed me and I walked away.

About 10 minutes later, two of the students came up to me in awe in the fact that I knew the term. I told them I was joking and in actuality I had no clue whatsoever. They then had a look of even more shock and awe on their faces. Apparently they googled the term and my made up fictional story was actually correct (to some degree). 

Pretty awesome, huh?

Debate Team

Yesterday (from 3:30pm to 8:30pm) I help judge a match/meet (whatever it is) for the Debate Team. The debaters had to argue for and against space exploration. Here are some of the pearls of wisdom I learned while listening to the debates:

1. North Korea doesn't have any long range missiles but they can hit target in Israel, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
2. The leader of North Korea is Jim Kunill
3. The capital of North Korea (Pyongyang) is pronounced [PIE-GONE-YAY!]
4. Iran can shoot a missile 3 kilometers, which can hit Israel
5. It is cheaper to explore the oceans rather than space because all you need is scuba gear.

our future lawyers and politicians everyone.

NEW YEAR - NEW SEATS!

All of my classes got brand new assigned seats today - they hated it. It was awesome.

Beyond that, the new year started out smoothly. We covered Harding's "Return to Normalcy" and all that fun stuff that goes along with it. It was a dry lecture, but I was able to joke around with the students and make it a little more interesting.

After school, I had 8 students in my room to see me. First off, 1 student after school to see me never happens, let alone 8. A teacher across the hall actually stopped and starred when she saw so many kids in the room.

-------

On the friday before vacation, a student came into one of my classes that was apparently during his free period. He felt he had the right to sit in the back of the room in the teacher's chair and comment on the class. I politely asked the student to leave the room because it wasn't his class, he brushed me off. I told him to leave, he jokingly replied. Then he made a comment about another teacher in the school and I "yelled" (more so talked sternly) at him to leave and slammed the door behind him.
This morning, I handed a detention slip to his class dean because I felt his actions before break were disrespectful to me, disrespectful to the teacher he commented about, and disrespectful to to the teacher whose desk he was sitting in the back of the room without asking (a teacher whose been at this school for 50+ years).
He met with his dean and she gave him an hour of detention and told him he had to come talk to me about what happened as well. Today, with a minute before the bell rang to start one of my classes, this kid walks into my room (again not during his class period) and said:
Kid: Miss [class dean] told me I had to talk to you
Me: Ok
Kid: Does that work then? Can I leave? Are we good?
Me: Now's not the time, my class is about to start
Kid: Fine (rolls eyes and leaves)
He came to my room later in the day to talk to me. He sat down, and simply said again he needed to talk to me, I said OK. After a brief awkward silence, he said "I'm sorry." And then, I politely and casually asked "for what?" The total conversation lasted no more than two minutes but I feel like I definitely got my point across and that student should never show that amount of disrespect again. Hopefully.

lame sauce

school starts back up tomorrow.


boo.