done-zo

The school year, as well as my first year teaching, is officially over. It's exciting but surprisingly sad at the same time. After finishing grading all the final exams it was a great feeling, but cleaning up the classroom and shutting off the light (however cheesy as this sounds) felt weird. Brian, the teacher whose room I have my desk in, and I made a few Boy Meets World jokes as we slowly left our classroom imagining Feeney giving some sort of closing remarks.

In any case, I an no longer and will never be again a first year teacher. Although I will always be a student-teacher.

Birthday

My Period D class threw me a surprise birthday party first period. They brought in drinks, cookies, cake, cupcakes, brownies, and more. They even went to the Vice Principal to ask for permission to throw the party because they didn't want me to get in trouble.

It was great, never saw it coming.

Business Cards!

So March 20, was the last time I updated this thing. Sorry.

Since then, did a unit on the 1950s where we talked all about communism, the Soviet Union, conformity, and so on. We watched an episode of “Leave it to Beaver” and compared the family structure and values to that of “Everybody Loves Raymond”. The kids really got it and latched on to the idea of conformity and really understood what it meant and how it shaped the time period.

Using conformity as a jumping off point, we went into our next unit of the 1960s. We spent about a week and a half on Civil Rights with a look at Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, Black Panthers. Some of my kids freaked out when I told them how Rosa Parks was actually an NAACP officer and her protest on the bus had been planned and organized weeks in advance. One student yelled at me, “you just ruined my childhood! I thought she was this average lady … and now this! I can’t believe this, this changes everything!”

I finished up our section on Civil Rights by talking about civil rights in the 21^st century, so I did a whole day on North Africa and the Middle East with a focus on Egypt and Libya. Some of the kids were pumped to be learning about stuff that had just happened or was happening as we were learning about it.

Some other kids freaked out, “wait we’re in 2011 now? What happened to Vietnam? Why did we just skip all that stuff in history, this is ridiculous.” I guess they didn’t see the connections between the 60s and today, but they got it eventually.

Here’s a link to that presentation I gave if you want to check it out …

https://prezi.com/secure/b19dc562d64e742c107bb2a0482b5a6bfde18a70/

After the Civil Rights, and a break for April Vacation (which is pretty much the greatestinvention ever), we started our Politics section of the 1960ss unit. We learned about the Kennedys, the assassinations, the Space Race, Lyndon Johnson and the start of the Vietnam, and a whole lesson dedicated to 1968. (Here’s the Space Race presentation, I thought the bit about the monkeys was funny … my kids didn’t https://prezi.com/secure/ad6831a2db8f2582991a94169011ad9ce2b47993/ )

After all of that was wrapped up, we finished off the unit with a week long look into the counterculture of the 1960s. The whole time of the section, I never put notes on the board. All we did in class was look at pictures, watch videos, listen to music, and talk about what was going on; sort of a “countercultural” approach to teaching. But they really caught on and appreciated it.

At the end of each section I gave a quiz (ourunit test is going to be on Monday) generally the grades were in the mid to low 80s for the Civil Rights and Politics sections, but the average on the hippies quiz was a 95. So clearly the kids bought in and really got it (or my quiz was way too easy)

For part of the hippies section, the kids had to create a concert poster for a sixties band. Some of them were amazing; I took this picture to give you an idea.

For a summation of the 1960s the kids had to make video projects, they came out really good but for privacy purposes I’m not going to post any here. But take my word, they’re good.

In other news, school is coming to a close. The seniors last dayis next Thursday before their exams begin. Most of my classes won’t be affected by seniors leaving but I do have a few of them mixed in with my juniors. Otherwise, as part of staff appreciation week, the administration gave all the staff business cards (I’m legit now) and a notepad with “From the desk of [name]” so that’s pretty cool.

We had Prom two weekends ago, it was fun. Weird being a chaperone but still fun. One of my classes organized everyone together and got the photographers to get a Period B class picture. That was cool, I’m gonna hold onto that picture forever.

Also, boys tennis, which I’m assistant coaching, is now 9-2 (oursecond lost which was yesterday was against a really good team we only play to make us better – we pretty much knew we were going to lose but it was good competition). And also, we have the chance to be conference co-champions after one of our matches next week. It would be the first time in 7 years tennis got to put a banner up in the gym. That would be an impressive resume for the first year as a coach (although I don’t do much).

Beyond that, I’ll try to keep this updated but nothing really is happening lately.

TESTS!

My last unit test, the class averages were in the low 70s somewhere. The kids were really upset about their grades, and even more upset with me for the fact that I didn't scale them.

I'm in the process of grading this unit's tests right now. As of the first three classes, the averages are in the high 80s. I'm wicked proud.

What is even better is who is getting the top scores in each class. For example, in my Period C class the same guy and girl keep trading off for the best grade on tests. This time they got 2nd and 3rd and the top score came from a really quiet kid who was struggling last semester with a grade in the 70s.

In my Period D class, the girl who normally gets the best grade by far didn't even make it into the Top 5 grades (she got at 91% so don't be worried). But it just shows the rest of the class is really trying. The girl who got the 2nd highest score was also in the 70s last semester. And the best story of them all, the boy who tied for the 4th best score had a 57% average last quarter.

I must be doing something right.

Question

During the debates, one of my students posed a question that was knowingly off topic. I thought it was intriguing.

What would happen if Pinocchio were to say "my nose is going to grow right now"?

Debate

Yesterday and today we had a debate in class on whether or not we (the US) should have dropped the atomic bombs on Japan in 1945.

In some classes, the debates went well. I was really impressed with the effort and the research they put into their arguments. Other debates were not so good.

One group argued the atomic bomb should not have been dropped because the radiation from the explosion mutated the people in the cities -- thus creating the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles

Another group's concluding statement was as follows:

"To put it in relatable terms, Japan is like Mr. [my last name]'s beard. If we had not come in and shaved it then it would have grown and continued this terrible war. If we had not done what we did then his beard, AKA 'America', would not be the way it is today. It ended the war and all the additional deaths that would have occurred."

wow. my beard was just called America.

another group started their debate,

"I want everyone to close their eyes. Picture you are in a field. It's a huge field, full of colorful flowers. It's a bright, sunny, and warm day. Now picture you're lying in the field, surrounded by hundreds of cute puppies. Now imagine they are all dead ... that is what the bomb did."

teaching is weird.

WWII

On Monday we started our next unit: WWII. I have really planned this one out, and although it doesn't have many activities, I'm pretty happy with what we are going to be doing.

On monday we started with Pearl Harbor, then for homework the kids read FDR's "day of infamy' speech and compared it to President Bush's speech after 9/11. It went pretty well, I would have wanted a little more discussion, but I was happy with the classes.

Tuesday we went a little back in time and did a whole lesson on Hitler's rise to power. The kids seemed really attentive and wanted to learn a lot about him. I wish I knew the answers to all of their questions, but I was able to hold me own.

Today we talked about the European Theater and five major battles. It was a lot of notes today, but for the most part the kids were receptive.

For homework tonight, the kids are reading a speech by Heinrich Himmler about concentration camps, and then the testimony of the commander of Auschwitz during the Nuremburg trials. We are going to have an in-class text based discussion tomorrow and for homework they're going to be reading an excerpt from "Night."

My hope is that the students will be able to see the huge contrast in the ways the different parties talk about concentration camps, the demeanor, tone, and language will be very different. Hopefully it will spark a good discussion in class.