Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be flashers.

It's been spirit week here for the last 4 days. Each day there's some new theme: crazy hair day, pajama day, piss off your teacher by making a paper beard/mustache set and taping it to your face day......ok, that last one wasn't really one of our themes. That's my everyday reality: spirit week just adds a whole level of chaos to my surreal existence.

Today was school colors day. Each grade level wore a different color (thank god, we got black this time around. It's easier to dress in all black than to figure out which pair of pajamas you can wear to school without getting fired) and we counted how many students participated in our first period class.

Now, I'm pretty liberal when it comes to counting participation. A half-black sweatshirt will probably get you counted. However, several kids have to try and push that line to its naturally absurd extreme.

"Hey, I have black on my shoes!", Sam said, flashing the bottom of his sneakers, which had black treads. "I have a black binder!", shouts Caelan. "My shirt is mostly black, why didn't you count me?", demands Jack (point of clarification: Jack was wearing a bright red T-shirt with some black text on it. Maybe 5% of it was black, which would explain why Jack is failing math, if that's his definition of "mostly").

Yeah, nice try guys....

I had managed to deflect most of these comments when Braden stands up. "Hey, I'm wearing black!" he proudly proclaims, pulling up his shirt and yanking up the waistband of his underwear to show me he's wearing black briefs.

The other kids in the class suddenly look like they're all watching the same tennis match. As one, their heads all turn to stare at Braden, then swivel to gauge my reaction.

Actually, I'm not quite sure what the appropriate response is at this point either. First, the last thing I ever want to see is an 11-year old boy's underwear. Second, this is dangerous territory for any teacher: any rumor of impropriety can kill your career.

My head spun to look at the other, safer side of the room so fast I'm surprised I didn't give myself whiplash. "Um, Braden, sooooo not going there....."

"No really!" he interrupts me, "It's all black...." And, to my horror, he actually starts to unbutton his pants to he can show me his underwear is all black.

OMFG, I am NOT going to jail because I have a budding exhibitionist in my class!

A note on principals

Yeah, it's been a while. I know, I know. I've had plenty to blog about, just been lacking in time (and, I suppose, in motivation. It hasn't been the most fun year). I'll get around to it. In the mean time, let me leave you with a note on principals.

Principals are a lot like tornadoes. Most of the time, you don't see them. They go wherever they go and do whatever they do. Then...suddenly....BAM! One blows into your classroom and throws the entire room into chaos. No one knows why they're there. No one's sure why they walked past this classroom and that classroom and walked into yours. They roam around for a few minutes. And, just as suddenly, they're gone, leaving mass confusion in their wake.

A principal will usually observe your class for 5 or 10 minutes, then wander around, talking to the kids. What are you studying? What did you learn how to do yesterday? Why are you doing that? The kids aren't sure what to do. Are they in trouble? Why is she talking to me? To be fair, it's not like the principal is trying to cause confusion. It's just that most kids only talk to a principal when they're in trouble.

It's not much easier on a teacher. Sure, academically I know she's probably there just because she felt the need to drop in on any classroom (it's what they do), but I'm still sweating bullets, thinking this will be the day that someone manages to amputate something with a pair of Fiskars scissors. And then there's the suggestions. Oh, the suggestions. Sometimes they're helpful, but sometimes it would be funny if they weren't made so seriously.

"You know, it would be fun if each student could come up with their own experiment to test" (sure, I bet the district is going to love to pay for all the supplies. And I'm just going to looove grading them for hours and hours). "I noticed your low math block was having problems multiplying. Maybe you could send home some multiplication worksheets they could practice on in their free time?" (they don't even do the homework I give them now, and you want me to give them more?) "Your period 6 class gets distracted when they have to borrow supplies. From now on, they can only borrow supplies from you." (Of course, because borrowing from me every day isn't going to be distracting to me at all)

You have to try the suggestions. Hey, when the boss says try it, you try it. Often, you go crazy trying to make it work until you give up. And then you're ok until the tornado blows through your door again.....

It's fun to make them worry from time to time

As I mentioned in my last post, behavior at this time of the year is certainly lacking. One of the things I have to put up with is sassiness and impudence. Andrew came up to me today and asked, "Why do we have to learn anything now? Don't statistics show that we'll forget most of what we've learned over the summer?"

One of the things I've learned from my students is how to lie convincingly. So I turned to Andrew and responded, "That's why they're moving to a year-long school year next year."

He paled slightly. "What?"

"Oh yes. It is true that you forget most of the stuff you learn over the summer, so they're moving to year-long schooling. You go to school for three weeks and get one week off for the entire year. There's no more summer vacation starting next year."

He hurried off and I overheard him passing the news on to another student in hushed yet urgent tones. By tomorrow morning, the whole school will believe there is no summer vacation next year. I'm waiting to see if the superintendent has to make an announcement to stem he flood of chaos I've unleashed.

Is that why I'm sweating?

I've heard it said that our school is a green school. I know academically what that means, but it took me a long time to figure out how we got the title. After all, our cafeteria still hands out plastic spoons and forks, and the teachers still make 145 double-sided copies for class the next day. This week, I discovered another reason why we're called a green school.

First, our beautiful, brand new grass lawn is turning a sad shade of yellow. Since the heat wave started, our school has elected to stop watering the lawn because it wastes water.

Next, we have this piss-yellow desk cleaning spray that doesn't disinfect (remember, they wanted us to use it to use it daily to help counteract the spread of swine flu until someone reminded them of that fact). In fact, it doesn't really clean either, now that I think of it. I have two nearly full bottles of it under my sink, one of the few items in my classroom that isn't grimy.

Here's another big oversight: our school has no air conditioning.

Sure, we have heating (it does snow up here every year), but this is Washington. Land of the perpetual rain. Heat waves tend to be rare (though we have record-breaking heat waves more and more often it seems. Is that global warming in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?). The district thought air conditioning was a luxury. But we've had a week and a half of sun and our uninsulated, steel roofs are absorbing all the heat from the black roofing material on top. Tom Warring has the hottest room in the building, a record-breaking 88 degrees at 2:00pm. With only one tiny window to provide a breeze.

So now, no one's learning anything. To alleviate the suffering, the district gave us some fans. Some Hepa-filtered, motorized, rotating, weak as hell floor fans that look better than they work. I'd give my eye teeth for one of the ugly steel floor fans that look like they'd chop a finger off but are powerful enough to flatten your hair at 20 feet away.

15 more days. Dear God, let me make it.

Motivations

Motivation can often be hard for a teacher. Abstract concepts like letter grades often slip right past most students. They understand much more concrete motivators, like "If I don't see an A, B or C, you don't see your PS3 until I do". Thankfully, most parents come through wonderfully with concrete motivators to match our abstract ones. Occasionally, however, other motivators need to be found. Sometimes it's even the child that hopefully motivates the parent to do something.

Take, for example, this conversation I had today with Andrea:

"Andrea," I said, "you haven't done anything in the last 2 weeks. If you don't make up the work soon, you'll end up failing this trimester too and you might have to be a 6th grader again next year."

"I don't care. I'll just learn the same things again." Andrea continues to doodle in her notebook.

"You don't mind being a 6th grader again? But you won't be able to talk to any of your friends."

"I'll see them after school."

(long pause) "Once you get kept back, you usually don't get caught back up again. You probably won't even graduate high school with your friends. They'll be talking about jobs and cars and you'll still be stuck in school."

"Oh, I'm not graduating."

I'm confused now. "But what are you planning to do when you grow up? Most jobs want a high school diploma."

"I'm not going to do anything". Andrea continues to doodle.

(very long pause now. Apparently only one of us has thought this plan through to its logical conclusion) "You need food to eat and a place to live. You want a car? (Andrea nods) Well, that all takes money. How will you get what you want without a job to pay for it?"

"I'm going to live with my mom."

"Until when? 20? (Andrea nods) 30? (Andrea nods) 40? (Andrea nods) You know, your mom probably won't let you live with her when your 40. Most parents expect their children to move out when they're not going to school."

Andrea shakes her head. "No, my mom will let me live with her. She can pay for everything."

(very)

(long)

(pause)

................. and then I walked away.

No matter what Andrea says, I'm pretty sure mom won't be happy with Andrea's "mommie will support me" plan for life. And I sent her an e-mail detailing this conversation, just to be sure.

Substituting Videos

So I was out of town from Thursday until Saturday, helping out at a new teacher retreat. Our local union every year pays for 15-20 new teachers to spend 3 days at a secluded location and they learn techniques about classroom management, dealing with trouble parents, managing stress, planning for retirement, that sort of stuff. Along the way, they get to bond and talk about how they're feeling doing, etc. It's a great opportunity to shake off the stress of the year and realize that everyone else hates their job at this time of the year about as much as you do.

Since we left Thursday night, I needed a sub for Friday. I figured my social studies kids could watch a movie on something they were studying or had studied. Since I had a new mummy video and we had studied Egypt, I thought maybe I would show that.

But I'm no dummy. Remember the pornographic Pompeii video I mentioned in an earlier post? I never show any movie without previewing it first. In this case, I'm glad I did: the movie was waaaay not appropriate for 6th graders (there goes another 15 dollars down the drain, sigh). In the video, they mummify a corpse. Amongst other things, they show the doctors ramming a hook into the corpse's nose, scrambling the brains, and allowing the resulting mess to leak out the nose. I was grossed out, and I usually like gross things. Way over the top.

So I found a video online on the silk road, which we're studying now. I left careful directions for the sub on how and where to find the movie on my computer desktop, what video player to use, and anything else I thought could go wrong.

The one thing I forgot to do was take the mummy video out of the VCR.

You can probably see where I'm going from here. When I returned today, my instructional aide pulled me aside and asked, "Did you preview the movie you asked the sub to show?"

Of course I had previewed the silk road movie! Like I said, I'm no dummy. Then she explained that the substitute had not shown the movie on the computer like I'd asked, she showed the mummy video in the VCR. Aghast, I asked what the student reaction was.

"Traumatized," she responded.

This is why most teachers don't take days off. It's hard to predict what's going to happen when you let someone else in your classroom unsupervised. Hopefully I'll get off light: the movie was a bit graphic but very scientific in nature.

Swine Flu

The swine flu has come at last to Seattle, and the entire school is in a panic. Me, I'm not terribly worried about it. There's been one US death so far: all other suspected cases appear to be progressing fine (probably due to the benefits of health care). Our biggest problem is going to be when it hits the Seattle homeless population, a group with no access to healthcare and a healthy suspicion of city services.

In the mean time, schools are closing down and other schools are enacting quarantine rules for students with a fever and aches or a cough. These students will be required to call home and will sit in the office with a mask until picked up. They will also be physically separated in different rooms from students who come to the nurse for different reasons. Teachers in our district are now required to have students wash their hands before eating. The school has ordered a large supply of hand sanitizer for each classroom with money we don't have. All desks, chairs and door handles must be wiped down with antibacterial wipes each day. Communal items such as tape, staplers, the salad dressing pumps in the cafeteria, etc should be wiped down with wipes as regularly as possible.

I didn't even think about it at the time, but the 8th grade science teacher Daniel brought up that viruses laugh at antibacterials. Antibacterials kill bacteria admirably, but not viruses.

I'l still comply with the rules because I understand our district has to do this. If a student transmitted swine flu to even one other student in our school and it came out we had taken no precautions, we'd get our knickers sued off. Still, it seems like an overreaction to me: kids are called "germ wagons" for a reason. If swine flu makes it to our school and it turns out that it has the normal flu's human-human transmission rate, most of us are going to get it.

3.5 million?!

Finally! I'm done with the worst of the National Board crap. I'll post later about this, but let me tell you, that was the most annoying thing I have ever had to do. But enough about that for now. Let's talk about the 3.5 million dollars the district has to cut by next year.

This has most of our teachers in a fury. I know it's a recession and all, but it's not exactly like we were wasting the money. Contrary to what most people think, schools run fairly efficiently (district offices may be another matter). We have to. The No Child Left law requires us to move heaven and earth to make sure all our students pass the WASL but gives us no money to do it with, so we're used pinching pennies so hard they squeak in protest.

Anyways, our district is turning to us to figure out where that 3.5 million is going to come from. There's a few solutions, none of them good.
1. Cut teachers. This isn't a really feasible solution, since less teachers mean larger class sized. Our class sizes are around 32-40 as it is. Most classrooms are built to accommodate 30 students, so there isn't room for any more students. Unless we knock out a few walls. Which costs more money.
2. Cut team planning time so we can cut teachers. This, unfortunately, is the one the district would like. I currently teach 5 classes and I have one personal prep (for copying, lesson planning, grading, cleaning, etc) and one team planning prep so I can meet with the other teachers to talk about students in trouble, where everyone is in science and what sections we can cut to get everything in by the end of the year, what occurred in all the various meetings, etc. I've worked in a district without team preps and I can tell you, there's nothing frivolous about them. A lot of communication that has to occur can happen at this time instead of in the halls after school, when only half the teachers have the time to talk. If we cut this time, we can all teach one more class and we can get rid of one more teacher.
3. Get rid of any extra stuff such as copy machines (which won't cover the 3.5 million, so we'll still need to cut teachers). You can see the trend by now. No matter what we do, someone's gonna be without a job.

Our population is growing and there's really no way we can afford to get rid of teachers, but there's also no way we can afford to keep them all. Our district currently gets 50 million a year to service our area. We need to get rid of roughly 7%. When 85% of your money is tied into personnel, there's no way around it. Someone's gonna get axed.

Chances are, your district is cutting too. Do you know how much? You might be surprised to find out what is being removed to accommodate the cuts. Or who.

What can you do? Well, the federal stimulus may save us a few people, so you might want to make sure your state is accepting stimulus monies. And if not, let loose a bee in your governor's bonnet. Other than that, find out in May who's getting cut (usually new teachers) and help them out however you can. Hopefully they'll find another job. But in areas where other districts have to cut teachers too? Some of these teachers may be moving out of their homes in the near future.

Give us a hand if you can. Support stimulus money. Support legislation that gives money to schools. And bake your child's teacher something. You'd be surprised how much a chewy chocolate brownie helps.

Always preview your videos

I should have known this from the National Geographic Hyena Video Incident (did you know that hyena females have mock penises and mount each other to demonstrate dominance? I do now), but sometimes, I need a refresher on this point.

Today's lesson comes via a naughty Pompeii video. Students love Pompeii, with it's perfectly preserved artifacts and plaster-of-paris casts of victims that died nearly 2000 years ago. I was planning on previewing a new video I had acquired on the subject when i was accosted by one of the teachers as I walked in the door on Monday.

Her daughter works as a sub in our building, you see. And the teacher she was subbing for left her with no lesson plan, so she was high and dry on what to teach with the kids walking in the door in less than half an hour. This is a horrible situation for a sub to be in: the kids would have eaten her alive.

"Please, do you have a video? We need a science video to show them," Karen pleaded.

Now, I had this Pompeii video in my hand, but I haven't previewed it. I dithered for a moment, but seeing the panic in her eyes, I made what I know now was a horrible decision. I gave her the unpreviewed video and let her know that it hadn't been watched but it should be ok.

I heard nothing else about it yesterday, but quickly realized my error when i previewed the video today. It started off innocently enough describing the tragedy of those buried on that fateful day, but started getting a little racy when they started discussing the brothels. Apparently, tile mosaics in each room indicated the "services" that each woman provided. Still, the video did this flashlight thing that made most of the mosaics hard to make out, so I thought it would be mostly ok. Then, they showed the artifacts recovered from the brothel, and that's when the wheels really came off the wagon. There were statues with phalluses longer than they were tall. Wind chimes with penises instead of chimes. Labia lamps. I couldn't believe it!

I ran into Karen's room and apologized profusely for what I put her daughter through. I'm imagining the phone calls the school is going to get!

But Karen was confused. What was I talking about?

I quickly described the movie's more saucy points, and unbelievably, Karen started to laugh. "She didn't even watch it!" Karen crowed. "She said she sat at the teacher's desk and read a book. The kids were super quiet so she didn't think anything about it. Now I know why: they were trying not to draw her attention to what they were watching!"

I've already thrown away the Great Honking Penises of Pompeii video in the trash and if anyone asks, "I know nothing about this video, I have never heard of it." Remember that.

Things you can't plan for

So I was doing an experiment in my class where my students discovered air pressure. You take two syringes (needle-less, of course), fill one with air, then connect them with a piece of plastic tubing. When you push on the plunger of the syringe filled with air, there's a bit of give, then the other plunger pops up. Voila! Air pressure! This experiment has all sorts of other uses too: fill up the syringes with water instead of air, and you discover quickly that water isn't compressible. It's the reason why we fill brake lines with fluid instead of air, and why air in your brake line results in your brakes not working anymore.

Oh how was I supposed to know what my students would do with this?

Someone in class figured out that, if you take one of the plungers out, you create a mini-vacuum chamber. They experimented with picking up papers, books, and eventually discovered that creating a vacuum on your arm leaves a perfectly circular red spot (see: hickey) on your skin. Next thing I know, several of my students have given themselves perfectly circular hickeys on their arms, necks, and even one particularly red on on the center of a forehead.

So that's why I'm sitting in a bar right now, drinking. Because I need to write a letter to my parents about how their child got a hickey in science class. And because days like this require a drink. There ought to be a law saying that.

Homogenized grouping

Who's bright idea was "homogenized grouping"?

For the uninitiated (or the uncredentialed), homogenized groups are where the teacher puts all the overachievers together in one group, all the middle kids in another group, and all the low kids in another group.  Then, theoretically, you differentiate the work (translation: you give the overachievers all the hard real-world problems and give the low kids the basic, no frills easy stuff) so everyone learns at their own rate.

The problem with homogenized groups comes with the low achievers.  These tend to be your ADHD kids, the ones that lose all focus the moment a fleck of dust floats past them.  Have you ever seen what happens when you put all the ADHD kids at one table and tell them to work together?  Turn your back on them for two minutes and it starts to look a lot like this. 

Every year, the administration makes us try this.  We split the groups up, homogenize them, and then give up after a few days.  So what then?  You stick the ADHD kid next to the overachiever.  The overachiever threatens to kick the shit out of them if they don't shut up and everything's back to normal.