What In Tarnation?!?!? In the Classroom

Day Two

Well, today is just a bit different than yesterday. Not in a good way mind you. Today is the writing “performance event.” We all know how common it is that a person is required to take a piece of writing from brainstorming all the way through to publishing in a 60 minute period. I know I had to do it just last night!

Thankfully, this year’s prompt seems pretty straight forward. No hidden meanings or hidden gotchas that I can see.

We did have the added surprise of a “flood test” on my end of the building. Unbeknownst to anyone here in the building, some nice men from Springfield were making the trip to Wyman to flood our roof. From what I pieced together, and I probably have some details wrong here because upon hearing of this plan I had what I like to call an allergic reaction to Murphy’s Law. This reaction includes such symptoms as shortness of breath, blurry vision, bleeding from the ear and nose, and in the most severe cases loss of motor control and awareness of ones surroundings. So from what I gathered this flood test (I hope these men from Springfield had a good breakfast, test taking tip #2!) requires a fire hose being run up to the roof and turning the water on and flooding the roof. Evidently, some people don’t see any potential problems with this operation going on while I am trying to give a freakin’ high stakes test in my room. “Oh, it won’t bother the kids,” I’m told by people who evidently know more about my kids than I do. “It will just sound like it’s raining. That’s all.” Well, I agree that the sound of rain wouldn’t particularly bother my students… when it is raining! However the sound of rain when there are blue skies and not a rain cloud in the sky might cause some issues. No scratch that, WOULD cause some issues. Of course if we take this scenario to its worst possible ending (which during MAP week would be more likely to occur than on any other normal day of school) it would result in the invalidation of all my tests and the destruction of lots of expensive equipment and some very wet students and one very angry teacher. Thankfully, some people took the bullet for me and saved the sanctity of my class’s test scores. The nice men who know more about my students than I do are going to wait around until 11:30 to start flooding my roof. At least the tests will be safely secured in the THF by that time.

8:35: We get to the classroom after potty time and we go about attendance and getting everyone settled in. Teacher speeches are given. At times I feel like a third candidate running for the presidential nomination with all these speeches. “Yes we can!”

9:03: Finished reading the script and we begin.

9:06: Marking the earliest this has ever happened in my class, only three minutes in (last year it took seven minutes), a student raises their hand for a dictionary. Could this mark the first dictionary of the Dictionary Goldrush of ’08 (see entries for ’07 for explanation of this odd and rarely seen phenomenon)?

9:08: Another dictionary. There requests are perfectly spaced out over time just long enough for me to be doing something else that I have to stop doing to go get the dictionary. How do they instinctively know how to do that?

9:10: 3 more dictionaries fly off the shelf. Again spaced two minutes apart from the previous request. Amazing.

9:12: I have six students exhibiting “The Gaze.” The Gaze is a trance like state that students enter in order to “think about” what they are going to write about. Normally, a student will pick a random spot on the ceiling and just fixate on it. Depending on the depth of The Gaze, students will enter what looks like upon first glance a vegetative like state but if you look closer you can see the slightest glimmers of life. This state has been know to send novice teachers into a state of panic. Being the seasoned professional that I am (I just made myself chuckle) I will ignore The Gaze for the first thirty minutes of the session. After that point I will have to intervene which can be dangerous. If you have ever tried to wake up a person that is sleeping walking then you know kinda what the situation is like. Not always pretty.

9:15: Another dictionary.

9:16: Question from a student: “Do I have to have a title?” We addressed this very issue this past Monday, within this week even, while we were practicing with a released item (2006 if anyone is curious).

“Well, follow the instructions on page 15.”

“It doesn’t even say. I read it like one million times!” replies the concerned student.

“Jeepers that a bunch a times! You must read fast!” I may later regret that response.

“Well maybe not a million times, but a WHOLE bunch a times!”

“Just do what is says in the prompt,” this was not the answer the student wanted to hear. The student slips into The Gaze.

9:17: 11 students have contracted The Gaze. That is a pretty high ratio from past years. Yikes!

9:19: A Gazer says to me, “I don’t know what to write about.”

“Wel,l let me help you with that. If you would turn to page 15 it tells you exactly what to write about,” I helpfully reply.

“I know! I know! But I just don’t know what to write about,” says the student.

“Well now I’m confused. How in tarnation do you not know what to write about if you have read the page that tells you what to write about?”

Blank stare and shoulder shrug. Thanks, that’s very helpful. “I have given you the directions. You have read the prompt in the box. I can not assist you any more. Oh, and it would be a real shame to turn in an empty test booklet… If you know what I mean.”

Student continues The Gaze. I now only have 7 Gazers.

9:22: I eat my fourth peppermint of the day. I hope I have enough for the rest of the week.

9:24: “I don’t know what to write about,” states one of the 6 remaining Gazers.

I have shortened my response to such questions to, “PROMPT!” and I walk away.

9:27: I am down 4 Gazers. I feel if I can start to relax a little when from the corner of the room, I hear, very quietly, something that sounds like dripping water! What the $*&@&%*#! I listen with more carefully. Nothing. It is finally happened, it is time for the men is white coats to come cart me off to my padded room and the brain stress ball couldn’t save me after all or they started the Flood Test.

9:28: I hear it again! Water dripping. For a moment, I am thankful that I am not hearing voices. I hear it again. I decide to investigate. I move quickly over to the location of were I think the sound is coming from, in the process, scaring two students. Nothing. I stand and wait, the two frightened students are now nervous. I wonder what they think I am doing. Still nothing. Channeling the ghost of Charlton Heston I quietly say “It’s a madhouse! A madhouse!” I walk away.

9:30: I hear the sound again but this time I see a student who is sitting near where I thought the sound was coming from with his hands inside his desk. “What is going on over there?” I whisper in a menacing tone.

“I am just trying to get this cough drop out of the wrapper.”

“That cough drop has not been sanctioned by the MAP authorities. Put it away now!” I was probably a little more upset about the fact that I thought that sounded like a flood test than a cough drop wrapper. I guess I’m a little paranoid today.

9:32: I need to amend day’s one record about the semi-silent trash truck. It came at its usual time today, beep and all. All heads snapped up like something out of a Nature documentary when you know that weak little antelope is going to be eaten by the family of lions. The beep even snapped the remaining 3 Gazers out of their trance. All eyes are on the window as if they will be able to catch a glimpse of the garbage truck outside our second story window.

9:33: Most are back to working until the BANG of the garbage container hits the ground. Most settle back in and two return to gazing.

9:34: I have another peppermint.

9:40: I go to the remaining Gazers. “Start writing,” I say through clenched teeth. They do.

9:41: A student asks me how to spell portable.

“That’s why I got you the dictionary.”

“I know but it’s not in there,” replies the whiney student.

“Rubbish. It’s in there. You just haven’t found it.”

Now the student is getting a little defensive as if I shouldn’t question her well honed dictionary skills. “Well it is not in there under p-o-u-r. I looked!”

“Good gravy!” I walk away and the student opens the dictionary again, sighs, and resumes her treasure hut. I grab another peppermint. With all this candy I should be the size of Shamu the whale by the end of next week.

9:50: A few students have copied rough drafts over to the book and finished. One student (a former Gazer) is now staging the Pencil Gymnastics Competition. You should have seen the summersault that this skinny, yellow number two pencil did. It was fantastic. I give it a “10.”

9:52: A student moves one of the speakers sitting on their table causing it to make a sound with a certain fart like quality to it. I bite my lip and count to five. Unable to resist I whisper, “Excuse me.” More than one student heard me and they start that funny little laugh you get when you are trying not to laugh. So funny. No so good for the test however.

10:00: We take a potty break.

10:10: We resume the test. I eat another peppermint and wonder if there is some kind of 12-step program.

10:11: I survey my domain. One person has slipped back into writer’s coma, many students are working on their final draft, and 6 or 7 of them have closed their test booklets. I notice that one student is still working on a rough draft. He has three pieces of scrap paper sitting next to him filled with his story. I have a moment of concern. I fear I may be trapped in this room with these nine-year olds for the rest of my life.

10:15: The student who developed the ability to control the wind on Tuesday motions me over. This should be good.

“Have you seen my Cod Stones?” she asks.

I have nothing better to do right now so I engage her, “God Stones?”

She rolls her eyes, “No! Cod Stones.” She pulls two fragment of a clay pipe from her desk. “Here they are.”

Obviously from the tone of her voice, I should be in awe of the Cod Stones. “Nice. I think I recognize those.”

“Of course you do! They are the ancient stones of the Egyptian gods. They hold many secrets and mysteries in them.” The choice of studying tall tales, legends and myths last week and the beginning of this week is coming back to bite me in the butt.

“You didn’t by any chance write about the Cod Stones in your story today did you?” I was concerned.

“Of course not! Why it would be a waste! Shouldn’t waste such great stories on such cheap paper!” Needless to say, this particular student is a bit dramatic. “Many stories have been told of these rare stones.”

“But not in the MAP test evidently. Cheap paper and all,” now I’m just having fun.

“Correct!” she replies without missing a beat. “Many sacrifictions have been made to the Cod Stones! Yes, many indeed.”

“Oh! Sacrafictions! Well they are important then aren’t they? Tell, you what. I’m going to need you to put the Cod Stones back in your desk before I make a sacrifiction of you. You should be reading an AR book.”

“Well, if you put it that way!” She carefully places the “Cod Stones” back in the desk.

“Nice chatting with you.”

10:30: Mr. Novella finally starts to work on his final copy. Lunch is a long way away.

10:32: Question from the floor: “So I should put sincerely at the end of this right?”

“PROMPT!”

10:40: Alarm sounds. Mr. Novella looks up in a panic. He is nowhere near done. I ask if anyone needs more time. One Gazer and Mr. Novella require the extra time. Add 10 minutes. Add 10 minutes to the timer.

10:45: The student with the “Cod Stones” appears to be performing some kind of incantation over the Cod Stones.

“People who are finished should be reading AR,” I remind the class.

The Cod Stones quickly disappear into the desk again.

10:48: I notice one student has abandoned all the fun books that he brought from home and is now reading the dictionary that I gave to him earlier. Things are getting desperate in here.

10:50: Alarm sounds. The Gazer is done (I assume I got three sentences out of him) and Mr. Novella is writing as if his life depended on it. I look closely and see wisps of smoke coming off the tip of his pencil. 10 more minutes.

10:54: I decide to try an experiment. How many peppermints can I shove into my face? Seeing the lack of time that I have to finish said experiment I abandon the plan and POP two instead.

10:56: I walk past the student who asked me about adding the letter closing to the end of their story. They see me looking at them and evidently feeling guilty, flips open the book and adds:

Sinserly,

Ima Student

I grimace.

11:00: Beep. Everyone is done. I collect the books and give out Effort and Attitude stamps and we head out for some fresh air. I need it.

Sinserly,

Tech Ninja

MAP (Missouri Assessment Program) started today for my building. Last year I wrote some entries (1, 2, 3) for this blog about what giving the test is like. On a whim, I e-mailed it out to teachers in my building. Much to my surprise, they were a great hit and got e-mailed out to other buildings within the district and then even out of district in some cases. Now there is an expectation that I would be doing a repeat performance again this year. My concern is that I would just be repeating myself and that isn’t very funny. So I worked up a little something, something. To up the ante, I added illustrations from Google Image Search. Because of the illustrated format, I went with a PDF rather than just HTML or rich text.

So click here to read my first entry of 2008 (PDF). I hope it isn’t too much of a retread.

In other standardized test news. We received news today the third grade Wyman landed in the top ten school in Missouri for schools our size! The kids last year did a bang up job and now we get to bask in that a little bit. Here is the official announcement from the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, also in PDF form. Bottom of page 2 and 3. My school’s full name is Col. John B. Wyman. We ranked in both Communication Arts and Math. I was stunned.

Well enough jibber jabber.

Class dismissed!

That might be my new name after my plans that I have for tomorrow. I think this might be the first or second April 1 that I have had school on since I have started teaching. I wanted to do something crazy for the day. My crazy solution? For the first half of the day I am switching places with another teacher. She will be in my class while I will be in hers. The crazy part is the grade level of the other teachers. Yes my friends, I will be in a Kindergarten class tomorrow morning. 

Now you are starting to see how crazy I really am. The Kindergarten teacher that I am swapping with has promised to leave me all kinds of “fun” crafts including glue and glitter. Now I am not sure if I have shared with you my policy on glitter but it basically is I don’t want to see it. I don’t want glitter in my room, I don’t want glitter near my room or near my person either. So I have been brainstorming what would be as annoying as glitter is for me for this seasoned teacher. So tomorrow my class starts the day off with an exciting MAP (standardized test) review. Yuck. I know very few teacher, much less students who like to do that. Then later in the day, I have all kinds of computer/SmartBoard centered activities since this teacher is a bit of a technophobe. 

As a bonus April Fool’s trick, before I left school today, I started up all the student computers in my room and pressed control + alt + down arrow. On most of our more modern computers in the building, this key combo will change the orientation of the screen so that it is upside down. So when they go to do the computer activities she will have twelve groups of students with questions on why their computer monitor is displaying upside down! Hehe. April Fool’s little children and teacher; all with one April Fool’s gag! How much fun is that.

Something I am looking forward to tomorrow… rest time!

Something I am not looking forward to tomorrow other than activities that involve glitter and glue… have lunch at 10 something. Good night!

I will let you know how it goes.

FYI and on a totally different topic… I have upgraded this blog to WordPress 2.5 which adds a bunch of new features and a completely re-designed admin area. So if something isn’t working, this is why. I will also be looking to find out where my links went in the sidebar. I believe this has something to do with the upgrade or an inactivated widget or something. 

I remember as a young lad, that I was always excited when we got the Scholastic Book Orders. I would carefully go through and circle items that I wanted to get. Then when I got home the bargaining began.

Today, I send home Scholastic book orders most months. Things have changed quite a bit since then. Today, most of the orders that I get are online, which I prefer.

Scholastic has expanded their business model. It seem every week I get an announcement from Scholastic announcing some new service or product that they want to sell me.

Recently they have introduced:

• Printables: A bunch of worksheets that teachers can download and use. Requires subscription.
• SMARTBoard Lessons. Free.
• BookFlix: Pair books with animated videos. Free for 30 days and then subscription required.
• Read 180: Reading intervention program.

That is just a small sampling.

It is only a matter if time before they are writing text books…

Class dismissed!

I explain a math test on measurement…

Me: Any questions?

David: What made you think up this test?

Me: Uh, its the stuff we have been studying for the past week and a half. That is how I make the test, it is stuff that we have been studying.

David: Oh.

Me: Now remember lbs stands for pounds.

David: Oh yeah. Gallon Guy.

Me: Yes we made Gallon Guy.

Stan: (Writhing about like a slug who has had a good dose of salt poured on him) I need help on 13.

Me: (Looks at test.) Estimate the weight. There are two choices for crying out loud!

Stan: Oh.

David: (Raises hand) What does lbs mean?

Me: You are kidding right?

David: No.

Me: I just reminded you like 30 seconds ago!

Donald: (Clueless stare.)

Me: Okay begin.

Later…

Mac, a student who has been gone for two weeks only misses on problem. Others aren’t doing so swell.

Stan approaches.

Stan: Mistah W. What is lbs?

Me: The amount of trouble you are going to be in for not listening to the instructions.

Stan: My pencil popped. I can’t work.

Me: Kay! Please sharpen this for Stan. Don’t let him near that sharpener, it is not Stan proof.

Amber comes up.

Me: Amber. Thank you for being so normal. You don’t know how much that means to me.

Amber smiles.

Stan interjects: My pencil isn’t working!

Me: Kay!!!!!

The hour wasn’t over fast enough.

Wednesday I am heading to 19th Annual Southwest Education and Technology Conference/Tech Expo in Springfield, MO sponsored by the Regional Consortium for Education and Technology. My main purpose is to present a workshop entitled Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts Oh My! Web 2.0 in the Classroom. The workshop is designed to be an introduction to what Web 2.0 applications are and how they can be used in the classroom.

I presented the same workshop at another technology conference earlier in the year. I had two and a half hours for the workshop and I was finding it difficult to fit everything in during that hands-on workshop. This time around I have fifty minutes. Yikes! Thankfully it is not a hands-on workshop this time around. That will significantly help with the time issue.

If you are curious as to some of the content, you can see my online notes at my new website edTech Ninja in the Ninja School Moodle. Click Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts Oh My! Web 2.0 in the Classroom. You can either create an account or you can log-in as a guest.

I guess that is also my unofficial announcement of my new website edTech Ninja. (I spell it differently every time I type it, it seems.) I plan to post things that I have done or created for my class for others to use. I firmly believe the only way teachers are going to be successful in the high demand world of modern education, we have to share with each other. This is an easy way for me to share with the world at large. I hope others choose to share through the site as well. Especially in areas where I don’t teach in.

Now if I could just keep up with both sites.

Grrrr Argh!

Witty points if you can name the TV show that the title of the blog post comes from. I use that clip at the end of my presentation. It is good for a nice laugh at the end of the presentation.

Class dismissed!

A few literary selections from children’s literature that I have read. Both of the following books are similar in that the illustrations are a big and important component of these books. Yet both have very different styles.

First up is the Invention of Hugo Cabret. Like many children’s books that I have read, this one was suggested by my mother. She showed it to me shortly after I finished the last Harry Potter novel. When I first looked at the book, I thought that she was kidding. As you can see from the picture on the right, this is a hefty book. This is the kind of book that kids would check out of the library just to carry around to impress other kids with the size of the book that they are reading. The book is Harry big. Initially, I wasn’t interested in starting another long, epic novel. Then she said that I could probably read it in an hour or so. That really caught my attention. So I picked it up. Here is the book description from Amazon.com:

Orphan, clock keeper, and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo’s undercover life, and his most precious secret, are put in jeopardy. A cryptic drawing, a treasured notebook, a stolen key, a mechanical man, and a hidden message from Hugo’s dead father form the backbone of this intricate, tender, and spellbinding mystery.

Reading the description, the book sounds like a mishmash of random things. Clock keeper… key… mechanical man… the book also tells quite a bit of film history as well. There is a bunch of things going on in the novel and it the author, Brian Selznick, manages to pull them all together. But what made this 500+ page novel an hour read? Selznick who is also the illustrator uses drawings to tell the story. The novel has relatively short chapters broken up with some very nice and detailed illustrations that would continue the story by showing the action through pictures. It all comes together with very nice effect. The history of film, however, might hender some younger readers and they might need some assistance understanding some of those concepts.

Update: I just discovered that the movie rights for this book have been purchased. Martin Scorsese might direct.

WIT’s rating:

Another book that I recently finished is called Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. This book caught my attention a couple of bookstores and I finally gave in and bought it. The story is told through the diary entries of Greg, a rather small middle schooler as well as some rather whimsical illustrations. There were several moments while reading the book that I was chuckling out loud to myself.

A short description from Publisher’s Weekend:

Middle school student Greg Heffley takes readers through an academic year’s worth of drama. Greg’s mother forces him to keep a diary (”I know what it says on the cover, but when Mom went out to buy this thing I specifically told her to get one that didn’t say ‘diary’ on it”), and in it he loosely recounts each day’s events, interspersed with his comic illustrations. Kinney has a gift for believable preteen dialogue and narration (e.g., “Don’t expect me to be all ‘Dear Diary’ this and ‘Dear Diary’ that”), and the illustrations serve as a hilarious counterpoint to Greg’s often deadpan voice. The hero’s utter obliviousness to his friends and family becomes a running joke. For instance, on Halloween, Greg and his best friend, Rowley, take refuge from some high school boys at Greg’s grandmother’s house; they taunt the bullies, who then T.P. her house. Greg’s journal entry reads, “I do feel a little bad, because it looked like it was gonna take a long time to clean up. But on the bright side, Gramma is retired, so she probably didn’t have anything planned for today anyway.” Kinney ably skewers familiar aspects of junior high life, from dealing with the mysteries of what makes someone popular to the trauma of a “wrestling unit” in gym class. His print debut should keep readers in stitches, eagerly anticipating Greg’s further adventures. Ages 8-13.

After doing some reading on the Internet, I discovered that this book actually started with a webcomic on funbrain.com. You can also read the Diary of a Wimpy Kid blog.

Funny book though there are a few things that parents might want to watch with younger readers. The afore mentioned wrestling unit comes to mind when Greg realizes that while the gym teacher is demonstrating some wrestling moves he feels a draft of wind in the crotchal region. Additionally, Greg is a typical middle schooler and is pretty disrespectful to just about everyone around him.

That said, I think kids will really enjoy the book and they will look forward to the sequel coming out in the beginning of 08 called Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules! I am looking forward to it.

WIT rating:

But remember, you don’t have to take my word for it.

Let me know if you read these books in the comments

Class dismissed!

My To-Do-List is out of hand. I think I understand a little of what Heracles went through on his second task fighting the Hydra. The Hydra was a particularly nasty little monster. Heracles valiantly fought the Hydra. In an effort to dismember the Hydra, Heracles would cut off one of its heads. Good idea except when he did, two more heads would spring up to replace the fallen head. When Heracles finally found a way to chop off the heads without others appearing, wouldn’t you know, the last head was immortal. I hate when that happens.

My To-Do-List is evidently the distant cousin of Heracles’ Hydra. Every time I complete and mark off a task, two POP up to replace the one task. It will be my luck that the last task on the list is immortal. I have even stopped mentioning to others when I complete a task because when I do they seem to take that as an invitation to replace the finished task. “Oh really? Well, I am having this issue….” Spring! A new task. Joy!

A reader may be asking why I am writing in my blog rather than working on this supposedly horrendous to-do list. Fair question. It is because I am avoiding my to-do list. Let me break it down Dwight Schrute style:

FACT: When a task is completed two or more tasks replace the original.

FACT: Each time a task is finished the list actually grows rather than shrinking.

QUESTION: Why would a person continue to complete tasks if the list gets bigger rather than smaller?

FACT: The list continues to grow even when tasks aren’t being completed but at a much slower pace.

CONCLUSION: Stop completing tasks idiot.

FACT: Bears eat beats. Bears, beats, Battlestar Galactica.

So here I sit, not completing items on my to-do list.

Wait a tick here! Completing a blog post was on my to-do list! Dang it. Better not check my e-mail to see was two requests are going to replace this one.

Class dismissed!

PS - I do have one slightly used to-do list that I am going to sell to the highest bidder. Bidding may begin in the comments…. NOW!