Tinkerings

I’m usually a rather quiet, reserved guy who likes to sit on the fringes of groups and observe the goings on rather than jump in the middle and become the “life of the party.”  So, it has been quite humorous to see my picture in the local paper so often in the last few months.  But this last one really caught me up short.

I have been planning my funeral for a few years now.  Quietly.  Privately.  Behind the scenes.  I know the funeral home I want.  I know I want a closed casket.  That’s what we were forced to do with my dad after his accident, and it just made the visitation time at the funeral home so much easier to get through.  I haven’t picked out a minister yet.  I’m toying with the idea of videoing myself preaching my own funeral and just letting someone hit “play.”

Every once in a while, a song will come on the radio or a CD playing in my car, and I will turn to whichever daughter is riding with me and say, “That’s one of the songs I want played at my funeral.”  That statement is usually followed by eyes rolling, moans and groans, or the obligatory, “Stop saying that, Dad!”

So you can imagine my surprise when the Cleveland Banner ran the latest story about me becoming president of the Bradley County Association of Professional Educators (BCAPE).  It appeared on page 2.  Yep.  The obituary page.  If you didn’t pay attention to the headline, you might have thought I had already passed.  My picture is in line with others on the page from left to right.  It looks so seamless.

So now I have some idea of what others might think when my picture appears on page 2 after I am gone.  It was a little too close for comfort.

It did make me realize I need a new picture for the “funeral file.”

But hey, at least they spelled my name right.

We are three days into the new school year (well, we will be when this day officially starts), and so far with the exception of not having any working computers in my computer labs the year is going great.  I know, I know, that sounds like a sarcastic statement, but….well…ok, there’s a little sarcasm there, but honestly, the year is going great.

This semester I have four 7th grade classes and two 6th grade classes.  I’ve been checking around.  I don’t have any real trouble makers in my classes.  Oh, I have a few that want to act like they are all that, but inside they are really good kids.  I can handle that.  I can work with that.  I can play that game and give them a little of the attention they crave and still steer them back on track to learn something in spite of their own efforts to the contrary.

While I am running behind on creating lesson plans (I’m only a couple of weeks ahead), things are falling together pretty well.  I am utilizing a “paper slide” video technique taught to us at the DEN LC Symposium by Dr. Lodge McCammon for the starters in my 6th grade class.  My goal is to have the kids make their own before the semester is over.  I haven’t written those lesson plans yet, and I have trained the other teachers on my team how to do it, and I don’t have enough flip cameras, and…well, I still plan to do it before the semester is over.  That’s the power of positive thinking!

So today, at 8 AM, I need the collective will of everyone who reads this blog to concentrate on the 27 computers in my room and will them to re-image properly.  Can you do it?  Will you help me?  We’re three days in.  But if I can’t get these computers working its gonna feel like forever….

Teachers get a bum rap in a lot of ways.  Low pay.  Blamed for all low performance results on standardized tests.  Caught between parents and students.  The list is long.  But, we do get summers off.  Believe me, that’s huge.

But there’s one other way teachers get a bum rap.  We get to make two sets of resolutions each year: One on January 1st and another sometime in August or September depending on what state in which one teaches.

Of course, not wanting to be an underachiever, I also set myself up for resolutions at the end of the last school year.

Like all good resolutions, we mean well.  We honestly intent to do things differently.  Sometimes we even succeed.  Other times we learn to tweak the resolutions so they are easy to complete.  Like this one from last New Year’s for me:

I will begin the process of losing 40 pounds.

And I did.  Several times.  In fact, I’m beginning that process again next week.  (Hey, we’re teachers.  We’re smart).

Here are just a few of the resolutions I’ve set for myself this school year.

1. Delegate more of my work among my team members.  I am one of those people that like to do my work and the work of thirteen other people.  It is time to give it up.
2. Learn all of my students’ names in the first three weeks of school.  I am horrible with names.  I think the only way I learned mine was from my mom writing it on the inside labels of my clothes when I went to church camp.
3. Find a working phone number for every student before the semester is over.  I’m giving myself a little more time here, but those of you who don’t teach would be surprised at the number of kids who don’t know a phone number for their parents.  Or a street address for their house.  Or what a pencil looks like.
4. Only grade what matters.  No more extra credit for bringing hand sanitizer.  Or getting a form signed.  Or staying awake in class.  (You can’t make this stuff up).
5. Refuse to allow a single student to leave my class without learning the things I intended for them to learn.

OK, I really only wrote all those to get to that last one.  It is this dogged determination to see kids learn that keeps us coming back to the classroom every year.

I will let the teachers, admins, school board members, and other members of PLN that read this blog hold me accountable to these resolutions.  Feel free to ask anytime how I’m doing.  If my answer starts with, “Ummmmm….” just shake your head and walk away.  Ask again on a good day.

What resolutions have you made this year?

We are here in the Wilderness at the Smokies Conference Center, and the TAMS general sessions begin this morning.  Last night was a whirlwind of registration, dinner at the New Orleans on the River, watching everyone at the indoor water park (this body doesn’t get shown in public), and a quick dessert in the snack bar upstairs from the water park.

I got invited to have dessert with three others from our group, so I jumped at the chance to get out of the 95 degree humid heat and extreme chlorine-filled air space that comprised the “fun” time of our trip.  The air conditioning felt great in stark contrast.

Our waiter was a very helpful man.  Quite friendly.  Wanting to help us any way he could.  It was clear from the beginning that English was a second language for him, and being teachers we were more than willing to accomodate him with patience and understanding.

One of the ladies in our party asked if the banana pudding was home made.  He shook his head and explained that the bananas and the wafer cookies were both made in the kitchen, but the pudding was not.  His comment set the stage for what was to come in our quest for a simple dessert.

Again, one of us asked what toppings were available for  the cheesecake.  I think his face went slightly pale, and he excused himself to go to the kitchen to find out.  When he came back he informed us that there were several toppings available.  For instance, strawberry was one.  ”The chef named about twenty toppings,” he said with a sudden look of fear on his face, “I remember strawberry was one of them.”  No other explanation was forthcoming.

So we ordered three chocolate lava cakes and one cheese cake with strawberry topping.

About five minutes later our friendly waiter returned with a friend.  He still had his order pad in his hand.  ”You ordered three dessert nachos, right?”

Silence.

Almost as one, we explained we had ordered three chocolate lava cakes. He nodded vigorously as he and his friend left to return to the kitchen once more.

After  a few more minutes the cheese cake arrived.  It was in the biggest bowl I’ve ever seen for a dessert and the entire bowl was beautifully decorated in swirls of strawberry syrup.  It looked delicious!

Then, a little later the chocolate lava cakes arrived.  Again, they were in this huge bowl.  In the middle of the bowl was the tiniest piece of chocolate cake I’ve ever seen in a restaurant.  It was surrounded by two large scoops of vanilla ice cream and two large dollops of whipped cream.  The whole thing was covered in those beautiful swirls of chocolate syrup.  The poor chocolate cake tidbit looked dwarfed by its surroundings.  I commented that perhaps because it was a “lava” cake it would erupt after we cut into it and cover everything around it.

Alas, it was not to be.

Don’t misunderstand me.  The cake was excellent.  It was filled with a hot chocolate pudding.  But there was just enough of it to be eaten with one scoop of ice cream.  But it was really more about the company the food, so we ate and talked and laughed our way through our experience.

Sometime later, our waiter returned with our individual bills.  I had to smile.

Dessert Nachos….$5.99

I usually don’t use this space to vent about much (although some might say every post is a rant about something or other that bothers me), but today I feel like I have to say something before the pressure gets so high I explode.

I’m in Knoxville today.  I realize Knoxville is not Cleveland.  The town is bigger.  More college students.  Diversity.  Blah, blah.  But still, do people have to dress stupidly everywhere I go?

I didn’t think much about it at Dillard’s when I was waited on by a nice lady with a red peace sign tattooed on the top of her foot.  I mean, I did think maybe she shouldn’t wear sandals to work at an upscale mall clothing store, but that was just a fleeting feeling of disdain for badly done tattoos.

I was only slightly taken aback by the lady who came into Starbucks in a shirt/dress over jeans and stilettos.  It wasn’t that bad of a look, but the shirt or dress or whatever it was seemed a bit too tight in places that didn’t need tight clothing.  I chalked it up to a bad hair day applied to clothing.

I started to get a little disturbed when a woman who appeared to be in her 70′s sat in the chair across from me at Starbucks to read a book.  She wasn’t dressed too badly, except for those black fishnet stockings.  You know, the kind with the BIG netting.  But I comforted myself in two things.  First, she was ignoring me.  Second, there wasn’t a black hem line up the back of her hosiery.

I think the thing that really pushed me over the top was shopping at the Apple store this morning.  I needed a new VGA adapter for my Mac.  As I stood at the front desk to pay, one of the employees behind the counter was leaning over to read something in a notebook.  His pants were sagging down toward the bottom of his butt in a way that said this was the way he meant to dress when he came to work.  Now, I’ve seen sagging pants a lot as a middle school teacher, and I have to say I’ve never been a fan.  But this fashion flub was made so much worse by the fact that his blue plaid boxers were stuck in a place that most of us try to make sure our underwear don’t go.

Apple prides itself on selling the “experience.”  Well, this morning I had one.  A bad one.

Maybe I just noticed them all because I’m wearing a tie today.

The questions that come up at the end of the year are so different from those I heard at the beginning.  When kids come into my class in the fall, all cherub-like in their innocence and desiring to please, questions are always about what they can do to get the best grade possible.  “Is this right, Mr. Childers?”  “Am I missing any work, Mr. Childers?”  “I was absent last Thursday.  Is there anything I need to make up?”

Those days are long gone.

After spending an entire semester working with 7th graders on writing good, solid five-paragraph essays, this question was asked today: “What’s a concluding paragraph?”

My 8th graders are putting together a Glog about a career of their choice.  We’ve been working on them for nearly a week.  One of the requirements is to add an audio file of them explaining why they chose their career.  Today’s question, “Mr. Childers, what grade would I make if I chose not to add the audio file?”  After explaining that the grade could range anywhere from a B to an F depending on the other areas listed in the rubric, another student asked, “Mr. Childers, what grade would I make if I chose not to add the audio file?”

Another wanted to know how to add the audio to their Glog.  I asked if they had watched the video tutorial I had talked about every day for the last week?  Their question?  You guessed it.  “Where is the video tutorial?” and “There is a tutorial for that?”

Other questions today?  What is a metaphor?  How many paragraphs do I need for my 5 paragraph essay?  Can I just get people to sign my yearbook today and work tomorrow?  How do I save my Glog?  What did people dress like in the 80s?  Do you know where I can find blue body paint?  Is there a game harder than the World’s Hardest Game?

Its the end of the year.

Sigh.

Dear Praxis:

I was intrigued by a link on Twitter from someone I follow, so I clicked the URL and I found this:

At first, I was a little shocked.  Then, disbelief started to settle in.  I am an adult.  I am a teacher.  I am over 50 years old.  I have 3 grand children.  I have two master’s degrees.  I have passed all the Praxis tests I’ve ever taken in the 98th percentile.

And you have the audacity, the gall, to tell me that if I show up at your testing center with a cell phone in my possession I am going to be dismissed and my fees forfeited?  Unbelievable.  I mean, I teach middle schoolers and we don’t expel them from school for possessing a phone.  Heck!  We don’t even expel them for using the phone against policy!  Did I mention the part where I am an adult?

I’m afraid you may have crossed a line on this one.  I am one of those teachers that embrace technology use in the classroom.  And while I understand the pitfalls that may come with it, I would encourage policy changes that would allow teachers to design lessons that actually use cell phones in the classroom.  It has always been my contention that teenagers will find a way to do almost anything that they are mandated not to do.  If we actually use cell phones responsibly, perhaps we can diminish the irresponsible use over time.  As it is now, irresponsibility is winning.

So, I understand that we are not allowed to use cell phones while we take the exams.  I understand that they should be turned off, and not just put on vibrate.  I understand that they should be put away in a pocket or purse.  But to kick me out just because I have one with me? Please Praxis, say it ain’t so!

Sincerely,

A former test taker