In middle school it seems inevitable that you'll end up teaching something for which you're not "trained." Most recently for me, that's been home ec, and it's funny how the same principles of teaching practice appear despite the nature of the subject matter.

Take, for instance, a cupcake lab back in October (revised to a cake lab partway through, for reasons that will be clear in just a moment):

 Be Prepared

- just because the first two cupcake pans out of the teacher supply cupboard are for regular sized cupcakes, don't assume they all are (and this is why we ended up switching to cake pans 1/2 way through the lab);

- just because one oven works, don't assume all of them do or that you'll be able to get the door of one of them to even open (one of our custodians is still trying to fix that one for me. He also gives me advice on fixing sewing machines);

- just because the oven works, and is set to 350 degrees, don't assume that the oven will actually reach that temperature

We Learn Through Experience

- just because the recipe says something, and you've pointed this out to the kids, don't assume that anyone read it or listened;

- just because the salt and sugar containers are clearly labelled, and you've pointed this out, don't assume that anyone read the labels or listened;

- just because the class has gone through two classes of how to use measuring equipment accurately, don't assume anyone can. Heck, teaspoon, tablespoon, they all begin with T don't they?

Our cake lab results? Five of lab groups' cakes were edible - one was actually good, the rest were varying degrees of okay. The sixth cake, and I use that term loosely, was a disaster of epic proportions. Everything that could go wrong did, including the temperature problems, the mismeasurements, and the all important salt/sugar switch. It was a caved-in, semi-soupy mess. Give them credit though - the kids in the group bravely tried to eat their results.

And then there was the pancake lab fiasco. But I'll save that for another time...

Posted by msarmstrong at 2:09 PM PST

Updated: Sunday, 28 December 2008 5:02 PM PST

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Each September I give my students a general survey to fill out, and two of the questions I ask them are about what subjects did they like most and least the previous year and describe why.

Responses vary. Being middle school students, it's never any surprise that they enjoy the Explorations subjects (music, physical education, art, etc), and my new students are no exception. But this year what is a surprise is how many students wrote down math as their least liked subject.

There are always a few students each year who indicate that they didn't enjoy math, but this year almost half the students in both of my core classes wrote it down. Half! Reasons included:

- I didn't really get it

- It was hard

- I didn't get a very good grade

- I'm not good at it

This past week I've been doing some exploration type activities, to see what kinds of patterns they find, what sort of things they notice, circulating and chatting with them as they work, having class discussions where they can volunteer to go up to the whiteboard or the overhead projector and explain their ideas. As the week went on, there were more and more volunteers.

And the thing is, they are good at it, they do get it.

This dichotomy between their perception of their abilities and the reality of what they can do just breaks my heart.

Every year I start off with the goal of having math classes where all students realise that math is theirs, that it's interesting and enjoyable. Every year I get worn down at some point (by external factors that perhaps I'll describe at another time) and find myself being more, uh, let's say "traditional" in my approach. Sometimes I rebound, sometimes I don't.

May this be the year that I make it all the way til the end of June.

Posted by msarmstrong at 12:32 PM PDT

Updated: Saturday, 13 September 2008 12:33 PM PDT

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Yesterday was my official first day of vacation, having finished up with summer school on Friday. In the spirit of there finally being nothing I _had_ to plan/grade/do, I decided to go wander around the local mall. And what was the theme of all the store displays? "Back to School."

At least it wasn't Christmas stuff...

Posted by msarmstrong at 10:51 AM PDT

Updated: Sunday, 3 August 2008 10:56 AM PDT

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Home Ec teachers end up doing a lot of laundry.

Posted by msarmstrong at 10:40 AM PDT

Updated: Sunday, 3 August 2008 10:57 AM PDT

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As the end of a school year approaches, sometimes you can look back and see a few themes. And one I've been thinking of lately is that of absence, because there are a lot of different ways a student can be absent.

Every year we lose some international students for chunks of time. Our school year doesn't quite align with the school calendar in their home country, so they may arrive in September a couple of weeks late, or take three weeks for their Christmas vacation instead of two.  And this year a couple of our students missed an entire month in second term, spending it in limbo as they waited to hear if they and their families would be accepted as landed immigrants (they were).

And every year some parents pull their kids out for a week or two of school to go on a family vacation. Part of me understands why - it might be the only time both parents can get time off to go to Disneyland, and shouldn't they do it now before their child gets into high school and can't take the time off? The other part of me grumbles because sometimes  the students can't afford to miss the time academically, and I end up working harder than they do trying to get them caught up. Unfortunately, some Gr 8 students are still at a developmental level where they view a poor performance on a test as "I'm stupid" rather than "I missed 2 weeks of school, didn't do the homework my parents requested my teacher prepare for me, and haven't gone in for extra help." Then they shut down. So off I go, chasing them to try to prevent this.

This year, there seem to be a large number of students who miss a day of school every week or two, which adds up over time. Sometimes it's because they have to take care of younger siblings while their parent works. Occasionally, I've been surprised to find, it's simply because the parent wants company! On my bad days this leaves me wondering what kind of value our society places on education. 

Of course, there are absences due to behaviour issues (suspensions), and our team has had more than our fair share of those this year.

But what I find saddest of all, are the students who miss school due to emotional issues. Family problems, depression, anxiety, all these problems bubbling under what on the surface appears to be an empty desk. And on the days that they are physically there, they aren't really present at all.

How do you teach the student who is not there? How do you reach the student who is not there? How do you let them know that this too will pass?

Posted by msarmstrong at 10:21 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 3 June 2008 10:26 PM PDT

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It's my fifth year at my school and I'm noticing once again that the longer you stay at a school the more unofficial responsibilities end up in your lap.

For instance, I'm in the only science lab room to have survived the make-over from junior high to middle school back in the mid-90's, so I've inherited the job as guardian of the school's science equipment. Usually this means my class and I will be in the middle of a lesson when two tiny grade 6 students will show up at the door to inform me that their teacher needs 8 beakers (but they don't know what size), three thermometers, and something else their teacher couldn't remember the name of but he drew a picture of it for me, look. Fortunately my class, being typical grade 8 students, looove to talk to each other, and will happily occupy themselves doing so while I dig out whatever it is that the tiny grade 6s are after.

As well, and much to my surprise, this being my second year teaching grade 8 home ec (which in itself is enough of a shock. Ever eaten anything I've cooked? Well, there's a good reason for that) I find myself as one of the two "senior" home ec teachers and in charge of the sewing program (Ever seen anything I've sewed? Well, there's a good reason for that). Consequently, I now know a lot more about fixing aged sewing machines than I used to. My training as a teacher has really come in handy for this because I am able to refrain from cursing even when I've managed to jam a sewing needle behind one of my finger nails. This is why some of the kids not only believe that I live at the school, but that I don't know any swear words either.

This has got me thinking about the other "unofficial" duties that are somehow magically carried out throughout the school year - the powerpoint presentations about student activities that are shown at various assemblies, the art displays that brighten up our hallways and ceilings, the strange games the students "compete" in during spirit assemblies, the miraculously clean staff room (seriously, if you could see the way we carry on in there you'd agree), the chocolate treats that appear in our mailboxes during report card time. I'll bet none of the people responsible for these things know how to swear either...

Posted by msarmstrong at 2:50 PM PST

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When it's report card time (and, since I'm teaching summer school, it actually is right now) I start to reminisce about teaching swimming, and how it actually made more sense than teaching school does.

* The purpose of the lessons was clear - to learn to swim. There was no blaming the teacher for fostering the breakdown of society because she hadn't taught such-and-such. We were all there to swim.

* Students were in classes according to their level. When they had mastered the group of required skills then they moved up to the next level. Otherwise, they stayed in the same level where they got the practice they needed until they were ready.

* Report cards were checklists of skills and then one anecdotal comment - "It's been fun teaching you. Have a darn swell summer!"

Oh, who am I kidding? Even as I type this I know I'm romanticizing. Sure the skills were set out,  but what signified a "pass" certainly varied depending on the instructor. I remember, shamefully, that for a chunk of my career I was far too lenient about what constituted a pass because I wanted the kids to feel good about what they'd accomplished (that damn symbol of earning a badge) and that some of my students really struggled in the next level because they really weren't ready to be there. That was a difficult lesson for me to learn.

Then I moved to another city, and on to another pool where I encountered my polar opposite - instructors who prided themselves on being tough on the kids and imposed their own higher standards that bore no relation to the Red Cross guidelines. Swimming as boot camp. It wasn't much fun teaching there at times - those instructors kept complaining about me - but I stood my ground and my supervisors ended up siding with me.

As for why we were there, well it was more than just swimming. It was about having fun, and building confidence, and fitness, and better judgement, and making friends, and being creative too.

Why am I semi-pining then? When I write report cards, I worry about the students who haven't "got it" yet - what is it that they need that's still missing, what can I do to help them? And, even with smaller classes, even with a shorter curriculum, it all comes down to time.

If I could just sit with each of them, one-on-one, a little bit longer, maybe I could do a little bit more to get them comfortable in the water, and swimming on their own. More time is what makes sense.

Posted by msarmstrong at 11:26 PM PDT

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Do people in other jobs have this kind of dream too?

Every teacher I know has the Back to School dream and, this being the last day of spring break, I started having mine last night.

There's the

1. Can't Control the Class dream. The students are running around, standing on desks, throwing things. And you're yelling and waving your arms. And they completely ignore you. The kind of dream where you wake up with a headache and a sore throat.

2. Not Prepared to Teach dream. This one has a few variations. There you are, facing a sea of faces, and suddenly you realise that a) you forgot your lesson plans at home, or b) you forgot to prepare a lesson in the first place, or c) this is a subject area you've never taught before in your life, like Chainsaw Wielding 101. This one always brings back horrible memories of being a substitute teacher.

3. You Can't Get to School on Time dream. You run out of gas. There are roadblocks. You get lost. What at first seems to be the school turns out to be a shopping mall. Or the wrong school. And then the bell rings...

4. You're Not Wearing Appropriate Clothing. Perhaps the least said about this one the better, although I admit I kind of liked the one I had where I was dressed like Elizabeth I (although I soon discovered I couldn't fit through the doorway, which quickly morphed the dream into type #3) 

There are probably others. But I'm too tired to think of them.

Posted by msarmstrong at 1:16 PM PDT

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It's not as easy as it looks, designing a seating plan.

First there are the kids you have to seat as far away from one another as you can, and in my homeroom this year there are a few of those. Sometimes it's due to personality conflicts, and sometimes it's because they get along too well and, consequently, are rarely on task when they're together.

Then there are the kids who can, and are willing to, work with anyone. I love those kind students -- they're the ones who can really pull in the potential isolates and truly make the class a community -- and I try not to abuse their good will, seating them with a friend or two when I can. 

And there are the ESL kids. I want them to be comfortable (which would mean seating them with their language counterparts so they can help each other decode the English instructions) but I also want them to try to be a part of the class (which would mean seating them away from their language counterparts so that they interact with their Canadian peers more often).

I don't have to do this, I realise that. A couple of my colleagues let their students sit where they like, reserving the right to move certain students to another location if they're disrupting the learning of others. And that works great for them.

But I remember my own Grade 8 experience years ago. In September my teacher, Mr Jordan (a fine man and teacher who recently passed away), let us choose a partner to sit with. And I ended up sitting with Dana all year. I only remember him changing the seating plan once, and I didn't end up being affected at all, except Dana and I ended up moving back one position. Sandra and Michelle were still behind us; Lisa and Pam were still in front of us. At the time I didn't mind, but it wasn't until high school that I finally got a chance to get to know some of the other people in my Grade 8 class, and for some of them I wished that I'd had an opportunity to meet them sooner. Might have helped to make walking into a few of my new Grade 9 classes a little less scary.

And so this afternoon, roughly an hour after I started, I've now got two seating plans ready, one for each of my core classes. Some students will be happy, others will complain, but they all know that in about a month I'll be scrambling them up again. 

Posted by msarmstrong at 2:27 PM PDT

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Well, for me Barbie was definitely this week’s theme. Our school has an annual literacy conference, this year with a side-theme of numeracy, and I decided to run an NCTM activity called “Barbie goes Bungee-Jumping” which had been recommended by someone on the Middleweb listserv. So I spent early in the week collecting Barbies from various staff members who offered to bring some of their daughters' dolls – I ended up with close to 20, way more than I needed, so that was great.

Then on Thursday, I ran through the activity with both of my own math classes to work out the bugs since I’ve never done this activity before. The lesson, as it is on paper, takes two periods, about twice as long as I would have with the students at the conference, so the run-through helped me think of ways to simplify the lesson. Essentially, each group of kids had a Barbie and a “bungee cord” they made out of elastic bands. Using a long sheet of paper taped to the wall, they dropped Barbie from a certain height and kept track of how far she fell when the cord was two elastics long, four elastics long, six elastics long, etc. Then they had to predict how many elastics they’d need to give her a safe but thrilling drop from 380 cm, which is the height of the first landing in our school’s front stairwell. In the original lesson, this meant they had to create a chart with their data and then create a scatterplot graph, but by the day of the conference I’d boiled it down to them just making the chart and then using that alone to make an estimate (I had a lot of grade 6’s in each group plus a sprinkling of developmentally-delayed kids so that was enough of a challenge for them).

Nobody abused Barbie too much, although I did have a group of grade 8 boys during the conference on Friday who kept undressing their Ken doll. The highlight of each lesson was actually going out to the stairwell and having each group’s Barbie do the bungee jump. Only one Barbie had a severe accident (one of the elastics in the cord broke and she fell), a couple got concussions and sued, and the rest had a safe jump. It ended up being one of the more popular sessions at the conference (I actually had kids trying to sneak into it even though they weren’t registered, definitely a compliment) and a couple of little boys told me it was the best thing they’d been to all day, the perfect thing to tell a slightly-burned-out-because-it’s-February teacher.

(Thanks to Peter for getting me to finally post something on here!) 

Posted by msarmstrong at 10:19 AM PST

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