Teacher tip: If I don't hold the kids accountable for learning, they won't need to be.
Working on curriculum to ensure students gain concepts. I am proud of them. Relationships good. Rigor ok. Relevance a little over their heads.
Mistakes this year, phones, consequences, interactive notebooks, review books (they didn't write answers)... ... ...
Positives this year, chrome books, stop motion animation, animal encyclopedia presentations, interactive notebooks in my mind.
Let's teach them how to use the chrome books effectively. Ed. Tech. Endorsement say what!?!
I've been thinking often of one of my first students, A*GHldkfv #$%man My second year of teaching I was a first year in a new school, new district, new state, and newly divorced. It wasn't until Thanksgiving that I even could keep my head afloat of what was going on. I had moved to Baltimore from my first year 7th grade bio, with 3 weeks before the school year due to a transfer from being surplused to being the new teacher and a new school opened up, and I was to start at Valley Middle School in August. I moved, got hired, and started teaching two new preps in an entirely new world. Earth Science and Biology in BCPS. It was a nightmare of a second year. I had 2 preps in 4 different classrooms. I taught Earth Science in room 2 and relo 4, biology in room 1, then in room 3, and back to room 2. I shared an office with 3 desktop computers with 11 other teachers, with another "cool" office with 6 teachers and the department chair. We shared 6 science classrooms. Everyone floated except the men, and those with tenure.
This #$%gentleman was a smart alec. He got my goat. I gave him detention. And I really didn't know what to do in detention. So we sat on the curb in the parking lot near the relocatable trailer classroom I had for one class period and talked. So after he got detention, and showed up to serve it, and realized I had no idea what I was doing. I was doomed. Not a lesson, sentence, question, activity was I able to implement without him acting out. On purpose. With cruelty.
I hugged him on his graduation day three years later. I could have known should have done would have said but I did get to high five him out the back door of a relocatable trailer classroom #10 during a cicada cycle. From the curb of trailer 2 to the back steps of trailer 10, I connected with that kid. And I am sure, I learned more from him than he from I.
That year, I did not get half way through the Biology curriculum. I spent most of the year in Ecology and barely mentioned DNA before the first common summative assessment. Did the exact same thing this year. Is it the relationships? Before rigor and relevance? Really?
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