The River is a Rising

After only two days back at school following Spring Break we have been granted a two-hour delay tomorrow due to rising flood waters from all the rain we had, and especially the areas northwest of us had, over the last few days. It rained here from Saturday night until Tuesday morning.

I'm not sure how the students will react to this unexpected change in their schedule. They don't handle changes to their routine well. We'd just started getting back on track today.

This school year is winding down quickly. We have only 6 1/2 weeks to go. Some of my students were saying they cannot believe this school year is nearly over.

Summer will be here soon, and before then we have the End-of-Grade tests. While we're all looking forward to summer, none of us are looking forward to the EOGs. Yet the tests will come.

Spring Break at Last

Depending on how you count it, either Saturday was the first day of my school's Spring Break, or today is. Either way, this year's Spring Break was too long in coming and, I'm sure, will be too short in duration.

Over the last two weeks you could tell both the students and the teachers were much in need of a break. The students were getting antsy and fights were becoming more common. Teachers were getting short-tempered with the students, and with each other.

This has been a long and trying year, and based on the headlines, next year will be even more, uh, challenging.

I am glad Spring Break is here, and I am looking forward to Summer with more anticipation than I've ever felt in my 15 years of teaching.

Hard Lessoned Learned

CC0 Public Domain/Geralt 

Today my classes were to take a test on the Circumference and Area of Circles and the Perimeter and Area of Compound Shapes. Yesterday, I conducted a detailed review of exactly what was going to be on the test. I also wrote all the formulas the students would need to calculate the answers to the questions on the test on the white board.

One would think the students would be ready to take and do well on such a test. Reality proved very different. Of the 22 students present in class this morning not half-a-dozen were able to make a good start on the test. Most of them stared at the test with a blank look on their faces as if they’d never seen a circle in their life.

This is precisely what I expected to happen. These children sit in class paying scant, if any, attention to the lesson. Being prepared for this eventuality, I had the students put their heads down on their desks and raise their hands if they knew they hadn’t paid enough attention and hadn’t studied for the test.

The students were refreshingly honest. Fully 2/3 of them admitted they hadn’t paid enough attention and hadn’t properly prepared for the test. I was prepared for this.

I abruptly cancelled the test. While I had their attention, I went over the vocabulary, each of the formulas, and how to use them to determine the dimensions of a circle and a compound shape. The students listened and watched with laser focus. It discouraged me that I had to resort to such a drastic measure to get them to behave like students in a classroom instead of anarchists at a Starbucks.

On Monday, when they take the test again, I’ll learn if this shock treatment did any good.