Opening Day is Done

Source: Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

Monday, August 29^th, was the first day of this school year for the students in my district. It turned out to be a pretty good day at my school. The students were well behaved and listened to instruction. We’ll see how long that lasts.

This year I did not follow the usual first day procedures of handing out countless forms and information sheets for the students to take home. Instead, with each class, I had a getting-to-know-you session. I introduced myself and gave the students a little bit of my history, and then invited each of them to do the same.

I think it went over well. The students seemed to relax and enjoy doing something different on the first day of school. I saw lots of smiles.

Today, which will be the second day of school, will be the day for all the forms and papers the students will have to take home. The good news is only my homeroom class will have to deal with that. The bad news is I have to come up with something for the other three classes to do that won’t wind up putting my homeroom class behind. I have a few ideas and will see which ones work out best.

Today’s post will be short as I see by the clock it is time for me to get on to school.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Open House

(c)2016 Douglas W Davis

My school’s annual Open House is set to start in 20 minutes. Open House is scheduled to last 2 hours. Teachers in my grade level were not required to be at work today until noon since we will be here past 7 p.m. tonight.

I got here at 9:30 a.m. The Science teacher on my team was already here when I got here. The Language Arts teacher showed up shortly after I did and the Social Studies teacher followed closely on her heels. As far as I know, all the teachers who are working Open House tonight were here at least 90 minutes before our assigned time.

The time was used wisely. Last minute cleaning, poster hanging, and list writing were among the many activities taking place. Myself, I prepared sign-in sheets for each teacher on my team. I also had time to prepare an information sheet we will hand out on the first day of school.

Now the rooms are ready, the teachers are ready, the handouts are ready, and all we need is for the students and their parents to arrive.

2+ hours later and Open House is winding down. The traffic was steady over the course of the event. 24 of my 28 students had at least 1 parent show up and sign in. 6/7 is a fair ratio for a 7^th Grade Open House.

Having 24 parents attend means I should also have 24 parents whose students should show up with the correct notebooks, pens, pencils, and other items the first day of school. At least I can hope so.

I also had visits from several of my former students, one of whom was in tears because I’d taught her in 6^th Grade and 7^th but hadn’t moved up to 8^th Grade with her.

That young lady was an extreme example. Most of my former students just wanted to stop by and say hello. It is always good to see them.

I find the first 90 minutes of Open House goes by quickly because of the number of people coming by the classroom. The last 30 minutes, as you wait for the clock to move while the few stragglers find their way to your classroom, can be agonizing. But eventually the final minute ticks away and we teachers can turn off our lights, lock our doors, and look forward to another workday full of meetings, and one last weekend yet to enjoy, before the students come and fill our classrooms as another school year gets underway.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Two Official Days Done

Yesterday was an Optional Workday and today was a Designated Workday. I opted to work yesterday and worked today as so designated.

Yesterday was spent working in my room, putting up a few posters, looking over the schedule, posting duty dates and meeting dates into my calendar app, and talking with each of my teaching team mates to see if there was anything I could do as team leader to help them get ready for opening day.

We also had a training session yesterday, spur of the moment, for the team leaders to learn how to use the new online program for finding substitute teachers when we have to be out. Now it is our duty to teach the other members of our team how to use the program. The program itself is easy enough to use, once someone shows you how.

Most of today was spent in our first Staff Meeting of the year. The meeting lasted from 9 a.m. until 12:40 p.m. We did get a break around 10:30 a.m. for a brunch buffet provided by some of our business partners.

Source: Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

Before the Staff Meeting everyone who works at my school gathered in the gym for a group picture. We were all wearing t-shirts with our school name and logo emblazoned on the front. The photographer arranged us on the bleachers, shortest on the lower benches, tallest on the higher. We all thought it great fun to be gathered in one place, all wearing the same shirt.

Lunch was on our own. I was in the mood for some McNuggets and there is a McDonald’s only a couple miles from the school. It was 1 minute before 1 p.m. when I pulled into the drive-thru lane. 6 minutes later I hadn’t moved a single foot. 6 minutes waiting in the drive-thru line at McDonald’s is too long. The truck that pulled in behind me turned around and left. The car behind him turned around and left.

The wait became too long for me, too, I turned around and left. It’s one thing to wait in a line for 6 minutes when making progress. Waiting 6 minutes without any movement in the line at all was unacceptable.

Instead of McNuggets, I wound up at Arby’s enjoying a Beef-N-Cheddar Sandwich and Curly Fries. Arby’s, though they were quicker, didn’t get everything quite right either. I’d ordered Sierra Mist to drink. When I got back to the school I realized they’d given me sweet tea. All-in-all, not a very satisfying lunch experience.

After lunch, I held my first team meeting as team leader. I had a written agenda and everything. We discussed what we needed to do to prepare for Open House tomorrow evening, as well as a few of the things we needed to plan out for the first day of school.

Parents love to receive lists, especially Supply Lists. The four of us came up with a Supply List for the whole team. Now it is up to me to come up with a letter introducing parents and students to the team.

Our Open House is tomorrow. Technically, I don’t have to be at work tomorrow until noon because we are going to be staying from then until Open House is over at 7 p.m. I will be going in a few hours early as I have a lot of work to do before Open House. I won’t be staying up late tonight. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

A Saturday with an Identity Crisis

I’m not sure if today should be considered the first day of the last week of Summer Break or the first Saturday of the Teacher Work Year (Unofficial). I suppose it is a little of both.

Not all teachers went in to work on the three unofficial workdays this past week. From my team, only two of us spent any time at the school. The science teacher on my team was there one day. I was there three days. Neither the social studies teacher nor the language arts teacher put in any time that I know of.

For those of us that worked this past week, today is the first day of the first weekend of the new Teacher Work Year. For the rest of the teachers at my school, it is the first day of the last weekend of Summer Break.

I have friends who teach at schools on a different schedule than ours. Some of them started workdays on 8/1 and students started classes on 8/8. I don’t envy them now, but I will come spring when they finish school before Memorial Day and I’m still working until mid-June.

This Saturday morning did follow the first high school football Friday night in these parts. The high school my middle school feeds into opened its season with a home game. Since many of my former students are either football players, cheerleaders, in the band, or likely to attend, I made a point of being there for this first game.

Nature threatened to bring the game to an early end, but other than some light rain the game was able to go on, at least as long as I stayed. After a day of moving furniture around my classroom and then coming home and mowing the backyard, I decided staying for the first half would fulfill my obligation. Considering the on-again-off-again rain, staying for half the game seemed enough for me.

There will be other home games, with more clement weather, and before long middle school games will start so I will be able to get my fill of football, soccer, and volleyball at both levels.

Source: Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

But today being Saturday meant yardwork for half the day. Then it got too hot to be outside. So I came in and made us a pizza and my missus and I sat down to watch the Olympics. We watched the Bronze Medal match between Nigeria and Honduras and cheered Nigeria on to victory. Then we watched Brazil and Germany in the Gold Medal match. We were pulling for Germany, but couldn’t feel too badly about Brazil winning.

Most of the rest of the day I spent working on my next book. My two main characters are growing closer and closer. It must be about time for something to happen to pull them apart. But that will be for another writing session.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Unofficial Teacher Workday Three

(c)2016 Douglas W Davis

Author's Classroom at Start of Day 3

UTW-3 was a much more physical day than either One or Two. I tackled the easy part first, cleaning and hanging the two Self-Stick Post-it Note Bulletin Boards I’d found. The carpenter level app I found for my smart phone helped a lot with that. I plan to use those to highlight student work.

The next project was to clean the rolling podium-like cart that came with the room. I’m not sure how to describe it. I should have taken a picture. It has a hinged, angled top that can be flipped to the left or the right. Under it is a flat area where a teacher can lay text books, a tablet or laptop, or papers. Below the flat area, on the right side, is a deep drawer and two open shelves. On the left is a large open area walled on three sides. My favorite part of this cart is its mobility. I can wheel it about the room during my lesson.

At that point I was ready to tackle the heavy stuff. I cleaned and moved a 4-drawer filing cabinet, a large cabinet on wheels I’d like to give away to another teacher, the two large bookcases I described yesterday, and the smaller metal bookcase. With the help of the custodians two-wheeled hand truck I was able to move them myself, which was a good thing as the custodians were seriously overtasked today.

Once all those pieces were in place it was time to begin arranging the desks and chairs. The desks the county purchased for the classrooms in our new building are different from any school desks I’ve ever seen. They are heart-shaped with the angle at the point of the heart equaling 90°. The idea is to arrange the desks into groups of 4. The problem with that arrangement is that ¼ to ½ of the students have their back to the teacher at any given time. The solution for that is to have the teacher constantly circulating around the classroom.

(c)2016 Douglas W Davis

4 Heart-Shaped Desks arranged in group.

There are 32 such desks in my classroom, allowing for 8 groups of 4. Since my state places no upper limit on how large middle school class sizes can be, those 32 desks may not be enough.

To go along with the 32 desks were 34 chairs. The two extra chairs are for the two student computer stations in my classroom. I actually have 3 student computers to share among my average of 32 students per class but the computer desk for the third one is broken and not safe to use.

28 of the 34 chairs are new. The school had to purchase them to replace the dozens that broke last year. These chairs are supposed to stand up to student use. In the small print is the caveat that they are only supposed to stand up to student use for 3 to 4 years. Last year was the third year of using the chairs.

I have to admit I did have some fun with the chairs. They are stackable and were stacked in stacks of 4 to 6 chairs, and the L-shaped legs were wrapped in bubble wrap. Need I say more.

Despite the bubble-wrap distraction I did manage to get all my desks and chairs in place. I must have done a good job because my Principal came by and told me my room was looking good.

(c)2016 Douglas W Davis

Author's Classroom as Principal saw it.

I only set up one computer, the one that goes on my desk. Wonder of wonders, it worked. Considering it is a Windows XP computer that’s been in service with the school since 2004, it is a wonder it works at all. But it is S    L    O    W. The old joke about turn your computer on and leave for a while before coming back to log in, with this computer it is not a joke. Once you’re logged in and try to access the internet - which is critical as all our attendance, grades, and productivity apps are cloud based – you can measure the time it takes the apps to load with an hour-glass.

I imagine I will be utilizing my personal BYOD[i] laptop for most of my work, as I did last year.

After 3 days, my classroom is nearly ready. By the time I leave to go home Monday, it should be in good shape for Open House on Wednesday and the start of school the following Monday. I hope I will be as ready as my room.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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[i] Bring Your Own Device – in our district each teacher is allowed to register one personal device – a laptop, tablet, or smartphone – for use on the school wireless network. The media coordinator inputs the password for the teacher so the teacher cannot see it and add other devices.

Unofficial Work Day Number Two

Or, how long does it take to clean an empty desk

(c)2016 Douglas W Davis

When I left for school this morning I thought for sure my classroom would be all set up with desks and chairs in place by the time I left for home. That’s what I get for thinking.

I spent 4 hours at school today cleaning out the teacher desk I am taking over, the computer station table, and the upper cabinets into which I intended to unload some of the boxes I’d brought with me from my old room. Some of the boxes hadn’t been unpacked yet from when I moved from the 6^th grade building to the 7^th grade hall.

There were 4 cardboard boxes – printer paper boxes in their former life, and 6 plastic storage boxes – all but one is slightly larger than the cardboard boxes. Before I could unpack any of the boxes, there was cleaning to be done.

I started with the teacher desk. A good bit of elbow grease was required to get the top of the desk clean. One corner of the desk had a dark blot on it. I don’t know what made the blot, but I do know the previous occupant of the room kept her laser printer there. Perhaps it was toner.

The drawers were next. The desk boasts 6 drawers. 1 wide top drawer, 2 file drawers on the right side, and 3 drawers on the left. The two upper drawers on the left are half the depth of the file drawers while the third is another file drawer. Each of the drawers had to be dusted and then wiped clean.

With the desk clean, I began unpacking the boxes. It wasn’t long before I realized some of the items in the boxes didn’t belong in the desk. Rather, they belonged in a cabinet. Fortunately, the room is blessed with quite a number of cabinets. Unfortunately, the cabinets were also in need of a good cleaning.

Eventually all but one of the boxes was unpacked. The last box will have to wait until the bookcases in the room are moved back into place. These bookcases are 7 feet tall, 4 feet wide, and much too heavy for one person to move alone without scraping up the newly waxed floor.

One of the plusses of going through all the boxes was the amount of stuff I was able to discard. I looked at everything I pulled out of the boxes and if I hadn’t used it in the last year or so, and it wasn’t math related, I put it in one of two stacks. Stuff I could give away went in one stack. The second stack was stuff I threw away. By the time I was done, the thrown away stuff could have filled one of the plastic containers. Some of the stuff still in boxes I had packed up 4 rooms ago and never missed.

I did manage to get one piece of furniture moved; the table the student computers will sit on. Of course, it needed to be cleaned off first. Moving it was very easy. It’s on wheels.

Another item I cleaned up and put up today was a Sticky Note Self-Adhesive bulletin board. I found three of them on top of the cabinets I was cleaning. Two of them measure about 3’ x 2’ each. From the amount of dust accumulated on them I’d say they’d been up on top of that cabinet for over a year. I don’t remember seeing them on the walls in that room last year.

The board I cleaned up today is about 2’ x 1.5’. Using some 2-sided tape I attached it to the wall next to my desk. It will be used to hold the building map, phone list, and daily schedule. I had the building map, so it is already up. I’ll have to wait for the other two.

Before I left for the day, I did go through my e-mail and add duty items and meeting times my Principal had sent out to my calendar.

Just as I was about to leave, a few other members of the staff stopped by to chat. In the interest of good collegial relations, I stayed as long as they wanted to talk. It will pay off tomorrow when I ask them to help me move those bookcases.

So, on unofficial workday 3, I will be cleaning and arranging desks and chairs. Time permitting, I will also set up the student and teacher computers and printers. If not, they can be attended to on the first day official workday next week.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Unofficial Teacher Workday Number One

(C)2016 Douglas W Davis

Today marked the first volunteer workday of the new school year at my school. Teachers were allowed to come in and begin working in their classrooms with the blessing of the District Human Resources Department beginning at 8 a.m. We were expected to leave campus No-Later-Than 2 p.m.

While this may seem odd, it is all due to the Byzantine Workers’ Compensation Laws passed by the State Legislature and Congress. Most of the teachers I know, myself included, would have been glad to go in and start getting their classrooms ready for the coming year earlier in the month and would be willing to stay later in the day.

My goal for today was to move everything I needed to move from my old room, a science lab, to my new room, a standard classroom. My secondary goal was to update my class website on the official school website. I achieved both goals, I am happy to say, and was off campus promptly at 2 p.m.

While I didn’t have the chance to visit all the halls on campus, based on what I saw, over half of the teachers at my school came out and spent several hours working on their classrooms. You may be wondering why we have to spend so much time getting our classrooms ready for the new school year. Take another look at the photo at the top of this post. It is a picture I took of my new classroom when I arrived this morning, after I’d moved the first batch of boxes in from my old classroom. The boxes can be seen at the back of the room.

During the summer everything is taken off the walls, all the furniture that can be moved it taken out of the room, the floors are stripped and waxed, and then the furniture is put back in stacked up the way you see in the picture.

It is up to the teacher to decide how to arrange their room for the coming year. Before I can even do that, though, all the furniture in the room will need a thorough cleaning. I plan to go in tomorrow with a full complement of cleaning materials.

The other goal I accomplished today was much easier than moving the boxes of materials to my new room. Updating my class website to reflect my being a math teacher this coming year instead of a social studies/science teacher was only a matter of a few clicks, a few edits, copying and pasting a few things from the math curriculum page on the District website, and viola, it was done.

Okay, not completely done, but updated enough to reflect a new year, and included what the objectives and goals for first quarter will be as well as my supply list.

One of my teammates also came in today. She is the teacher who will be teaching science on our four-teacher team. While I was busy moving my things out of the science lab she was busy moving her things in. I should say back in as she was the science teacher who had that room the year before I did.

The math teacher for the other seventh grade team was also in today and we got to speak for a few moments. We agreed to meet next week to discuss how we are going to best utilize the new curriculum materials the District purchased at the end of last school year.

I also met briefly with our grade level chair, who is also the team chair for the other team. I have the honor this year of being the team chair for my team. The two of us didn’t talk much about what’s coming up for the new school year. We basically caught up on how each other’s summers were.

Our new Assistant Principal was on our hall this morning and introduced himself. He made a very good first impression on me. I hope I did on him. I have a feeling he will very good for the school.

I also met the new custodian on our campus maintenance team. He seems like a hard-working and conscientious fellow. We also have a new Exceptional Children’s teacher on our hall. Her room is right across from mine. I stopped over and introduced myself this morning. It turns out I taught one of her children several years ago.

I got to say hello briefly to my Principal this morning. We didn’t have much chance to talk as she was busy with all the last minute things a Principal has to take care of before school opens.

All-in-all it was a very positive morning. Tomorrow I’ll go in ready to employ some elbow grease to get everything clean and put away. I’m starting to feel excited about this new school year.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Just Another Summer Monday – Not Quite

Source:Pixabay/Gellinger CC0 Public Domain

Today is a Summer Monday, let there be no doubt about that. For most teachers in my district, it is not just another Summer Monday; today is the last Monday of Summer Break. Next Monday we begin our Teacher Workdays and the following Monday the students come back to school.

The week ahead will be a week of getting all those last minute things done around the house and yard, visiting doctors and dentists, back to school shopping, and wishing for one more week of summer.

This year this week will also see the wrap up of the 2016 Rio Olympics. The Games had come off much better than expected, or so it seemed, until Sunday morning when Ryan Lochte and three other members of the USA Swim Team were robbed at gunpoint by someone posing as, or perhaps who really was, a Rio police officer. There had been some concern expressed about this sort of thing happening to athletes or visitors during the games since robberies of this type are not rare in Rio, but this is the first report I’ve heard of athletes being robbed on the streets of Rio since the games began. Let us hope it is the last.

Trash talking also seems to have become a big part of the Olympics. To judge by the way it’s been reported, trash talking has become a secondary sport among female athletes, many of them from the US. From Lilly King to Hope Solo to Jenny Simpson, it seems like talking bad about your opponent has come to replace beating them in the pool, on the pitch, or on the track. I don’t believe this is the type of example we want to hold up to our children as something to emulate. I’d rather see our youth react more the way Michael Phelps did. He did not retaliate to his opponent's taunting in the ready room. He defeated his opponent in the pool in devastating fashion. Michael’s show-don’t-tell style of shutting his opponents up is much more admirable.

Also disappointing to me is the way many of the track athletes are insulting and putting down those that came before them. These modern athletes brag about how they outdid their predecessors while ignoring the fact that today’s track athletes are as much a product of science and sports medicine as they are of hard work and talent. If the record setters of Olympics past had access to the tools available to today’s athletes, they would probably put these mouthy youngsters to shame.

The Olympics should not just be an event for athletes who are exceptionally good at their sport, it should also be an event for athletes who are exceptionally good sports. Good sportsmanship seems to be in dwindling supply around the world, but the Olympics should be a time when good sportsmanship takes center stage.

On this not-quite-just-another-Summer-Monday, as middle and high schools around the country are launching their athletic programs for another school year, I hope that good sportsmanship will be the emphasis for the players, coaches, parents, and fans. Winning is always more fun than losing, but if you act like a jerk on your way to winning all people will remember about you is that you were a jerk.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Second to Last Summer Hoorah

Source:Pixabay/Memory Catcher

CC0 Public Domain

*Not the author's RV

For a long time, I pondered the meaning of penultimate. It seemed like such a powerful word. At first reading, it seems as though it means something beyond the ultimate. Of course, that is not the case, being that ultimate is an absolute meaning the last, the best, the most, the farthest. What could be beyond ultimate?

Penultimate, despite its lofty sound, means second place. More specifically, it means the one “occurring immediately before the last one: second to the last.”[i]

Today my missus and I embark on our penultimate camping adventure before my students return to school. We are taking a long weekend, or should I say she is taking a long weekend because I’ve been on an extremely long weekend since June, and are headed west towards the foothills in search of scenic venues and cooler temperatures.

Fast forward several hours and miles, pulling a camper through some heavy city traffic, and we are here in our campsite. The campground is very scenic. Each campsite is spacious and there are lots of trees and shade. The shade is welcome. The cooler temperatures we were hoping for are not to be found. It is just as hot here as it was at home.

The good news is we do have air conditioning in the camper.  The bad news is we’ve become pretty spoiled by having air conditioning in the camper. Having grown up as a tent camper myself, and after all the years of Scouting with my boys, plus all the years my missus and I were tent campers before buying our first popup, I feel as though what we do now isn’t really camping. Perhaps the invented verb RVing is a more accurate way to describe what it is we do now.

Camping or RVing, whichever term one chooses to use, it is a relaxing way to spend time away from home. And with the RV, we have most of the comforts of home with us when we travel.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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[i] "Penultimate." Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 12 Aug. 2016.

Playing Hooky at Post 90

Source:Pixabay/langll CC0 Public Domain

This post is my 90^th since starting this blog back in May of this year. Here is a link to that first post if you’d like to read it. May 4, 2016.

My most viewed post, by far, so far, is the post I wrote about why raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour would not be the panacea many millennials think it would be. May 28, 2016.

Today’s post was going to be about the third day at the Summer Institute. I write “was” because I am playing hooky today. When I left the Institute yesterday I had accumulated the 10 contact hours I needed to be credited for 1 Continuing Education Unit, so the hours I would have spent in class today would not have benefited me towards that goal. Also, most of the seminars being offered today were repeats from the last 2 days, for folks who hadn’t been able to come or who hadn’t made it to the seminar before it was full. I was able to attend all the seminars I felt would most benefit me and my students on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Since I am not required to attend all 3 days like the beginning teachers – those with 3 years or less experience – I chose to work on the remaining items on my missus’ list of Honey-Dos. If in the course of completing those items I happen to stop for breakfast at Panera Bread, well, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

I also plan on spending part of the day trying out some of the online teaching tools I learned about over the last two days. I hope to become familiar enough with them to be able to utilize at least some of them right from the start of the school year.

Before I can do that, though, now that breakfast if finished, I do have the Honey-Dos I must do before I can do anything else.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Day 2 at the Institute

Source: Pixabay/Joan Gonzalez

This morning started off much like the previous morning, with the caterwauling of the alarm clock. The difference was the mini-Schnauzer looking eye to eye with me, his cold nose pressed against mine. There would be no hitting the snooze bar.

Two fed dogs, two fed cats, and a shower later, I was on my way back to the University for Day 2 of the Summer Institute. I stopped for breakfast at the same Burger King, and arrived early, again, at the University. This morning, though, the staff was ready for arrivals with all the laptops up and running for attendees to check in on.

There was no big group seminar this morning. Instead we went straight to our first breakout sessions.

The first breakout session I attended covered the concept of using an online learning system to flip the classroom. The concept behind flipping the classroom, which you can read more about here, is an excellent one but it is predicated on the idea that all students have a computer and access to the internet at home. Unfortunately, computer ownership and internet access is not ubiquitous among my students. Fortunately, there is another way to employ the online learning system to do what I will call a modified classroom flip.

In this modified classroom flip, the students do the lesson preparation and examples on their own in the classroom using school computers or iPads while the teacher facilitates and answers questions. Once the teacher feels confident most of the students have grasped the concept the class moves on to the practice stage where the students work independently to complete assignments based on the material they studied.

For my school and students, the second scenario will be the most likely style of flipping undertaken. The software package the School District has adopted will work well, based on what I learned in today’s session, in implementing this.

Teacher Artifacts was the subject of the second session I attended this morning. Teacher Artifacts refers to the documentation a teacher collects throughout the year as evidence they are doing their job. Some of the basic items are lesson plans, correspondence with parents, and staff development certificates. Other items may include meeting agendas or minutes, proof of use of technology in the classroom, correspondence with other teachers showing collaboration, and samples of student work. This is not an all-inclusive list, but it provides some idea of the types of documentation a teacher should keep up with during the year.

What was most beneficial about this session was the suggestions as to how to catalog and organize the artifacts logically according to which of the Teaching Standards they apply to. Doing so is especially helpful when it comes time for the teacher’s annual evaluation with the school Principal.

The session that was the real reason for my attendance at the Institute this summer was the 3-hour-long session I sat through this afternoon presented by a representative of the textbook company from which the District bought our new math textbooks.

The young lady giving the presentation was energetic and knowledgeable. Three hours went by as if it were only a few minutes. It was amazing how many online resources are available to support and extend upon what is presented in the textbook. One of the best aspects of the online material accompanying the textbook is how well in can be incorporated into the online learning system I learned about in today’s first session.

Besides the training sessions, there were also local community representatives on the site today. Everyone from local pediatric offices, to Boy and Girl Scout representatives, to the Public Library, and others were there with tables set up to answer teacher questions about what types of services they provide. I spent some time talking to the representative from the Public Library and wound up donating a set of my books to the library for inclusion in their local author section.

I was also approached by a representative of a local organization that works to promote reading among young students about doing a reading for them. The young lady told me the group likes to invite local authors to come and read to the children in the hope meeting a local author may inspire them to read more. Of course, I told her I would be glad to take part.

By the end of the day today, I had completed my 10 hours of staff development and do not HAVE to go back to the Institute tomorrow. I haven’t decided yet whether I will or not. Perhaps I will spend the time here at home putting together my first flipped classroom module.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Summer Institute Marks the end of Lazy Summer Days

For the first time since June, I woke up to my alarm going off before 6 a.m. because of a school related function. By 7:05 a.m. I was on the road for the 20-mile trip to the Institute venue at the University. I stopped at a Burger King drive-thru for breakfast on my way. Stopping at that Burger King brought back memories of the four years it was my daily breakfast stop when I used to commute to this college town to teach at the local middle school.

Even with the stop for breakfast I arrived early for registration. The Institute staff was hard at work getting things setup to start checking people in. I didn’t have long to wait before I was logged in, had received my catalog of courses, and was seated in the auditorium for the opening program. As you might expect, the opening program consisted of several welcoming speeches. Mercifully, each of the speakers kept their remarks brief. Even our new Superintendent kept his remarks to a minimum.

Festivities were kicked off by one of the District’s high school choruses performing the National Anthem and “America the Beautiful.” Indeed, the kids sang beautifully.

Our new Superintendent, in addition to welcoming participants to the Institute, focused on two key areas. First, he reminded teachers to remain aware of the challenges many, if not most, of our students face due to their home and community circumstances. He asked us to have compassion and practice patience. On the brighter side, our Superintendent also highlighted many projects in infrastructure improvement, and school renovation/construction.

The President of the University hosting the Institute made a few short welcoming remarks, as did the Chairman of our School Board. The MC for the morning then introduced the panel for this morning’s presentation of Autism in the Classroom.

Having taught autistic children, and having a self-contained class for autistic children just down the hall from my class room, I already had some familiarity with the spectrum. I’ve also had an interest in the condition since I was in high school and saw the movie “Son-Rise: A Miracle of Love.”

The panel speakers included an Exceptional Children teacher, a parent of autistic twins who are now successful high school students, a Principal and Assistant Principal with many combined years of working with autistic students, and an autistic student who recently graduated from one of our high schools and will soon be attending college.

Much of the information the panel presented wasn’t new to me, but I could tell from my position in the auditorium that some of what the panel presented hit home with some of the folks in attendance, especially the younger teachers.

Once the morning group session was over the attendees disbursed for lunch, returning at 12:30 p.m. for the first of 3 afternoon breakout sessions. Each session was scheduled to last an hour with 5 minutes between to get from one class to the other.

My first session was about how to safely and effectively use social media in the classroom. Our facilitator covered the Board Policies relevant to using social media in the classroom, and there are several, and informed us we would have to complete a 1 hour online course, pass a test, and file a request with the Principal in order to qualify to use such platforms for educational purposes. The red tape seems a bit much but with all the mischief students can get into online I certainly understand the abundance of caution the District wants to employ.

Getting to my second session didn’t take long. The room was right across the hall from my first session. This second session was an overview of the Google Education Suite our District has been using for several years now. The session was titled “Google Caboodle,” and was meant more for teachers who had not learned some of the very cool things using the Google Suite allowed regarding collaborative work and student assignments.

I have been using Google Docs and Google Sheets for a few years, ever since our District switched over to a Gmail based mail server and the Google Suite became available. My favorite part is being able to start work on something at school and finish it at home without having to keep up with a thumb drive because the files are stored in the cloud.

Today I learned about Google Keep and am going to give it a try. I’m not sure it will take the place of Quick Notes since Keep doesn’t have a handwriting function, not that I can find. What I do like about Keep is the way Reminders flow automatically to my calendar.

A follow up session to “Google Caboodle” followed immediately after, in the same room. It was titled “Google Extended.” This session delved deeper into some of the add-ons you could apply to Google Chrome, the Google Drive apps, and some of the filtering and labeling options in Gmail. There was so much good information. I’m glad I stayed for the last session of the day.

Now I need to think about calling it a night because I’ve got a full day at the Institute tomorrow.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Start with Nothing, End with Nothing

Source: Pixabay/Geralt CC0 Public Domain

Singer Billy Preston understood Integers, or so it seems, based on his song “Nothing From Nothing Leaves Nothing.”

Integers, as I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, consist of all the Whole Numbers going all the way to Positive Infinity, all their Opposites (the Negative Numbers) going all the way to Negative Infinity, and the number 0 (zero), which is its own opposite.

A horizontal Number Line is used to help students visualize this, with 0 (zero) in the center as the starting point. Positive Integers are to the right of 0 (zero) and Negative Integers are to the left.

Based on their Absolute Values, the distance between Positive Infinity and Negative Infinity would appear to be two times infinity (2 x ∞). Since infinity isn’t really a number, rather it is the concept that numbers never end because no matter how big a number you can conceive of you can always add 1 to it, the expression (2 x ∞) has no real meaning.

What is important to remember about Integers, however, is the fact that they add up to precisely 0 (zero). If you take all the Positive Integers and add them to all the Negative Integers, the sum is nothing, nada, zero.

Allow me to illustrate. If you add (-1) to (+1) the sum is (0). Eliminate the verbiage and you get:

(-1) + 1 = 0.

(+1) and (-1) are Opposites. For Math purposes, Opposites are defined as two numbers the same distance from, but on opposites sides of, 0 (zero).[i]

The Mathematical term for one number that is the Opposite of another is, Additive Inverse.[ii] In my previous example, (+1) is the Additive Inverse of (-1) because when you add (+1) to (-1) the sum is (0).

The concept of Opposites and Additive Inverse can also be demonstrated Algebraically. Algebra, at its most basic, is simply Math where Variables – usually lower case letters, are used to indicated unknown numbers. Algebraically, I could write my example this way:

                (-n) + n = 0

This will hold true not just for any Integer n, but for any number n.

Students need to have a firm understanding of the concepts of Opposites and Additive Inverse before we can move on to the addition of Integers, and beyond that to the addition of rational numbers.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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[i] Larson, Ron, and Laurie Boswell. "Chapter 1, Lesson 2." Big Ideas Math: A Common Core Curriculum ; Red. Erie, PA: Big Ideas Learning, 2014. 10. Print.

[ii] ibid

Getting Ready for the New School Year

Source: Pixabay CC0 Public Domain

As I am sure many teachers are, I am making preparations for the upcoming school year. I have registered for my district’s summer staff development institute the second week of August, picked out the presentations I need to attend, and have added them to my calendar. One of the sessions is a double session, and will cover how best to use the new math textbooks the county purchased near the end of last year. They were the first new math textbooks in twelve years.

To improve communication with parents, our school will be using the Remind.com app to keep in touch with parents and students this year. I had the app on my laptop last year. Now I have added it to my tablet and my phone. At our Open House we are going to try to get as many parents as possible to sign up for remind. Hopefully, they are used to it as several of the Sixth Grade teachers used the app last year. If you are a teacher and interested in checking out this app, you can find it by following this link. http://rmd.me/b?rid=114218 Remind.com is free to use.

Another app that I started using last year is Planbookedu. This app is an online lesson planning application. I fell in love with Planbookedu within a week of trying it out. The basic app is free but I highly recommend paying the $25 per year for the premium package. It is well worth the money. You can visit this site: http://www.planbookedu.com/ to check out the app and learn what the premium version offers that is not available with the basic service.

I have already entered a tentative plan for my first day of school. The plan is tentative because I have no idea as yet what additional instructions or requirements may come from on high.

The first day’s lessons consist of handing out and explaining forms and paperwork, going over the District Code of Conduct, covering the material in the District Student Handbook, and familiarization with specific 7^th Grade Team procedures, hallway rules, our discipline plan, and my class rules.

I like to keep my class rules simple.

        Be On Time!

        Be Prepared!

        Be Respectful!

        Be On Task!

Each rule covers an array of behaviors. Let’s take them one at a time.

“Be On Time!” Rule One does not mean simply showing up for school or class on time. It also covers being on time with your work. This includes finishing class assignments in the time allowed, and getting your homework done and turned in when it is due. It also means bringing back forms and papers parents are supposed to sign when they are due.

“Be Prepared!” Rule Two covers bringing your materials to class, such as notebooks, paper, and pencils. It also means students should come to class prepared to pay attention to the lesson and learn the material. Further, students need to be prepared to leave whatever drama they are involved at home or outside the classroom as it has no place inside the classroom.

“Be Respectful!” Rule Three tells students to be respectful towards all the adults at the school - both faculty and support staff, towards all other students – whether they personally like them or not, toward school property – they need to understand school property is only on loan to them and they need to take care of it, and towards themselves in their manner of speech, dress, and how they do their work.

“Be On Task!” Rule Four reminds students that their only job in my classroom is to learn the math concepts I am there to teach them. Being on task means you are paying attention to the lesson, working on your assignment, studying the material, or completing assigned activities or projects. If you are talking without permission, getting out of your seat, eating or chewing gum in class (which is against District Board policy), distracting other students, or engaging in any other activity that I, as the adult in the room, feel is inappropriate, you are not on task and therefore are breaking Rule Four.

There will be consequences for breaking class, hallway, school, or district rules ranging from a verbal warning, to calling parents, to lunch detention, a visit to the time-out room, a letter home to parents, and, finally, an office referral if the student does not change their behavior.

We may seem to have a lot of rules, but when you have seven teachers trying to maintain a safe and orderly environment that is conducive to learning and two hundred 11-, 12-, and 13-year-olds, many of whom would rather be anywhere but at school and doing anything but learning math. In a class of thirty students, it only takes a few who refuse to behave to disrupt and distract the entire class.

But I digress. My focus now is on preparing myself by studying the new math curriculum, getting as many of my resources in place as I realistically can, and doing what planning I can do with what information I have.

It does seem as though summer has flown by. While I have enjoyed the opportunity to sleep late, spend my days writing for this blog and working on my next book, and spending quality time with my Schnauzer, I must admit I am looking forward to the start of school.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

Is There Anything Absolute in This World?

Source: Pixabay/Erika Wittlieb CC0 Public Domain

With all the economic, political, and cultural uncertainty in the world today we are all looking for something with Absolute Value. Thankfully, we can find Absolute Value in mathematics.

In a previous post, “Why Must Some Numbers Act Irrationally?”, I briefly mentioned the set of numbers called Integers. Integers – the set of Whole Numbers and their Opposites, ranging from Negative Infinity to Positive Infinity counting by ones. Along with their identification as Positive – meaning to the right of 0 (zero) on the number line, or Negative – meaning to the left of 0 (zero) on the number line, Integers have an Absolute Value.

“The Absolute Value of an Integer is the distance between the number and 0 (zero) on the Number Line. The Absolute Value of a number a is written as |a|.”[i] The bars to either side of the number are known as Absolute Value Bars.

When teaching the concept of Absolute Value to my students I have then envision a trip to the nearest sizable city to our north and the nearest sizable city to our south. Each city is approximately 20 miles from our city. To help them, I model the location of the three cities on a vertical number line on the white board with our city as 0 (zero). Going north, I number the miles with Positive Integers and going south, with Negative Integers.

Seventh graders, nearly all of them anyway, are familiar with a car odometer. After we have our crude map on the board, I ask them how many miles would be added to the trip odometer if they drove to the city to our north. Naturally, they answer, “Twenty.” Then I ask them if the odometer would run backwards and subtract the miles when they drove back to our city. I’ve never had a student argue that the odometer would run backward. They agree twenty more miles would be added to the odometer total.

Once the students have absorbed the first part of the lesson, I challenge them to determine what happens to the odometer if they drive to the city to our south and back. They usually realize very quickly that even though the numbers on the number line are negative, the odometer will still add them to the total both going to the distant city and coming back.

This, I explain, is the essence of Absolute Value. No matter which way you go from 0 (zero), right towards Positive Infinity or left towards Negative Infinity, the distance you travel is always Positive. Learning and understanding this concept is absolutely essential if the students are to move on to the more intricate concepts of adding and subtracting integers.

As always, I remain,

The Exhausted Educator

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[i] Larson, Ron, and Laurie Boswell. "Chapter 1, Lesson 1." Big Ideas Math: A Common Core Curriculum. Erie, PA: Big Ideas Learning, LLC, 2014. 4. Print.