How do you teach someone to think?

It's that time of year again...yes, the holidays, but also, the end of the first marking period of the year. While it might be the most wonderful time of the year on the radio, it is definitely not for a lot of students in my class. Report card time is always interesting to me for several reasons. First, in my second year of teaching I am still struggling to understand how a student who has turned in very little homework, failed to complete a major project, and refused to answer half the questions on the tests I give because they aren't multiple choice and therefore don't seem to be as easy could be shocked when the grade on their report is not an A, B, or C. I guess in part its a failure on the part of the teachers to demonstrate that cause and effect relationship effectively, but still, it always amazes me.

Second, though, I find it interesting to try and answer many of the kids questions about why they got the grade they did. It's easy with some kids: the ones with A's and B's don't ask why, they're just happy they got the grade, and the ones who never turned in work- well, clearly that's why. What is tough, though, are the kids who did turn in a lot of the work and thought they were genuinely making a serious effort and who still ended up with D's based off test, quiz, and major classwork and project grades. Despite my efforts to offset some of this with mini-quizzes, quiz retakes, and daily points for participation and effort, there is always a batch of kids who fall in the low C or D range who are truly upset they got this score, and I can understand why- they thought they were putting in adequate effort, and have suddenly realized they have fallen short of their goal in my class. After this, I almost always hear, "But I'm doing so much better in my other classes! Why not in your class?" This always leads to me to go back and wonder: am I being unfair to students? However, I don't think so, and here's why.

In many of my students other classes, I think (I don't know, since I'm not in those classes) that students get graded on how much stuff they hand in, regardless of how much it seems like they have learned. In my class, on the other hand, I am attempting to really grade my students on how much they have learned and how much thinking they have done that marking period. It is relatively easy in a social studies class to memorize basic facts and spit them back out (What is cuneiform? Who was Aristotle? What are latitude and longitude?). It is more important to me, however, that my students learn how to really analyze these things- why does it matter that Mesopotamians used cuneiform, or that we still study Aristotle today? And this is a stumbling block. My students do not like to do this kind of thinking because they have never been taught to- when you can get an A for copying poems offline that have examples of simile and metaphor in them, why ever bother to think about the purpose of those similes and metaphors? Therefore, I come off looking like this incredibly difficult teacher who expects too much of my students because I ask so much more of them- but let's be honest, this is what the kids in the suburbs of Philadelphia are doing every day-thinking.


By no means am I even close to being that good at this-if I was, perhaps it wouldn't be such a battle in my classroom every day. I have not yet gotten the hang of asking just the right guiding question to get my students to draw a conclusion from the material in front of them. So, it's my goal for this semester to see many more A's and B's- but not because I've gotten any easier as a teacher, but because I've challenged my students (and myself!) to be better and finally started to win this battle against not wanting to think and analyze with my students. Anything else is shortchanging them and allowing them to fall short of their true potential.

We Are the Champions!

Today my middle school ladies won the city-wide volleyball championship! I managed to make it to some of the game, and it was awesome to see them all working together at something and supporting each other. Definitely a great way to end the season and to head off for Thanksgiving!

Matchmaker, Matchmaker

My students like to play matchmaker since they know that I do not have a boyfriend (my bad on being honest when they asked that question) and this always leads to hilariously awkward moments. Last year's worst was when they dragged the assistant basketball coach up to my room because all the girls on the team thought he was cute and they wanted him to meet me. He was definitely not my type, but actually did try to call me- and I still hear about it. Today was another of those fun little moments. As I was leaving, I was talking to some of my 8th grade girls who were still outside the building after volleyball practice, when out walked a twenty-something guy. There are always people from the school district or one of Philly's universities trying to do research or have meetings or do mentoring or any other of a plethora of things in the school, so I've kind of learned to ignore the people walking in and out. Today, however, one of my girls says loudly as the guy passes by, "Hey, Ms. D, he looks pretty nice, " and winks at me. I'm going to hope that the random guy just didn't hear that one. I guess it's nice of them to care that much?

On another note, our girls' volleyball team, despite being more concerned with matchmaking and fashion than schoolwork, is playing in the city championship tomorrow! Here's good luck to the Duckrey girls!

Thank Goodness for Veterans

Thank goodness we had today off. Yesterday I had an observation with my Teach For America advisor, and the class he saw was much worse than it usually is. Maybe because it was the last period before a day off, I don't know. Anyway, I've certainly been feeling a bit down about the fact that I got observed on one of my worst days- I would love to have someone see my class on a good day but it seems like people never come in on those days.

On the plus side, the students did seem to pull out the important parts of the lesson when they summarized the lesson on the exit slips I give after every class. There was one funny one though- the lesson had been about Mesopotamian agriculture and students discussed where their food comes from. When asked to tell what the most important thing she learned today was, one student told me that the most important thing she learned was where canned tuna fish comes from because she never realized it was a fish before. I'm glad I could teach her something...

A Great Moment

Just in case I don't have enough to do teaching a new subject to three different grades, effectively meaning I am teaching 3 new subjects, I decided to sign on to do my school's Power Hour, which is certainly nothing like what that term meant in college. It is an hour and a half after school 4 days a week when kids who are below grade level on reading and math skills get extra, small group instruction. I am doing the literacy power hour 2 days a week (Mondays and Wednesdays) because I am basically a bleeding heart- neither of the 2 English teachers at my school wanted to do it, and I felt like it was important enough to take it on.

I have been doing Power Hour for about 3 weeks now, and it had definitely added stress to my life- instead of just 3 preps, I now have a 4th for Power Hour. Other teachers who had signed on to do it have already quit, and we have switched math teachers twice, and I wasn't sure it was worth it- until Monday around noon, when I was running to the bathroom because it was finally my prep period. I ran into one of my students coming out of the girls' bathroom, and she stopped me to show me her most recent test in reading: a B. This girl is in learning support for reading and math because she is behind on her skills, so I was obviously super excited for her, but I almost cried when she said, "Actually, I wanted to thank you for helping me." I haven't had a student thank me for helping them before- middle schoolers tend not to think like that- so it was truly an awesome moment. Made even more awesome when I graded her most recent social studies test and she got a 96% :)

Duckrey Happenings

I haven't updated in awhile, and I don't feel like writing anything especially profound today, as I have been trying and failing to fully recover and get back on top of my work after my (extremely fun) weekend trip to visit my sister in Boston, so here is an interesting smattering of happenings going on at school at the moment:

- our principal announced today that he was leaving in December to take an assistant superintendent job in a suburb of Philly. Hopefully this won't be an out of the frying pan and into the fire kind of experience

- a car was on fire outside of school the other day. Kids were running all over the place, especially toward the fire. Sometimes I wonder if the fight/flight instinct is really intact in these kids...

- the middle school has now instituted a mandatory "homework club" for all students who are regularly failing to complete homework (brainchild of yours truly...which of course means I have to run it...). Today was our first "meeting," which consisted of all boys, one of whom was much more interested in whether or not I would bring him some of my cheez-its that I have at home than in finishing his homework...

- I have a new best buddy in the 8th grade. We got a new student on Tuesday of this week- he started out the week VERY badly, swearing at the dean and me when we told him that he was in the wrong class (he followed all the girls to my class instead of going to science with the boys). However, things have turned around since he won candy in his first day in my class for being a winner in our class debate. Now, I frequently find myself being sneak attacked by an oddly huggy 8th grade boy, but I guess I'll take what I can get.

- I have been proposed to twice in the past two days by two different boys: one was a 7th grader in my homeroom who got down on one knee and pretended to give me ring, in an attempt to get out of classwork...and the second was today- one of my 8th grade boys saw my Penn ring and said "Forget that...let me put a ring on that finger." I haven't figured out whether or not this is a step up from my last marriage proposal, which was from this guy in Amsterdam last summer:

And that's all the news (from Duckrey) that's fit to print. The weekend cannot get here fast enough.

Future Justices of the Supreme Court

Today in class we had our first-ever current events day. On Mondays, from now until May, the students have 45 minutes of planned parenthood's health and sex ed classes, which means that instead of their usual hour and a half blocks, they spend 45 minutes in health and 45 minutes with me. Now, I don't know what happened in health class (though one of the 6th graders excited told me that the Planned Parenthood man will answer questions about anything- and I can only imagine what kinds of questions he must get), but in my class it was both crazy and awesome all at the same time.

I now know why I don't see all 6 of my classes every day, like I thought might make sense. It is insane- the time flies by, the kids are crazy, we don't get half of the things done that I had planned for us to do. However, I also discovered today that my kids get really excited about current events. The cover story in this issue was about the confirmation of Justice Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, and some of the cases she will be looking at once the court's term begins (the term actually began today, which, when I pointed that out to my classes, elicited reactions from "Wow" to "That's tough"- which means good, for all of you who don't know my kids' lingo). My kids had opinions on every case, and we got to have really awesome unplanned debates on them, especially a case in which a 16 year old was given life without parole for committing armed robbery, burglary, and home invasion twice in a span of 2 years. I was especially excited to see two boys in two different classes who sit in the back and who are never engaged in the lesson excitedly sharing their knowledge about the government, volunteering to read, and offering their opinions on the cases. I think its about time to get some student government going- looks like I have some future justices in the making.

In other news, I learned a new slang term that all the cool kids are using today: in my bag. Apparently it means to get angry or annoyed or have a bad day, as in "If you don't stop talking, i'm gonna get in my bag." Do not ask me where it comes from; I have no idea, as with most of my students' slang terms. What I do know is that I used it today when my 7th grade boys wouldn't shut up and line up, as in "I'm about to get in my bag if you all don't line up and get quiet right now!" Needless to say, the kids completely lost it-I thought a couple of them might actually pee their pants. Nothing like a good "I'm not as old and uncool as you think" moment to make the day end well ;)