This Week in Education 1st Week of February

What A Week

We have benchmark testing coming up next week.  Benchmark testing is meant to be a diagnostic test to inform the administration and teachers of any weaknesses that the students have in their learning of the content standards.  There are several reasons that this kind of testing doesn’t work.  First, the students know that the test doesn’t count toward their grade.  Some just don’t care.  They don’t take the time to read all the passages or figure out the steps of the math problems.  They look at seventy-five problems and they look at the answers and bubble in C or create a pattern.  I’ve seen some great visual effects on their answer documents over the years.  One column all A and the next all B and so always gives me a giggle.

The wave is also amusing.

I remember one time I was giving my students a formative assessment.  I was using generic scanable answer documents.  The choices were only A, B, C, and D, but the bubble sheet had A, B, C, D, and E.  it was a thirty-six problem test.  I passed out the test and told them to begin.  I use to sit am my desk and take the test myself. After three minutes, this student announced “I’m done.”

I said, “You cannot be done.  I’m not even done. You must have guessed.”

“I didn’t guess,” he insisted.

When I corrected the test he got six right.  I then looked to see which ones he missed.  To my astonishment he marked the E choice ten times.  Sure he did the test without guessing.

Today there is an extremely high priority placed on testing.  This was built into the No Child Left Behind law.  If the student isn’t performing at proficient at their grade level, it is automatically the teacher’s fault.  Even little guesser boy and the pattern makers are not to blame.  Blaming teachers for the students test score is not at all fair.  Some students choose not to learn.  Blaming the teacher would be like the student blaming their pencils for not marking the right answer or bubbling E when it doesn’t even exist.

Student Work

We had a fun activity in science this week.  They had to draw an annotate a picture depicting the rock cycle.  The assignment was given to all students but only a handful completed the project.  I have about ten really high performing students.  Their projects were beautiful.  I had them, while the other were trying to finish or loose theirs, do a poster sized rock cycle to put on the wall.  They left an area that we could fill in with actual examples of igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.

I went to the local shop that specializes in marble and granite counter tops.  The shop owner was happy to give me some small samples and we cut off pieces that we glued to the poster they made.  Maybe one of these students will become a geologist one.

However, some students still act out and are argumentative.  They talk about the problem with obesity in our youth today.  I have students who fall into this category.  One of my students who is 10 years old and 200 pounds, is also unable to sit still for more than minutes.  One day last week he got out of his seat and pretended to be slapped around and chocked out by his “invisible friend”.  The other students started to yell at me, “It’s Casper”.  Try teaching American History with this type of distraction.

When we talk of teaching modalities, we say some learners are visual, auditory, or kinesthetic.  Well, he met all three styles.  A blind person could have heard the noise as he simulated being slapped and choked and know just exactly what he was doing.  A deaf person would understand the gyrations and flailing on the floor and know what he was doing.  And somewhere on some seismic detector the needle was bouncing as wildly as he was.

So we wage two battle in our classrooms. One is the constant battle to motivate and teach. The second is modifying their behavior so that they can sit in a classroom through high school.


RAWR

This Week in Education

Last Full Week in January, Yeah!

There are many things that are good about teaching fifth grade in California. The curriculum is suited to how I think. I love the history or social studies. We teach some of the differences in the regional Native American tribes. This allows for some arts and craft pursuits. One of these is the modeling of the different habitat structures that were used.




The tepees of the Plains Indians, the long houses of the Northeastern tribes.  The adobe houses of the Southwest, and the plank houses of the Pacific Northwest.  Students can recreate the caravel type ship that brought the explorers from Europe to this new world.





They learn who were colonized and why. This led to the original thirteen colonies, and how each functioned depending on purpose of formation and the geographical region in which it existed. Most importantly the stresses that were put upon those colonies to thrive both culturally and economically. It was those stresses that gave rise to the American Revolution. Once we were free all that was left was expanding from coast to coast, manifest destiny.

 Math is also an interesting course of study. Now the problems become more involved. It takes many steps to complete a problem instead of just some simple computation. This is where students begin to struggle.

If they don't start finding mastery over the processes and problems pre-algebra and algebra are a bridge too far.

Physical Education is a good thing.  Fifth graders get tested in physical fitness.  So, students need to receive practice by doing a regular structured exercise.  But, they can get some kind of activity afterwards.  Kickball, relay races, soccer are student favorites.  It is as enjoyable for me to watch the play as it is for them to participate.

There are many things that make teaching fun, however, there are some things that make it miserable.  I had both the fun and the miserable this week.  Students need to move around the campus in an orderly fashion. Okay, call it by what it is in lines.  As a devotee of Fred Jones, I require the line to be orderly.  It isn't about control.  It is about having the students develop self-control.  There is an old saying, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink."  Its the same for students in a way.

Half my students didn't go to science camp so they were left behind all week with a substitute teacher.  Sometimes substitutes don't always follow the same procedures and routines that the classroom teacher does.  It's not their fault sometimes, we don't leave detailed instructions on line procedures.  So for a week, I had a constant struggle reminding the students of my expectations on their lines.  So as reinforcer, I told them that they would not have PE activity just exercises until they could line up correctly.

This was starting to work until Wednesday.  My other fifth grade teacher, who lines up next to my students, had a training class therefore he had a substitute.  He allowed the students to run wild.  He gave them three hours of PE.  The other class was outside literally morning, noon, and night.  My class now thought he was the best teacher on the face of the Earth.  My life was miserable because the students ran to the windows to watch their friends play.  How could division of mixed numbers match the spectacle that was unfolding outside.

Then came every teacher's nightmare, synchronized bladders.  All the students who wanted to avoid work were asking to use the bathroom just 10 minutes after coming in from lunch recess. One, two, oodles of students all up out of their seats demanding to go use the restroom.  Typically, only a couple of students need to go after lunch recess and it is close to an hour since their break.  Some of the students I have will go into screaming and imitating their best pee pee dance.  It was pandemonium.

Then Friday, I came out to pick them up and it was unbelievable.  They were in the perfect line. Everyone facing forward and not talking.  I, of course, needed to reward this by giving them their activity back for PE that day.  They played soccer.  It was enjoyable even for me.


Were they little angels after that?  No not hardly, they still need to test the boundaries.  But for a sweet golden moment it was fun teaching.  Who knows what will happen next week, because we start reviewing for a test.  So come back for another episode of "This Week in Education."