The Bow Tie Teacher

READ!

A picture is worth 1,000 words, but you better be reading, too. This really provoked me. I don't keep track of the time we read, but I will be making sure it's at least 20 minutes of good, quality reading. I also noticed that this is just for the school  year. If a child doubles up during the summer or takes their Summer Reading list this number could be higher. 

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I don't know all the back story of Little Free Libraby, but I do know the little boxes are adorable. I've seen them a couple of times and noticed one near Trina's Summer Camp. So we stopped. Trina loved the idea of getting a free book. She later suggested that we bring some books to put in the library. My mind started racing. What if we did a Free Little Library crawl. Hit up 3 or 4 of these little buddies one weekend dropping off and putting in books! Our 101 things to do this Summer list has just grown. 

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Blog abandonment

This week was so draining. I don't want to drone on and on about how this week was a BEAST. You don't want to hear that. 

What I will say is this, no question this week built my faith. I have been working on building margin in my life. Even with this week beating me up I didn't get to my limits.  I know this week coming, I'm going to be pushed more than last week. Thankfully, I've already planned for it and I feel grace to do it. I can see that consistent on going improvement will yield huge results. 

To give balance I've found it really tough to plan/think LONG term about my lessons and class learning. I talked about in in my Avengers post aout making the lessons catchy to get the kids excited about the next lesson. I've had some success in my re-growing veggies lessons in science, but not so much in my other lessons. Just need to work on this for sure. 

I have an evaluation this week and I feel good about it. I picked up some great skills at a workshop a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, I've been kicking it hard so Monday will be the best teaching anyone has seen cause I've been doling out the best daily. 

Crossfit this week was strong. I didn't make it to Crossfit South Cobb everyday, but I was able to sneak into Basement Crossfit and keep my goals in line. I've been juicing well. It's not hard now at all. I'm down nearly 13 pounds. I hope to be able to plant our garden next week or the following week. 

Let's get at it. 

Let's talk about prayer in school

Let's get a few things straight:

• I'm a Christian.
• I'm a father of elementary school age kids.
• I'm a public school teacher. 
• My kids go to a private school.
• I'm a conservative.
• I'm heart broken for the parents, communities and children of CT. 
• I'm not interested in prayer in schools. 

    What?! Every Christian with a bible is ranting "God has been removed from schools and that's why we're...." Yes, I've heard that argument and I've even made it a couple of times. However it's wrong and it's not very smart. There is a talk show host who went as far as to say the reason this horrible event happened is because God has been taken out of schools. 

    What most people are asking for is a teacher-lead, school-lead time of prayer during a time of the day. 30 seconds during announcements, before lunch or something like that. 

    Putting prayer in school is opening a box to so many other things that teachers will have to tend to. I'm surprised no one has said it. We're already, Parents, Coaches, Advisers, Counselors, Teachers, Nurses and Referees. Now you want us to be Pastors, Priests and Rabbis?

    Let me just wave a magic wand and "put prayer in school". Can't you see/hear all the howls from some parents because "you prayed in Jesus' name, we pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit".

    ...or You prayed in the NIV, but we only accept the KJV.

How about this one, ...We're Southern Baptist and you're  a Mormon teacher, What Jesus are you talking about?  

    These are just a few, a very small few complaints out of the bag of insane complaints we'd hear. Let's not even talk about the fact that now America is a sort of kind of Christian. So many assume we're talking about praying to the Judeo-Christian God. Ok, but what about when America becomes a majority non-Christian nation? Think you'll be ok with us praying to another god that you don't think is God? 

    Ok, people, we're tasked with such a weighty chore that adding one more layer is going to only add more strain to the profession. I challenge that there isn't one profession that has so much heaped on it from all sides as teaching. If you know of one, please let me know.

    For quite some time teaching has been the surrogate parent of the community. I know a lot of folk aren't going to like this, but you're welcome to comment. We've become EVERYTHING to these kids and it's made really, seriously...LAZY PARENTS. Yes, I did call most of us lazy. We drop our children off at school with very little and want a college bound, scholar in return. This might be shocking, but it's not going to happen. Neither is prayer in school. 

    If you want prayer in school send Prayers to school. Send kids who cherish the honor of speaking to an ever loving, God. Drop off a child who are confident in themselves, because they know that no matter what they're accepted by God and that He thinks they're pretty neat. Send students who much rather quote Be Attitudes than cop and attitude. We'd welcome students who rather than pick on each other and name call understand that everybody needs love and acceptance and they've found that in God. How do we get that, Jason?

    This is going to REALLY make some people mad, so feel free to log off. In order to get the kind of student I'm talking about many parents need to parent and pastor their OWN kids. You're going to have to put prayer, God and all that in your home. Put it in your heart and in your kids hearts. I can tell you that the Love of God is absent from my community. I can see it in the words my kids use with each other and adults. It's obvious in the MIA status of support at home. I as a teacher am not going to do it for you. Sorry, but it ain't going to happen. What I will do is pray silently that you get a clue that these are your kids, your future and that you need to make the most of it. 

    I choose to make my wife and my faith a center of our girls' growth. If you don't that's on you. I simply believe it's much easier for you to raise your child than for your child's teacher or school to do it for you. 

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Tabata math drill

Check out www.jwhit.com

 

I found a way to bring my favorite workout to the classroom and I didn't even need to lace up my inov8s! 

Tabata work outs can be summed up as 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. A goal is to not to slip below your first level of work. So if I do 8 push ups in 20 seconds I'd want to keep that pace the entire 8 founds. It sounds pretty simple, but it's not. It's so useful that it's easy to think it's not as hard as it is. I'm sure there's one out there, but I cant think of a exercise you can't do as a tabta. 

Today I had my students do their regularly scheduled math drill as a tabta. I was pleasantly surprised how much they liked it. I had a 60 question single digit addition and subtraction page for them. I explained the "game" to them extensively on the front end. They picked up on it pretty well. I projected a huge tabata timer on the board. It chimed at the different rest/work intervals. They loved it. 

• I didn't make them keep score, but I will in the future.
• Some spent the 10 seconds of rest looking over their previous questions to fix them when the 20 seconds of work started. 
• I need to do a benchmark drill to see help them plot some growth. 
• No going back over answers until they've finished every question. 

Afterwards I asked the class write to me about their first tabata experience. Pretty positive for my class. They don't usually like anything new save for the overly dramatic and disruptive. 

•     10 liked it and want to do their regular math drills like this
•     2 would rather do the regular 2 minute drill

I'm thinking that I could use this format for writing spelling and vocabulary words. I'm thinking that when their reading really gets better they could read 20 seconds rest 10. I'd enjoy seeing them write as much as they can and then rest and so on. 

I bet I'll have them rascals out doing tabata sprints next time we get the wiggles, trust. 

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Cooking and Teaching

I think I've told you how much I like grilling. Since getting my Big Green Egg for Father's day I've cooked some great meals. It's a relaxing and enjoyable experience for me. By no stretch of the imagination am I  a chef. I'm a weekend warrior at the best description. Mainly because I'm using others recipes, ideas and techniques. I'm not creating my own. I'm having a grand time, but I'm not waiting for a call from Food Network. 

What could I do to get them to enjoy the academic process and even grow to the place where they're creating new projects and so on? Right now they're just consumers. They sit in the seat and wait to be fed information that they may or may not take fully. My task is to get them to move from the dining room and get into the kitchen. Then once there I need to get them excited about the kitchen so much that they want to create new dishes and meals. 

My family raves about my creations. In my daughters and wife's eye I'm the best. Their involvement makes it easy to plan and grill. This is what makes the entire thing enjoyable for me. 

How can I get my students and their families into education as such? 

Teachers will appreciate (Science Fair Edition)

Let's mix a funny story. 

Take a school wide Science Fair.

Add the fact that my student who was going to present for our class is absent. 

Sprinkle in some low 50's degree weather outside. 

The recipe for a funny event. 

9:34 am I have to QUICKLY prep new students to present on our science fair project because the student I wanted to present is absent. Sure, no sweat.

I have to still teach the rest of my class, but hey. I just didn't know I had 2 minutes to get my presentation ready. Ummm, boy it's hot in here.

9:37 I'm rushing to get these kids ready. I notice that they could use a little lotion on their hands and faces. It's cold and cold weather plays ashy games with little brown kids. So, being always ready I reach in the closet to give them some lotion, or what I thought was lotion. I give each kid a little dollop on their hands and I run back to my group.

9:37:43 I notice that the presenting kids are having a bear of a time rubbing this "lotion" in and it's starting to foam. One joker is rubbing it in on his face. I mean their going to town! 

9:38 The lady comes to my door asking for my students to come to the media center for the presentation. I run back to my closet to see what I gave them. BABY WASH! Why do I have a small bottle of baby wash in my closet! For the love of Pete! 

Thankfully, I play it off and give the kids a wet wipe to "spruce themselves up for their Blue Ribbon". 

9:41 I quietly laugh at myself, because this could only happen to me. 

At that point I should have grabbed my bag and taken a mental health day. It only got more and more crazy after this. Praise God!

About to get my Crossfit WOD and I'll catch you soon. 

Resolved the chart storage issue

I was able to get a good file system over the weekend. Thanks to this box and some spiffy folders I'm able to store a ton of charts and posters. This week I was able to reach in and grab some needed charts right on the spot. In the process I found a lot of charts I need to put up around the class. If anyone wants to come help me one day I'll stay at work late to finish. 

Don't play the game...play the man.

Everyday we play a game. Sometimes we're up. Sometimes we're down. No matter what we're in a game and we need to win. You have to know the defense and the offense, that's a given. But do you know the players better than they know themselves? 

 

A person once said "Don't play the game, play the man." In my case it's "play the children". I need to really, really dig down into the fine details of each of my students to raise them up to where they need to be. If I play the "class", I'm only going to reach 60% of them at best. Some way I'm going to do a better job of dealing with each student and each of their abilities so I can help raise up 100% of them. Like I've said this is an All Star class. They have a lot of talent and they're sharp. It's going to be tough, but so is getting beat down everyday. I just choose what hard job I'm going to do, cause I'M playing the children not the class. 

As a recap, my time frame analogy was spot on! For literacy, it worked like a charm. Now I need to improve my content. Thankfully, I do have the times down. Looking for a timer that I can set multiple times for, if anyone wants to suggest one. Next I'm going all in on my math times. Haven't had any feedback on it, but I'll get myself on a better schedule and time this week. By end of 1st 9 weeks I have the SuperLearner Central running like a well-oiled machine. 

I already have my lessons done and sent off for next week. I have my emergency sub plans done. I have my new BBoard ready. Just need the kiddos to work on their work to put up.  Not sure what I need to do to get the "authentic" student work quality up. I do models and I have them follow me, but they're just not that creative and imaginative. Wonder how to teach that. 

Crossfit South cobb will see my carcass tomorrow. Can't wait. Today's WOD was fun looking. I didn't get in there. No excuse will be given. I will be there tomorrow and I will have down that gallon of water to keep me hydrated. 

I figured it out!

Not to go on and on, but I really appreciate that God gives insight to those who are willing to ask for it. Allow me to explain. 

Today I was having a discussion about the Common Core "Literacy Block". This person let me know that what was seen during my segement of the block wasn't impressive. Ok. Continuing they explained what they were looking for. 

As I listened a light went off. We have been talking about doing the same thing, but we were going at it totally differently. 

I told them this story. When I was a child I was able to eat as much food as I wanted on my plate. The only requirement is that when my mom said dinner was over, I had to have a clean plate. I didn't matter what I ate first or last. All that mattered was being done when time was called.

I've always thought the Literacy block was like my childhood eating. I can do what I want to do, when I want to. I only have to ensure that I'm done when time is up. 

What they had described they were looking for was more this example. 

 I have to eat as much as I can from each compartment, but I only have so much time to do so. I can't jump all around the plate like I did when I was young. In this situation I have 15 minutes to eat my potato salad. I can finishe in less than 15, but I can't take more than that. Next I have 15 minutes to  eat my corn. Same thing, I can eat it in less time, but I can't go over and taking my time and eating it in 14 minutes would be ideal. This goes on until the Literacy block is over. If anything is left over it can be wrapped up and taken care of the next day.  

I say that was a divine revelation, because NO ONE has made that clear to me or to many of the other teachers. We've all been figuring it out. Since I wasn't clear WHAT I didn't know I wasn't able to ask for more help. I just knew that some segments were good. Others were horrid and I had to press through for 90 minutes. 

The name also adds to the confussion. I think of a block as a large "unit" of time that can be divided and sub-divided as I see if as long as all the parts of literacy get covered. Was I wrong or what? I really see how this is supposed to work and I can certianly hit the ground running faster tomorrow. 

In honor of this revelation I made a cafe tray anchor chart with the time slots for each part on it. Now if I could find a huge timer that allows me to set different alarms for different times I'd be GOLDEN!