The Bow Tie Teacher

HELP!

To many this is a Starbucks cup with pencils in it. To my students is the Cornucopia in the Hunger Games. Everyday it's a battle for pencils. You'd honestly think there was a competition to see who could use up the most pencils in a day. 

 

My Pencil policy is this:

I sharpen about 20 or so pencils in the AM. The kids are welcome to trade out one of their not sharps for one of mine. If they don't have a pencil at all (often) they can take from another cup of sharp short pencils I freely give away. Multiple times during the day I sharpen the pencils in the cup so there are sharps for the dulls the kids have. The trades happen through out the day as the kids need a pencil.

Why do it like that, Whitaker? 

• This keeps the kids from making a game out of killing my pencil sharpener. 
• The personal sharpeners are a disaster! Pencil shavings are all over and they make the floor horrid! 
• The kids don't have to fidget with the sharpener. 
• The sharpener becomes a noise distraction as well as a movement issue. Sadly my students can't take the freedom of 1 person sharpening 1-2 pencils and sitting down. I'd have so many kids "needing" the sharpest pencil all day it would be craziness. 

 

I thought this would quell the foolishness that I saw when I came into this class. But really it hasn't. Just new foolishness has arisen. 

• I have the black market personal sharpeners. Shavings everywhere!
• Kids stealing my pencils. I give them for free just don't take 8!
• Kids not even trying to bring a pencil to school. "Whitaker will take care of that for me"
• Kids bringing 10 pencils and swapping all 10 out first thing in the morning, thus depleting my stash for the other students. 

I know this seems so simple, but what do you all do to maintain Pencil sanity in the class? 

What the Hunger Games has taught me about teaching

I devoured the HG series this week. Amazon did me a huge favor by allowing me to borrow the 1st copy to get me hooked. Needless to say I ravished all three books in a week. While I was working with a small group of kids I realized even more how the students respond to Class Dojo. They want to get as many points as possible, especially when they know that Friday we're going to have a treat. It made me think about the HG and how Tributes responded to the parachutes during the games. Here are some things I'm going to implement in class. 

• I'm going to give out my classroom jobs by lottery. I've attempted doling them out by having the students write an application. This would be much more interesting. *Update, this worked perfect. I am going to have to change the classroom jobs more often. Allowing them to keep them for weeks and weeks isn't working right. Maybe 3 days top.   
• Drop little "gifts" on students during the lessons. Maybe a calculator during a math 2 min drill or a book to help give more insights during a science lesson. 
• I have to manage classroom supplies better. "3 pencils and that's all. If you need another I will have to start taking a Class Dojo point from you." 
• Push the kids to work in groups that grow and flex all the time. This is more of a planning issue than anything else. Need to find a way to reward them for successfully working together. The catty-ness is so old!
• The more we understand our situation to better we can make decisions and not have to repeat lessons. 
• Understand that it's easy to become the thing you despise even if you think you're doing a noble work. Don't sink in order to get what you need. 
• Going to have some kind of mid week reward on Wednesday not just Friday. 5 days is too long for my students. Maybe if the students get 1/2 of the points needed for Friday by Wednesday they can do something fun on Wednesday afternoon. 

Testing starts next week. I can't wait for this to be over. I'm not sure how well my class will do, but I'm just ready for them to get it over with. The stress on the teachers and the kids is immense. The desire to succeed is even tougher when it doesn't seem to be met with equal desire by the students. Just got to hope and trust for the best. 

Day 62 of the 115 Royal Burpee challenge. Been beating my up for sure. I have the lion share of them to still do. Joy! *I'll do 5 burpees for every comment I get about my comparison on THG and teaching. Almost got a muscle up yesterday at Crossfit South Cobb. Got to build off that momentum.