Snow Days.......

I'm going to say something that is probably going to be fairly unpopular with some of my fellow teachers and definitely with any students out there.  But I hate snow days, there I said it.  I've never understood the fascination with them.  Maybe it's because most of my grade school childhood was spent in California where we didn't have days off for weather.  And then my last couple years were in upstate New York where you needed to have a couple of feet fall overnight to get a snow day.  And sure, the "breaks" are nice I guess, but it's not like it's a day lost as most seem to think.  The days almost always get made up.  So now I sit here, having had 1 teaching day out of the last 10 school days with exams and snow days.  The semester just started and now I feel like I'm behind the 8 ball already.  And don't get me started on how most teachers are expected to come in during these days.  Most businesses close or allow others to work from home, having teachers come in for some of these days is just silly.  Most of what we need to do can be done remotely now too, no need for us to burn sick days when we have to stay home because our children can't go to school or daycare either.

Anyways, enough of that rant, today is finally day 2 of the semester for me.  Somethings I'm looking to do this semester as I've moved from AP level back to regular world history and moved to block schedule from a traditional.

1. First, going to continue to spend time and energy on big picture/themes.  Their NC Final isn't about remembering the typical historical who, when, where, what, so my class won't really either.  
2. I'm going to continue to do my question of the days like I did with my AP students.  Won't do them as often, but still good practice and I feel they learn from break down key topics & I can reinforce main information.
3. I'll also continue to use DBQs and the SHEG lessons, I want to get students to be able to read sources, make opinions, see both sides of a topic.  Teach bias and point of view.  Let's be honest, those skills are more important than remembering how many Roman emperors there were.
4. I want to do more to help bring in current events, so we'll have a quick current events Friday piece.  I'll see how it goes, but it's something I've kind of wanted to do for years, but never felt I had time.  Just little pieces, bring world news and events into the classroom and put it in front of the kids.  Let them discuss how it relates to our lives, or how it relates to what we're learning about.
5. Lastly, I'm able to use a program called Canvas through the Home Base program (although I'm sure you can use it without being a home base school like all of NC is).  It's used often for online classes, but so far it's a place that I can put everything online and organized for my classes which is nice.  Supposedly I can grade assignment, give quizzes, etc through Canvas and it'll go straight into my gradebook.  I'll write more about it as I get used to it all.

So that's all for now, off to get ready to see my students, I feel like I have to remember what I'm actually doing it's been so long.  Thanks for reading as always.

Why are some people teachers.....

Okay, so a follow up rant/blog.  I've taken over for a teacher that left over a month before I arrived but I walk into his classroom and there's nothing for me.  NOTHING.  No plans, no pacing, nothing that appears to have been given to the substitute teacher, again, NOTHING.  And from what I hear from the students and other teachers, this was really how things were the entire semester.  I know students will stretch the truth, but the consistent message from multiple students and different classes is "yeah we never really had to learn, we could pretty much do whatever we wanted" then obviously something was going wrong here.  And I get that we're low on teachers, it's an unpopular profession, more of the emphasis is on everything terrible about it and God knows we're not paid anywhere close to our true value or worth....but still.  If you can't motivate yourself enough to do your job, which is to advocate, teach, better our next generation, WHY ARE YOU TEACHING?!?  You are much a part of the problem as all of the legislators and federal and state mandates that we all have to deal with.  You are the lowest common denominator that some of these backwards rules and oversight are all directed at.  Your job isn't to have to cushy job where you can hang out with high school kids (or younger) and be pals.  Students need more than just a "friend."  You can be the cool teacher without letting the students run the show.  It's no wonder I have students that don't know how to act, for my freshman especially they've been allowed to do whatever they want since day one, and I get to clean up the mess.  More importantly, how does this prepare students for the business world or college.  Their bosses and professors aren't going to be their friends, they're not going to allow you to act petulant and just hang out doing nothing.  No wonder the stereotype of this next generation is so terrible that they're lazy and unmotivated and incapable to caring about anything but themselves.  Yes, parents and the individuals share a large portion of the responsbility but so do we.  Even if it's just one kid that we can reach, that's our job, that's the role you chose, your profession.  Not just some paycheck or something easy where you can talk history or math or science because you like it.

I don't know where the next generation of teachers are going to come from and I understand why so many look at the profession and say it's not worth the trouble or headaches.  And some days they're right.  But most of the time, for those of us that actually care and give a .... it's the best job.  I can't image not teaching right now.  Hell, I'm currently teaching at two schools technically since I'm helping my old students finish out the semester with a substitute until their new teacher comes in...and even then I'll be advising him somewhat from what it appears.  And I'm totally okay and up for that.  It's crazy the difference between my students from yesterday to today, and all I did was teach a little.  Kids that are "problems" aren't, treat this job with the tenacity that it calls for and you'll rarely ever have a bad day or have a class that you hate.  But if you're not willing to do that, maybe teaching isn't for you.

One word for 2016

So there has been a lot on twitter by my fellow educators about their one word that will be their focus for 2016.  I definitely want to write more so I thought it'd be a good kick off for the year.  My word is CHANGE.  And while most of the change is for me, I think change will be there for my students as well (both past and future now).

For me personally and professionally, the change is huge.  My family has moved cities, I've had to leave a school I really liked for a new one and we've downsized temporarily while we sell our house and save up a bit into basically a 2 bedroom apartment with 2 kids and 2 dogs.  And done all of that within the last two weeks of the 2015.  Fun times.  I'm also changing subjects as I'm going from teaching AP level to mostly standard/academic (lowest level).  And after one day at my new school I see that this is going to be a bigger change for me than I realized, and potentially a big one for my students too.  I've come in during the last week before finals taking over for three classes that apparently didn't have a great teacher (according to the students to who knows) and a month's worth of substitute teachers.  I only have them a week, but it was staggering how little some of the students cared or even attempted to do any work.  My school has laptops for every student, and I'm not even in our district's system yet, so I really was teaching with both hands behind my back.  So I had a couple things I could have them do, and really today was more for me to observe and see where the next four days are going to go.  For my seniors, I can work with them, most realize they gotta get through this course, and senioritis hasn't completely taken over yet.  But my freshman civics class was something else.  And I'm trying really hard to A) not compare these students to my former ones because that's not fair and B) to not hold it against these kids because it seems that their original teacher checked out on them in early November, and they had subs for all of December.  They're used to being able to not having to any work, to being able to be on their phones, or play games on their computers, and no one ever established any kind of rules with them.  I can't try to completely shock the system, since it's only four days now, and I do need them to trust me a bit so I can at least get them prepared for their finals. So if we can all survive the week, victory for me, and I really hate that mentality but I've never felt as frustrated and helpless in a classroom as I did today (more on that in an upcoming rant/blog post).

So once I get my new class, I think I really need to change things up for these kids.  Many of them are used to having their macbooks and that constant stimulus of their phones, etc all through the day.  I know and embrace the push and use for technology, but I think I'm definitely going to have to find a better balance than what I've seen so far.  Also, especially going to block schedules, I have to change the way these students work.  There needs to be less downtime, quick transitions, timed, organized, etc.  That'll be a bit different for me, since I could get through a couple things and offer plenty of time with AP, there was so much to cover, I could easily assign somethings that would take a majority of class.  But I know even then, I was guilty of sometimes having work that some students flew through and they had the end of class to do other things.  Now with an extra 30 minutes, I really have to be deliberate with what I do, and more important what they students do.  It can't just be simply, do A, then B, then C and let them go to work.  I definitely want to get more groupwork, more discussions, bring some of the AP things that I did and cater it to my new students, but push them change the way they've learned.  I think with the block scheduling, there is a greater tendency to get caught up and fall behind the pacing and then it creates a mad scramble at the end of the year to "oh crap here's 50 years of history in 2 days."  If my students are used to dragging through units and chapters, then they'll have to adapt, not that I live and die with my pacing, but for history, if we don't cover the modern history, in my opinion, all the stuff we learned is useless.  I don't want students to learn world history because they have to, I want them to care about other cultures and better understand how the world got to where it is today, and more importantly for them, how does our country and culture fit into it.  It's a globalized and interdependent world, but if the students don't get to see and learn that, what's the point.  That's something I try to push every chance I get, but it's important to cover the here and now as well, not just the Ancient and "boring."

So I'm ready to embrace the change for 2016, and hopefully my students will as well.  Or it could be a long spring.  We'll hope it all works out okay...oh yeah and sell our house soon so we can move back into something bigger than an extended stay suite will be nice too.  (Could be worse, the price is right for it and it'll for now)

Until next time, thanks for reading as always.