Well, what do you know?

      Most people in education have heard of the KWL chart as a way to establish prior knowledge. Don't worry I'm not about to explain those self explanatory graphic organizers.

• What do you Know?
• What do you Want to know?
• What did you Learn?

      Unfortunately so have the kids,  and the sight of a KWL chart just makes them groan. So as teachers we have to be sneaky sometimes to figure out what those kids already know. Why bother you might ask? I know sometimes it seems like those little angels come into our rooms as blank slates, but that is far from true. They have been in many classrooms sitting in front of many teachers long before they came in to our classrooms. Plus everything they learn form each other, television, and those smart phones growing out of their arms.

     I digress, back to the importance of prior knowledge. If we can connect what we are teaching to something that they already know then they understand it better and retain it longer.  As if the brain is a giant spider web of knowledge. If you don't find something to stick it to, then it just escapes. It can be tough finding that prior knowledge. At the first whiff of new material some students will fake ignorance to avoid being called on. But if they are confident that they already know something about the topic, then they are excited to expand that knowledge. 

     Questioning helps. My general rule of thumb is that I need to be asking the students just as many questions as they are asking me. For example at the beginning of the school year we study physical geography. Before we even start I tell the kids, "Okay, you guys are going to ace this next unit because you already know all of this stuff. Physical geography is just like the physical science you learned last year. Let's see, do you remember what the different layers of the earth are? Oh, that was easy, what about the movement of the plates? What are the different types? Show me with your hands. What does that movement create?" and so on and so on. They get so excited telling me what they know. 

      Another way to find out what they know is to hand them the dry erase marker or chalk. You will always have shy kids, but if you make everyone take a turn it eases the embarrassment.  Just put a starter topic up and have the kids web everything they know for you. Teach high school and don't have enough board room for six classes? Just snap a picture with a digital camera and erase the board.  Remember, while they might act like it sometimes, they weren't really born yesterday. So, be creative, be sneaky, but do whatever you need to do to find out what they already know. You will see improvement in your retention rate. 

Lessons I learned this week.

     School isn't just for the kids you know. It is finally Friday, so I thought I would reflect on a few of the things that I learned this week.
1. It is not a good idea to watch films that you have not previewed. We got stuck watching a film to wrap up a lesson about religion in the Middle East because I borrowed the lesson from someone else. It was the most boring film ever. I mean the narrater.....talked.....like.....this......the .....whole ....film.  I just wanted to shout "Spit it out already!"  The kids were not impressed either. It could have been worse. Once when I was subbing the teacher left a video and a note that instructed me to stand next to the TV and censor it with a piece of cardboard when anything obscene came on.  Seriously.
2. Some kids can be reformed. One of my students used to skip class every time I let her go to the bathroom. I didn't let her go anywhere for three weeks and I called her mom when she skipped after school tutoring that she was supposed to attend. Today she asked to go to the bathroom. She really did look like she was about to have an accident, so I let her go and she actually came back this time.
3. Listening to gossip is lame. I know, the short term thrill of getting the latest dirt is entertaining, but in the end I find myself losing more and more respect for my peers and supervisors.
4. The best lessons are the ones you take time to develop yourself. I came up with a mapping activity that I used last week. It took me three days to get the whole thing together because I had to find a bunch of maps, print and laminate them. It went really well and this week four other Geography teachers have borrowed it. They all gave me positive feedback. I wish I had time to develop lessons like that all of the time. A teacher workday once a grading period would be nice.
5. Don't give a test on Valentine's Day because the kids will be too hyped up on sugar to focus on the task at hand. This is year five, so you would think that I would have figured that one out by now. Speaking of Valentine's day, I hope that you had a nice one.

A few words

1st

Here is my word wall for the unit we just did on Southwest Asia.

  I'm assuming that most school districts require word walls now. I figure if I have to do it then it might as well be a good one. Unfortunately our curriculum bundles only allots ten days for this unit, so this is coming down tomorrow. Then I have to figure out how I am going to do the wall for Africa.

2nd

  "Mom..I mean Mrs.PJ. OMG Miss, I can't believe I just called you that." It is quite alright. Actually I consider it the ultimate teacher compliment. It must mean I am nagging my students just right. 

3rd

   Today is Ash Wednesday, the start of Lent. We are supposed to forgo something for forty days to remind us of the suffering of others. I had a hard time deciding this year, but I finally settled on TV. I probably wouldn't have picked that if we had already started watching this season of Walking Dead, but since we haven't, it will just have to sit in the DVR for a month. Wish me luck. Last year I gave up gossip. That didn't exactly worked the way I had hoped. Right now I pretty much watch TV after the kids go to bed and my time would probably be better spent sleeping. We will see how it goes. 

The comeback

"Your kids are f***ing s***heads. Good luck with them."

        That is a text I received before returning to work from maternity leave. Really made me excited about going back you know? Some of my kids were rough around the edges, but what can you expect when you leave them with a sub for so long? One of my administrators even warned me not to smile at my kids for the first several weeks back. He had apparently had several run ins with my kids. Anyway, I knew I couldn't do that. I'm human and if I wasn't able to have some sense of humor in the classroom then I would probably crack and lose it. Besides, I like to believe that they are all good students, just some of them make not so good choices. 

       Last Friday they really got to redeem themselves. My students and I had to sit in the auditorium while the counselors called students up one at a time to prepare their schedules for next year. I knew there would be a lot of down time and we don't have any time to waste, so I brought an activity for my kids.  For those of you interested I will tell you about the activity in just a minute. The important thing was that it kept them busy. At the end of the day the counselors pulled me aside and said, "Mrs. PJ your kids are the most well behaved and most respectful students we have had in here all week." They went on to tell me that it had not been that quiet the entire time they had been in the auditorium and that I was the only teacher that had brought something for the students to do. I was so proud of my kids that I was beaming the rest of the day. On Monday I told them that the counselors had nothing but nice things to say about them. 

       So what did we do with our down time? I split them into six groups. Each group was given a deck of cards. Each deck had forty cards with a term and picture and a corresponding card with an explanation. That's right, my high school students played match. They loved it. With that many cards it took them almost the whole period to match them all up, but they competed to see which group could match them all first. When they finished I got them all to play a game where I called out something and they had to find and hold up a card that fit the description. "Which two cards are opposites of each other? Find a card that is one of the five themes of Geography. Do you have one that is a physical feature?" You can easily make your own deck of cards by making a table in a blank word document or pages file and filling it in with your own vocabulary and pictures. These vocabulary decks are great for a throw down review lesson. 

Grattitude

      The end of a grading period is coming up fast. Generally before it arrives I like to give my students an itemized progress report a few days before I have to turn in grades. I tell them if they get it signed by their parents I will give them a bonus 100 daily grade. Usually by this time they have so many grades in the grade book this extra one will really only boost their average by a few points. So giving them this really serves two purposes. This is how I explain it to them, I am only human so there may be a mistake in my grade book. I ask them to check what I have and see if they have anything I missed in their grade book. It is like having them double check my bookkeeping. Secondly when they see their grades, the ones that are failing will usually be motivated to attend tutorials and get their grades back up.
     So yesterday I gave out the reports and explained to my kids why. One of them (that was failing) shouted out, "Wow Mrs. Thanks a lot!" At first I thought he was being sarcastic with me, but then he asked why can't all teachers be this nice and help them out. This got me thinking about a couple of things. One of those is how we are commanded by God to serve one another and as teachers we are public servants. Galatians 5:13 states, "My brothers and sisters, God called you to be free, but do not use your freedom as an excuse to do what pleases your sinful self. Serve each other with love." Sometimes teaching can be depressing and frustrating and we have to remember the purpose we are serving. This student was asking about those teachers that take out their frustration on the kids.
      In a way this students gratitude reminded that we should be thankful for the opportunity to educate. No doubt schools are full of pressure and stress. There are too many administrators and teachers that operate under a "gotcha" type system where they focus on trying to catch people doing wrong. I was reading about this recently in a business management book.  It was explaining about how by focusing on the negative we create a paranoid environment where people are afraid and don't perform at their best. Not exactly what I would describe as an optimal learning environment. If we remember our purpose as servants then we seek out the best ways to serve and create the most productive environment. I am grateful I have students that help me remember that.