It's Friday morning and I'm at my desk with my view from the back of the room preparing for the day. The scholars are arriving and when Wide walks in I'm a bit surprised as his Nanna is with him. I'm not quite sure where Nanna fits into Wide's official family but he lives with her and calls her Nanna so I guess she is the parental unit. I like Nanna as she seems to be very involved in keeping Wide on the right track at home plus she has accompanied us on school field trips which is always helpful given the type of scholars we have in our room. When I said good morning to her she said she I have something for you. I responded by saying is this a good something or a bad something. She laughed and said it's a good something. She then handed me a package and ask me to open it. As I was opening it she told me that Wide told her I was a veteran so she thought I'd like what was in the bag. As I pulled the object out of the bag I recognized that is was flag. Not being sure what kind of flag it was I carefully unfurled it and laid in on my desk. There is a picture of the flag on the right side of the blog so you can see it. As I was looking at it Nanna told me that she had friends that work with veterans from the various (and way to many) wars and she asked her friends if she could get a flag for me and they gave her this one. I was quite touched by this and told her that it has been over forty four years since I left Chu Lai, South Vietnam and this was the first time that anyone gave me something to thank me for my service. She then told me the meaning of the flag and I'll share it with you.
The Flag depicts the founding of our nation by the thirteen stars that emanate from the hoist to the large red star that represents our Nation and the five branches of our country's military that defended her. The white star indicates the Veteran's dedication to service. The blue star honors all who serve in the military in the past, present, and future. The gold star memorializes those who fell defending our Nation. The green field represents the hallowed ground where all rest eternally.
With morning announcement about to start Nanna headed to her car and I thanked her again for her gift. As I started to put the flag away EM walked over and asked me if he could help fold the flag. I said sure and we made the first two folds (hot dog folds) and then EM laid his end on my desk. He then started to fold the flag from his end forming the triangle that is the official way to fold a flag. As I'm watching him carefully make the triangles I'm thinking to myself who taught him to do that.
Ok, let's get on to academics. The book is titled "The Little Red Pen" and was written by Janet Stevens and Susan Stevens Crummel. This is a personification book as personification is the next subject matter in our continuing discussion on poetic devices. Before starting to read the book Gnu asked the scholars what they though personification meant. Un-Un-Un was the first to respond by saying it's about a person. Not bad, but not what Gnu was looking for. No other scholars made an attempt at the definition so Gnu began to read the story. By the way, if you don't know what it means pay attention. Also, you see personification in television commercials a lot. The opening dialog in the story has the Little Red Pen speaking to the other characters; Eraser, Scissors, Pushpin, Stapler, Pencil, and Yellow High Liter. "Who will help me?" says the Little Red Pen. Gnu stops reading and says, "can a red pen really talk?" "No!" say the scholars. "Then that's called personification." she tells the scholars. Now they get it and the story continues. The lesson objective was met in a simple story about talking classroom supplies. The fun part, the actual reading of the story, is over so out come the worksheets. The moaning and groaning is almost instant, "do we have to do all this work?" "Yes, because we are going to do a little play about "The Little Red Pen" and you have to practice your part," says Gnu.
One of the things I like most about Gnu is her ability to come up with lesson plans that can keep the scholars focused and in most instances are fun activities. As she hands me my copy of the worksheet she says, "you're going to be the narrator," I'm thinking you are going to try and keep these scholars on task doing live theater. It's time to practice and the roles are assigned as follows; Wide gets the lead part as the Little Red Pen, Un-Un-Uh is the Pushpin which has some Spanish terms that she has to learn, The Collector is the Yellow High Liter, EM is the Eraser, MiniJ is the Pencil, and Leftside is the Scissors. Gnu is the director and the practicing begins. "You need to speak up so people in the back of the room can hear you". "You need to be a little animated with your descriptive terms." "You need to follow along on the script so you know when it is your turn to speak." The first two rehearsals were pretty weak but the scholars were catching on. Voices were getting louder, voice inflection was getting used and the better they got at it the better they felt about their little role. "Ok," says Gnu. "That's enough practice for today, we'll practice again tomorrow."
At one point while Gnu was barking out her orders as the director she said to speak up so the people in the back of the room can hear you. I thought "people" was an interesting word as I'm the only one in the back of the room. Then I realized what was going on. Gnu, IvyL, and Oreo are planning a Parents Day in our room and the scholars will do their little play live in front of their parents and other guests. Now that should be interesting or as Arte Johnson, from the old Laugh In television show would say using his best German accent, "very interesting."
It's the weekend and my part time consultant, part time editor, and full time spouse and I are heading to German Park for the first annual SudsFest. There will be brats, craft beers from four of the local craft brewers, live music and a yodeling contest. So you know, I don't yodel no matter how much beer I consume. I'm out. Thanks for reading the blog.
Sunday, May 31, 2015
Sunday, May 24, 2015
Going From Gum To Garbage and It Was Great
We have five Grandmas that visit our school with regularity. Technically they are not Grandmas but are volunteers. The scholars call them Grandma because they are old with ages ranging from sixty five to eighty two. One of the Grandmas is responsible for making copies of the minutiae of stuff that gets sent home with the scholars weekly. You can always tell when this Grandma is in the school as she will have every copier tied up. Three of the Grandmas I don't know very well. I see them regularly but our conversation is limited to good morning or good afternoon. I suspect they are former teachers who just want something to do so they come to our school. All three can be found in the lower grade levels working with the scholars at a big desk in the back of the room that is just like mine. Grandma #5, as I will call her, is my favorite and she is the one that is eighty two. If my mother would have met her she'd describe her as a "feisty little thing." She was sitting in the second floor staff lounge eating her lunch one day when I got a chance to speak with her. I going to paraphrase the conversation because I can't recall her exact words. "What do you think is wrong with so many of these scholars at this school" she said to me. I wanted to say P.P.P but I cleaned it up and said "home life." "You're right and it's so sad," she said. She continued by saying "there are scholars here that come from one parent homes, get bounced from parent to parent, are not sure who their father is, or live with grandparents or aunts." "No wonder they cause so much trouble at school," she said. Grandma #5 went on to tell me what she thought was the real problem with these scholars, no discipline and God is not present in their life. Grandma #5 speaking again, "do you know why so many of these scholars are so wild and disrespectful of their teachers?" "It's a lack of disciple at home." "If I spoke so disrespectfully to a teacher do you know what would happen to me when I got home?" "Yes," I said. "The same thing that would happen to me, a crack across the behind." She laughed and said, "you're right." My lunch period was almost over and I was at the sink cleaning my silverwear when she said this to me and every time I think about it I pause and think about what she said. "How did we as a society allow the family unit to disintegrate and then turn it's back on God?"
Well stated Grandma #5. Enough with the Grandma's except for one last comment. My school is a much better place because of these five ladies.
Did you like my alliteration in my heading?"
Academically we moved from non-fiction reading to poetry. For the record, I'm not a poetry guy so I have no clue about acrostic, sensory, number, and cinquain poems. Despite being clueless about these type of poems I better pay attention to Gnu because at some point one or all of the scholars will be at my desk asking for help. The beginning lesson on poetry was impressive as Gnu read a Shel Silverstein poem entitled, "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout." For those of you not familiar with the poem I'll show you the first two sentences.
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scraped the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
and though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
I don't know how she does it. First, she took a non-fiction book about gum and made it interesting and fun. Now we move on to poetry, which I'm sure the scholars know little about, and opened up the lesson with a poem about garbage. As I sat there with my view from the back of the room I knew right away she got their attention. After reading the poem the first time, she assigned each scholar a sentence to read out loud. Keep in mind, they are not big fans of reading out loud. Before the reading began she told the scholars to listen for the alliterations and rhyming words. One by one each scholar read a sentence and not one bit of moaning, groaning or refusing occurred. They did real well with the rhyming words but needed a little help with the alliterations. The next assignment was for each scholar to find two lines that had rhyming words and highlight the lines with a crayon. Once each scholar identify their two lines she gave them the next assignment. One a preprinted worksheet they had to right down their two lines and then on the bottom of the page they are to draw a picture of their two lines. As much as they dislike reading out loud, they all like to draw and they got started right away. As I expected, they needed help drawing and the next thing you know there is a steady stream of scholars heading to my desk. "Mr. Schultz, how do you draw crusts of black burned buttered toast?" Mr. Schultz, how do you draw rubbery, blubbery macaroni?" For the record I'm not an artist. However, whatever I draw almost always meets their needs and they thank me for the help.
The first day of poetry is over and the scholars have left the building. Gnu asks me to go to the library and see if a book called, "The Little Red Pen" is available. It was and when I handed it to her she says "good, this will be our next book to read as it's has a lot of personification." She then said, "we'll also use this book for our reading theater that will be held on parents days." Reading theater is something I'm not familiar with so we'll see what the next day brings. I do know what parents day means and I'm thinking to myself are you sure you want to do this.
One more item and them I'm out. Gnu said to me on Monday morning, "you jinxed us." My response was, "are you kidding me?" I knew right away what she meant, with fifteen days left in the school year we are getting a new scholar. I'll name this scholar Leftside and he is in the fourth grade. I'll give you a little background information. The court system made a decision to remove this scholar from his family situation. I'm not certain of the status of the male parental unit but Leftside was living with the female parental unit. On the day the court rendered it's final decision on Lifeside's future his parental unit failed to show up in court. After three years in this classroom you'd think my skin would toughen up a little but it doesn't. It's another sad situation that I've seen way to many times.
It's the weekend. I'm out. Thanks for reading my blog.
Well stated Grandma #5. Enough with the Grandma's except for one last comment. My school is a much better place because of these five ladies.
Did you like my alliteration in my heading?"
Academically we moved from non-fiction reading to poetry. For the record, I'm not a poetry guy so I have no clue about acrostic, sensory, number, and cinquain poems. Despite being clueless about these type of poems I better pay attention to Gnu because at some point one or all of the scholars will be at my desk asking for help. The beginning lesson on poetry was impressive as Gnu read a Shel Silverstein poem entitled, "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout." For those of you not familiar with the poem I'll show you the first two sentences.
Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout
Would not take the garbage out!
She'd scour the pots and scraped the pans,
Candy the yams and spice the hams,
and though her daddy would scream and shout,
She simply would not take the garbage out.
I don't know how she does it. First, she took a non-fiction book about gum and made it interesting and fun. Now we move on to poetry, which I'm sure the scholars know little about, and opened up the lesson with a poem about garbage. As I sat there with my view from the back of the room I knew right away she got their attention. After reading the poem the first time, she assigned each scholar a sentence to read out loud. Keep in mind, they are not big fans of reading out loud. Before the reading began she told the scholars to listen for the alliterations and rhyming words. One by one each scholar read a sentence and not one bit of moaning, groaning or refusing occurred. They did real well with the rhyming words but needed a little help with the alliterations. The next assignment was for each scholar to find two lines that had rhyming words and highlight the lines with a crayon. Once each scholar identify their two lines she gave them the next assignment. One a preprinted worksheet they had to right down their two lines and then on the bottom of the page they are to draw a picture of their two lines. As much as they dislike reading out loud, they all like to draw and they got started right away. As I expected, they needed help drawing and the next thing you know there is a steady stream of scholars heading to my desk. "Mr. Schultz, how do you draw crusts of black burned buttered toast?" Mr. Schultz, how do you draw rubbery, blubbery macaroni?" For the record I'm not an artist. However, whatever I draw almost always meets their needs and they thank me for the help.
The first day of poetry is over and the scholars have left the building. Gnu asks me to go to the library and see if a book called, "The Little Red Pen" is available. It was and when I handed it to her she says "good, this will be our next book to read as it's has a lot of personification." She then said, "we'll also use this book for our reading theater that will be held on parents days." Reading theater is something I'm not familiar with so we'll see what the next day brings. I do know what parents day means and I'm thinking to myself are you sure you want to do this.
One more item and them I'm out. Gnu said to me on Monday morning, "you jinxed us." My response was, "are you kidding me?" I knew right away what she meant, with fifteen days left in the school year we are getting a new scholar. I'll name this scholar Leftside and he is in the fourth grade. I'll give you a little background information. The court system made a decision to remove this scholar from his family situation. I'm not certain of the status of the male parental unit but Leftside was living with the female parental unit. On the day the court rendered it's final decision on Lifeside's future his parental unit failed to show up in court. After three years in this classroom you'd think my skin would toughen up a little but it doesn't. It's another sad situation that I've seen way to many times.
It's the weekend. I'm out. Thanks for reading my blog.
Saturday, May 16, 2015
A Tweet From A Local TV Station and ISTEP
Before I get started I have a few announcements. First, NoFouls has left the building. With approximately twenty three days left in the school year his parental unit decided to move into an apartment outside our school district. Why move with so little time left in the school year? I have no idea. As a result of the move, NoFouls will be entering a new school for the third time this school year. If that grabbed your attention you'll really like this. When River left our school and went to a new school it will be his fifth school of this school year. Next, EM's Parental Unit, who directed him to act badly in school because she was going to apply for supplemental social security on the grounds that she can't work because of her poorly behaved scholars, has been awarded supplemental social security for now and on into eternity. Just so you know, EM did not act poorly and he continues to be one of the nicest scholars in the school. Last, after almost a month, The Collector and his family are no longer homeless. I'm not exactly sure where they stayed except that it was one those cheap motels and some of the stories The Collector told Gnu were scary. I'll share one, The Collector's parental unit was told to watch her scholars closely as there was a convicted and released child molester staying at the same location. I'm not sure if The Collector currently resides in a house or an apartment but he did share one interesting fact about his new place. When they first moved in he said the toilet didn't work. I thought about asking a follow up question but decided not to.
With NoFouls and River moving on I'll update our scholar score card.
The Collector - 4th grade
Wide - 4th grade
EM - 3rd grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 2nd grade
MiniJ - 2nd grade
Grrr! - 1st grade
I'm feeling somewhat confident that the scholar comings and goings will stop but then again, the majority of our scholars are products of P.P.P. so who knows.
I've had a Twitter account for some time now but I haven't used it for the better part of a year. Apparently the people that operate Twitter must have changed something because all of a sudden I stated getting Twitter notifications via my email account. That's bugging me a little bit because now I'm getting what I consider spam mail on a regular basis. Despite the spam designation I did get one tweet that caught my attention. This tweet came from a local TV station and was just one sentence long and read kind of like this, a teacher called my scholar the N-word. After reading this tweet I went directly to both the hardcopy and e-version of the newspaper to see if I could find the story. My search came up empty. As I thought about this tweet for a while a few things came to mind, racial slur, term of endearment, and Mr. Leroy. For the record, I hate that word. For the record, in my opinion this word is not a term of endearment. To prove my point on the term of endearment designation I'll refer you to a post I wrote quite some time ago entitled, "Mr. Leroy Versus the NFL Players" that is dated April 20, 2014. If I would force rank all of my posts this one would be in my top five so if you haven't read it, check it out. After a few days thinking about this parental units comment to the local television station I thought about sharing what I've been called by scholars at my school. So far, I haven't gotten the nerve to do it. If I did I'd share this conversation I had with a first grade scholar that took place about a week ago. This scholar, by the way, not one from my classroom, was sitting outside the Big B's office when I spoke to him. "Good morning Tourette, how are you doing today?" "Not too good." "Well, maybe tomorrow will be a better day." "Shut up you stupid f-ing b-word, c-sucker." When I turned around and looked at him he stood up and gave me the double middle finger salute and said, "f-you." To tweet or not to tweet the local television station? If a teacher calling a scholar the N-word drew little interest I doubt if an obscenity laced tirade by a first grade scholar would draw any interest so I think I'll move on to Indiana's STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP).
On the first day of round two of ISTEP testing Gnu decided to work with our fourth graders, Wide and The Collector, and I'd work our third grader EM. While testing, all of our other scholars would camp out in Oreo's office. After the Big B dropped off our testing material Gnu game me the instructor's guide and EM's test booklet. The weight of the two books immediately caught my attention. The instructor's guide was sixty nine pages long. EM's test booklet was one hundred and twenty five pages long. Please keep in mind all that EM is doing is taking a math and language arts test and it requires a test booklet that is one hundred and twenty five pages long. As I went through the instructor's guide I was looking for the time allotted for the various sessions. When I didn't see any I asked Gnu about it. She said she didn't have the information so off I went looking for the Big B to get the information. Finally, with all parts in hand we could begin. By the way, the total time EM had to complete the math and language arts test was just a couple minutes short of six hours. If that sets you off you'll like this even better. The Collector and Wide will take both math and language arts tests and they also have to take a science test. The total time they had to complete all of the tests was right at seven and a half hours. To put your mind at ease, all of this testing does not take place in one day.
The testing went as we anticipated. Although I could read the directions and in some instances the questions to EM he still had to read the remaining parts. Because he can't read he did poorly. Is there any chance that he will pass either math or language arts? None! The Collector's test results will also be poor. Not as poor as EM's but still poor due to his inability to stay focused for any length of time plus his reading level is well behind fourth grade reading. Is there any chance that he will pass either math, language arts, or science? Slim to none! Our only hope is Wide. During the entire testing period he pretty much stayed focused and he was always the last one to finish. At no point did he get upset, at no point did he asked for an explanation of something which is good as we were not allowed to tell him. He just kept working and that is the one positive Gnu and I took away from the testing process. Is there any chance that Wide will pass either math, language arts, or science? Yes, and hopefully our prayers will be heard and he passes one of the tests.
I've had a number of conversations with my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse about ISTEP. These are pretty good talks and I'm often tempted to share these conversations but choose not to for various reasons except for today. Our topic was ISTEP and the actual amount classroom time interrupted to administer both ISTEP tests, the one that took place before spring break and the one we just completed. The number we came up for practicing to take ISTEP plus the amount of time it actually took to take the ISTEP test was right around forty five days. That's five weeks and for those of you outside education a grading period is nine weeks. What does this mean? Five weeks of classroom academics was interrupted because politicians and pointy headed intellectuals mandate that the Indiana STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process must be administered. For five weeks EM's time spent, one on one, with a teacher specifically trained to work with scholars with dyslexia was lost. For five weeks scholars that are in the general education classrooms and are struggling to meet their grade level requirements lost time in smaller group settings with inclusion teachers so that can get the help needed to stay at grade level. For five weeks academics took a major hit so that this STUPID test could be administered. And what happens if you don't administer this STUPID test? The school may be at risk for loosing funding and worse yet may loose it's accreditation.
That's it. I'm out. It's the weekend and I think I chug down a couple Coke Zero's because they don't require an explanation.
With NoFouls and River moving on I'll update our scholar score card.
The Collector - 4th grade
Wide - 4th grade
EM - 3rd grade
Uh-Uh-Uh - 2nd grade
MiniJ - 2nd grade
Grrr! - 1st grade
I'm feeling somewhat confident that the scholar comings and goings will stop but then again, the majority of our scholars are products of P.P.P. so who knows.
I've had a Twitter account for some time now but I haven't used it for the better part of a year. Apparently the people that operate Twitter must have changed something because all of a sudden I stated getting Twitter notifications via my email account. That's bugging me a little bit because now I'm getting what I consider spam mail on a regular basis. Despite the spam designation I did get one tweet that caught my attention. This tweet came from a local TV station and was just one sentence long and read kind of like this, a teacher called my scholar the N-word. After reading this tweet I went directly to both the hardcopy and e-version of the newspaper to see if I could find the story. My search came up empty. As I thought about this tweet for a while a few things came to mind, racial slur, term of endearment, and Mr. Leroy. For the record, I hate that word. For the record, in my opinion this word is not a term of endearment. To prove my point on the term of endearment designation I'll refer you to a post I wrote quite some time ago entitled, "Mr. Leroy Versus the NFL Players" that is dated April 20, 2014. If I would force rank all of my posts this one would be in my top five so if you haven't read it, check it out. After a few days thinking about this parental units comment to the local television station I thought about sharing what I've been called by scholars at my school. So far, I haven't gotten the nerve to do it. If I did I'd share this conversation I had with a first grade scholar that took place about a week ago. This scholar, by the way, not one from my classroom, was sitting outside the Big B's office when I spoke to him. "Good morning Tourette, how are you doing today?" "Not too good." "Well, maybe tomorrow will be a better day." "Shut up you stupid f-ing b-word, c-sucker." When I turned around and looked at him he stood up and gave me the double middle finger salute and said, "f-you." To tweet or not to tweet the local television station? If a teacher calling a scholar the N-word drew little interest I doubt if an obscenity laced tirade by a first grade scholar would draw any interest so I think I'll move on to Indiana's STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP).
On the first day of round two of ISTEP testing Gnu decided to work with our fourth graders, Wide and The Collector, and I'd work our third grader EM. While testing, all of our other scholars would camp out in Oreo's office. After the Big B dropped off our testing material Gnu game me the instructor's guide and EM's test booklet. The weight of the two books immediately caught my attention. The instructor's guide was sixty nine pages long. EM's test booklet was one hundred and twenty five pages long. Please keep in mind all that EM is doing is taking a math and language arts test and it requires a test booklet that is one hundred and twenty five pages long. As I went through the instructor's guide I was looking for the time allotted for the various sessions. When I didn't see any I asked Gnu about it. She said she didn't have the information so off I went looking for the Big B to get the information. Finally, with all parts in hand we could begin. By the way, the total time EM had to complete the math and language arts test was just a couple minutes short of six hours. If that sets you off you'll like this even better. The Collector and Wide will take both math and language arts tests and they also have to take a science test. The total time they had to complete all of the tests was right at seven and a half hours. To put your mind at ease, all of this testing does not take place in one day.
The testing went as we anticipated. Although I could read the directions and in some instances the questions to EM he still had to read the remaining parts. Because he can't read he did poorly. Is there any chance that he will pass either math or language arts? None! The Collector's test results will also be poor. Not as poor as EM's but still poor due to his inability to stay focused for any length of time plus his reading level is well behind fourth grade reading. Is there any chance that he will pass either math, language arts, or science? Slim to none! Our only hope is Wide. During the entire testing period he pretty much stayed focused and he was always the last one to finish. At no point did he get upset, at no point did he asked for an explanation of something which is good as we were not allowed to tell him. He just kept working and that is the one positive Gnu and I took away from the testing process. Is there any chance that Wide will pass either math, language arts, or science? Yes, and hopefully our prayers will be heard and he passes one of the tests.
I've had a number of conversations with my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse about ISTEP. These are pretty good talks and I'm often tempted to share these conversations but choose not to for various reasons except for today. Our topic was ISTEP and the actual amount classroom time interrupted to administer both ISTEP tests, the one that took place before spring break and the one we just completed. The number we came up for practicing to take ISTEP plus the amount of time it actually took to take the ISTEP test was right around forty five days. That's five weeks and for those of you outside education a grading period is nine weeks. What does this mean? Five weeks of classroom academics was interrupted because politicians and pointy headed intellectuals mandate that the Indiana STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process must be administered. For five weeks EM's time spent, one on one, with a teacher specifically trained to work with scholars with dyslexia was lost. For five weeks scholars that are in the general education classrooms and are struggling to meet their grade level requirements lost time in smaller group settings with inclusion teachers so that can get the help needed to stay at grade level. For five weeks academics took a major hit so that this STUPID test could be administered. And what happens if you don't administer this STUPID test? The school may be at risk for loosing funding and worse yet may loose it's accreditation.
That's it. I'm out. It's the weekend and I think I chug down a couple Coke Zero's because they don't require an explanation.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Where Did Gum Come From?
Gnu decided to move away from fiction in our weekly reading block to non-fiction. We work with a group of scholars that range from the first to the fourth grade so I'm thinking this should be interesting. After all, who wants to read about some boring person, or a place they never heard of, or some special moment in time that means nothing to them. With the announcement of the non-fiction reading, Gnu asked me to remove everything from our Greek Mythology bulletin board in the hallway as we will be making a new one. I agreed and asked what should I do to start the new bulletin board. She said to "stamp out the letters for Non-Fiction and then place under it where does your gum come from." "Ok, what color should I make the letters?" "I'll leave that up to you," she said. "I'm going to use pink." "Pink?" "Yes, it's the color of bubble gum." "I like that so let's go with it."
On day one of non-fiction she handed out our first reading assignment, The History of Bubble Gum. The reaction was what I expected from the scholars, "we have to read all of this." Gnu's response was "I'll read, you listen and then you have to answer the questions at the end of the story." "Ohhhh, we have to answer all of those questions?" As she was reading out loud it didn't take long to see that the she had the scholars undivided attention and when it came time to answer the questions most of them couldn't get their hand up fast enough to answer a question. On day two of non-fiction she read a picture story called Chavela and the Magic Bubble. It's a story about a little girl that finds a piece of magic bubble gum and when she blows a bubble it raises her up into the air and she floats to a rain forest in Mexico. With the mention of Mexico EM perks up and says I'm from Mexico and the look on his face is priceless. The resin needed to make gum comes from a tree in a rainforest in Mexico and the story tells how the resin is harvested. Day three of non-fiction was off to a slow start. I get a text message before school from Gnu and I'm nervous because a text from her at this time of day is usually not good. The text said, "I'm running late." "I'm at the CVS buying gum." "I'll be there in a couple minutes." In she walks and says, "I never realized there were so many types of bubble gum." I look at the size of the bag from CVS in her hand and say, "how much gum did you buy? "A lot because we are going to do a taste testing with the scholars." When everything was settled down after morning announcements Gnu brings out the gum and puts it on her desk. The scholars see the gum and are so excited that you'd think they won the lottery. Gnu chooses seven types of gum for each scholar to taste. She tells them the order that they'll taste them and they have to record their reaction. The first up is Double Bubble and they quickly unwrap the gum and pop it into their mouths. As they are chomping on the gum I raise my hand to get Gnu's attention. "Yes, Mr. Schultz." "Do you mind if I show them how to properly taste the gum?" "No, you go right ahead." I get their attention and using my best wine drinking Wednesday wine tasting process, I show then what to do. First, you have to carefully unwrap the gum and smell it. As I'm doing this MiniJ yells out, "it looks like Mr. Schultz is smoking a joint." As a reminder I don't make this stuff up. Upon the completion of the tasting process each scholar had to tell the class what was their favorite and least favorite gum. In case you are wondering, Orbit was chosen the most favorite. A Dyntine Ice flavored gum was the least favorite as it was way to tart for their taste buds.
It's now day four and it is about to get crazy. Gnu decided that the scholar should canvass the school to determine what the favorite gum is for various teachers. She had a list of teachers and she told each teacher in advance that our scholars would be around. As you will see shortly that was the perfect strategy. When the scholars were informed about the survey they were pretty excited. They were broken into two teams and given one each of the seven gums that they had tasted the previous day. They were given instructions on what to do and she had everyone line up at the door before we headed out. I had Wide and EM with me. Gnu had The Collector and MiniJ. Uh-Uh-Uh and NoFouls were absent. Actually NoFouls was suspended for once again fighting with his brother on the school bus. Gnu goes over the importance of behaving properly when in the hallway, no running, no loud voices and wait quietly at the teachers door and just don't barge in. Gnu left first. When we headed out the door Wide ask me where we were going. I told him and the next thing you know they are off running down the hallway. They get to the designated classroom and walk right in before I even got there. Fortunately the teacher was a special education teacher that knew the two scholars quite well and play his part perfectly. When both teams completed the survey we met back in the classroom. In total, the scholar surveyed twenty two individuals and they were pretty excited to tell who they talked to. Wide came out as the top dog because he got to go into the Big B's office and survey her.
Day five, Friday, was statistics day. Each scholar had to make a bar graph showing the results of the survey. Gnu did the preliminary work on the graph and the scholars had to tally up the results and then color in the results on their bar graph. From there we headed out to the bulletin board outside our classroom to hang the graphs. During the week Gnu, using a combination of red and white construction paper, had cut out a giant gum ball machine and stapled it to the bulletin board. She used half round plastic cups as the gum and before gluing the cups to the gum ball machine cutout she had the scholars write one fact about gum on the each plastic cup. When the scholars finished hanging their bar graph on the bulletin board Gnu added the final touch. She posted a large sign right in the middle of everything that said in case you were wondering the Big B's favorite gum was Orbit.
The scholars really enjoyed the gum chewing part and even better they learned about the table of contents, bold print, captions, headings, maps, graphs, index, and glossary. It was, just as in the past, impressive to watch Gnu in the front of the room. She taught about non-fiction books, a subject her instruction assistant had questioned, and again turned the lesson into some fun for the scholars.
We have about twenty three days left in the school year. At some point fairly soon it will be contract renewal time for Gnu. Will her contract be renewed? I certainly hope so but I'll guess we'll have to wait and see.
It's the weekend, the Friday after school drink is a gimlet. I'm out. Thanks for reading my blog.
On day one of non-fiction she handed out our first reading assignment, The History of Bubble Gum. The reaction was what I expected from the scholars, "we have to read all of this." Gnu's response was "I'll read, you listen and then you have to answer the questions at the end of the story." "Ohhhh, we have to answer all of those questions?" As she was reading out loud it didn't take long to see that the she had the scholars undivided attention and when it came time to answer the questions most of them couldn't get their hand up fast enough to answer a question. On day two of non-fiction she read a picture story called Chavela and the Magic Bubble. It's a story about a little girl that finds a piece of magic bubble gum and when she blows a bubble it raises her up into the air and she floats to a rain forest in Mexico. With the mention of Mexico EM perks up and says I'm from Mexico and the look on his face is priceless. The resin needed to make gum comes from a tree in a rainforest in Mexico and the story tells how the resin is harvested. Day three of non-fiction was off to a slow start. I get a text message before school from Gnu and I'm nervous because a text from her at this time of day is usually not good. The text said, "I'm running late." "I'm at the CVS buying gum." "I'll be there in a couple minutes." In she walks and says, "I never realized there were so many types of bubble gum." I look at the size of the bag from CVS in her hand and say, "how much gum did you buy? "A lot because we are going to do a taste testing with the scholars." When everything was settled down after morning announcements Gnu brings out the gum and puts it on her desk. The scholars see the gum and are so excited that you'd think they won the lottery. Gnu chooses seven types of gum for each scholar to taste. She tells them the order that they'll taste them and they have to record their reaction. The first up is Double Bubble and they quickly unwrap the gum and pop it into their mouths. As they are chomping on the gum I raise my hand to get Gnu's attention. "Yes, Mr. Schultz." "Do you mind if I show them how to properly taste the gum?" "No, you go right ahead." I get their attention and using my best wine drinking Wednesday wine tasting process, I show then what to do. First, you have to carefully unwrap the gum and smell it. As I'm doing this MiniJ yells out, "it looks like Mr. Schultz is smoking a joint." As a reminder I don't make this stuff up. Upon the completion of the tasting process each scholar had to tell the class what was their favorite and least favorite gum. In case you are wondering, Orbit was chosen the most favorite. A Dyntine Ice flavored gum was the least favorite as it was way to tart for their taste buds.
It's now day four and it is about to get crazy. Gnu decided that the scholar should canvass the school to determine what the favorite gum is for various teachers. She had a list of teachers and she told each teacher in advance that our scholars would be around. As you will see shortly that was the perfect strategy. When the scholars were informed about the survey they were pretty excited. They were broken into two teams and given one each of the seven gums that they had tasted the previous day. They were given instructions on what to do and she had everyone line up at the door before we headed out. I had Wide and EM with me. Gnu had The Collector and MiniJ. Uh-Uh-Uh and NoFouls were absent. Actually NoFouls was suspended for once again fighting with his brother on the school bus. Gnu goes over the importance of behaving properly when in the hallway, no running, no loud voices and wait quietly at the teachers door and just don't barge in. Gnu left first. When we headed out the door Wide ask me where we were going. I told him and the next thing you know they are off running down the hallway. They get to the designated classroom and walk right in before I even got there. Fortunately the teacher was a special education teacher that knew the two scholars quite well and play his part perfectly. When both teams completed the survey we met back in the classroom. In total, the scholar surveyed twenty two individuals and they were pretty excited to tell who they talked to. Wide came out as the top dog because he got to go into the Big B's office and survey her.
Day five, Friday, was statistics day. Each scholar had to make a bar graph showing the results of the survey. Gnu did the preliminary work on the graph and the scholars had to tally up the results and then color in the results on their bar graph. From there we headed out to the bulletin board outside our classroom to hang the graphs. During the week Gnu, using a combination of red and white construction paper, had cut out a giant gum ball machine and stapled it to the bulletin board. She used half round plastic cups as the gum and before gluing the cups to the gum ball machine cutout she had the scholars write one fact about gum on the each plastic cup. When the scholars finished hanging their bar graph on the bulletin board Gnu added the final touch. She posted a large sign right in the middle of everything that said in case you were wondering the Big B's favorite gum was Orbit.
The scholars really enjoyed the gum chewing part and even better they learned about the table of contents, bold print, captions, headings, maps, graphs, index, and glossary. It was, just as in the past, impressive to watch Gnu in the front of the room. She taught about non-fiction books, a subject her instruction assistant had questioned, and again turned the lesson into some fun for the scholars.
We have about twenty three days left in the school year. At some point fairly soon it will be contract renewal time for Gnu. Will her contract be renewed? I certainly hope so but I'll guess we'll have to wait and see.
It's the weekend, the Friday after school drink is a gimlet. I'm out. Thanks for reading my blog.
Sunday, May 3, 2015
Indiana's Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP)
The first part of Indiana's Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) took place right at six weeks ago. This was the test where Wide did not know the meaning of the word plot and I was not allowed to tell him the definition. Knowing this, I was pretty certain that he was not going to pass the language arts part of the test. Well, it is now six weeks later and I still don't know the results of the test. Last week, May 1st, we started the second round of ISTEP testing and this is a much longer test. If it took more than six weeks to get the results of the shorter test it would be safe to assume that it will take longer to get the results of the longer test. This is where I might get a little animated so beware. We only have six weeks of school left this year. That means that the results of the second round of the Indiana Stupid Testing and Evaluation Process (ISTEP) will arrive after the scholars are out of school. That pretty much renders the test useless and comes with a cost of tens of millions of dollars to the taxpayers of Indiana. How are you supposed to plan remediation for a scholar that fails to pass the test without the results? How are you going to make a decision to retain or pass a scholar that has not passed the test without the results? How can you assign a scholar who did not pass the test to summer school for remediation without the results? At the start of the next school year when the vast majority of the scholars across the state of Indiana are in another grade level and even another school do you think their teacher is going to check ISTEP scores to determine if a scholar needs remediation. Hell no! Tens of millions of dollars of taxpayer money has just been pissed away on the Indiana STUPID Testing and Evaluation Process and not one politician or pointy headed intellectual will suffer any consequences for the complete and utter failure of this testing process.
After day one of the second round of ISTEP testing I have a few fun facts for you about the process.
One last item, Gnu had the scholars do a science project. They planted marigolds from seed in Styrofoam cups. Pretty simple project, put the potting soil and marigold seed into the cup and add water. It was fun to watch as they carefully planted their own seeds. Watering them was a bit of a concern as you are supposed to water them not drown them but it all worked out. A few days later up popped the beginning of a marigold. There was a lot of excitement as everyone had to show me their marigold sprout. As we were doing show and tell I noticed that Gnu was working on her laptop. "What are you looking up?" I asked. "Marigolds, as I don't know what one looks like." "Oh, never mind, I see there is a picture of a marigold on the seed package." I know I've I said a number of times I'm working with a really good teacher but at the same time I'm working with a teacher that is a bit of a .........
Just as I thought I was done something popped into my head that I have to comment on. A while back I mentioned that I was going to a speak easy in Old Town Greenwood with my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse. On the agenda was an Old Fashion. Apparently when you are as far west as Utah an Old Fashion is not a common term. For clarification purposes here is an Old Fashion so please take notes as there may be a test.
Old Fashion
2oz rye whiskey
3 dashes of Angosture bitters
Club soda
1 sugar cube or simple syrup.
Put all of this stuff in a shaker and shake it up. Then pour into a glass with ice cubes and sip. No chugging.
I'm out. It's Sunday evening, the weather is nearly perfect and the grill has been fired up. That's for reading my blog.
After day one of the second round of ISTEP testing I have a few fun facts for you about the process.
- Every scholar had to practice taking the test on a laptop computer. The amount of time spent practicing depended on the grade level and if a scholar had to take math, language arts or a science test.
- This practice testing process took the better part of two weeks as we have a limited number of laptops. In addition to answering practice test questions the scholar were shown how to maneuver around the screen to find pull down boxes in case a calculator, ruler or math formula was needed. After the scholar answered each practice question the proctors had to review every question with the scholar to be sure they had the right answer. If a question had the wrong answer a correction was made.
- As part of the practice testing process we were given an amount of time to allocate to the testing process. In EM's case, as a third grade scholar, it was one hundred and forty five minutes. Please note his practice time is a little shorter than others as he does not have to take the science test.
- During the testing process there were laptop issues. Some were connection problems, some were login problems, some were an unresponsive mouse, sometimes the laptop just froze up. Failures like these are not exactly what you need just prior to taking a test but the practice test sessions were successfully completed.
- On Friday it was announced that the school was switching from a laptop test to a paper and pencil test. Why? No confidence that the connection to the servers that are being provided by a for profit company would work without issues. We have somewhere between three hundred and three hundred and fifty scholars about to take a state mandated test. Each scholar spent at a minimum two and a half hours practicing to take this test and the confidence level is so low that the computers will work properly the school switches to paper and pencil. The amount of classroom instruction time lost was huge. I almost forgot. We had to practice taking the paper and pencil test. What did the scholar have to do? Practice filling in the bubble on the paper with a number two pencil.
- One the first day of round two of testing Gnu is working with The Collector and Wide. I'm with EM. The test material arrives and Gnu hands me EM's test booklet and the instructor's guide. The instructor's guide is sixty nine pages long. EM's test booklet is one hundred and twenty five pages long and I'm about to hand it to him.
- The first day of testing for our three scholars went well. Working directly with EM I know he got all of his math problems correct. I'm not sure how The Collector and Wide did but Gnu was pleased with what she saw.
One last item, Gnu had the scholars do a science project. They planted marigolds from seed in Styrofoam cups. Pretty simple project, put the potting soil and marigold seed into the cup and add water. It was fun to watch as they carefully planted their own seeds. Watering them was a bit of a concern as you are supposed to water them not drown them but it all worked out. A few days later up popped the beginning of a marigold. There was a lot of excitement as everyone had to show me their marigold sprout. As we were doing show and tell I noticed that Gnu was working on her laptop. "What are you looking up?" I asked. "Marigolds, as I don't know what one looks like." "Oh, never mind, I see there is a picture of a marigold on the seed package." I know I've I said a number of times I'm working with a really good teacher but at the same time I'm working with a teacher that is a bit of a .........
Just as I thought I was done something popped into my head that I have to comment on. A while back I mentioned that I was going to a speak easy in Old Town Greenwood with my part time editor, part time consultant and full time spouse. On the agenda was an Old Fashion. Apparently when you are as far west as Utah an Old Fashion is not a common term. For clarification purposes here is an Old Fashion so please take notes as there may be a test.
Old Fashion
2oz rye whiskey
3 dashes of Angosture bitters
Club soda
1 sugar cube or simple syrup.
Put all of this stuff in a shaker and shake it up. Then pour into a glass with ice cubes and sip. No chugging.
I'm out. It's Sunday evening, the weather is nearly perfect and the grill has been fired up. That's for reading my blog.
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