Sunday, December 23, 2018
It's Christmas Break. We are only a few short days away from the halfway point of the school year and I really struggle starting this blog. When I mentioned this to my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse she said to me, "why don't you just give it a break for a while." I thought about taking a break for this reason, I wanted to update everyone on the school's recent School Quality Review (SQR) but I didn't want to bring it up because it so close to Christmas and it is such a depressing topic. So, here I sit at the kitchen table typing. First, I'll update you on the SQR and then I'll move on to the reason that I started typing and hopefully we'll end up on a happy note.
Despite knowing that the King's Justice, the royal executioner, is nearby and could possibly lop off the head of every teacher in the school, I decided to ask my colleagues, some no longer at the school, what they thought about the SQR process. One of my colleagues expressed surprise that this review was actually taking place but another talked about the reality of the situation. The comments I received start below and I'll be paraphrasing.
"I was shocked to see that the school was under review. All they see is numbers. Trust me, this school is so much better compared to some of the other ones. This school is so much more welcoming and the teachers are so enthusiastic compared to the other schools that I have been in."
"I now get to visit other schools in the district. Compared to your school there are others that are real shit holes and they belong on the review list, not your school."
"They will love our school. Bottom line, we can't produce the scores. Yes, this is a nice school but there is no consistency, no urgency with discipline, and the scholars are very complacent."
"Leadership is so inconsistent as we changed multiple times. It takes five years to truly turn around a school. We have issues and we cover them with kindness and excuses. We can't keep putting band aids on it."
That was very difficult for me to write. Those were some pretty tough words from my colleagues. Sadly, as I've been in this school for almost seven years now, they are accurate.
On Friday, December 21st, school came to a halt as it was Christmas break. I wasn't in the building last Friday so, as far as I know, the SQR results are not in. Now everyone waits to see what the King will do. As we approach Christmas and then the New Year I pray that once the results of the review have been analyzed the King will not send his King's Justice, the royal executioner, to our school to lop off around thirty teaching heads and then begin to rebuild the school from the ground up with an entirely new teaching staff.
Enough of that. Time to move on to my Chick-fil-A revisit. It's been about a year since I stepped into a Chick-fil-A as I'm not a fast food restaurant type of guy. On my last visit I had Grr! with me and I was his personal escort so that he could participate in the Bag of Cheer distribution. This year I was a little more involved in the process. I guess my involvement was welcomed as I heard a few times, "Schultz, I have a project for you." So, what was my involvement in this project? Manage the production line to assemble the Bags of Cheer was one of them. Here is the production process, completed quite admirably by some of the T-6 scholars. Pick up one white paper sandwich bag that had a pre-attached green label on it explaining to the recipient what this bag was all about. Go to the next station, pick up a tree ornament, mostly reindeer made of out popsicle sticks, one gift tag, and place both items in the bag. The next table contained small clear plastic sandwich bags with two dog biscuits in each bag and that goes into the bag. The next station contained a packet of hot chocolate, a small candy cane, and both items go into the bag. The next stop is the end of the production line. The bag is inspected for contents, folded closed, stapled shut, a holiday sticker is placed on the bag, and finally the bag goes on the inventory table for counting. Got it? Good! Now repeat the process four hundred and forty-nine more times.
As it was last year, this is a T4 project with help from others and it is a huge, time consuming process so why does T4 do this? Paraphrasing T4, "because of the neighborhood our school is in our scholars get a lot from the school and almost always at little or no cost to their parental units. Knowing this, I felt that it was important that each of our scholars have the opportunity to feel how good it is to give rather than receive."
The Bag of Cheer distribution took place last Thursday. Just like last year I was on the bus with all of the fourth grade scholars plus several adults and we were heading to the Chick-fil-A. At around 10:30am fifty or so scholars invaded the Chick-fil-A and began distributing the Bags of Cheer. Each scholar walked up to a total stranger, with a smile on their face, handed their bag to this person, and got to feel how great it felt to give something to somebody. There are reasons that I like to hang out in the fourth grade, this is one of them. There is also a reason that I don't mind eating fast food. The restaurant gave every scholar and adult a free meal.
Here are a couple short stories, and like I've said numerous times in the past, I don't make this stuff up. First, on the last day of school before Christmas break two teachers left the school permanently. One left to join some Jaguars and the other left for reasons that thoroughly tick me off. So what is the big deal with this? See the SQR commentary above and again turnover hinders any attempt at academic progress.
During the Bag of Cheer assembly process with the T6 scholars one of them asked me this question. Why is it that when you say the word together your lips stay apart and when you say the word separate your lips come together? This is also from a T6 scholar. Who put the alphabet together and why did this person put the alphabet in the order it is in? My response to both questions was quite simple, Google it.
For several weeks now I've been meeting a T2-M scholar in the main office of the school to read. Surprisingly, as others didn't think this would work out, the scholar willing wants to read with me. On this particular day I arrived in the office with three books to read. I let the scholar pick out the first book to read and, as I always do, I read the title of the book, tell the scholar the name of the author, the name of the illustrator, and then open the book so the scholar can start reading. This day was different as the scholar told me he didn't want to read. I looked at the scholar and said, "why don't you want to read?" The T2-M scholar looked up at me and said, "I can't read because I have to go poop."
That's it. I'll be out of school until January 7, 2019, so this blog may be dormant for a while. Thanks for following along for another year and Merry Christmas to all.
Sunday, December 23, 2018
Sunday, December 16, 2018
So Much At Stake
Saturday, December 15, 2018
This past Tuesday was the day of our School Quality Review (SQR). I mentioned the SQR briefly in my last blog post so I'll give you a refresher course so you don't have to go back to the last blog post and reread it. My school, the one that I have been at for the past six and a half school years, the one that I've thoroughly enjoyed going to, the one that I will continue to go to for as long as they can put up with me, has received a failure grade from the State of Indiana for the past three years. The more that I think about this failure grade the more I think to myself, "how did we get here?" I believe it was four years ago that our school grade was a B so what went wrong? I have an opinion that would be quite a lengthy list of reasons but I won't bore you with the entire list. I'll keep it short.
First off, when I walked into the school to start my seventh year I met the new BigB. The new BigB was the fourth one in six years. Four leadership changes in six years and four different strategies to move the school forward. That is frustrating as you can't see academic growth when you keep changing directions. Second, at the end of my fourth year at the school there was a mass departure of teachers from the first floor. If my memory serves me correctly, eight of the eleven teachers on the first floor, moved on to other teaching opportunities. When you add the number of teachers that left the school in my fifth and sixth year you are now in double digits when it comes to teachers leaving the school. Numbers like that hurt a school. How do you keep any academic continuity in the school when teachers are departing at such a high rate? Here is my last one and then I'll move on. During my fifth year, discipline for inappropriate, if not downright awful, behavior took a back seat to social emotional learning and a directive that school suspensions are the pipeline to prison and they needed to be severally reduced. This last one, more than the others, used in combination with a huge emphasis on kindness rather an consequences, in my opinion, is the cause of our school's decline.
Moving on and here is how the day of the SQR went in my school and, most importantly, in T4's classroom. I was sitting at my half round table out in the hallway grading a quiz when I first encountered our guests. As they were approaching I looked up and one of the guests said, "good morning, how are you doing today?" I responded, "I'm grading a math quiz and knowing that we are having guests in the school and that I have no idea who you are I'll just say that I'm doing excellent." That drew a smile from a couple of our guests as they then proceeded down the hallway and I thought to myself, "at least I know they can smile."
Sunday, December 16, 2018
The scheduled arrival time of our guests in T4's classroom was 12:05pm with a schedule departure time of 12:25pm. With so much at stake, in this short twenty minute span of time, it was natural for tension being a little high. How high, one of us had to go pee four times in less than an hour. The morning activities leading up to our SQR time was the normal schedule with one small exception. One of the T4-M's was in a bit of a defiant mood and there was a concern on T4's part as to how this scholar would behave when our guests were in the room. "Schultz, when our guests arrive you need to sit right next to T4-M," was my directive.
It's now approaching noon and T4 decides that it would be nice if one of our scholars would greet our guests at the classroom door when they arrived. T4-F was chosen and there was a brief rehearsal session on what T4-F would say to our guests when they arrived. After the rehearsal we were ready. It's now 12:05pm, no guests, they are late. It's now 12:08pm, no guests, they are even later. It's now 12:10pm, getting really late as twenty five percent of the time allocated for T4's review is gone. It's now decision time for T4. Does she start the lesson without them or continue to wait? She waited. It's now 12:12pm, seven minutes late, when they arrived at the classroom door. I was sitting at the far side of the room next to my assigned scholar so I could not hear clearly the exchange of words between T4-F and our guests. What I did hear clearly was one of our guests say to T4-F, "I'll just take a seat." In walked three guests, all with a dour look on their face, and they took seats among the scholars.
The lesson was on angles and T4 began the lesson. "Eyes on me, say as I say, do as I do," was the directive to the scholars. "Everybody stand," they stood up. T4 then said, "turn ninety degrees" and she jumped up turning ninety degrees to her left and the scholars mirrored her. She then said, "return to your starting point," jumped up, turned, and was again facing the scholars and they matched her. The next two turns were one hundred and eighty degrees and then two hundred and seventy degrees. That went smoothly with all of the scholars actively participating. Next up is the final turn, three hundred and sixty degrees and all I could think was, "please God, don't let anyone get hurt." "This is the last one," T4 said to the scholars. "When you do this one you should all be facing me when you land. Are you ready? Go." They all did it. I don't think anyone even lost their balance and fell. They were all so excited that they actually just did a three hundred and sixty degree turn that would have surely put a smile on Michael Jordan's face.
The scholars are now back in their seats. On their desks were two round (circles) pieces of paper, one white and one pink. Both pieces of paper were cut so that the cut line resembled the radius line of a circle and T4 continued the lesson. "On your desk are two circles, one white and one pink. How many degrees are they in a circle?" A number of hands went up and the response was three hundred and sixty degrees. "Now, connect your two circles along the cut line so that they are hooked together." That was completed with a minimal amount of help and the lesson continued. "Turn your two circles so that a ninety degree angle is shown but it has to be in pink." That was completed and so was showing the straight angle as well as the two hundred and seventy degree angle. Now comes the challenging part. "In order to get a two hundred and seventy degree angle you have to move past three right angles. How do you know that three right angles equals two hundred and seventy degrees?" T4-F immediately raised her hand. "Ninety plus ninety equals one hundred and eighty and then you add another ninety and you get to two hundred and seventy degrees." She nailed it doing mental math, no paper and pencil, no calculator.
T4 then proceeded to ask the next question. "If a right angle is ninety degrees, how many degrees are there in half of a right angle?" There was a slight delay and then hands went up. Forty-five degrees was the agreed upon response from the scholars. With time moving quickly with our guests in the room T4 continued. "Show me in pink the two hundred and seventy degree angle. Now I want you to add forty-five degrees to the two hundred and seventy degree angle and then hold up your paper when you are finished." Again, minimal help was needed. Here comes the part that just blew me away. T4 speaking. "Now tell me how many degrees are showing in pink." A short delay and then a hand went up. It was T4-M and he said, "three hundred and fifteen degrees." I don't know what T4 was thinking when T4-M answered the question but I know T4-M, as I help him a lot, and I was stunned that he got the right answer doing mental math. Back to T4, "how did you arrive at three hundred and fifteen degrees?" T4-M, "I started at two hundred and seventy degrees, I knew that half of ninety degrees was forty five degrees, so I just added forty-five degrees to two hundred and seventy degrees and got three hundred and fifteen degrees." T4-M just nailed the hardest question of the lesson and I was so proud of him. It's now 12:23pm and T4 was about to continue when our guests stood up and walked out of the classroom, two minutes early. Here is my big unknown as they departed. I don't recall hearing them saying any thing to T4 or to the scholars. These dour faced people just stood up and walked out of the classroom.
The SQR you just read about occurred on the seventy-fifth day of the school year. I've watched T4 present a math lesson for all of those seventy-five days. The vast majority of those math lessons went very well. There were only a couple occasions where the math lessons struggled but that was not due to the teacher, it was mostly do to too many scholars who just couldn't get there act together. As far as the math lesson on SQR day, I can some it up in a few words, T4 nailed it, the scholars nailed it, it was a perfect lesson plan.
The entire staff, using an analogy from the book series The Game of Thrones, was called before the King to explain their short comings. Each teacher was given a twenty minute block of time, in T4's case she had only eleven minutes as the dour faced guests arrived late and left early, to state their case. Well, the teachers have stated their case, so now what? The King has options; allow the school to proceed as it is, make improvement recommendations, replace the leadership team, or send the teachers and the leadership team to the King's Justice, also known as the royal executioner, to have their heads lopped off, forced to find a new teaching positions, and the King assigns an entire new teaching staff to the school.
So now everyone waits. We are five schools days from the start of Christmas break. We are nine days from Christmas. We are fifteen days from a new year and everyone waits while this hangs over their heads. Will my head be placed on the royal executions block? Welcome to the teaching profession where years of dedication to their profession can be lopped off after a twenty minute presentation.
This past Tuesday was the day of our School Quality Review (SQR). I mentioned the SQR briefly in my last blog post so I'll give you a refresher course so you don't have to go back to the last blog post and reread it. My school, the one that I have been at for the past six and a half school years, the one that I've thoroughly enjoyed going to, the one that I will continue to go to for as long as they can put up with me, has received a failure grade from the State of Indiana for the past three years. The more that I think about this failure grade the more I think to myself, "how did we get here?" I believe it was four years ago that our school grade was a B so what went wrong? I have an opinion that would be quite a lengthy list of reasons but I won't bore you with the entire list. I'll keep it short.
First off, when I walked into the school to start my seventh year I met the new BigB. The new BigB was the fourth one in six years. Four leadership changes in six years and four different strategies to move the school forward. That is frustrating as you can't see academic growth when you keep changing directions. Second, at the end of my fourth year at the school there was a mass departure of teachers from the first floor. If my memory serves me correctly, eight of the eleven teachers on the first floor, moved on to other teaching opportunities. When you add the number of teachers that left the school in my fifth and sixth year you are now in double digits when it comes to teachers leaving the school. Numbers like that hurt a school. How do you keep any academic continuity in the school when teachers are departing at such a high rate? Here is my last one and then I'll move on. During my fifth year, discipline for inappropriate, if not downright awful, behavior took a back seat to social emotional learning and a directive that school suspensions are the pipeline to prison and they needed to be severally reduced. This last one, more than the others, used in combination with a huge emphasis on kindness rather an consequences, in my opinion, is the cause of our school's decline.
Moving on and here is how the day of the SQR went in my school and, most importantly, in T4's classroom. I was sitting at my half round table out in the hallway grading a quiz when I first encountered our guests. As they were approaching I looked up and one of the guests said, "good morning, how are you doing today?" I responded, "I'm grading a math quiz and knowing that we are having guests in the school and that I have no idea who you are I'll just say that I'm doing excellent." That drew a smile from a couple of our guests as they then proceeded down the hallway and I thought to myself, "at least I know they can smile."
Sunday, December 16, 2018
The scheduled arrival time of our guests in T4's classroom was 12:05pm with a schedule departure time of 12:25pm. With so much at stake, in this short twenty minute span of time, it was natural for tension being a little high. How high, one of us had to go pee four times in less than an hour. The morning activities leading up to our SQR time was the normal schedule with one small exception. One of the T4-M's was in a bit of a defiant mood and there was a concern on T4's part as to how this scholar would behave when our guests were in the room. "Schultz, when our guests arrive you need to sit right next to T4-M," was my directive.
It's now approaching noon and T4 decides that it would be nice if one of our scholars would greet our guests at the classroom door when they arrived. T4-F was chosen and there was a brief rehearsal session on what T4-F would say to our guests when they arrived. After the rehearsal we were ready. It's now 12:05pm, no guests, they are late. It's now 12:08pm, no guests, they are even later. It's now 12:10pm, getting really late as twenty five percent of the time allocated for T4's review is gone. It's now decision time for T4. Does she start the lesson without them or continue to wait? She waited. It's now 12:12pm, seven minutes late, when they arrived at the classroom door. I was sitting at the far side of the room next to my assigned scholar so I could not hear clearly the exchange of words between T4-F and our guests. What I did hear clearly was one of our guests say to T4-F, "I'll just take a seat." In walked three guests, all with a dour look on their face, and they took seats among the scholars.
The lesson was on angles and T4 began the lesson. "Eyes on me, say as I say, do as I do," was the directive to the scholars. "Everybody stand," they stood up. T4 then said, "turn ninety degrees" and she jumped up turning ninety degrees to her left and the scholars mirrored her. She then said, "return to your starting point," jumped up, turned, and was again facing the scholars and they matched her. The next two turns were one hundred and eighty degrees and then two hundred and seventy degrees. That went smoothly with all of the scholars actively participating. Next up is the final turn, three hundred and sixty degrees and all I could think was, "please God, don't let anyone get hurt." "This is the last one," T4 said to the scholars. "When you do this one you should all be facing me when you land. Are you ready? Go." They all did it. I don't think anyone even lost their balance and fell. They were all so excited that they actually just did a three hundred and sixty degree turn that would have surely put a smile on Michael Jordan's face.
The scholars are now back in their seats. On their desks were two round (circles) pieces of paper, one white and one pink. Both pieces of paper were cut so that the cut line resembled the radius line of a circle and T4 continued the lesson. "On your desk are two circles, one white and one pink. How many degrees are they in a circle?" A number of hands went up and the response was three hundred and sixty degrees. "Now, connect your two circles along the cut line so that they are hooked together." That was completed with a minimal amount of help and the lesson continued. "Turn your two circles so that a ninety degree angle is shown but it has to be in pink." That was completed and so was showing the straight angle as well as the two hundred and seventy degree angle. Now comes the challenging part. "In order to get a two hundred and seventy degree angle you have to move past three right angles. How do you know that three right angles equals two hundred and seventy degrees?" T4-F immediately raised her hand. "Ninety plus ninety equals one hundred and eighty and then you add another ninety and you get to two hundred and seventy degrees." She nailed it doing mental math, no paper and pencil, no calculator.
T4 then proceeded to ask the next question. "If a right angle is ninety degrees, how many degrees are there in half of a right angle?" There was a slight delay and then hands went up. Forty-five degrees was the agreed upon response from the scholars. With time moving quickly with our guests in the room T4 continued. "Show me in pink the two hundred and seventy degree angle. Now I want you to add forty-five degrees to the two hundred and seventy degree angle and then hold up your paper when you are finished." Again, minimal help was needed. Here comes the part that just blew me away. T4 speaking. "Now tell me how many degrees are showing in pink." A short delay and then a hand went up. It was T4-M and he said, "three hundred and fifteen degrees." I don't know what T4 was thinking when T4-M answered the question but I know T4-M, as I help him a lot, and I was stunned that he got the right answer doing mental math. Back to T4, "how did you arrive at three hundred and fifteen degrees?" T4-M, "I started at two hundred and seventy degrees, I knew that half of ninety degrees was forty five degrees, so I just added forty-five degrees to two hundred and seventy degrees and got three hundred and fifteen degrees." T4-M just nailed the hardest question of the lesson and I was so proud of him. It's now 12:23pm and T4 was about to continue when our guests stood up and walked out of the classroom, two minutes early. Here is my big unknown as they departed. I don't recall hearing them saying any thing to T4 or to the scholars. These dour faced people just stood up and walked out of the classroom.
The SQR you just read about occurred on the seventy-fifth day of the school year. I've watched T4 present a math lesson for all of those seventy-five days. The vast majority of those math lessons went very well. There were only a couple occasions where the math lessons struggled but that was not due to the teacher, it was mostly do to too many scholars who just couldn't get there act together. As far as the math lesson on SQR day, I can some it up in a few words, T4 nailed it, the scholars nailed it, it was a perfect lesson plan.
The entire staff, using an analogy from the book series The Game of Thrones, was called before the King to explain their short comings. Each teacher was given a twenty minute block of time, in T4's case she had only eleven minutes as the dour faced guests arrived late and left early, to state their case. Well, the teachers have stated their case, so now what? The King has options; allow the school to proceed as it is, make improvement recommendations, replace the leadership team, or send the teachers and the leadership team to the King's Justice, also known as the royal executioner, to have their heads lopped off, forced to find a new teaching positions, and the King assigns an entire new teaching staff to the school.
So now everyone waits. We are five schools days from the start of Christmas break. We are nine days from Christmas. We are fifteen days from a new year and everyone waits while this hangs over their heads. Will my head be placed on the royal executions block? Welcome to the teaching profession where years of dedication to their profession can be lopped off after a twenty minute presentation.
Sunday, December 9, 2018
An Oxymoron
Sunday, December 9, 2018
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. I have a few examples that I pulled off the internet after doing a Google search: jumbo shrimp, deafening silence, government intelligence, and rap music. Sadly, the Google listing is not up to date as I discovered one during a fourth grade beginning geometry lesson on angles. For those of you that are of my generation, you know the type, gray in the hair, long in the tooth, a product of old school discipline, and math where you borrowed instead of regrouping, I'm going to do an angle refresher course: right angle, acute angle, and obtuse angle. Okay, now I'll bring you up to date as apparently some pointed headed intellectual with a PhD, who needs to inflate his/her ego, while working at a prominent university research center, has decided that we need a new angle, so he/she came up with one and called it's the straight angle.
I was sitting in the back of the classroom where I have a really swell view of what goes on in the front of the room. On this day, our student teacher was in charge of the classroom, T4 was outside the room, and the lesson was on angles. With the student teacher up front my instructions from T4 was to limit my time and involvement in the classroom as the student teacher needed to have complete control of the classroom as a learning experience so I was sitting quietly observing. First up was the right angle. That was followed by the acute angle. Finally, the obtuse angle and I'm thinking to myself the student teacher did a nice job. Then the student teacher told the scholars that there was one more angle to draw and that got my immediate attention. What? There are three angles: right, acute, and obtuse so what is the student teacher talking about? I found out real quick, the straight angle. The student teacher, using the document camera drew a straight angle and projected it onto the big screen so everyone could see it. As soon as the student teacher was finished drawing the angle I thought to myself, "that is not an angle, that is a line."
Straight is defined as extending or moving uniformly in one direction only; without a curve or bend. Angle is defined as the amount of turn between two lines around their common point. Two completely different meanings so how can you have a straight angle? Truly a dilemma for me so I guess I'll defer to one of the Marys' for some guidance. So which of my Mary friends do I ask. I know the Immaculate Mary, Bad Mary, St. Mary, and Minar Mary. Maybe Minar Mary can help me out with this oxymoron. Should you like to offer an opinion there is a picture of a line and a straight angle on the ride side of the blog. Feel free to state your case.
T4 is one of the shining lights in my school and you are about to find out why. The lesson is geometry with an emphasis on lines: point, line, line segment, ray, parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting. T4 is in the front of the room, "stand up, do as I do, say as I say," and the scholars are mirroring her actions and words. "Parallel lines," her hands go straight up and the scholars mirror her. "Line," and her hands are pointing straight out to her sides with palms open and facing down and the scholars mirror her. "Line segment," her hands stay straight out to her sides but her hands make a fist and the scholars mirror her. "Ray," both arms are straight out to the side. One hand is opened with palm down and the other hand is in a fist and the scholars mirror her. "Perpendicular," and her arms cross in front of her making a plus sign and the scholars mirror her. "Intersecting," and she drops her arms down in front of her and crosses them and the scholars mirror her. Now that the scholars have the general idea T4 starts again. This time, however, she doubles her pace. T4 is doing geometry with an emphasis on lines and the scholars are mirroring her every word and arm movement and best of all, they are having fun.
T4 is one of the shining lights in our school and you are about to find out why, round two. The lesson is lines of symmetry and in order to do this assignment T4 had to take a profile picture of everyone of the scholars and then print them out in black and white. "Schultz, I have a project for you. Take some white card stock with you and all of these pictures. Cut the pictures, as close as you can, right down the middle of the scholars faces. After you do that glue on half of the scholar's picture on the left side of the card stock and then bring everything back to me." "Aye, aye, Captain," and off I go,
The line of symmetry lesson began with a definition of the word symmetry. From their T4 held up a couple of objects to show the lines of symmetry. The first was a heart folded in half and there was the single line of symmetry. Next, if my memory is correct, was the rectangle and when folded in half a couple different ways you could see the two lines of symmetry. Then, to throw the scholars a bit of a curve ball, T4 held up a circle and asked the scholars how many lines of symmetry were in circle. The responses were not even close. As the guesses were coming forth I was sitting next to T4-M, a peanut of a scholar who is also a minimalist when it comes to doing work. All of a sudden I hear him say, "infinite." Half stunned that T4-M knew the correct answer I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "that's the right answer, raise you hand and tell T4," and he did.
Now comes the fun part. T4 is at her document camera with one of the half pictures that is on the card stock. The picture is then projected onto the big screen in the front of the classroom so all the scholars can see what she is doing. Next, T4 takes this plastic device, sadly I can't recall what she said it was, and placed it on the cut line of the picture on the card stock. Once she did this you could see the half picture that is on the left side of the card stock and some how it flipped the picture onto the blank side of the card stock. Then, using a pencil, all the scholars had to do was trace the image on the right side of the card stock to complete the picture of their face.
I know, my explanation is pretty poor but hopefully this will help. On the right hand side of the blog is my half picture. T4 placed that plastic object on the cut line of my picture and then trace out the other side of my face. Pretty impressive and best of all, the scholars were having fun doing lines of symmetry, and all their completed lines of symmetry faces on are the bulletin board in the hallway.
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, December 11th, as the school that I have enjoyed working at for almost six and a half years now is in the crosshairs and I have to believe that every member of the staff is on edge. For the past three school years my school was given an F grade by the state of Indiana. When any school reaches this point concerned individuals, primarily bureaucrats who have never, ever, entered this school to see what the challenges are, get involved. These concerned individuals will be in the school on Tuesday, December 11th to conduct a School Quality Review. Their plan is to visit every classroom, talk to each member of the school staff, and I believe that includes volunteers, take their collective notes, gather in a room somewhere and then make their decision. Keep in mind, during the time it takes these concerned individuals to make a decision, every member of the staff has to wait for the results that will directly impact their job.
So what are the options that these concerned individuals have following the School Quality Review? I'm not an expert on the matter but here is my best guess. One, do nothing as they feel comfortable that the school is properly functioning. Two, offer recommendations to improve the school's practices and schedule another School Quality Review in a couple years. Three, make a change in leadership. Four, remove every teacher and administrator from the school, restart the school as either an innovation school or charter school, and essentially start over with an entire new team and an entirely new direction.
My anxiety level is rising as we approach Tuesday and I'm just a volunteer. Imagine the anxiety level of my teaching colleagues, some who have been in this school for years as Tuesday approaches. Imagine how my teaching colleagues will feel at around 4:00pm on Tuesday when these concerned individuals, who will spend maybe an hour in each teachers classroom, will decide if a collective group of teachers that has been successful in this school for years, if not decades, can remain at this school. Welcome to the teaching profession.
School Quality Review
An oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction. I have a few examples that I pulled off the internet after doing a Google search: jumbo shrimp, deafening silence, government intelligence, and rap music. Sadly, the Google listing is not up to date as I discovered one during a fourth grade beginning geometry lesson on angles. For those of you that are of my generation, you know the type, gray in the hair, long in the tooth, a product of old school discipline, and math where you borrowed instead of regrouping, I'm going to do an angle refresher course: right angle, acute angle, and obtuse angle. Okay, now I'll bring you up to date as apparently some pointed headed intellectual with a PhD, who needs to inflate his/her ego, while working at a prominent university research center, has decided that we need a new angle, so he/she came up with one and called it's the straight angle.
I was sitting in the back of the classroom where I have a really swell view of what goes on in the front of the room. On this day, our student teacher was in charge of the classroom, T4 was outside the room, and the lesson was on angles. With the student teacher up front my instructions from T4 was to limit my time and involvement in the classroom as the student teacher needed to have complete control of the classroom as a learning experience so I was sitting quietly observing. First up was the right angle. That was followed by the acute angle. Finally, the obtuse angle and I'm thinking to myself the student teacher did a nice job. Then the student teacher told the scholars that there was one more angle to draw and that got my immediate attention. What? There are three angles: right, acute, and obtuse so what is the student teacher talking about? I found out real quick, the straight angle. The student teacher, using the document camera drew a straight angle and projected it onto the big screen so everyone could see it. As soon as the student teacher was finished drawing the angle I thought to myself, "that is not an angle, that is a line."
Straight is defined as extending or moving uniformly in one direction only; without a curve or bend. Angle is defined as the amount of turn between two lines around their common point. Two completely different meanings so how can you have a straight angle? Truly a dilemma for me so I guess I'll defer to one of the Marys' for some guidance. So which of my Mary friends do I ask. I know the Immaculate Mary, Bad Mary, St. Mary, and Minar Mary. Maybe Minar Mary can help me out with this oxymoron. Should you like to offer an opinion there is a picture of a line and a straight angle on the ride side of the blog. Feel free to state your case.
T4 is one of the shining lights in my school and you are about to find out why. The lesson is geometry with an emphasis on lines: point, line, line segment, ray, parallel, perpendicular, and intersecting. T4 is in the front of the room, "stand up, do as I do, say as I say," and the scholars are mirroring her actions and words. "Parallel lines," her hands go straight up and the scholars mirror her. "Line," and her hands are pointing straight out to her sides with palms open and facing down and the scholars mirror her. "Line segment," her hands stay straight out to her sides but her hands make a fist and the scholars mirror her. "Ray," both arms are straight out to the side. One hand is opened with palm down and the other hand is in a fist and the scholars mirror her. "Perpendicular," and her arms cross in front of her making a plus sign and the scholars mirror her. "Intersecting," and she drops her arms down in front of her and crosses them and the scholars mirror her. Now that the scholars have the general idea T4 starts again. This time, however, she doubles her pace. T4 is doing geometry with an emphasis on lines and the scholars are mirroring her every word and arm movement and best of all, they are having fun.
T4 is one of the shining lights in our school and you are about to find out why, round two. The lesson is lines of symmetry and in order to do this assignment T4 had to take a profile picture of everyone of the scholars and then print them out in black and white. "Schultz, I have a project for you. Take some white card stock with you and all of these pictures. Cut the pictures, as close as you can, right down the middle of the scholars faces. After you do that glue on half of the scholar's picture on the left side of the card stock and then bring everything back to me." "Aye, aye, Captain," and off I go,
The line of symmetry lesson began with a definition of the word symmetry. From their T4 held up a couple of objects to show the lines of symmetry. The first was a heart folded in half and there was the single line of symmetry. Next, if my memory is correct, was the rectangle and when folded in half a couple different ways you could see the two lines of symmetry. Then, to throw the scholars a bit of a curve ball, T4 held up a circle and asked the scholars how many lines of symmetry were in circle. The responses were not even close. As the guesses were coming forth I was sitting next to T4-M, a peanut of a scholar who is also a minimalist when it comes to doing work. All of a sudden I hear him say, "infinite." Half stunned that T4-M knew the correct answer I tapped him on the shoulder and said, "that's the right answer, raise you hand and tell T4," and he did.
Now comes the fun part. T4 is at her document camera with one of the half pictures that is on the card stock. The picture is then projected onto the big screen in the front of the classroom so all the scholars can see what she is doing. Next, T4 takes this plastic device, sadly I can't recall what she said it was, and placed it on the cut line of the picture on the card stock. Once she did this you could see the half picture that is on the left side of the card stock and some how it flipped the picture onto the blank side of the card stock. Then, using a pencil, all the scholars had to do was trace the image on the right side of the card stock to complete the picture of their face.
I know, my explanation is pretty poor but hopefully this will help. On the right hand side of the blog is my half picture. T4 placed that plastic object on the cut line of my picture and then trace out the other side of my face. Pretty impressive and best of all, the scholars were having fun doing lines of symmetry, and all their completed lines of symmetry faces on are the bulletin board in the hallway.
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, December 11th, as the school that I have enjoyed working at for almost six and a half years now is in the crosshairs and I have to believe that every member of the staff is on edge. For the past three school years my school was given an F grade by the state of Indiana. When any school reaches this point concerned individuals, primarily bureaucrats who have never, ever, entered this school to see what the challenges are, get involved. These concerned individuals will be in the school on Tuesday, December 11th to conduct a School Quality Review. Their plan is to visit every classroom, talk to each member of the school staff, and I believe that includes volunteers, take their collective notes, gather in a room somewhere and then make their decision. Keep in mind, during the time it takes these concerned individuals to make a decision, every member of the staff has to wait for the results that will directly impact their job.
So what are the options that these concerned individuals have following the School Quality Review? I'm not an expert on the matter but here is my best guess. One, do nothing as they feel comfortable that the school is properly functioning. Two, offer recommendations to improve the school's practices and schedule another School Quality Review in a couple years. Three, make a change in leadership. Four, remove every teacher and administrator from the school, restart the school as either an innovation school or charter school, and essentially start over with an entire new team and an entirely new direction.
My anxiety level is rising as we approach Tuesday and I'm just a volunteer. Imagine the anxiety level of my teaching colleagues, some who have been in this school for years as Tuesday approaches. Imagine how my teaching colleagues will feel at around 4:00pm on Tuesday when these concerned individuals, who will spend maybe an hour in each teachers classroom, will decide if a collective group of teachers that has been successful in this school for years, if not decades, can remain at this school. Welcome to the teaching profession.
School Quality Review
Tuesday, November 27, 2018
Shining Lights Amid The Drama
Sunday, November 24, 2019
I have a lot of hallway drama and a shining light story on the agenda for today. Lets see, I have drama and I have a shining light so quoting Roseanne Roseannadanna, "it's always something, if it ain't one thing it's another," so I'll start with the drama.
I haven't written about the hallway in quite a while so I'll start there. T6-M is at the far end of the hallway walking around by himself, as he has been doing a lot for almost half the school year. Something in his home classroom had to be bothering him so when that happens he just gets up and walks out into the hallway. As he was pacing around I got his attention and signaled for him to join me at my half round table. As soon as he sat down his facial expression told me to remain silent and just let him sit there until he relaxes. Unfortunately, the two fifth grade classrooms were rotating and for some reason the two T5's don't join their scholars in the hallway so it gets ridiculously loud. T6-M does not like noise so instead of sitting their with him hoping he will de-escalate he started escalating. As he escalated, he started talking to himself with his voice inflection getting louder so, if T6-M's teacher of record likes it or not, it's my call. "T6-M, let's talk a walk," I said. He hesitated so I spoke again. "This hallway is way to loud let's move down to the other end of the hallway until it quiets down."
When we reached the end of the hallway I turned around and saw that the hallway was still crowded with scholars so we went through the fire door and down the stairway. At one point I asked T6-M if he was alright. His responded, "this school is getting real bad." Sadly, I couldn't disagree with him as this school, that I've thoroughly enjoyed coming to for seven years, has issues that need to be addressed and right now I don't think the school has enough personnel to do.
Next on the drama list is this anger eruption. The T5 classroom door opened, then slammed closed, and T6-F, with an angry look on her face, is heading past me down the hallway. "Where are you going?" I asked her. "I'm mad so I'm leaving the classroom," was the response I received. "You can be mad if you want but if you walk down that hallway where no one can see you then you will be in a lot of trouble. So, why don't you just sit right here by me and stay out of trouble." T6-F then took a seat right across from me. "Why are you so mad?" I asked. "My friend in that classroom is mad at me." "Why is your friend mad at you?" "She is mad at me because I'm trying to make new friends." "Well, let me tell you this. You can have as many friends as you like and if someone doesn't like that then maybe you should ignore that person rather than getting so mad and walk out of the classroom." After a few more minutes T6-F's facial expression showed me that she had relaxed and I sensed that the drama was over. I looked at T6-F and suggested that she go back into the classroom and she did without further incident.
It's a different day, same T5 classroom as above, and this drama does not have anger, it has emotions on full display. T4 and I are on our way to the library to do some laminating. As I exited our classroom door I looked over at the half round table and there was a T5-F sitting at the table. After walking down the hallway for about twenty feet I thought to myself, "why is that girl sitting there," so I turned around to look at her. When I did it looked like she was crying but I chose to continue down the hallway. When the laminating project was completed I headed back to the classroom and noticed that the same girl was sitting at the table and she was definitely crying.
When I reached my half round table I took a seat right next to her and asked, "why are you crying?" T5-F's head immediately dropped down onto her forearm and the crying escalated. I hesitated and then said to her. "Put you head up and look at me. I'm not a teacher, I'm not even an employee of the school. All I am is a volunteer that helps T4 with math and I think that makes me the perfect person for you to talk to." Surprisingly that worked and this is what she told me between the tears. "My brother ran away from home yesterday." Jesus, now what do I do. After telling T5-F that I was so sorry to hear about her brother I said to her, "I think it would be best for you to talk to OH-SW about your brother, would you like me to call her?" There was a hesitation but she said, "yes," so I walked into T4's classroom and made the telephone call. The Admin Czar at the front desk answered the telephone and informed me that OH-SW was not in the building. That is not what I wanted to hear so I explained to the Admin Czar what was going on. She informed me that she'll find someone to come up to the classroom to help me.
A couple minutes later BigB#4 turned the hallway corner and was headed in my direction. When she took a seat across from me she asked T5-F what was wrong. T5-F's head dropped down on her forearm again and started crying. When BigB#4 looked at me I quietly told her what T5-F told me. After a bit of persuasion, BigB#4 convinced T5-F to walk down to her office with her and I went back into T4's classroom.
Tuesday, November 27, 2019
I know, I'm late, and I've already been called a slacker. When you are called a slacker you have to make a decision. Should I continue with the shining lights that I mentioned in the title of the blog or go in a whole different direction and talk about back injuries and the weird things I observed the injured person doing. To keep peace in the classroom I'll stick with shining lights.
"Schultz, I have to give a presentation in front of the faculty and school leadership soon and I need you to listen to my speech. So you know, I'm really nervous about giving this speech." "What are you nervous about, you're in front of the scholars every day?" "This is different. I don't like giving speeches as I get real nervous, I'm afraid that I will mess up, and this speech will be in front of my peers." "Okay, lets hear it."
T4 is holding her hand written notes, that were in pencil, she starts her speech, and I'm listening. I'll be paraphrasing as the incident took place a couple weeks ago and I can't recall T4's exact wording but it goes something like this.
T4 is speaking. "It's the start of the school day. The scholars just arrived in the classroom and they are loud and off task. I'm sitting at my desk and I'm thinking to myself, I don't think I can do this today. The morning procedure has been the same all school year so why can't these scholars just start their work and be quiet. Every day, day after day, I have to deal with scholars who just don't get it and it gets so frustrating. As I'm looking around the room to determine what I'm going to do to survive this day I saw T4-M sitting at his desk near the corner of the classroom. As I'm looking at T4-M I noticed that he was sitting quietly, he was doing his morning work, and this thought entered my mind. There is my shining light. The one scholar that is doing what he is supposed to be doing and it is this scholar that is going to help me make it through this day. All day, I'm going to focus entirely on T4-M, and give him the best that I can give. If the others want to follow along fine but today I focusing totally on my shining light."
T4 continues and I'm still listening. "Back in October I took sixty fourth grade scholars to camp for the day. The amount of work put forth to bring this off was very time consuming and, just like the classroom, keeping things under control was exhausting. Will you stop talking, listen to your group activity leader so you will know what to do, when we move from one activity to another stay together as a group, please stop talking and pay attention. As we neared the end of our time at camp I decided to take the scholars down to a little creek that ran through the camp. Before we arrived at the creek I gathered up all the scholars and told them that they could walk out into the creek but only so far and they were not supposed to get soaking wet. It was like I didn't even talk to them. Water was being splashed everywhere, scholars were getting soaking wet and again I thought to myself why do I continue to do this. Then I saw T4-M (not the same one as above) standing in the creek and he had this look of pure joy on his face and I knew I found my shining light that will help me make it though the day."
For the sake of time I'm going to skip the conclusion of T4's practice speech. When she finished I told her I loved it. In fact, now that I've retold it I like it even better. It was the perfect story to tell the faculty as I'm certain everyone of the them has had the same struggles that T4 has and every one of them needed to search for their shining light to survive the day.
The first half of the school year is rapidly approaching. At the halfway point of the school year T4 and I will have spent ninety days in close proximity to each other and you know what. Despite the challenges that our school corporation faces, despite the challenges that our school faces, despite the challenges that occur when trying to teach math to fifty plus fourth grade scholars every day, I have the pleasure of sitting at the hexagon in the middle of the classroom watching this shining light do what she does best, teach.
I have a lot of hallway drama and a shining light story on the agenda for today. Lets see, I have drama and I have a shining light so quoting Roseanne Roseannadanna, "it's always something, if it ain't one thing it's another," so I'll start with the drama.
I haven't written about the hallway in quite a while so I'll start there. T6-M is at the far end of the hallway walking around by himself, as he has been doing a lot for almost half the school year. Something in his home classroom had to be bothering him so when that happens he just gets up and walks out into the hallway. As he was pacing around I got his attention and signaled for him to join me at my half round table. As soon as he sat down his facial expression told me to remain silent and just let him sit there until he relaxes. Unfortunately, the two fifth grade classrooms were rotating and for some reason the two T5's don't join their scholars in the hallway so it gets ridiculously loud. T6-M does not like noise so instead of sitting their with him hoping he will de-escalate he started escalating. As he escalated, he started talking to himself with his voice inflection getting louder so, if T6-M's teacher of record likes it or not, it's my call. "T6-M, let's talk a walk," I said. He hesitated so I spoke again. "This hallway is way to loud let's move down to the other end of the hallway until it quiets down."
When we reached the end of the hallway I turned around and saw that the hallway was still crowded with scholars so we went through the fire door and down the stairway. At one point I asked T6-M if he was alright. His responded, "this school is getting real bad." Sadly, I couldn't disagree with him as this school, that I've thoroughly enjoyed coming to for seven years, has issues that need to be addressed and right now I don't think the school has enough personnel to do.
Next on the drama list is this anger eruption. The T5 classroom door opened, then slammed closed, and T6-F, with an angry look on her face, is heading past me down the hallway. "Where are you going?" I asked her. "I'm mad so I'm leaving the classroom," was the response I received. "You can be mad if you want but if you walk down that hallway where no one can see you then you will be in a lot of trouble. So, why don't you just sit right here by me and stay out of trouble." T6-F then took a seat right across from me. "Why are you so mad?" I asked. "My friend in that classroom is mad at me." "Why is your friend mad at you?" "She is mad at me because I'm trying to make new friends." "Well, let me tell you this. You can have as many friends as you like and if someone doesn't like that then maybe you should ignore that person rather than getting so mad and walk out of the classroom." After a few more minutes T6-F's facial expression showed me that she had relaxed and I sensed that the drama was over. I looked at T6-F and suggested that she go back into the classroom and she did without further incident.
It's a different day, same T5 classroom as above, and this drama does not have anger, it has emotions on full display. T4 and I are on our way to the library to do some laminating. As I exited our classroom door I looked over at the half round table and there was a T5-F sitting at the table. After walking down the hallway for about twenty feet I thought to myself, "why is that girl sitting there," so I turned around to look at her. When I did it looked like she was crying but I chose to continue down the hallway. When the laminating project was completed I headed back to the classroom and noticed that the same girl was sitting at the table and she was definitely crying.
When I reached my half round table I took a seat right next to her and asked, "why are you crying?" T5-F's head immediately dropped down onto her forearm and the crying escalated. I hesitated and then said to her. "Put you head up and look at me. I'm not a teacher, I'm not even an employee of the school. All I am is a volunteer that helps T4 with math and I think that makes me the perfect person for you to talk to." Surprisingly that worked and this is what she told me between the tears. "My brother ran away from home yesterday." Jesus, now what do I do. After telling T5-F that I was so sorry to hear about her brother I said to her, "I think it would be best for you to talk to OH-SW about your brother, would you like me to call her?" There was a hesitation but she said, "yes," so I walked into T4's classroom and made the telephone call. The Admin Czar at the front desk answered the telephone and informed me that OH-SW was not in the building. That is not what I wanted to hear so I explained to the Admin Czar what was going on. She informed me that she'll find someone to come up to the classroom to help me.
A couple minutes later BigB#4 turned the hallway corner and was headed in my direction. When she took a seat across from me she asked T5-F what was wrong. T5-F's head dropped down on her forearm again and started crying. When BigB#4 looked at me I quietly told her what T5-F told me. After a bit of persuasion, BigB#4 convinced T5-F to walk down to her office with her and I went back into T4's classroom.
Tuesday, November 27, 2019
I know, I'm late, and I've already been called a slacker. When you are called a slacker you have to make a decision. Should I continue with the shining lights that I mentioned in the title of the blog or go in a whole different direction and talk about back injuries and the weird things I observed the injured person doing. To keep peace in the classroom I'll stick with shining lights.
"Schultz, I have to give a presentation in front of the faculty and school leadership soon and I need you to listen to my speech. So you know, I'm really nervous about giving this speech." "What are you nervous about, you're in front of the scholars every day?" "This is different. I don't like giving speeches as I get real nervous, I'm afraid that I will mess up, and this speech will be in front of my peers." "Okay, lets hear it."
T4 is holding her hand written notes, that were in pencil, she starts her speech, and I'm listening. I'll be paraphrasing as the incident took place a couple weeks ago and I can't recall T4's exact wording but it goes something like this.
T4 is speaking. "It's the start of the school day. The scholars just arrived in the classroom and they are loud and off task. I'm sitting at my desk and I'm thinking to myself, I don't think I can do this today. The morning procedure has been the same all school year so why can't these scholars just start their work and be quiet. Every day, day after day, I have to deal with scholars who just don't get it and it gets so frustrating. As I'm looking around the room to determine what I'm going to do to survive this day I saw T4-M sitting at his desk near the corner of the classroom. As I'm looking at T4-M I noticed that he was sitting quietly, he was doing his morning work, and this thought entered my mind. There is my shining light. The one scholar that is doing what he is supposed to be doing and it is this scholar that is going to help me make it through this day. All day, I'm going to focus entirely on T4-M, and give him the best that I can give. If the others want to follow along fine but today I focusing totally on my shining light."
T4 continues and I'm still listening. "Back in October I took sixty fourth grade scholars to camp for the day. The amount of work put forth to bring this off was very time consuming and, just like the classroom, keeping things under control was exhausting. Will you stop talking, listen to your group activity leader so you will know what to do, when we move from one activity to another stay together as a group, please stop talking and pay attention. As we neared the end of our time at camp I decided to take the scholars down to a little creek that ran through the camp. Before we arrived at the creek I gathered up all the scholars and told them that they could walk out into the creek but only so far and they were not supposed to get soaking wet. It was like I didn't even talk to them. Water was being splashed everywhere, scholars were getting soaking wet and again I thought to myself why do I continue to do this. Then I saw T4-M (not the same one as above) standing in the creek and he had this look of pure joy on his face and I knew I found my shining light that will help me make it though the day."
For the sake of time I'm going to skip the conclusion of T4's practice speech. When she finished I told her I loved it. In fact, now that I've retold it I like it even better. It was the perfect story to tell the faculty as I'm certain everyone of the them has had the same struggles that T4 has and every one of them needed to search for their shining light to survive the day.
The first half of the school year is rapidly approaching. At the halfway point of the school year T4 and I will have spent ninety days in close proximity to each other and you know what. Despite the challenges that our school corporation faces, despite the challenges that our school faces, despite the challenges that occur when trying to teach math to fifty plus fourth grade scholars every day, I have the pleasure of sitting at the hexagon in the middle of the classroom watching this shining light do what she does best, teach.
Sunday, November 18, 2018
Check Your Emotions
Saturday, November 17, 2018
Veterans Day recognition for me started on Friday, November 9th and lasted all the way through Monday, November 12th.
Friday, November 9th, continuing where I left off in the last blog post.
T4 greeted me right at the classroom door when I arrived at school. She put her arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the front on the classroom. Once I was standing in the front of the classroom she walked away. Immediately after T4 walked away four scholars approached me and handed me a binder and said, "Happy Veterans Day Mr. Schultz. The pictures of this event are on the right hand side of the blog. As I started to look through the binder I said to T4, "is it okay if I tell the scholars a story?" T4's response was, "sure." I responded, "thanks and hopefully I will not get to emotional." Before I continue I have to tell you that inside that binder are forty letters that the fourth grade scholars wrote thanking me for my service. Forty, and they were written in their best penmanship, something that I rarely see, with their signature at the bottom of their letter.
As soon as I started my story I was interrupted by this wave of scholars who were quickly moving to the front of the room to get closer to me. With everybody settled down I started again. "Wait Mr. Schultz," and I see an OtherT4-M scholar moving T4's throne chair with the high backrest and a cushion for a seat immediately behind me so I could sit down to tell my story so I stopped again. I'm now seated on T4's throne and I begin again and it goes like this.
Four or five years ago I was in Washington, DC with my wife and we were there to visit the World War II Memorial that was just completed. I wanted to go to this memorial out of respect for my Dad who was a World War II veteran who fought in a famous battle that was called the Battle of the Bulge. After walking through the memorial I told my wife that I was going to go to a souvenir stand that was operated by a group called the Rolling Thunder to see if they would have a pin that I wanted to stick on my Vietnam veterans hat. The pin I was looking for was a shield that signified that I was part of the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division when I was in Vietnam. The souvenir stand had the shield I was looking for so I bought one for three dollars and, with the help of my wife, I was pinning the shield on to my hat.
Just as I was about to put my hat back on my head I heard a voice behind me say, "there is an America hero over there, go show him some love." With my hat back on my head I turned around to see who was the American hero that someone was talking about. When I turned, standing right in front of me, was a line of either middle school or high school scholars from the state of Washington. One by one the scholars walked up to me and said, "thanks for your service," and a few even shook my hand. With about a half dozen or so of the scholars standing immediately in front of me I said to them, doing my best to check my emotions, "in the past five minutes or so you have thanked me more times for my service that I've heard over the past forty years." As the scholars started moving on to their next destination I turned to look to see where my wife was standing. When I saw her, she walked over to me, handed me her camera, and said to me, "take a look, I got pictures."
My trip to Washington, DC was over forty years ago I was telling my fourth grade scholars when I was interrupted. OtherT4-F (a former scholar you knew as Cue last year) wanted to hand me a box of tissues as she saw how emotional it was for me to tell my Washington, DC story again. I told her that I didn't need the tissue right now but keep the box close in case I might need one later. Prior to continuing my story I looked up at T4 and said to her, "how many years are there between 1971 and 2018?" T4 said, "forty-seven," and I continued my story.
Today, I told the scholars, while holding up the binder so they could all see it, forty-seven years after I left Vietnam, this is the second best thing that has happened to this Vietnam veteran and with my little story told I stood up. OtherT4-F (Cue) was the first to reach me and she handed me that tissue as she recognized that I couldn't check my emotions and I thanked her for doing so. Right behind OtherT4-F was the next wave of scholars all moving towards me to give me the biggest group hug I've ever had.
It's still Friday, OtherT4's scholars arrived in the classroom for their math lesson and things got a little weird. T4 had left the classroom to, I think, rearrange desks in Additional T4's classroom, as again, the alternative seating plan turned out to be nothing but an opportunity for a chat festival for the scholars. The student teacher that has been in T4's classroom, for what seems like an eternity now, was no where in sight. That leaves me and eighteen or so scholars in the classroom by myself so what do I do? I moved to the front of the classroom to teach the math lesson. With two problems completed on the worksheet I looked up and saw T2 standing in the classroom doorway and I knew why she was there. I signaled her to give me a minute and then addressed the class. "T2 and her second grade scholars are right outside our classroom door and her scholars want to say happy Veterans Day to me so please work quietly on the next problem until I return," I said to the scholars.
When I stepped out into the hallway this entire second grade class said to me, "Happy Veterans Day Mr. Schultz." Four or five of T2's cub scout scholars gave me the official cub scout salute and I returned their salute. One of T2's scholars then walked up to me and gave me a tin pan full of brownies that I gladly accepted. Finally, T2 handed me the eighteen hand written thank you letters that these young scholars wrote. With my emotions in check this time I thanked the scholars, got a few hugs, and then gave one final salute for the cub scout scholars.
Moving on to Monday, November 12th, and I was sitting at my half round table in the hallway as the scholars were at one of their specials class. Uh-Uh-Uh was walking toward me as she was rotating to her general education classroom when she walked up to me, handed me a hand written letter and said, "Happy Veterans Day," then continue on her way. My intent was to post a picture of this letter on the blog but the penmanship was difficult to read and it was written in crayon so below, edited for content, is the letter Uh-Uh-Uh wrote to me.
On the front cover of the letter. "You helped our America, thank you," and Uh-Uh-Uh signed her name on the bottom. The letter is now open. "Thank you Mr. Schultz for helping us. I've known you since first grade and you showed me reading and writing isn't as bad as it seemed. I wish everyone had someone like you. Most people hate writing and can't read. I was lucky enough to meet you. I'm lucky to have you here to help my brother (BabyT) learn to read." On the back cover Uh-Uh-Uh drew a bright yellow sun, the sky was shaded in blue, there was green grass growing on the bottom of the page, and a pink flower was growing up from the grass.
Like Uh-Uh-Uh said, we've known each other since she was in the first grade. She is now in the sixth grade and soon onto middle school. I've watched her struggle academically for the four years we shared the same classroom. I watched her as she battled the demons that were in her head that resulted in so many anger eruptions. On Monday she handed me this very touching letter that is forcing me to check my emotions right now as I'm sitting at my kitchen table writing this blog.
There are friends of mine that questioned me about why I would spend so much time at this school as a volunteer and not getting paid. Well, you just read what I wrote about what happened to me over the Veterans Day holiday. Fifty-nine hand written letters, one Kleenex tissue, and a huge group hug as payment is much better than any pay check as these scholars touched my heart. And, as I said numerous times before, "now you know why I keep doing what I do."
Veterans Day recognition for me started on Friday, November 9th and lasted all the way through Monday, November 12th.
Friday, November 9th, continuing where I left off in the last blog post.
T4 greeted me right at the classroom door when I arrived at school. She put her arm around my shoulder and guided me toward the front on the classroom. Once I was standing in the front of the classroom she walked away. Immediately after T4 walked away four scholars approached me and handed me a binder and said, "Happy Veterans Day Mr. Schultz. The pictures of this event are on the right hand side of the blog. As I started to look through the binder I said to T4, "is it okay if I tell the scholars a story?" T4's response was, "sure." I responded, "thanks and hopefully I will not get to emotional." Before I continue I have to tell you that inside that binder are forty letters that the fourth grade scholars wrote thanking me for my service. Forty, and they were written in their best penmanship, something that I rarely see, with their signature at the bottom of their letter.
As soon as I started my story I was interrupted by this wave of scholars who were quickly moving to the front of the room to get closer to me. With everybody settled down I started again. "Wait Mr. Schultz," and I see an OtherT4-M scholar moving T4's throne chair with the high backrest and a cushion for a seat immediately behind me so I could sit down to tell my story so I stopped again. I'm now seated on T4's throne and I begin again and it goes like this.
Four or five years ago I was in Washington, DC with my wife and we were there to visit the World War II Memorial that was just completed. I wanted to go to this memorial out of respect for my Dad who was a World War II veteran who fought in a famous battle that was called the Battle of the Bulge. After walking through the memorial I told my wife that I was going to go to a souvenir stand that was operated by a group called the Rolling Thunder to see if they would have a pin that I wanted to stick on my Vietnam veterans hat. The pin I was looking for was a shield that signified that I was part of the 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division when I was in Vietnam. The souvenir stand had the shield I was looking for so I bought one for three dollars and, with the help of my wife, I was pinning the shield on to my hat.
Just as I was about to put my hat back on my head I heard a voice behind me say, "there is an America hero over there, go show him some love." With my hat back on my head I turned around to see who was the American hero that someone was talking about. When I turned, standing right in front of me, was a line of either middle school or high school scholars from the state of Washington. One by one the scholars walked up to me and said, "thanks for your service," and a few even shook my hand. With about a half dozen or so of the scholars standing immediately in front of me I said to them, doing my best to check my emotions, "in the past five minutes or so you have thanked me more times for my service that I've heard over the past forty years." As the scholars started moving on to their next destination I turned to look to see where my wife was standing. When I saw her, she walked over to me, handed me her camera, and said to me, "take a look, I got pictures."
My trip to Washington, DC was over forty years ago I was telling my fourth grade scholars when I was interrupted. OtherT4-F (a former scholar you knew as Cue last year) wanted to hand me a box of tissues as she saw how emotional it was for me to tell my Washington, DC story again. I told her that I didn't need the tissue right now but keep the box close in case I might need one later. Prior to continuing my story I looked up at T4 and said to her, "how many years are there between 1971 and 2018?" T4 said, "forty-seven," and I continued my story.
Today, I told the scholars, while holding up the binder so they could all see it, forty-seven years after I left Vietnam, this is the second best thing that has happened to this Vietnam veteran and with my little story told I stood up. OtherT4-F (Cue) was the first to reach me and she handed me that tissue as she recognized that I couldn't check my emotions and I thanked her for doing so. Right behind OtherT4-F was the next wave of scholars all moving towards me to give me the biggest group hug I've ever had.
It's still Friday, OtherT4's scholars arrived in the classroom for their math lesson and things got a little weird. T4 had left the classroom to, I think, rearrange desks in Additional T4's classroom, as again, the alternative seating plan turned out to be nothing but an opportunity for a chat festival for the scholars. The student teacher that has been in T4's classroom, for what seems like an eternity now, was no where in sight. That leaves me and eighteen or so scholars in the classroom by myself so what do I do? I moved to the front of the classroom to teach the math lesson. With two problems completed on the worksheet I looked up and saw T2 standing in the classroom doorway and I knew why she was there. I signaled her to give me a minute and then addressed the class. "T2 and her second grade scholars are right outside our classroom door and her scholars want to say happy Veterans Day to me so please work quietly on the next problem until I return," I said to the scholars.
When I stepped out into the hallway this entire second grade class said to me, "Happy Veterans Day Mr. Schultz." Four or five of T2's cub scout scholars gave me the official cub scout salute and I returned their salute. One of T2's scholars then walked up to me and gave me a tin pan full of brownies that I gladly accepted. Finally, T2 handed me the eighteen hand written thank you letters that these young scholars wrote. With my emotions in check this time I thanked the scholars, got a few hugs, and then gave one final salute for the cub scout scholars.
Moving on to Monday, November 12th, and I was sitting at my half round table in the hallway as the scholars were at one of their specials class. Uh-Uh-Uh was walking toward me as she was rotating to her general education classroom when she walked up to me, handed me a hand written letter and said, "Happy Veterans Day," then continue on her way. My intent was to post a picture of this letter on the blog but the penmanship was difficult to read and it was written in crayon so below, edited for content, is the letter Uh-Uh-Uh wrote to me.
On the front cover of the letter. "You helped our America, thank you," and Uh-Uh-Uh signed her name on the bottom. The letter is now open. "Thank you Mr. Schultz for helping us. I've known you since first grade and you showed me reading and writing isn't as bad as it seemed. I wish everyone had someone like you. Most people hate writing and can't read. I was lucky enough to meet you. I'm lucky to have you here to help my brother (BabyT) learn to read." On the back cover Uh-Uh-Uh drew a bright yellow sun, the sky was shaded in blue, there was green grass growing on the bottom of the page, and a pink flower was growing up from the grass.
Like Uh-Uh-Uh said, we've known each other since she was in the first grade. She is now in the sixth grade and soon onto middle school. I've watched her struggle academically for the four years we shared the same classroom. I watched her as she battled the demons that were in her head that resulted in so many anger eruptions. On Monday she handed me this very touching letter that is forcing me to check my emotions right now as I'm sitting at my kitchen table writing this blog.
There are friends of mine that questioned me about why I would spend so much time at this school as a volunteer and not getting paid. Well, you just read what I wrote about what happened to me over the Veterans Day holiday. Fifty-nine hand written letters, one Kleenex tissue, and a huge group hug as payment is much better than any pay check as these scholars touched my heart. And, as I said numerous times before, "now you know why I keep doing what I do."
Camp OPP, Inc.
Opportunities Present Possibilities
www.oppcamp.org
This past fall and again this spring I will attend summer camp with the young fourth grade scholars that I work with every day. Right now Camp OPP, Inc. is beginning its 2018 Fall Fund Drive to provide the financial means for around fifty scholars to attend these camps at no expense to them. To give you a familiarity with Camp Opp, Inc. I put their website above. I'll also give you the link to their Facebook page for the latest updates and pictures. Please "like" and follow Camp Opp, Inc. at https://www.facebook.com/oppcamp.
Please consider making a donation today. 100% of all funds go directly to support children. Camp OPP, Inc. is a 501(c) and non-profit organization so all gifts are tax-deductible. You can go online at www.oppcamp.org to make your donation. Click on the 2018 Fall Fund Drive tab.
Sunday, November 11, 2018
A Parental Unit Request
Tuesday, November 6, 2018
It's election day and yes I voted.
There are a lot of student teachers in the school right now so when I arrived at school around 9:35am the parking lot was full. My only option was street parking but I'm good with that is there is not a lot of traffic around the school. As I was heading across the parking lot I saw both of Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units in their car. As a reminder, Uh-Uh-Uh is a former scholar of mine that is now in the sixth grade. One of the parental units saw me walking across the parking lot so I waved and continued on my way to the main entrance of the school. Just before stepping onto the sidewalk Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units pulled up in their car and parked right in front me. Don't worry, there is no drama here as I like Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units as they were easy to work with for the three years Uh-Uh-Uh and I were in the same classroom.
With the car at a complete stop I walked up to the driver side window, shook hands with the driver, lowered my head to see in the window then said "good morning," to the passenger. With the pleasantries completed the driver said to me, "we are worried that BabyT is falling behind in his reading and we would like to know if you could make some time in your day to help him read." The request caught me off guard a little but I told Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units that if I can fit into my day I would try and help BabyT.
I knew Baby T was in the second grade so I tracked down his teacher of record to see if there was a good time to read with the scholar that also fit my daily agenda. T2 and I came to an agreement on a time so I found Uh-Uh-Uh and told her to tell her parental units that I would begin reading with BabyT right after fall break.
With a library book in hand, one that was at the lowest reading level, I headed off to my first reading lesson with BabyT. I was a little concerned as to what would happen when I told BabyT that I was there to read with him because he can be a tad bit bullheaded and even down right defiant. I've known BabyT since he was in kindergarten so I was hoping that his familiarity with me would work to my advantage and it did. We sat down in the main office, no drama at all, and he read the entire book. As BabyT read, it didn't take me long to see that he was clearly behind in reading. My estimate at to his reading level would put him a year to a year and a half behind where he should be.
After a couple reading sessions with BabyT I ran across one of his parental units in the school hallway so we talked for a couple minutes. I told the parental unit that BabyT was behind in his reading but that he was more than willing to read with me. I then said this to the parental unit, "I can help BabyT with his reading but in order for him to get caught up someone at home needed to get him to read in the evening." As I was talking I was also watching the parental unit's facial expression. Sadly, the facial expression gave me the indication that what I said about reading at home in the evening just went in one ear and right out the other. As I started heading to T4's classroom following my conversation with BabyT's parental unit I was thinking to myself, "you asked me to extend my day at school, as a non-paid volunteer, to help your young scholar read but you give me no indication that you will read to him at home." Dear parental unit. You are failing as a parental unit but I made a commitment to help your son read and I am going to honor that commitment. Maybe you should make a commitment to be a better parental unit.
Saturday November 10, 2018
Okay, back to academics and long division. As a reminder, the quiz on long division that took place last Friday was a disaster as both groups of fourth grade scholars had the lowest accumulated math quiz score of the school year. Knowing this I was pretty certain that T4 would be revisiting long division and I was correct.
Although the long division quiz scores from last week were dismal there was a pretty clear indication that at a certain point in the division process the scholars got lost and it was consistent for both groups of fourth grade scholars. I'll try and explain what went wrong and I hope this makes sense. When doing long division T4 came up with an acronym, D-M-S-B, and it reads as follows, Divide, Multiply, Subtract and Bring down. The scholars did well right to the point of Bring down (B) and then they got lost. This was evident to me as I was grading the last quiz because on a couple quizzes, despite trying my best to figure out how they came up with answer that they did, I had no idea where their numbers came from.
So, it's Monday morning and T4 is starting over with long division. The acronym D-M-S-B is placed on the over head screen so the scholars could see it. With the first long division problem on the over head screen T4 started the division process but at a much slower pace. When she reached the B in Bring down she really slowed down as this was where the scholars got lost. The long division process was followed for a few more problems when I heard this, "Schultz, I need some copies made." In my hand was a quiz on long division but, as T4 told me, it was a practice quiz. There would be no grade given and all that T4 wanted to see was if the scholars had a better grasp on long division so off to the copier I went.
T4 now has the quiz copies in her hand and is passing them out to the scholars. About fifteen or twenty minutes I heard, "Schultz, grade the quizzes. Each problem is worth four points. One point is awarded if they have the right answer. The other three point are awarded based on how well the scholars followed the D-M-S-B process." All of the quizzes are transferred to my hand and out to the half round table in the hallway I go. The quizzes are graded and they are transferred back to T4's hands. When I handed them over I said to T4, "much better results. I think we are on the right track."
It's now election day, Tuesday, November 6, 2018, and school was cancelled. When the school corporation put the school calendar together prior to the start of the school year they decided that classes would not be held on election day as many of the gymnasiums in the school corporation are polling places. I was good with that as now, instead of arriving at a polling place during the peak voting hours, I could go in the middle of the day and I did. I walked in and fifteen minutes later I walked back out.
On to Wednesday and we are back at long division. T4 passed out the worksheet for the day and she was working from the front of the classroom and I'm in my designated help spot. T4 starts walking the scholars through the first long division problem and I heard, "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what to do?" "Mr. Schultz, can you help me?" "Mr. Schultz, I need some help." We are on the first problem and all of the gains that were made on Monday have been lost in a matter of twenty-four hours. At the end of the day I was frustrated that so many scholars, after doing long division for several days, still didn't get it. When the scholars from OtherT4's classroom rotated out of the room I walked over to T4 and said, "I need to figure out how I can divide myself into fourths as so many scholars just don't get it.
Sunday, November 11, 2018 - Veterans Day
It's now Thursday and we are doing long division again. Thursday was just a revisit of Wednesday as so many scholars were requesting help. On this day though I was being selective on who I was going to help. Today I picked a scholar to help that I know was really trying to do his work, OtherT4-M, and asked him to join me at the hexagon. One day, during the previous week, I worked with OtherT4-M one on one at the half round table in the hallway. As we were working on the long division he looked up and said to me, "I think I got this Mr. Schultz." He was right, he was following the D-M-S-B sequence correctly and was solving the problems. In fact, after I left the half round table, OtherT4-M started making up his own long division problems and was solving them.
Sadly, as I was sitting with him at the hexagon, everything he had know was forgotten. I said to him, "OtherT4-M you need to get started on the first problem, you know how to do this." His head immediately dropped down and he just sat there. I let him sit there for a minute or so and then said to him, "come on you can do this." He didn't move, it was like he didn't even hear me, and then I saw the tears running down his face.
Later that day I was at home thinking about OtherT4-M when this thought popped into my head. "Was his tears the result of being embarrassed because he couldn't do the math problems or was there much deeper problems that happened away from the classroom." So many of the scholars that T4 and I work with come from hard places; no father around, living with a relative because the parental units failed at parenting, drugs, alcohol, prison, deaths, and so many other things that can negatively impact a scholar getting an education. In hindsight, I should have taken OtherT4-M out to the half round table in the hallway and asked him why he was so sad. If his tears were caused by something that happened at home I could have contacted people that could have helped him with his crisis. I missed that opportunity and I felt bad. There are times like this that I need to do a better job. This is a lesson learned for me. Hopefully one that won't happen again.
Another sad ending. I don't like sad endings so, despite this blog being too long, I'm going to continue. It's now Friday morning. I was sitting at the kitchen table when a text message poured in. "We have food can you come in early?" I responded, "yes." When I arrived there were bagels and cream cheese sitting at the half round table in the hallway. I stuck my head in the classroom door so T4 would know that I was in the building and then sat down to eat a bagel. When I finished eating I stepped into the classroom and T4 greeted me right at the door. She put he hand on my should and starting guiding me toward the front of the classroom and then stepped away. As soon as I was standing alone in the front of the classroom four scholars walked up to me and said, "Happy Veterans Day, Mr. Schultz."
I can already here the LibraryLady from that hoity toity private school saying, "he left me hanging again." That's right LibraryLady, the rest of the story will be told next week.
It's election day and yes I voted.
There are a lot of student teachers in the school right now so when I arrived at school around 9:35am the parking lot was full. My only option was street parking but I'm good with that is there is not a lot of traffic around the school. As I was heading across the parking lot I saw both of Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units in their car. As a reminder, Uh-Uh-Uh is a former scholar of mine that is now in the sixth grade. One of the parental units saw me walking across the parking lot so I waved and continued on my way to the main entrance of the school. Just before stepping onto the sidewalk Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units pulled up in their car and parked right in front me. Don't worry, there is no drama here as I like Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units as they were easy to work with for the three years Uh-Uh-Uh and I were in the same classroom.
With the car at a complete stop I walked up to the driver side window, shook hands with the driver, lowered my head to see in the window then said "good morning," to the passenger. With the pleasantries completed the driver said to me, "we are worried that BabyT is falling behind in his reading and we would like to know if you could make some time in your day to help him read." The request caught me off guard a little but I told Uh-Uh-Uh's parental units that if I can fit into my day I would try and help BabyT.
I knew Baby T was in the second grade so I tracked down his teacher of record to see if there was a good time to read with the scholar that also fit my daily agenda. T2 and I came to an agreement on a time so I found Uh-Uh-Uh and told her to tell her parental units that I would begin reading with BabyT right after fall break.
With a library book in hand, one that was at the lowest reading level, I headed off to my first reading lesson with BabyT. I was a little concerned as to what would happen when I told BabyT that I was there to read with him because he can be a tad bit bullheaded and even down right defiant. I've known BabyT since he was in kindergarten so I was hoping that his familiarity with me would work to my advantage and it did. We sat down in the main office, no drama at all, and he read the entire book. As BabyT read, it didn't take me long to see that he was clearly behind in reading. My estimate at to his reading level would put him a year to a year and a half behind where he should be.
After a couple reading sessions with BabyT I ran across one of his parental units in the school hallway so we talked for a couple minutes. I told the parental unit that BabyT was behind in his reading but that he was more than willing to read with me. I then said this to the parental unit, "I can help BabyT with his reading but in order for him to get caught up someone at home needed to get him to read in the evening." As I was talking I was also watching the parental unit's facial expression. Sadly, the facial expression gave me the indication that what I said about reading at home in the evening just went in one ear and right out the other. As I started heading to T4's classroom following my conversation with BabyT's parental unit I was thinking to myself, "you asked me to extend my day at school, as a non-paid volunteer, to help your young scholar read but you give me no indication that you will read to him at home." Dear parental unit. You are failing as a parental unit but I made a commitment to help your son read and I am going to honor that commitment. Maybe you should make a commitment to be a better parental unit.
Saturday November 10, 2018
Okay, back to academics and long division. As a reminder, the quiz on long division that took place last Friday was a disaster as both groups of fourth grade scholars had the lowest accumulated math quiz score of the school year. Knowing this I was pretty certain that T4 would be revisiting long division and I was correct.
Although the long division quiz scores from last week were dismal there was a pretty clear indication that at a certain point in the division process the scholars got lost and it was consistent for both groups of fourth grade scholars. I'll try and explain what went wrong and I hope this makes sense. When doing long division T4 came up with an acronym, D-M-S-B, and it reads as follows, Divide, Multiply, Subtract and Bring down. The scholars did well right to the point of Bring down (B) and then they got lost. This was evident to me as I was grading the last quiz because on a couple quizzes, despite trying my best to figure out how they came up with answer that they did, I had no idea where their numbers came from.
So, it's Monday morning and T4 is starting over with long division. The acronym D-M-S-B is placed on the over head screen so the scholars could see it. With the first long division problem on the over head screen T4 started the division process but at a much slower pace. When she reached the B in Bring down she really slowed down as this was where the scholars got lost. The long division process was followed for a few more problems when I heard this, "Schultz, I need some copies made." In my hand was a quiz on long division but, as T4 told me, it was a practice quiz. There would be no grade given and all that T4 wanted to see was if the scholars had a better grasp on long division so off to the copier I went.
T4 now has the quiz copies in her hand and is passing them out to the scholars. About fifteen or twenty minutes I heard, "Schultz, grade the quizzes. Each problem is worth four points. One point is awarded if they have the right answer. The other three point are awarded based on how well the scholars followed the D-M-S-B process." All of the quizzes are transferred to my hand and out to the half round table in the hallway I go. The quizzes are graded and they are transferred back to T4's hands. When I handed them over I said to T4, "much better results. I think we are on the right track."
It's now election day, Tuesday, November 6, 2018, and school was cancelled. When the school corporation put the school calendar together prior to the start of the school year they decided that classes would not be held on election day as many of the gymnasiums in the school corporation are polling places. I was good with that as now, instead of arriving at a polling place during the peak voting hours, I could go in the middle of the day and I did. I walked in and fifteen minutes later I walked back out.
On to Wednesday and we are back at long division. T4 passed out the worksheet for the day and she was working from the front of the classroom and I'm in my designated help spot. T4 starts walking the scholars through the first long division problem and I heard, "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what to do?" "Mr. Schultz, can you help me?" "Mr. Schultz, I need some help." We are on the first problem and all of the gains that were made on Monday have been lost in a matter of twenty-four hours. At the end of the day I was frustrated that so many scholars, after doing long division for several days, still didn't get it. When the scholars from OtherT4's classroom rotated out of the room I walked over to T4 and said, "I need to figure out how I can divide myself into fourths as so many scholars just don't get it.
Sunday, November 11, 2018 - Veterans Day
It's now Thursday and we are doing long division again. Thursday was just a revisit of Wednesday as so many scholars were requesting help. On this day though I was being selective on who I was going to help. Today I picked a scholar to help that I know was really trying to do his work, OtherT4-M, and asked him to join me at the hexagon. One day, during the previous week, I worked with OtherT4-M one on one at the half round table in the hallway. As we were working on the long division he looked up and said to me, "I think I got this Mr. Schultz." He was right, he was following the D-M-S-B sequence correctly and was solving the problems. In fact, after I left the half round table, OtherT4-M started making up his own long division problems and was solving them.
Sadly, as I was sitting with him at the hexagon, everything he had know was forgotten. I said to him, "OtherT4-M you need to get started on the first problem, you know how to do this." His head immediately dropped down and he just sat there. I let him sit there for a minute or so and then said to him, "come on you can do this." He didn't move, it was like he didn't even hear me, and then I saw the tears running down his face.
Later that day I was at home thinking about OtherT4-M when this thought popped into my head. "Was his tears the result of being embarrassed because he couldn't do the math problems or was there much deeper problems that happened away from the classroom." So many of the scholars that T4 and I work with come from hard places; no father around, living with a relative because the parental units failed at parenting, drugs, alcohol, prison, deaths, and so many other things that can negatively impact a scholar getting an education. In hindsight, I should have taken OtherT4-M out to the half round table in the hallway and asked him why he was so sad. If his tears were caused by something that happened at home I could have contacted people that could have helped him with his crisis. I missed that opportunity and I felt bad. There are times like this that I need to do a better job. This is a lesson learned for me. Hopefully one that won't happen again.
Another sad ending. I don't like sad endings so, despite this blog being too long, I'm going to continue. It's now Friday morning. I was sitting at the kitchen table when a text message poured in. "We have food can you come in early?" I responded, "yes." When I arrived there were bagels and cream cheese sitting at the half round table in the hallway. I stuck my head in the classroom door so T4 would know that I was in the building and then sat down to eat a bagel. When I finished eating I stepped into the classroom and T4 greeted me right at the door. She put he hand on my should and starting guiding me toward the front of the classroom and then stepped away. As soon as I was standing alone in the front of the classroom four scholars walked up to me and said, "Happy Veterans Day, Mr. Schultz."
I can already here the LibraryLady from that hoity toity private school saying, "he left me hanging again." That's right LibraryLady, the rest of the story will be told next week.
Sunday, November 4, 2018
Matthew L. Tully
Tuesday, October, 30, 2018
When you read the title of this blog you read a first from me. After two hundred and forty blog posts I used a real name, Matthew L. Tully, and now here is the rest of the story.
In 2009, Mr. Tully, a newspaper columnist, spent an entire school year at one of the local public high schools here in central Indiana. During that year he wrote about both the good and the bad that happened at this particular school. On numerous occasions Mr. Tully wrote about the need for the community to get involved in education as the need was so great. After reading Mr. Tully's column about this high school I took that big step. I un-retired, walked into an elementary school, and said to a Parent Liaison, "I looking to do some volunteer work, do you need any help?"
The conversation with that Parent Liaison took place just over seven years ago and it took place for one reason and one reason only, Matthew L. Tully. Mr. Tully passed away today at the age of forty-nine and it saddens me greatly. Now you know the reason why I have been doing what I do for all these years. Thank you Mr. Tully for giving me that push to get involved and may God hold you in the hollow of his hands.
Sunday, November 4, 2018 - Happy Birthday Big E.
My cellphone is sitting on the kitchen table to my immediate left. In the Notes section, under the heading My View, are the notes that I took to remind me what I should write about. Right now there are too many notes so I'm about to clear some out.
The first note just says dance moves. This one brings a smile to my face for a couple reasons. First, I saw, by the person standing in the front of the classroom, four or five of the latest, what I believe are Hip Hop dance moves. It was an impressive display of hand and foot coordination. The second reason that these dances moves brought a smile to my face I've decided to keep quiet about for one huge reason. If I mention it I'll hear about it first thing Monday morning.
Next on the list is report cards. With the end of the first quarter of the school year upon us it's time for T4 to send home report cards. Prior to handing out the report cards T4 makes an announcement that went something like this. Report cards will be handed out today and so you know some of you are getting a bad grade. If you don't do your homework, don't complete the daily worksheets, do poorly on quizzes and tests you will get a bad grade. So, when you look at your report card and see a bad grade that is on you and no one else.
I can't recall the exact day the conversation took place but it went something like this. T4 looked over at T4-M, this peanut sized scholar, and said to him, "did you give your report card to your parental unit?" I don't recall if the scholar responded to the question or if T4 didn't give the scholar enough time to respond because she immediate said, "I took a picture of your report card on my cellphone and I'm going to text it to your parental unit." Back in my youth you could play that, avoid giving your parental unit your bad report card, game. Today, with all of the technology available, no games can be played especially if your teacher knows you real well.
Third under My View notes on my cellphone is celery sticks. That's right, rabbit food, and two individuals have chosen celery sticks that may or may not include peanut butter as a snack option. Now I know I'm walking on thin ice here but celery sticks is an interesting selection that I don't think is necessary as they both look the same today as they did twelve weeks ago. That's all I have to say about that as, like I mentioned about, tomorrow is Monday and I'll be back in school.
There is a huge smile on my face as I move from celery sticks to Trails End Chocolate Caramel Crunch. "Schultz, I don't like the taste of this so you can have it." "What is it?" I asked. "Chocolate and I don't like the way it tastes." I now have a fifteen ounce tin can of chocolate caramel crunch in my hand and the obvious thing to do is taste it. "It's tastes good to me," I said. "Good, take it home with you."
I'm now home and the chocolate caramel crunch is sitting on the kitchen counter as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse walked into the kitchen. "Where did you get this?" she asked. "From school," I responded. "Oh my god, this is so good," was said after taking a sample taste. "I know," I said. A day or so later the granddaughter is paying a visit. "PaPa, can I have a snack?" "Sure, try this." It became immediately obvious that the granddaughter like her snack as she was quickly jamming chocolate caramel crunch into her mouth. Three people enjoyed the chocolate caramel crunch and one preferred celery sticks. That's all I have to say about that.
Here is my last cellphone note. I was on my way to make copies of a math worksheet when I approached the elevator to go down one flight. Standing at the elevator was T5-6 and a T5-6F scholar. As the three of us were waiting for the elevator T5-6F said to the two of us, "are you brothers?" We both laughed and then I said to T5-6F, "no, we are not brothers as I'm way to old to be T5-6's brother." There was a slight pause in the conversation and then T5-6F said, "I thought you two were brothers as you both look so buff." The "so buff" comment had T5-6 and I laughing as I went into my best bicep muscle pose as the comment certainly made my day.
I now have open, on my cellphone, the Cambridge English dictionary with the word buff on the screen. Buff, adjective, having a strong, healthy body with well-developed muscles. Yup, that is me and I'm the one eating the chocolate caramel crunch while others eat celery sticks.
Moving on to academics for the week as T4 introduced long division to the scholars. In hindsight, I should have started this blog with academics and long division as this is not a happy story. Rather than doing some serious editing to move this story to the top of the blog I'm going to leave here and continue.
This week was like grinding up hill on a bicycle and for those of you that ride a bicycle outdoors you know that hill climbing can be brutal. Despite T4's best effort long division was not registering with the scholars. Over and over and over T4 walked the scholars through the process of long division and it was not clicking. When Friday arrived it was time for the long division quiz. After making the sixty copies I handed them over T4. Prior to passing out the quiz we look at each other and we both knew this was going to be a train wreck. As each class completed the quiz I went out to my half round table in the hallway to grade them. As expected the scholar did poorly. The percentage of problems answered correctly for both groups was forty-one percent. These was easily the lowest quiz scores for the year.
This was a frustrating week for both or us. On Thursday my frustration with long division got the best of me. Usually at 12:30pm I do some work with the T6-M scholar who refuses to enter a classroom because of the noise level. Today, I chose not to work with this scholar as I was mentally drained and just wanted to go home. As a volunteer I have the option to say that's enough and just go home. T4, and every teacher that I've worked with for the past six plus years, does not have that option. Teaching is their life, it pays the bills, it puts food on the table, it puts clothing on their backs and some times teaching can just wear you down. I saw that happen this week to my partner in the classroom and I feel bad for her.
As I said early, it was a tough week for academics. As I sit here thinking about next week and what is on the math lesson plan I'm guessing it will be long division again. When you have an average quiz score of forty-one percent come next week I'll again hear, over and over this sequence: divide, multiply, subtract, bring down, and then, if necessary repeat the process. That seems pretty simple but forty-one percent tells me that apparently it is not.
Today is my daughter's birthday. She will arrive shortly with her husband and my granddaughter to have a meal, blow out some candles, eat some cake and ice cream, and then open presents. I can't think of a nicer thing to do to get my mind off of long division. That's it. I'm out. Bye.
When you read the title of this blog you read a first from me. After two hundred and forty blog posts I used a real name, Matthew L. Tully, and now here is the rest of the story.
In 2009, Mr. Tully, a newspaper columnist, spent an entire school year at one of the local public high schools here in central Indiana. During that year he wrote about both the good and the bad that happened at this particular school. On numerous occasions Mr. Tully wrote about the need for the community to get involved in education as the need was so great. After reading Mr. Tully's column about this high school I took that big step. I un-retired, walked into an elementary school, and said to a Parent Liaison, "I looking to do some volunteer work, do you need any help?"
The conversation with that Parent Liaison took place just over seven years ago and it took place for one reason and one reason only, Matthew L. Tully. Mr. Tully passed away today at the age of forty-nine and it saddens me greatly. Now you know the reason why I have been doing what I do for all these years. Thank you Mr. Tully for giving me that push to get involved and may God hold you in the hollow of his hands.
Sunday, November 4, 2018 - Happy Birthday Big E.
My cellphone is sitting on the kitchen table to my immediate left. In the Notes section, under the heading My View, are the notes that I took to remind me what I should write about. Right now there are too many notes so I'm about to clear some out.
The first note just says dance moves. This one brings a smile to my face for a couple reasons. First, I saw, by the person standing in the front of the classroom, four or five of the latest, what I believe are Hip Hop dance moves. It was an impressive display of hand and foot coordination. The second reason that these dances moves brought a smile to my face I've decided to keep quiet about for one huge reason. If I mention it I'll hear about it first thing Monday morning.
Next on the list is report cards. With the end of the first quarter of the school year upon us it's time for T4 to send home report cards. Prior to handing out the report cards T4 makes an announcement that went something like this. Report cards will be handed out today and so you know some of you are getting a bad grade. If you don't do your homework, don't complete the daily worksheets, do poorly on quizzes and tests you will get a bad grade. So, when you look at your report card and see a bad grade that is on you and no one else.
I can't recall the exact day the conversation took place but it went something like this. T4 looked over at T4-M, this peanut sized scholar, and said to him, "did you give your report card to your parental unit?" I don't recall if the scholar responded to the question or if T4 didn't give the scholar enough time to respond because she immediate said, "I took a picture of your report card on my cellphone and I'm going to text it to your parental unit." Back in my youth you could play that, avoid giving your parental unit your bad report card, game. Today, with all of the technology available, no games can be played especially if your teacher knows you real well.
Third under My View notes on my cellphone is celery sticks. That's right, rabbit food, and two individuals have chosen celery sticks that may or may not include peanut butter as a snack option. Now I know I'm walking on thin ice here but celery sticks is an interesting selection that I don't think is necessary as they both look the same today as they did twelve weeks ago. That's all I have to say about that as, like I mentioned about, tomorrow is Monday and I'll be back in school.
There is a huge smile on my face as I move from celery sticks to Trails End Chocolate Caramel Crunch. "Schultz, I don't like the taste of this so you can have it." "What is it?" I asked. "Chocolate and I don't like the way it tastes." I now have a fifteen ounce tin can of chocolate caramel crunch in my hand and the obvious thing to do is taste it. "It's tastes good to me," I said. "Good, take it home with you."
I'm now home and the chocolate caramel crunch is sitting on the kitchen counter as my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse walked into the kitchen. "Where did you get this?" she asked. "From school," I responded. "Oh my god, this is so good," was said after taking a sample taste. "I know," I said. A day or so later the granddaughter is paying a visit. "PaPa, can I have a snack?" "Sure, try this." It became immediately obvious that the granddaughter like her snack as she was quickly jamming chocolate caramel crunch into her mouth. Three people enjoyed the chocolate caramel crunch and one preferred celery sticks. That's all I have to say about that.
Here is my last cellphone note. I was on my way to make copies of a math worksheet when I approached the elevator to go down one flight. Standing at the elevator was T5-6 and a T5-6F scholar. As the three of us were waiting for the elevator T5-6F said to the two of us, "are you brothers?" We both laughed and then I said to T5-6F, "no, we are not brothers as I'm way to old to be T5-6's brother." There was a slight pause in the conversation and then T5-6F said, "I thought you two were brothers as you both look so buff." The "so buff" comment had T5-6 and I laughing as I went into my best bicep muscle pose as the comment certainly made my day.
I now have open, on my cellphone, the Cambridge English dictionary with the word buff on the screen. Buff, adjective, having a strong, healthy body with well-developed muscles. Yup, that is me and I'm the one eating the chocolate caramel crunch while others eat celery sticks.
Moving on to academics for the week as T4 introduced long division to the scholars. In hindsight, I should have started this blog with academics and long division as this is not a happy story. Rather than doing some serious editing to move this story to the top of the blog I'm going to leave here and continue.
This week was like grinding up hill on a bicycle and for those of you that ride a bicycle outdoors you know that hill climbing can be brutal. Despite T4's best effort long division was not registering with the scholars. Over and over and over T4 walked the scholars through the process of long division and it was not clicking. When Friday arrived it was time for the long division quiz. After making the sixty copies I handed them over T4. Prior to passing out the quiz we look at each other and we both knew this was going to be a train wreck. As each class completed the quiz I went out to my half round table in the hallway to grade them. As expected the scholar did poorly. The percentage of problems answered correctly for both groups was forty-one percent. These was easily the lowest quiz scores for the year.
This was a frustrating week for both or us. On Thursday my frustration with long division got the best of me. Usually at 12:30pm I do some work with the T6-M scholar who refuses to enter a classroom because of the noise level. Today, I chose not to work with this scholar as I was mentally drained and just wanted to go home. As a volunteer I have the option to say that's enough and just go home. T4, and every teacher that I've worked with for the past six plus years, does not have that option. Teaching is their life, it pays the bills, it puts food on the table, it puts clothing on their backs and some times teaching can just wear you down. I saw that happen this week to my partner in the classroom and I feel bad for her.
As I said early, it was a tough week for academics. As I sit here thinking about next week and what is on the math lesson plan I'm guessing it will be long division again. When you have an average quiz score of forty-one percent come next week I'll again hear, over and over this sequence: divide, multiply, subtract, bring down, and then, if necessary repeat the process. That seems pretty simple but forty-one percent tells me that apparently it is not.
Today is my daughter's birthday. She will arrive shortly with her husband and my granddaughter to have a meal, blow out some candles, eat some cake and ice cream, and then open presents. I can't think of a nicer thing to do to get my mind off of long division. That's it. I'm out. Bye.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
2nd Quarter Starts
Saturday, October 27, 2018
Lets start with a general update as to what happened during fall break. First and foremost, a third fourth grade teacher was hired. This new teacher, AdditionalT4, will run a fourth grade classroom that is totally self contained and that means that AdditionalT4's scholar will not rotate to T4's classroom for math. As a result of this change the size of T4's fourth grade class shrunk down to eighteen scholars and I believe OtherT4's classroom is similar in size. So, with this change, thirty-six or so scholars will still rotate through T4's classroom for math.
After spending six years plus one quarter of a school year in this school you would think that watching scholars come and go would be like water off a ducks back. Well, T4 lost a scholar over fall break due to a relocation and this one was not like water off a ducks back for me. This one stung a little. You've met this scholar, T4-F, in the last blog post. This is the scholar that correctly answered twenty seven multiplication problems in fifty-three seconds and just like that she is gone, on to another school. God, this is job can be so frustrating and like I said earlier, this one stung a little.
My first encounter with T4-F was very early in the school year when she was returning from a specials class. As she walked into the classroom she was having an animated conversation with another female scholar that eventually resulted in a pushing incident. When I stepped in between the two scholars I look at T4-F and said, "there is no reason to push another scholar." T4-F's immediate response was, "I didn't push anyone." My response was, "I'm old but I'm not blind and I just watched you push that scholar." My response resulted in what I will label as a dead cold, unblinking, you can't intimidate me stare, from T4-F.
Fast forwarding to the end of the first quarter of the school year and the dead cold, unblinking, you can't intimidate me stare is gone. Now I see a scholar that can smile, sometimes even laugh, that is excited about math because I pulled out my stop watch and challenger her to answer some multiplication problems and then, just like that, she is gone, her parental unit decided to move again.
One the first day back in the classroom after fall break I talked to T4 about T4-F and my disappointment that she was gone. T4 responded, paraphrasing, "Schultz, you need to harden yourself when situations like this happen. I've hardened myself and you need to do the same and move on." T4 is correct about hardening yourself and I know it as I've seen it happen so many times. But, you know what. Just once I'd like to get the chance to speak to the parental unit about relocation and this is what I would say. "Dear parental unit. I'm not sure why you're moving, although I can probably guess with a great deal of certainty as to why, but do you realize the damage you are causing your scholar. You just jerked your scholar out of a school where she was having a good deal of success doing math and now she has to start all over at another school. So, parental unit, the next time you decide to move, and I'm certain that you will do it again, why don't you move but stay in the boundaries of the same school so you can stop screwing up your scholars education.
With fall break over and the formula for calculating area and perimeter almost forgotten T4 is moving on to the next lesson. So what is next on the math agenda? Simple, we are going to study a natural number greater than one that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers. And why are we doing this? Most modern computer cryptography works by using these numbers. These numbers are also of the utmost importance to number theorists because they are the building blocks of whole numbers, and important to the world because their odd mathematical properties make them perfect for current uses.
Ok, you got that? Maybe you should read the last paragraph again so that you can clearly understand what the next math lesson is about. After all, I'm certain that everyone can handle fourth grade math. Still don't get it. I'll simplify, the scholars are being introduced to prime numbers and the difference between a prime number and a composite number. And why is it important for a fourth grade scholar to know the prime numbers? Who the hell knows.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
For the record, I know the difference between a prime number and a composite number. What I was waiting to see was how T4 was going to demonstrate to the scholars how they could determine the difference between the two types of numbers. It didn't take long as T4 told the scholars that they were going to make rainbows to determine if a number was prime or composite. "Rainbows," I thought to myself, "I made sixty copies of the math worksheet for this lesson and I didn't recall seeing any rainbows being drawn." When T4 continued she told the scholars that the worksheet in front of them shows them how to determine if a number is prime or composite but the worksheet's way was too boring so they were going to be drawing rainbows. "After all," T4 said to the scholars, "who doesn't like drawing rainbows." T4 just turned a boring worksheet on prime and composite numbers into a fun assignment drawing rainbows. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy sitting in the back of a classroom where a have a real nice view of how an excellent teacher goes about her day teaching math and keeping the scholars engaged.
It was either day two or day three of prime and composite numbers when I heard this, "Schultz, I need sixty copies of this hundred count sheet as I going to use it to identify the prime and composite numbers that are between one and one hundred with our scholars. By the way, I need them right now." The copies are made, I hand them over to T4, she assigns a scholar to pass out the hundred count worksheets and then reaches to turn on her document camera. The big screen in front of the classroom is pulled down. I can see T4 placing the hundred count worksheet on the document camera, the document looks too small on the big screen in the front of the classroom so T4 reaches for the zoom in button on the document camera. As she is doing so, her forearm comes into view of the document camera and she said, "look how hairy my arm is." As a reminder, I don't make this stuff up.
The scholars are laughing and T4 is making the final adjustments to the document camera when I pulled out my cellphone. Just as T4 was going to start her lesson using the hundred count sheet I got her attention and showed her my cellphone and started laughing. I pretty certain she knew, as soon as she saw my cellphone, that the comment about the hairy arm would be in the blog. As you can see, she was correct.
I've been sitting here at my kitchen table thinking for a couple minutes now. There was one more event that took place in the classroom but I couldn't decide if I want to bring it up. Oh well, it's a bit of a frustrating story, but it happened so I guess I'll tell you about it.
I was sitting at the half round table in the hallway grading the quizzes on prime and composite numbers when OH walked up to my table. OH placed a large green sheet of poster paper on my table and then asked me if I knew the dimensions of the piece of paper that she was holding in her hand. I told OH the paper was 8 1/2 x 11. OH then picked up all of her papers and walked across the hallway to OtherT4's classroom. Shortly after she departed I finished grading all of the quizzes, stood up, walked into the classroom, and place the quiz results on T4's desk.
When I returned to the half round table in the hallway T4 was sitting at the table with the large green poster paper, the white paper, a medium sized paper cutter, and some liquid glue. "Schultz, these posters need to be completed today so I'm helping OH with the project. As soon as I'm done I need you to laminate them and bring them right back to me." "Sure," I said, "no problem."
As I'm walking to the laminator, that is in the library, I'm looking at the poster paper and thinking to myself, "I've never laminated anything this big, the corners of the white paper that T4 glue onto the green poster paper are sticking up, so how am I going to run this through the laminator without damaging the paper." When I arrived in the library the laminator wasn't turned on so I turned it on. It takes about ten minutes for the laminator to warm up so I stood in front of the laminator with one of the posters in my hand trying to determine the best way to run it through the laminator.
When the green light turned on I knew the laminator was hot enough so I stuck a poster onto the front tray of the laminator face up with the wide side of the poster being the leading edge. I then hit the run button on the laminator and watched the poster slowly enter the laminator while thinking, "please don't catch a corner of that white paper." When the poster exited the back side of the laminator I looked at it and thought, "perfect, no folder over pieces, and no wrinkles in the laminate." I then ran the other seven pieces of poster paper through the laminator.
I then spread out the laminated posters on a long book shelf in the library and slowly cut away the excess laminate from the posters. When I finish cutting I stacked up the seven posters on their edge to see if I had to do any final trimming to be sure they were all the same size. I made a couple cutting adjustments to the laminate and then returned to the classroom.
Ok, here is where I need to be careful, after all, I am getting old and maybe my hearing is failing me a little. Because I'm a little concerned about what I heard I'll be paraphrasing. When I walked into the classroom I handed the posters to T4. T4 then handed the posters to OH. When OH had the posters in her hand I'm fairly certain this is what I heard, "I hope they are not messed up." T4 responded immediately, "you don't have to worry about Schultz. He has an Army background and is very careful about details."
Until right now I know T4 does not know how much I appreciate what she said to OH about the posters. I knew from the beginning how important these posters were. I took my time laminating them. I took even more time trimming the excess laminate off of them so they would all be exactly the same size and what do I get, "I hope they are not messed up." I didn't like that comment at all and fortunately for OH, T4 spoke before I had a chance to speak.
That's it for this week. Thanks for following along. Next up is long division and maybe, if I feel that the consequences aren't too severe, a story about a 15oz tin can of chocolatey caramel crunch that was made by a company called Trail's End.
Lets start with a general update as to what happened during fall break. First and foremost, a third fourth grade teacher was hired. This new teacher, AdditionalT4, will run a fourth grade classroom that is totally self contained and that means that AdditionalT4's scholar will not rotate to T4's classroom for math. As a result of this change the size of T4's fourth grade class shrunk down to eighteen scholars and I believe OtherT4's classroom is similar in size. So, with this change, thirty-six or so scholars will still rotate through T4's classroom for math.
After spending six years plus one quarter of a school year in this school you would think that watching scholars come and go would be like water off a ducks back. Well, T4 lost a scholar over fall break due to a relocation and this one was not like water off a ducks back for me. This one stung a little. You've met this scholar, T4-F, in the last blog post. This is the scholar that correctly answered twenty seven multiplication problems in fifty-three seconds and just like that she is gone, on to another school. God, this is job can be so frustrating and like I said earlier, this one stung a little.
My first encounter with T4-F was very early in the school year when she was returning from a specials class. As she walked into the classroom she was having an animated conversation with another female scholar that eventually resulted in a pushing incident. When I stepped in between the two scholars I look at T4-F and said, "there is no reason to push another scholar." T4-F's immediate response was, "I didn't push anyone." My response was, "I'm old but I'm not blind and I just watched you push that scholar." My response resulted in what I will label as a dead cold, unblinking, you can't intimidate me stare, from T4-F.
Fast forwarding to the end of the first quarter of the school year and the dead cold, unblinking, you can't intimidate me stare is gone. Now I see a scholar that can smile, sometimes even laugh, that is excited about math because I pulled out my stop watch and challenger her to answer some multiplication problems and then, just like that, she is gone, her parental unit decided to move again.
One the first day back in the classroom after fall break I talked to T4 about T4-F and my disappointment that she was gone. T4 responded, paraphrasing, "Schultz, you need to harden yourself when situations like this happen. I've hardened myself and you need to do the same and move on." T4 is correct about hardening yourself and I know it as I've seen it happen so many times. But, you know what. Just once I'd like to get the chance to speak to the parental unit about relocation and this is what I would say. "Dear parental unit. I'm not sure why you're moving, although I can probably guess with a great deal of certainty as to why, but do you realize the damage you are causing your scholar. You just jerked your scholar out of a school where she was having a good deal of success doing math and now she has to start all over at another school. So, parental unit, the next time you decide to move, and I'm certain that you will do it again, why don't you move but stay in the boundaries of the same school so you can stop screwing up your scholars education.
With fall break over and the formula for calculating area and perimeter almost forgotten T4 is moving on to the next lesson. So what is next on the math agenda? Simple, we are going to study a natural number greater than one that cannot be formed by multiplying two smaller natural numbers. And why are we doing this? Most modern computer cryptography works by using these numbers. These numbers are also of the utmost importance to number theorists because they are the building blocks of whole numbers, and important to the world because their odd mathematical properties make them perfect for current uses.
Ok, you got that? Maybe you should read the last paragraph again so that you can clearly understand what the next math lesson is about. After all, I'm certain that everyone can handle fourth grade math. Still don't get it. I'll simplify, the scholars are being introduced to prime numbers and the difference between a prime number and a composite number. And why is it important for a fourth grade scholar to know the prime numbers? Who the hell knows.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
For the record, I know the difference between a prime number and a composite number. What I was waiting to see was how T4 was going to demonstrate to the scholars how they could determine the difference between the two types of numbers. It didn't take long as T4 told the scholars that they were going to make rainbows to determine if a number was prime or composite. "Rainbows," I thought to myself, "I made sixty copies of the math worksheet for this lesson and I didn't recall seeing any rainbows being drawn." When T4 continued she told the scholars that the worksheet in front of them shows them how to determine if a number is prime or composite but the worksheet's way was too boring so they were going to be drawing rainbows. "After all," T4 said to the scholars, "who doesn't like drawing rainbows." T4 just turned a boring worksheet on prime and composite numbers into a fun assignment drawing rainbows. This is one of the many reasons why I enjoy sitting in the back of a classroom where a have a real nice view of how an excellent teacher goes about her day teaching math and keeping the scholars engaged.
It was either day two or day three of prime and composite numbers when I heard this, "Schultz, I need sixty copies of this hundred count sheet as I going to use it to identify the prime and composite numbers that are between one and one hundred with our scholars. By the way, I need them right now." The copies are made, I hand them over to T4, she assigns a scholar to pass out the hundred count worksheets and then reaches to turn on her document camera. The big screen in front of the classroom is pulled down. I can see T4 placing the hundred count worksheet on the document camera, the document looks too small on the big screen in the front of the classroom so T4 reaches for the zoom in button on the document camera. As she is doing so, her forearm comes into view of the document camera and she said, "look how hairy my arm is." As a reminder, I don't make this stuff up.
The scholars are laughing and T4 is making the final adjustments to the document camera when I pulled out my cellphone. Just as T4 was going to start her lesson using the hundred count sheet I got her attention and showed her my cellphone and started laughing. I pretty certain she knew, as soon as she saw my cellphone, that the comment about the hairy arm would be in the blog. As you can see, she was correct.
I've been sitting here at my kitchen table thinking for a couple minutes now. There was one more event that took place in the classroom but I couldn't decide if I want to bring it up. Oh well, it's a bit of a frustrating story, but it happened so I guess I'll tell you about it.
I was sitting at the half round table in the hallway grading the quizzes on prime and composite numbers when OH walked up to my table. OH placed a large green sheet of poster paper on my table and then asked me if I knew the dimensions of the piece of paper that she was holding in her hand. I told OH the paper was 8 1/2 x 11. OH then picked up all of her papers and walked across the hallway to OtherT4's classroom. Shortly after she departed I finished grading all of the quizzes, stood up, walked into the classroom, and place the quiz results on T4's desk.
When I returned to the half round table in the hallway T4 was sitting at the table with the large green poster paper, the white paper, a medium sized paper cutter, and some liquid glue. "Schultz, these posters need to be completed today so I'm helping OH with the project. As soon as I'm done I need you to laminate them and bring them right back to me." "Sure," I said, "no problem."
As I'm walking to the laminator, that is in the library, I'm looking at the poster paper and thinking to myself, "I've never laminated anything this big, the corners of the white paper that T4 glue onto the green poster paper are sticking up, so how am I going to run this through the laminator without damaging the paper." When I arrived in the library the laminator wasn't turned on so I turned it on. It takes about ten minutes for the laminator to warm up so I stood in front of the laminator with one of the posters in my hand trying to determine the best way to run it through the laminator.
When the green light turned on I knew the laminator was hot enough so I stuck a poster onto the front tray of the laminator face up with the wide side of the poster being the leading edge. I then hit the run button on the laminator and watched the poster slowly enter the laminator while thinking, "please don't catch a corner of that white paper." When the poster exited the back side of the laminator I looked at it and thought, "perfect, no folder over pieces, and no wrinkles in the laminate." I then ran the other seven pieces of poster paper through the laminator.
I then spread out the laminated posters on a long book shelf in the library and slowly cut away the excess laminate from the posters. When I finish cutting I stacked up the seven posters on their edge to see if I had to do any final trimming to be sure they were all the same size. I made a couple cutting adjustments to the laminate and then returned to the classroom.
Ok, here is where I need to be careful, after all, I am getting old and maybe my hearing is failing me a little. Because I'm a little concerned about what I heard I'll be paraphrasing. When I walked into the classroom I handed the posters to T4. T4 then handed the posters to OH. When OH had the posters in her hand I'm fairly certain this is what I heard, "I hope they are not messed up." T4 responded immediately, "you don't have to worry about Schultz. He has an Army background and is very careful about details."
Until right now I know T4 does not know how much I appreciate what she said to OH about the posters. I knew from the beginning how important these posters were. I took my time laminating them. I took even more time trimming the excess laminate off of them so they would all be exactly the same size and what do I get, "I hope they are not messed up." I didn't like that comment at all and fortunately for OH, T4 spoke before I had a chance to speak.
That's it for this week. Thanks for following along. Next up is long division and maybe, if I feel that the consequences aren't too severe, a story about a 15oz tin can of chocolatey caramel crunch that was made by a company called Trail's End.
Sunday, October 21, 2018
Fingers On One Hand
Friday, October 19, 2018
My Hallway Revisited post from last week resulted in a number of people commenting on the T6-M scholar that I worked with out in the hallway. For all of the positive comment about the time I spent with this scholar I say, "thank you." I also received an additional comment and all it said was, "thanks for the positivity." When I saw that comment I smiled and responded that the next blog post would be equally positive unless you do something weird in the classroom. As of right now I'm not aware of any weirdness coming from the classroom so I'm going to proceed with some more positivity.
T4 has been working on area and perimeter for a number of days now. In doing so I've heard a few times, "Schultz I need copies made of these worksheets. When you make these copies I need sixty of each. I need these two one page worksheets turned into a one page, two sided, worksheet. Then I need copies of the exit ticket, sixty copies of each. You got that?" I snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "yes Drill Sergeant," and off to the copier I go.
For this lesson on area and perimeter no worksheets were needed because the scholars will be designing their dream house. All that is required is a pencil, ruler, and graph paper. Prior to starting the dream house project T4 got my attention and said to me, "Schultz, the LittleBigB#2 will be doing an observation of me today." As soon as I heard that the LittleBigBig#2 was going to be in the classroom I knew immediately what my role would be, crowd control.
With the LittleBigB#2 seated and his laptop open, T4 began the lesson. The first task was to draw a large rectangle on the graph paper. T4 had one drawn in advance and placed it under the document camera that projected a picture of the graph paper up on the big overhead screen in the front of the classroom. The scholars were told that they could put as many rooms as they wanted into their dream house but they had to stay inside the rectangle. The last instruction, before the scholars were turned loose, was that for every room they drew in the rectangle they had to calculate the area and perimeter of the room.
Once T4 finished with all directions on building a dream house the scholars began. "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what to do." "You need to draw a rectangle on your graph paper, there is an example on the screen in the front of the classroom." "Mr. Schultz, I can't draw a straight line." "Are you using your ruler?" "Yes Mr. Schultz but I still can't make a straight line." "Okay, erase the line you drew and I'll come over and help you." "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what kind of room to draw." "Every house has these two very important rooms, what do you think they are?" There is a moment of silence as the scholar is thinking and then I hear, "bedroom." "Perfect," I say, "now what is the other one and I'll give you a hint, you will use it everyday." A bit more silence and then I hear, "kitchen." "Very good, now draw a bedroom and a kitchen and don't forget to calculate the area and perimeter." "How do you calculate the area and perimeter, Mr. Schultz?" "Lord, give me the strength to stay calm." "Mr. Schultz, can I draw an X-box in my dream house?" "No, an X-box is not a room. If you want an X-box in your dream house what room would you put it in?" "A game room Mr. Schultz." "Well then you need to draw a game room in your house." Mr. Schultz, can I draw a room in my dream house for my dog?" There is now a slight hesitation on my part, "sure your dog can have its own room."
Eventually the questions slowed and I had an opportunity to look around the room and I liked what I saw, the scholars were engaged and having fun with the project. There were still a lot of questions, especially about figuring out the area and perimeter but, with the LittleBigB#2 observing, this was the perfect project to do. I think the LittleBigB#2 spent about thirty minutes observing T4. When he left the room I made eye contact with T4, nodded my head, smiled, and we went back to work.
Observations like this make teachers nervous. In this case I'm sure T4 was particularly nervous as the LittleBigB#2 is new to the school and she had no idea what to expect. She may not have known what to expect but this is what I know for sure. The LittleBigB#2 just observed and excellent math teacher, one that I enjoy working with, will continue to work with, and I will do everything I can do to remove obstacles so she can be successful. If the LittleBigB#2 disagrees with me about my observations then we may have to have an animated conversation so I can convince him that he is wrong. How can I convince him? Simple, he observed T4 for about thirty minutes. I've been observing T4 every day for nine weeks.
On to some multiplication. T4 is on day number nine with multiplication. On each new day T4 hands out three strips of paper, 1 1/2" x 4" in size, with a multiplication problem written on it. With this being day nine, the scholars have twenty-seven multiplication problems in front of them. Daily, T4 blocks out a section of time so that the scholars can practice their multiplication. One this particular day I'm working with OtherT4-F who is really struggling with multiplication. When I sat next to OtherT4-F I pointed to one of the easy multiplication problems and said to her, what is 5 x 5? The response I got was no where near the correct answer so I repeated the problem and told her to count by five using her fingers. OtherT4-F started counting and when she passed her fifth finger she just kept on counting by five. I stopped her when she reached thirty-five and said, "you are way to high, lets try it again." OtherT4-F starts again, her hand is up, and she starts counting my five. When she didn't stop at twenty-five I remained silent and just observed. When OtherT4-F reached seventy-five I stopped her and said, "5 x 5 equals twenty-five."
Later that evening while sitting at the kitchen table eating my evening meal I told my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse about my time with OtherT4-F. Her initial reaction was to say, "you're kidding." After a brief pause she offered me this suggestion. "The next time you are working with this scholar hold up your hand and ask her how many fingers are on your hand. If she has to count them individually then you will know that you have your work cut out for you."
Saturday, October 20 , 2018, happy birthday little sister. Also a happy birthday to my Florida friend and my Bay City friend.
One more multiplication story and then I'll call it a day. T4-F, one of my hallway friends, had all of her twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked up neatly in front of her so I thought I'd put her to the test. When I arrived at her desk I asked her to pick up all of her multiplication problems and join me at the hexagon. When she sat down at the hexagon I pulled out my cellphone and found my stop watch. "Mr. Schultz, are you going to see how long it takes me to answers all of the problems?" "No," I responded, "I'm going to see how fast you can answer them." T4-F's facial expression told me all I needed to know, the game was on. Stop watch set to zero, twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked in front on me, "three, two, one, go." It took T4-F fifty-three seconds to correctly answer all twenty-seven multiplication problems.
One stop watch challenge down, one to go, and I knew exactly who I was looking for. "T4-F, pick up all of your multiplication problems and join me at the hexagon." When I finished going over the rules of the game I got the same facial expression that I got earlier, the game was on. Stop watch set to zero, twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked in front of me and then the disruption arrived. My first competitor sat down at the hexagon and that made me hesitate. My concern, this was to be fun and not a competition between scholars as that could lead to unnecessary drama. I told my first competitor that she could stay at the hexagon but she had to remain silent and that if she knew she couldn't then she needed to step away. The first competitor promised to be quiet so I let her stay.
"T4-F are you ready?" "Yes Mr. Schultz," "Three, two, one, go." All twenty-seven multiplication problems were answered correctly. The elapsed time with fifty-eight seconds. Then the potential for drama started. The first T4-F said, "I did it in fifty-three seconds." The first T4-F's comment was addressed quickly, "you promised me that you would be silent. Now, if you can't be silent step away from the hexagon." I'm now speaking to the second T4-F. "You had an excellent time but you know what, I know you can do it faster. When I was going through the multiplication problems some of the problems were upside down and I had to turn them over. That slowed you down. We'll do this again another day and I know you will go faster."
Over six years ago I was at a professional development day and an overhead person with a Ph.D was one of the speakers. During her presentation this Ph.D said something that has stayed with me now for six years, "when you work with your scholars remember to glaze over strengths and glance at weaknesses." After the timer challenge ended I remained at the hexagon with these two scholars and believe me I was glazing over their strengths. "Do you two know how proud of you I am? There are sixty scholars in the fourth grade and I'm certain that only you two could do what you just did. This is a huge accomplishment. When you get home tonight be sure to tell your parental units how well you did with multiplication today as I'm certain that they will be as proud of you as I am."
There you go, positivity as promised. Although that multiplication exercise with OtherT4-F was a little weird. Tomorrow is the last day of my two weeks long fall break. I'll be back in the classroom on Monday morning at around 9:45am and we'll see what the week will bring. Thanks for following along.
My Hallway Revisited post from last week resulted in a number of people commenting on the T6-M scholar that I worked with out in the hallway. For all of the positive comment about the time I spent with this scholar I say, "thank you." I also received an additional comment and all it said was, "thanks for the positivity." When I saw that comment I smiled and responded that the next blog post would be equally positive unless you do something weird in the classroom. As of right now I'm not aware of any weirdness coming from the classroom so I'm going to proceed with some more positivity.
T4 has been working on area and perimeter for a number of days now. In doing so I've heard a few times, "Schultz I need copies made of these worksheets. When you make these copies I need sixty of each. I need these two one page worksheets turned into a one page, two sided, worksheet. Then I need copies of the exit ticket, sixty copies of each. You got that?" I snapped to attention, saluted, and said, "yes Drill Sergeant," and off to the copier I go.
For this lesson on area and perimeter no worksheets were needed because the scholars will be designing their dream house. All that is required is a pencil, ruler, and graph paper. Prior to starting the dream house project T4 got my attention and said to me, "Schultz, the LittleBigB#2 will be doing an observation of me today." As soon as I heard that the LittleBigBig#2 was going to be in the classroom I knew immediately what my role would be, crowd control.
With the LittleBigB#2 seated and his laptop open, T4 began the lesson. The first task was to draw a large rectangle on the graph paper. T4 had one drawn in advance and placed it under the document camera that projected a picture of the graph paper up on the big overhead screen in the front of the classroom. The scholars were told that they could put as many rooms as they wanted into their dream house but they had to stay inside the rectangle. The last instruction, before the scholars were turned loose, was that for every room they drew in the rectangle they had to calculate the area and perimeter of the room.
Once T4 finished with all directions on building a dream house the scholars began. "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what to do." "You need to draw a rectangle on your graph paper, there is an example on the screen in the front of the classroom." "Mr. Schultz, I can't draw a straight line." "Are you using your ruler?" "Yes Mr. Schultz but I still can't make a straight line." "Okay, erase the line you drew and I'll come over and help you." "Mr. Schultz, I don't know what kind of room to draw." "Every house has these two very important rooms, what do you think they are?" There is a moment of silence as the scholar is thinking and then I hear, "bedroom." "Perfect," I say, "now what is the other one and I'll give you a hint, you will use it everyday." A bit more silence and then I hear, "kitchen." "Very good, now draw a bedroom and a kitchen and don't forget to calculate the area and perimeter." "How do you calculate the area and perimeter, Mr. Schultz?" "Lord, give me the strength to stay calm." "Mr. Schultz, can I draw an X-box in my dream house?" "No, an X-box is not a room. If you want an X-box in your dream house what room would you put it in?" "A game room Mr. Schultz." "Well then you need to draw a game room in your house." Mr. Schultz, can I draw a room in my dream house for my dog?" There is now a slight hesitation on my part, "sure your dog can have its own room."
Eventually the questions slowed and I had an opportunity to look around the room and I liked what I saw, the scholars were engaged and having fun with the project. There were still a lot of questions, especially about figuring out the area and perimeter but, with the LittleBigB#2 observing, this was the perfect project to do. I think the LittleBigB#2 spent about thirty minutes observing T4. When he left the room I made eye contact with T4, nodded my head, smiled, and we went back to work.
Observations like this make teachers nervous. In this case I'm sure T4 was particularly nervous as the LittleBigB#2 is new to the school and she had no idea what to expect. She may not have known what to expect but this is what I know for sure. The LittleBigB#2 just observed and excellent math teacher, one that I enjoy working with, will continue to work with, and I will do everything I can do to remove obstacles so she can be successful. If the LittleBigB#2 disagrees with me about my observations then we may have to have an animated conversation so I can convince him that he is wrong. How can I convince him? Simple, he observed T4 for about thirty minutes. I've been observing T4 every day for nine weeks.
On to some multiplication. T4 is on day number nine with multiplication. On each new day T4 hands out three strips of paper, 1 1/2" x 4" in size, with a multiplication problem written on it. With this being day nine, the scholars have twenty-seven multiplication problems in front of them. Daily, T4 blocks out a section of time so that the scholars can practice their multiplication. One this particular day I'm working with OtherT4-F who is really struggling with multiplication. When I sat next to OtherT4-F I pointed to one of the easy multiplication problems and said to her, what is 5 x 5? The response I got was no where near the correct answer so I repeated the problem and told her to count by five using her fingers. OtherT4-F started counting and when she passed her fifth finger she just kept on counting by five. I stopped her when she reached thirty-five and said, "you are way to high, lets try it again." OtherT4-F starts again, her hand is up, and she starts counting my five. When she didn't stop at twenty-five I remained silent and just observed. When OtherT4-F reached seventy-five I stopped her and said, "5 x 5 equals twenty-five."
Later that evening while sitting at the kitchen table eating my evening meal I told my part time editor, part time consultant, and full time spouse about my time with OtherT4-F. Her initial reaction was to say, "you're kidding." After a brief pause she offered me this suggestion. "The next time you are working with this scholar hold up your hand and ask her how many fingers are on your hand. If she has to count them individually then you will know that you have your work cut out for you."
Saturday, October 20 , 2018, happy birthday little sister. Also a happy birthday to my Florida friend and my Bay City friend.
One more multiplication story and then I'll call it a day. T4-F, one of my hallway friends, had all of her twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked up neatly in front of her so I thought I'd put her to the test. When I arrived at her desk I asked her to pick up all of her multiplication problems and join me at the hexagon. When she sat down at the hexagon I pulled out my cellphone and found my stop watch. "Mr. Schultz, are you going to see how long it takes me to answers all of the problems?" "No," I responded, "I'm going to see how fast you can answer them." T4-F's facial expression told me all I needed to know, the game was on. Stop watch set to zero, twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked in front on me, "three, two, one, go." It took T4-F fifty-three seconds to correctly answer all twenty-seven multiplication problems.
One stop watch challenge down, one to go, and I knew exactly who I was looking for. "T4-F, pick up all of your multiplication problems and join me at the hexagon." When I finished going over the rules of the game I got the same facial expression that I got earlier, the game was on. Stop watch set to zero, twenty-seven multiplication problems stacked in front of me and then the disruption arrived. My first competitor sat down at the hexagon and that made me hesitate. My concern, this was to be fun and not a competition between scholars as that could lead to unnecessary drama. I told my first competitor that she could stay at the hexagon but she had to remain silent and that if she knew she couldn't then she needed to step away. The first competitor promised to be quiet so I let her stay.
"T4-F are you ready?" "Yes Mr. Schultz," "Three, two, one, go." All twenty-seven multiplication problems were answered correctly. The elapsed time with fifty-eight seconds. Then the potential for drama started. The first T4-F said, "I did it in fifty-three seconds." The first T4-F's comment was addressed quickly, "you promised me that you would be silent. Now, if you can't be silent step away from the hexagon." I'm now speaking to the second T4-F. "You had an excellent time but you know what, I know you can do it faster. When I was going through the multiplication problems some of the problems were upside down and I had to turn them over. That slowed you down. We'll do this again another day and I know you will go faster."
Over six years ago I was at a professional development day and an overhead person with a Ph.D was one of the speakers. During her presentation this Ph.D said something that has stayed with me now for six years, "when you work with your scholars remember to glaze over strengths and glance at weaknesses." After the timer challenge ended I remained at the hexagon with these two scholars and believe me I was glazing over their strengths. "Do you two know how proud of you I am? There are sixty scholars in the fourth grade and I'm certain that only you two could do what you just did. This is a huge accomplishment. When you get home tonight be sure to tell your parental units how well you did with multiplication today as I'm certain that they will be as proud of you as I am."
There you go, positivity as promised. Although that multiplication exercise with OtherT4-F was a little weird. Tomorrow is the last day of my two weeks long fall break. I'll be back in the classroom on Monday morning at around 9:45am and we'll see what the week will bring. Thanks for following along.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
Hallway Revisited
Thursday, October 11, 2018
I'm four days into fall break, it's 52 degrees outside, cloudy with rain threatening. Because of the lousy weather I'm sitting at my kitchen table instead of my favorite blogging place, my screened in porch, and with nothing better to do I started typing. The depressing activities that I saw in the hallway, as mentioned in my last blog post, got me thinking about how negative some of my recent posts have been so I decided to get out of the hallway and go back into the classroom Well, I'm not quite done with the hallway and you are about to find out why.
T6 scholars rotate during the day and one of their rotations takes them to the classroom that is right next to T4's. On a several occasions, after the T6's walked into the classroom, I noticed that one scholar chose not to enter the classroom. Instead, this T6-M just sat down on the floor outside the classroom door so I decided to offer him a seat at the half round table I sit at when I'm in the hallway. T6-M declined the offer but I kept after him until he finally got up and sat at the table. One day when T6-M was sitting at my table T-4 stepped outside her classroom, saw him sitting there, and said hello to him. Later in the day I asked T-4 about T6-M and this is what I was told. T6-M is real shy, doesn't like loud noises, and has autism. T-4's comment about loud noises gave me the clue as to why this scholar would not enter that classroom. The classroom is noisy, the teacher gets real loud when trying to get the scholars to stay quiet, and often times, because this classroom is so loud, I will get up and close the classroom door when I'm doing math in the hallway.
Normally T6-M just sits quietly at my table with nothing to do. This changed when he sat down next to me one day with a worksheet. Although he had a worksheet in front of him he was still doing nothing so I asked him what he was working on. He told me he had to write a scary story and then he said that he didn't know what to write. It's now decision time for me. Should I help T6-M or just let him sit there doing, as he has been for several days, nothing. I stood up, walked into T4's classroom, tore a page out of my black spiral notebook, walked back to my half round table in the hallway, sat down, and said to T6-M, "would you like me to help you get started with your writing assignment?" He agreed to let me help him so I wrote the following on my piece of spiral notebook paper: title, setting, characters, and plot. As we worked through the parts of a story T6-M did the talking and I did the writing. When he was finished I said lets start your story with a good opening sentence. He struggled with the opening sentence at first but finally wrote something.
When I read his opening sentence I mentioned to him how much I liked it and told him to continue writing and to look at the outline we made so he could remember to work the setting and characters into his story. As I sat there watching T6-M write I had a smile on my face. I wasn't sure what he was writing but he was writing nonstop. When he was about three-fourths of the way through the 8" x 11 1/2" piece of lined paper I heard him laugh to himself. When he told me what he wrote I started laughing and said to him, "T6-M, I'm certain that you will be the only scholar in your class that will work a paranormal experience into their scary story."
When T-6M finished his scary story it was right at a page long. As I sat next to him, he kept staring at his story and I wasn't sure what he was doing. Then he picked up his pencil and I knew what he was doing. He was rereading and editing his story as he had seen a couple mistakes he made and he wanted to correct them. I'm in my seventh year at this school. I've watched numerous scholars write a story. Only a few of them would write a story that covered an entire 8" x 11 1/2" piece of paper and no one, until I came across T6-M, ever edited their paper to look for errors.
A few days later I ran into an M-Overhead teacher that had worked with T6-M in the past. When this teacher asked me how T6-M was doing I mentioned that he just wrote at scary story that was an entire page long. The M-Overhead teacher's reaction totally surprised me as he gave me a hug and then said to me, "do you know how huge that is?" "No," I said. "T6-M doesn't like to do very much work. He usually will just sit and be quiet but you managed to get him to write a story that was a page long. That's amazing, thank you for taking the time to work with him."
I'm going to finish my T6-M story with two comments. First, a while back I was having a texting conversation with a college roommate and I was telling him that I missed my calling a long time ago and said to him, "maybe I should have been a teacher." The response from my college roommate, Lutriot, was this. "I think your calling found you." Here is the second comment. The hallway outside T-4's classroom certainly has a lot of drama but, as you can see, good things also can a happen. You were just introduced to T6-M, a scholar I saw sitting quietly and alone in the hallway while other adults just walked right on past him and now you can see why I choose to continue doing what I do.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
The granddaughter arrived on Friday afternoon and she is still here. For a while I didn't think I'd have time to finish this blog but I caught a break, she fell asleep on the floor, started snoring, so I just covered her up with a blanket and started typing.
I was so close to returning to the classroom as I wanted to tell you about T4's dream house project but this little story popped into my head. Every day T4's scholars rotate to specials class. Last year specials consisted of art, music, and gym. This year, for budgeting reasons, gym class stills exists but a hybrid class of art and music was formed. At the end of the specials class T-4 walks to either the gym or the art/music classroom to pick up the scholars and then returns to the classroom. On the way back to the classroom there is a restroom break. When the scholars are at the restroom break I'm normally sitting at my half round table in the hallway waiting for T4's return.
I'm not sure of the exact date that this started but one day a couple T4-F's decided to leave the restroom area and walk down the hallway and sat by me. "What are you doing, Mr. Schultz?" "I'm sitting here enjoying my quiet time. Shouldn't you girls be standing in line with your teacher?" "No, we'd rather sit by you," one of them said to me. "So you walked down here just to bug me," I said. Before there was a response the rest of the class arrived at the classroom and it was time to get back to academics.
The T4-F's have been visiting me at my half round table during restroom break just about daily. This past Friday, while the scholars were at specials I was grading a multiplication quiz at my table when four T4-F's arrived. "What are you doing, Mr. Schultz?" "I'm grading the multiplication quiz you just took." "Can I help you," one of the T4-F's said to me. "You T4-F's are bugging me again and no, you can't help me," I said. With a moment of silence from the four T4-F's, I continued grading the quiz. "Mr. Schultz," one of them said to me. "I just graded your next quiz. You can write down that this scholar got thirteen of the fifteen correct." I looked up at the scholar and said, "you are looking at this quiz upside down and you're telling me that this scholar got thirteen right, are you sure?" "Yes, Mr. Schultz, can I grade another one?" "No!" I picked up the next quiz, checked all fifteen problems and found that thirteen were answered correctly. There are only six out of a little less than sixty scholars that are on grade level for math. You just met one of the six and let me tell you something else about this T4-F scholar, she is also in the less than a minute club but I'll save that for next week.
The granddaughter, who has been sleeping on the carpet in our living room, is starting to stir. Time to go. See you next week when I'll continue telling you about my view from the inside of the classroom. Thanks for following along.
I'm four days into fall break, it's 52 degrees outside, cloudy with rain threatening. Because of the lousy weather I'm sitting at my kitchen table instead of my favorite blogging place, my screened in porch, and with nothing better to do I started typing. The depressing activities that I saw in the hallway, as mentioned in my last blog post, got me thinking about how negative some of my recent posts have been so I decided to get out of the hallway and go back into the classroom Well, I'm not quite done with the hallway and you are about to find out why.
T6 scholars rotate during the day and one of their rotations takes them to the classroom that is right next to T4's. On a several occasions, after the T6's walked into the classroom, I noticed that one scholar chose not to enter the classroom. Instead, this T6-M just sat down on the floor outside the classroom door so I decided to offer him a seat at the half round table I sit at when I'm in the hallway. T6-M declined the offer but I kept after him until he finally got up and sat at the table. One day when T6-M was sitting at my table T-4 stepped outside her classroom, saw him sitting there, and said hello to him. Later in the day I asked T-4 about T6-M and this is what I was told. T6-M is real shy, doesn't like loud noises, and has autism. T-4's comment about loud noises gave me the clue as to why this scholar would not enter that classroom. The classroom is noisy, the teacher gets real loud when trying to get the scholars to stay quiet, and often times, because this classroom is so loud, I will get up and close the classroom door when I'm doing math in the hallway.
Normally T6-M just sits quietly at my table with nothing to do. This changed when he sat down next to me one day with a worksheet. Although he had a worksheet in front of him he was still doing nothing so I asked him what he was working on. He told me he had to write a scary story and then he said that he didn't know what to write. It's now decision time for me. Should I help T6-M or just let him sit there doing, as he has been for several days, nothing. I stood up, walked into T4's classroom, tore a page out of my black spiral notebook, walked back to my half round table in the hallway, sat down, and said to T6-M, "would you like me to help you get started with your writing assignment?" He agreed to let me help him so I wrote the following on my piece of spiral notebook paper: title, setting, characters, and plot. As we worked through the parts of a story T6-M did the talking and I did the writing. When he was finished I said lets start your story with a good opening sentence. He struggled with the opening sentence at first but finally wrote something.
When I read his opening sentence I mentioned to him how much I liked it and told him to continue writing and to look at the outline we made so he could remember to work the setting and characters into his story. As I sat there watching T6-M write I had a smile on my face. I wasn't sure what he was writing but he was writing nonstop. When he was about three-fourths of the way through the 8" x 11 1/2" piece of lined paper I heard him laugh to himself. When he told me what he wrote I started laughing and said to him, "T6-M, I'm certain that you will be the only scholar in your class that will work a paranormal experience into their scary story."
When T-6M finished his scary story it was right at a page long. As I sat next to him, he kept staring at his story and I wasn't sure what he was doing. Then he picked up his pencil and I knew what he was doing. He was rereading and editing his story as he had seen a couple mistakes he made and he wanted to correct them. I'm in my seventh year at this school. I've watched numerous scholars write a story. Only a few of them would write a story that covered an entire 8" x 11 1/2" piece of paper and no one, until I came across T6-M, ever edited their paper to look for errors.
A few days later I ran into an M-Overhead teacher that had worked with T6-M in the past. When this teacher asked me how T6-M was doing I mentioned that he just wrote at scary story that was an entire page long. The M-Overhead teacher's reaction totally surprised me as he gave me a hug and then said to me, "do you know how huge that is?" "No," I said. "T6-M doesn't like to do very much work. He usually will just sit and be quiet but you managed to get him to write a story that was a page long. That's amazing, thank you for taking the time to work with him."
I'm going to finish my T6-M story with two comments. First, a while back I was having a texting conversation with a college roommate and I was telling him that I missed my calling a long time ago and said to him, "maybe I should have been a teacher." The response from my college roommate, Lutriot, was this. "I think your calling found you." Here is the second comment. The hallway outside T-4's classroom certainly has a lot of drama but, as you can see, good things also can a happen. You were just introduced to T6-M, a scholar I saw sitting quietly and alone in the hallway while other adults just walked right on past him and now you can see why I choose to continue doing what I do.
Sunday, October 14, 2018
The granddaughter arrived on Friday afternoon and she is still here. For a while I didn't think I'd have time to finish this blog but I caught a break, she fell asleep on the floor, started snoring, so I just covered her up with a blanket and started typing.
I was so close to returning to the classroom as I wanted to tell you about T4's dream house project but this little story popped into my head. Every day T4's scholars rotate to specials class. Last year specials consisted of art, music, and gym. This year, for budgeting reasons, gym class stills exists but a hybrid class of art and music was formed. At the end of the specials class T-4 walks to either the gym or the art/music classroom to pick up the scholars and then returns to the classroom. On the way back to the classroom there is a restroom break. When the scholars are at the restroom break I'm normally sitting at my half round table in the hallway waiting for T4's return.
I'm not sure of the exact date that this started but one day a couple T4-F's decided to leave the restroom area and walk down the hallway and sat by me. "What are you doing, Mr. Schultz?" "I'm sitting here enjoying my quiet time. Shouldn't you girls be standing in line with your teacher?" "No, we'd rather sit by you," one of them said to me. "So you walked down here just to bug me," I said. Before there was a response the rest of the class arrived at the classroom and it was time to get back to academics.
The T4-F's have been visiting me at my half round table during restroom break just about daily. This past Friday, while the scholars were at specials I was grading a multiplication quiz at my table when four T4-F's arrived. "What are you doing, Mr. Schultz?" "I'm grading the multiplication quiz you just took." "Can I help you," one of the T4-F's said to me. "You T4-F's are bugging me again and no, you can't help me," I said. With a moment of silence from the four T4-F's, I continued grading the quiz. "Mr. Schultz," one of them said to me. "I just graded your next quiz. You can write down that this scholar got thirteen of the fifteen correct." I looked up at the scholar and said, "you are looking at this quiz upside down and you're telling me that this scholar got thirteen right, are you sure?" "Yes, Mr. Schultz, can I grade another one?" "No!" I picked up the next quiz, checked all fifteen problems and found that thirteen were answered correctly. There are only six out of a little less than sixty scholars that are on grade level for math. You just met one of the six and let me tell you something else about this T4-F scholar, she is also in the less than a minute club but I'll save that for next week.
The granddaughter, who has been sleeping on the carpet in our living room, is starting to stir. Time to go. See you next week when I'll continue telling you about my view from the inside of the classroom. Thanks for following along.
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