Camp

Sunday, September 23,  2018, screened porch temperature 55 degrees.  Brr!

It was not a good week for the male ego.  Twice mine took a hit.  The first time was at camp.  Yes, you read that correctly, camp on a school day.  Since her arrival at my school T4 has taken the fourth grade scholars to camp.  This time it was a day camp and fifty scholars and six adults made the trip.  I was one of the adults, that was persistent in saying I'm not going, but after being endless badgering by a certain unnamed individual I caved to the pressure and decided to go.  Prior to leaving school the scholars were divided into three equal groups with two adults assigned to each group.  Also, prior to leaving school the scholars were divided into smaller groups for the two meals that would be provided by the camp.  I was assigned table five and would be dining, twice, with seven fourth grade scholars.

After arriving at camp the scholars went through a brief orientation period and then were divided into their preassigned groups to start the day.  The adult I was paired with was the Badgerer that I mentioned previously and we headed off to our first activity which was archery.  Prior to allowing the scholars to launch arrows at a target their was a brief orientation by a camp leader named Montana.  I thought Montana was an interesting name and one that would be easy to remember.  Apparently not as the Badgerer kept thinking this person's name was Dakota. With archery orientation finished the scholars lined up with bow and arrow in hand.  Please note that none of the scholars ever used a bow and arrow so the Badgerer assisted Dakota and I assisted Montana mainly because neither one of us wanted to take an arrow in the backside.  Each scholar got to launch three arrows down range at targets that were from ten feet to maybe thirty feet out in front of them.  When they were all finished shooting their arrows I heard, "Schultz, pick up a bow and arrow, it's you and me."

I accepted the challenge and reached for my bow.  When I picked it up I new I had a problem as this was a right handed bow and I needed a left handed one.  As I switched bows my challenger decided to shoot first and without even looking in her direction I heard her arrow hit a target.  I knew right away that the game was on.  I took aim at the farthest target, launched my arrow and missed, high and a little to the right.  My missing got an immediate reaction from my challenger.  When I turned in her direction I noticed that her arrow hit one of the closest targets so I said to her, "you didn't tell me we were aiming at the beginners targets."  I launched two more arrows, at the farthest target, both were a little high and to the right, and I went down to defeat in front of fourteen fourth grade scholars.  Not a good male ego day.

Archery was followed by fishing, then canoeing, and the day finished with a ropes challenge.  As I was standing at the fishing hole I heard T4 say, "if you are a rookie at camp and someone catches a fish you have to kiss the fish."  Every one of those scholars I accompanied to camp were rookies but I recognized immediately that the fish kissing comment was probably directed at me.  I didn't take long and one of the campers caught a fish.  With my ego already damaged at archery, I kissed the fish.

One more camp story about our evening meal and then on to academics.  Prior to eating the scholars were told that they could eat as much as they wanted but whatever they took they had to eat.  The evening meal was a build you own taco with a salad bar to go with the meal.  As I was dining with the scholars I thought to myself, "I wonder how often any of these scholars were told they could eat as much as the wanted to eat."  Knowing the neighborhood that they came from I figured not very often.  As I watched the scholars eating, one of them, OtherT4-M, a little chunk of a scholar, looked up at me and said, "Mr. Schultz, this food is so good it is even better than the Golden Corral."

Camp was a long day.  I arrived at school at 8:30am and returned home at a little before 8:00pm.  It was a long hot day, I was on my feet a lot, and I was tired.  During the day I watched fifty scholars just running around having fun.  I also watched T4 during the day as she told me, when we were on the bus, that she was determined to get every scholar to participate in every activity.  From what I could see, T4's challenge was getting everyone to climb into a canoe.  As I watched her badgering a T4-F until she finally got into a canoe, I knew she would meet her objective, everyone participates in every activity.  As I said earlier, it was a long hot day, I stood a lot and I was tired.  I'm also going to say this, "T4, thanks for being that badger, I really had a nice time."

It's called Schoology, and yes, I looked it up to make sure I'm spelling it correctly.  Wikipedia describes it as a "learning management system for K-12" and higher grade levels.  Schoology is  school corporation approved and T4 uses it as a resource for math.  So far this school year T4 has used Schoology four times to test the scholars knowledge on a math lesson that was taught during the week.  Over the past four Fridays test were retrieved from Schoology for multiplication, subtraction, rounding and place values, and most recently area and perimeter.  As I look at the four tests I just mentioned I'm pretty sure I have three of them correct.  I'm not one hundred percent certain and the subtraction one.

It's usually on Thursday when I hear, "Schultz, I need some copies made for a test.  I need sixty and they need to be two sided copies."  With my copying assignment completed I decided to take the test myself.  As I was answering a problem on the test I thought I made a mistake.  It read problem three and then solved the problem.  I then read problem four and solved the problem.  Then the light went on in my head, "wait a minute Schultz, problem three and four were the exact same problem."  As I reread the two problems a little more carefully I realized that were the same problem.  In fact, problem seven and eight were also listed twice and exactly the same.  Hmm!  They came from Schoology, the school corporation approved them, and there is an obvious error.

Week two of Schoology testing.  "Schultz, look at this problem that I just solved and see if you get the same answer that I did."  "Ok," I said.  I completed the problem and arrived at the same answer that T4 did.  To be safe, I redid the problem and got the same answer again.  When I look at the test problem, it was a multiple choice problem with four choices, and none of the four answers matched the answer that T4 and I arrived at.  The problem came from Schoology, the school corporation approved the problem and there was an obvious error.

Week three of Schoology testing.  Again, multiple choice problems, four answers to choose from and none of them were the correct answer.  I know I'm getting repetitive but the problems came from Schoology, the school corporation approved them, and there is another obvious error.

Week four and I'm feeling pretty confident that I can weed out any errors on the Schoology test.  This test was administered this past Friday and it covered area and perimeter.  I had the test in hand on Thursday morning and I was sitting at my hallway table taking the test.  I'm good through the first seven problems but I also realized this, this is a hard test and the scholars are not likely to do well.  I was doing problem number eight when I encountered the error.  Again, multiple choice with four answers to choose from and I'm not matching any of the four.  I stood up, reentered the classroom, and took the test over to T4 for her to look at.  We both agreed that there was something wrong and decided that it was a two part problem an if the scholars got the first part correct I could grade the problem solely on the first part of the problem.

Shifting to test day, Friday morning.  "Schultz, the correct answer to problem number eight is twenty."  I got up from my chair at the back of the room where I have a really nice view and walked over to T4's desk to go over the problem.  As she walked me through the problem she said, "the problem isn't worded very well.  You read it as a two step problem but it is a three step problem."  As I watched T4 solve the problem I saw my error and thought to my self, "are you smarter at math than a fourth grade scholar?"  Apparently not and for the second time in a week my male ego took another hit.

I've been sitting at a half round table in the hallway immediately outside T4's classroom to do either math with several different fourth grade scholars or grade papers for quite some time now.  When I sit outside T4'S classroom I have a real nice view of the hallway and its comings and goings.  I believe it was Tuesday of this past week that I saw something that really ticked me off so I decided to start logging what I saw on the back pages of the spiral notebook that I use when doing math.  So far my notes cover the entire last page of my spiral notebook.  So, what does one do with all of these notes?  Simple, after thirty-four days of the new school year, a LittleBigB#2 was hired.  When I get thoroughly fed up with what goes on in my hallway I'm going to share my notes with our new LittleBigB#2 as no teacher needs to put with this crap.

That's it for today.  Next week I'll share my hallway observations with you.  Even better will be the bomb I'm going to drop in your lap that will give you an indication as to why only six out of sixty fourth grade scholars are on grade level for math.  I can hear the LibraryLady from that hoity toity private school grumbling that I've left her hanging again.  POOF!  I'm out.