The Teaching Experiment

The War of 1812…

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 02:45:42 +0000

I will be teaching the War of 1812 soon and I came across this video.

Does thisabout sum up what you know about it?

-J

How teachers grade tests…

Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:03:00 +0000

There may be a little bit of truth in this.

-J

Back to work…

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 01:08:54 +0000

We had to go back to work today. It wasn’t too bad, since it was a work day and the kiddos were not there. Although going back so soon after New Year’s wasn’t so much fun.

I am good at wasting time s. If I could be productive for an entire 8 hours, I would be dangerous. I spent the first two hours wasting time and then was kind of productive until lunch. After lunch I was on a roll, but then time went to fast. I got everything done that I needed for tomorrow, but I wanted to get more. Oh, well.

Only 5 more months until summer break.

-J

Ugly Christmas sweater…

Thu, 15 Dec 2011 02:44:37 +0000

Some of my work friends decided that we would designate today and the unofficial ugly Christmas sweater day. We all decided to wear ugly sweaters but not tell anyone. We had talked about it before, but we finally did it this year, though there were only a couple of us who did it.

During one of my classes, one of my students asked, “Is today tacky Christmas sweater day?”

(I think he was just referring to my sweater because the other people who were wearing them were on the other side of the building.) With a straight face I replied, “What? Why would you talk to a teacher like that. That is so rude and disrespectful. This is my favorite sweater. I am going to email your coach and let him know how disrespectful you are being.”

You should have seen the look on his face as I was guilting him. Maybe tomorrow I will tell him the truth. Maybe.

-J

UIL

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 03:54:31 +0000

This year, I was the sponsor for UIL Maps, Charts, and Graphs (since you know I always like to add more things to my plate). Our competition was today and I am proud of my team. I had three 7th graders and three 8th graders compete. My 7th graders came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th, while my 8th graders came in 2nd and 4th (the top 6 place in each grade level). They did great, but I am sure it was mostly because of their fabulous coaching. My school did well overall and won the title of Academic UIL Champions for the meet, out of about 10 schools.

On a side note, I am kind of serious about it being about the coaching. I had to help score the Calculator Applications competition. A lot of kids messed up because they did not know the rules. I was not involved with scoring my event, but apparently in this competition, simply knowing the rules makes a big difference. I don’t think it made that big of a difference at my event. I had some pretty awesome kids.

-J

Working out…

Sat, 05 Nov 2011 19:15:19 +0000

Earlier this week, I went to the rec center to work out after work. I saw some students there. In class the next day, we had a conversation about it.

“Why were you at the rec center yesterday?”

“I was working out.”

“You work out?”

“The correct response is ‘We can tell you work out. You must go there all the time.’”

-J

So true…

Mon, 17 Oct 2011 23:05:01 +0000

Don’t ever be those parents…

-J

Homecoming…

Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:57:31 +0000

Homecoming was Friday. I was not planning on going to the game, but Sandy called me on Friday afternoon and asked if I wanted to go to the game. She had an extra ticket since her boyfriend was not able to make it. I went over to her house and we were watching the Rangers.

Her daughter was freaking out. She had a date to the game and it was her first date ever. She was asking if he should pick her up or we should take her over to his house. We told her that he needed to pick her up, not only because it is the gentlemanly thing to do, but she lives very close to the stadium. The boy is also one of my students and I wanted to have a little fun. I told Sandy that I wanted to answer the door when he came, just to freak him out. Her daughter heard this and did not want me to. When the car came, she immediately went out side and we followed. You should have seen the look on his face. I never said anything, but I just had my arms crossed and stared at him. The funny thing is I has just called his mom the day before because he had been struggling in my class and then I go to meet her.

At the game, Sandy was looking for them. We found them and they were not too happy that we were following them.

I wonder how bad I traumatized that boy. How would you feel if your teacher showed up to your first date with someone?

-J

Old faces…

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:50:25 +0000

On Monday I had to go up to the high school after school for a training for the SAT and ACT. I got there before they let out for the day, so I stood in the hallway so that I could see some of my old students. Some of them walked by me with a look that basically said “WTF are you doing here?” while others ran toward me yelling out my name. It was good getting to see some of my old students and I got to talk with several of them for a while.

After my meeting, I ran into some more students and they asked if I was going to the homecoming carnival that was later that evening. I told them I would think about it. I didn’t want to go by myself, so I started asking some of my friend that work there if they were going. I got a hold of my friend Sandy and we decided to go together.

I met Sandy at her house before the carnival. Now I must mention that I have Sandy’s daughter in my class; she had requested that she be put in my class. Her daughter is new to my school and even though I have known Sandy, I had never met her daughter until school started and I had never been to her house. I knocked on the door and Sandy’s daughter answered the door. I said, “I just came by to check and see if you were doing your homework.” She laughed and I went inside. I’ll come back to this story later.

We went to the carnival and it was good. This was the first year they had a carnival and I was impressed how much they had for the first time. I got to see even more old students. Both times I was up there that day I kind of felt like a celebrity. Many of them were so excited to see me and I was glad to see ~~most of~~ them.

Sandy’s daughter must have told some people what I said to her at her house, because during her class period, a student asked, “Is it true that you go to students’ home to check and see if they are doing their homework?” I just smiled. Another student asked, “How do you know where we live?” I said, “I can look that up, that’s the easy part.”

I love to mess with them like that. And once again, I couldn’t make this stuff up.

-J

That just happened…

Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:15:28 +0000

I would like to preface this by saying that this is a true story. I promise that I am not making this up. I don’t think I could if I tried.

Today a student asked a question. I don’t exactly remember the question, because of how my response played out, but the question isn’t that important. I started explaining about South Africa. My students are terrible with geography so I began to draw a map. My map of Africa looked something like this:

I think that is a pretty good rough sketch of Africa; I was quite proud of it. I proceeded to draw South Africa on my map.

I immediately realized that I just drew a penis on the board in front of a class of 32 eighth graders. My face turned bright red and I erased the picture immediately. I walked to the back of the room and told the kids that we were off task and that we needed to move on. I could hardly keep it together, I wanted to bust out laughing, but somehow managed to keep my composure.

I’m not quite sure how many kids noticed that I had just drawn a penis on the board (that would assume that they were paying attention to me). There was also no giggling, which led me to believe the crisis was averted.

Later, I went to my principal and said, “I just want to let you know that if you get a phone call about me drawing a penis on the board in class, it is true, but it was an accident.” She replied, “What are you teaching in your class?” I explained it to her and she laughed and said, “I can’t wait to get that phone call.”

Like I said, I could make up this stuff if I tried.

-J