The Last Day

Ah, I can’t believe it’s my last day here. Honestly, my time at Trottier felt so short. Fortunately today I saw all of the classes I was working with, sixth grade math, seventh grade PreAlgebra, eighth grade math (sort of…), and my film class.

I went first period to my film class. They were just starting an episode of Band of Brothers when Easy Company discovers concentration camps. Having gone to Auswitz during spring break this year with Chamber Orchestra, I had a few pictures on my computer from that particular concentration camp. I gave a short talk about what I learned at Auswitz and showed a few pictures of the outside of the concentration camp (I had not been allowed to take pictures of the inside). The kids seemed really interested in me and I guess the stories that I had heard from my tour were really heart-striking and they definitely plucked something in my eighth graders. I told them about the history of why there were concentration camps, how the Nazi’s brought people there, and what people did once they got to the concentration camps, describing a working man’s lifestyle and one of a person sent off to die in either the gas chambers or the “death wall.” I felt that the kids learned a lot from this because I didn’t tell them what they would read in a textbook, I told them a first hand experience of a guided tour at a concentration camp, the images I saw there, and I felt that I made the experience seem so real for them that they were like “Wow. Those were really dark times.”

The eighth grade Algebra I classes were unfortunately taking a quiz today. I went to Dunkin Donuts this morning and bought them munchkins because it was my last day and a lot of the kids probably didn’t eat breakfast if they had come in early for extra help. They really liked that. Hahaha. Good luck to them. One kid had told me that he was probably going to get a B while his friends told him he was going to get an A. I told him that if the Celtics win tonight, chances were that he would get an A. The future will look good if the Celtics win tonight.

In sixth grade today, the kids were working on figuring out the surface area of a cylinder. I’m not a huge believer in memorizing formulas for the sake of memorizing formulas. For these kinds of problems, I wanted the kids to see the big picture—How much wrapping paper would go around a cylinder. That would be…two circles and a rectangle that wrapped around and connected the two circles together. So as long as they found the area of the two circles and the rectangle (in whatever order they wanted), and added all of those areas together, I told them that they would be finding the surface area correctly. That’s so much easier than memorizing 2*pi*r^2+pi*d. There’s always the risk of mistaking diameter for radius in this formula. Until they know what the components are for the formula, I strongly encourage them to logically figure out what shapes they need to find the area of in order to find surface area, or, the amount of wrapping paper they would need to wrap a cylindrical shaped gift.

And to wrap things up, the seventh graders were not taking a quiz today, so they were able to throw a small party. One of the girls brought in cake. If the eighth graders weren’t taking a quiz today, they would have had a party too. Too bad…

Mr. Griffin’s kids are also really cute too…so are the sixth graders. I have to post this because it was so great.

Mrs. Griffin always asks her sixth graders to do their work out. One boy during class today said, “Yeah, I’m doing my work out. Yeah, I work out.” He does a little dance like he’s working out, and says it like the mainstream LMFAO lyrics, “Yeah, I work out.” Hahaha. That was so great. 

Just could not Beat the Heat

I was pretty upset and tired this morning because I had really wanted the Celtics to win last night. I found myself being mad at the TV without realizing that it was midnight already. It would have been so great to upset the Heat, the team who thinks they deserve to win and wants every person who watched the NBA to think they’re all so good. However, it was the refs. The Celtics lost to the refs. It was such a dirty game too. So that’s the background. Today in homeroom, some of the boys come in talking about the game and how upset they were that the Celtics had lost. Then they were like “Yeah, but I like Dwayne Wade. He’s not cocky.” I’m thinking to myself “Ehh…”

Another comment came up in math class when a boy had suggested that the Celtics get Lebron next year. I would never want to see Lebron wearing a Celtics jersey, and neither does Mr. Griffin. Glad we’re on the same page.

So although a lot of the boys were really distracted today, I still had to get them to focus and pay attention in class and to complete the classwork. It was hard because I was also tempted to join in on their conversations and express how mad I am at Danny Crawford—the worst ref in the NBA—and at how badly Wade got away with so many offensive and defensive fouls.

I was really pleased with the seventh grade Pre-Algebra class, however. They were working in groups on an MCAS open response problem. Although the problem was challenging for a lot of the kids in the class, there was one group of boys who logically figured out how to find the answer. I knew that they were not just memorizing formulas and actually understood how height related to volume (by stacking their calculated base area as much as their given volume would allow). Even though they did not solve a volume equation to find the height algebraically, they eventually got an algebraic answer by logically thinking about how a given amount of volume would fit inside a container with a given base area. I’m really proud of them. 

Seeing Progress

One class yesterday actually did pay attention to me. When there’s a substitute, a lot of the time, the kids get a little more rowdy—They think they can pull more tricks with the sub. However, I pulled the “Guys, you’re taking a test on Friday, I’d recommend you pay attention if you want to do well. If you already know everything, then you can keep talking.” Everyone stopped talking and were very attentive after that. We went through the homework and questions at top speed yesterday and Mr. Griffin noticed a big increase in overall understanding of factoring. My method of delivering information is to get people to see the big picture/the concept. That’s why I was never natural at English or History when I had to analyze details. I was always a big picture “general-to-specific” kind of person. This seems to work for factoring. The kids now don’t memorize exact numbers, but see patterns. Soon, they won’t even have to use the substitution method to see these patterns.

One regret that I may have had yesterday was for the kids who clearly understood what was going on. I was basically wasting their time answering other kids’ questions at the front of the room. I wish I could just give them the homework and have them start on it (and since they clearly know what’s going on, they don’t need to talk to other kids and be distracting while I answer questions form kids who actually need it). That probably would have been a much better use of their time, but it would have also divided the class and people may not want to ask questions because they want to get the homework as soon as they can. 

The Most Nerve-wracking Thing…

Mr. Griffin was not in school today, so he left me in charge of his fast paced math classes (his other math classes were easier to handle because they were either watching a movie, or doing a worksheet when they had other specialists available for help). However, his fast paced math classes were all me.

We first went over the homework from the long weekend (sorry to the kids because they had more homework over the weekend because they had a few extra days to do it) and then the class worked together to complete a worksheet on factoring (what was not done would be the night’s homework).

The scariest thing is to watch these kids get really confused on factoring (all on different things, and when there are over twenty kids in the class, I can’t answer everyone’s questions in one class period). They have a quiz on Friday, and I am not sure if everyone will be ready for it. I tried to teach them the concepts through the problems they had questions on for last night’s homework, but during the class worksheet, people still had a lot of trouble, particularly on grouping terms. I tried to teach a few kids about grouping because they had questions, so I talked to them one on one or two on one, but the general feel of the class makes me really nervous. I’m worried that I didn’t do a good enough job so that they feel good for the quiz and that Mr. Griffin will have a ton of work to do during his extra-help morning sessions.

I also made a few mistakes while helping kids out or answering their questions but I went to them afterwards and told them the right answer. I hope I didn’t confuse them too much. It’s also really hard when everyone in the class has questions on different problems, and they’re all asking me to help them at the same time—I might as well do the whole worksheet with them in class. The kids were also really rowdy today, maybe because Memorial Weekend felt so much like summer, but making them focus was a hard thing to do. The substitute actually had to make some kids go out into the hall (for a “time-out”) because they were being so rowdy. Eighth graders…

North/South Day

For high school, kids from Trottier in Southborough combine with kids from Melican Middle School in Northborough to form one high school. Today, the Northborough kids came to Trottier to meet the eighth graders from Southborough. They played “minute to win it” games and the band and chorus combined to rehearse for a joint concert in the afternoon. They’re playing the theme song from The Incredibles.

For one of the periods, I caught up with my sixth graders, and they asked me to go to their French class. I think I'll remember them most after I leave. The French teacher was involved with North/South day and left a worksheet for the substitute teacher to handout, so I helped answer questions during that period. I took French up until eighth grade *with Channing Moreland who is sitting right next to me right now when I’m writing this blog. The worksheets were going to be collected (for completion) at the end of class, so the kids were busy at work doing crosswords on basic French vocabulary. I was surprised that I still remembered some of those words on the worksheets, and my Latin background from Milton helped with some of the roots. Now I know why Latin is helpful (besides reading inscriptions in chapels).