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). 

Memorial Day Parade

Every year in my town, on Memorial Day, the town puts on a parade that goes through the center of town, and many locals come to watch. I used to be a part of this parade when I was a girl scout (way back when…). Recently, the Trottier 7^th and 8^th grade band has marched in this parade as a way to give back to the community. I’ve watched them practice marching and playing their music around the school a few times now, and on Monday, they will be marching the real thing. That means they have to not only pay attention to the music, but also keep their marching lines (rows and columns) straight.

The band is rotating through two songs throughout the parade, “We Are Family” and an Armed Forces piece. They were practicing those pieces today in band, as well as the four other pieces they would play for the concert next week. Knowing only how to play the clarinet, I was reading the clarinet music with some of the players and after each piece, I’d give them pointers on how to play some parts of their music better. I hope they didn’t think I was creepy…

The band is sounding very good lately. They play with a lot of sound and the trumpets during these marches (because they have the melody) really stand out. This band doesn’t sound like a middle school band. They’re very good. My old clarinet teacher told me that she taught at Needham High School and commented on how their middle school band had a strong foundation: they got a Gold Medal at the MICCA music festival this year. So did this band, so that’s pretty outstanding. 

Teaching a Lesson. Straight up...

Today, from start to finish, I taught one of the Algebra I classes from going over homework, to teaching the lesson, to handing out homework and helping kids get started on it. Although we are continuing to factor polynomials, today they learned how to do that when the leading coefficient is NOT 1.

Mr. Griffin prepared the answers to the homework from the night before. I just had to project it. The students would self-correct and raise their hands for any questions. I would then answer those questions by taking the problem and thinking out loud to the class of what I would do to approach it. Most of these kids see problems that they can't do as daunting and sometimes give up trying. But when I tell them my step-by-step approach, and what exactly is going on in my head, they're like: "oh that was so easy!"

The lesson was probably my most daunting task. I really wanted to make sure that the kids understood what I was talking about, so that they would do the homework and see each problem's approach. Same rules apply for factoring these kinds of polynomials. Make the trinomial look as simple as possible and then factor. I think every kid understood why I was doing what I was doing, but when time came to do homework, he or she was lazy to guess and check or just wanted to get through the problem faster and was not as fast at thinking as I was.

The one part of the lesson that drew confusion was the difference of squares factoring pattern. They had already learned how to expand a difference of squares pattern, I just told them, that reversing it would be factoring it. A key to notice was that the components of the factored form were square roots of the original, which they had to see in order to do any problem after that. Even though I may have explained it using complicated symbols, it was probably the most general and the best way to get them to see the big picture. Substitution method also helped.

Today was also the day Mr. Kahn watched me teach the class. A little daunting at first, but I didn't notice he was watching me later on in the class. :)