BINGO!

Today, the last day of school, led to some of the post powerful and emotional moments of my life.   We celebrated successes, shed (happy) tears, and shared goodbyes .  It will take a few posts to adequately describe today’s events, but let me leave you with today’s first activity, success BINGO.

The Sunday pit

Have you ever had the Sunday pit? You know, when a pit forms in your stomach on Sunday before a big week? Or, when you have so much to prepare that your stomach is in a knot? Maybe you get a pit because you just dread the upcoming week (like in Office space)? Regardless, I think everyone can relate to the Sunday pit.

Sunday pits aren’t rare for me. They’re usually the “so much to do, so much I wish I could do, so much out of my hands…” type pit. But the bad news is, I’m developing a summer pit.

There are only two weeks left of school. While I’m screaming with joy that the year is coming to an end, it’s still bittersweet (therein lies the pit…). I spent the afternoon grading summative assessments which tested my students over what they’ve learned all year. I won’t go into specifics, but some of the tests were disappointing (expected, yet still disappointing). I let these children down, and they’re going on to the 6th grade. Before they got to me, the system let them down. Somewhere along the line, someone or something failed these children- bright, beautiful, eager, and enthusiastic children. It’s devastating to think about what they have gone through. And it’s even more devastating to realize that I didn’t change that.

If only there was more time, more purposeful planning, more differentiation, better letssons, more afterschool help… if only…

In the midst of the ‘if only’s,’ there are plenty of successes, which I will share next week. But they will be bittersweet, because I won’t forget that the system is still broken and I didn’t fix the part I had control over.

Incorporating centers in the classroom

I’ve been on a centers kick lately.  They have completely changed our classroom dynamic.  Centers give students independence and choice in the classroom, provide group learning, extended inquiry, and small group time with me.  Further, they dramatically increase the level of student engagement.  But, I need your help.  I want your suggestions!

First, let me explain how our centers work.  In our classroom, I set up centers in six separate stations.  Throughout two days, students spend 20 minutes at each station.  Each center is numbered and they rotate through them until they’ve completed each one.  In order to effectively use centers, classroom management is key.  For the first 2/3 of the year, we rarely did centers because the class couldn’t handle it.  I expect students to rotate quietly, stay on task, stay engaged, and learn.  When they aren’t on task (which occurs more often than I’d like), they return to their desks and work silently.

Here are some centers that we currently use:

• Math Battleship:  students make their own battleship boards on graph paper, guess partner’s coordinates
• Bananagrams:  a game similar to scrabble
• Letter writing using scrapbooking supplies
• Creating science flip-books based on information from text (ex:  landforms)
• Computer
• Reading silently or Reading A-Z
• Drawing numbers from a bin and writing them in different forms

The challenge with centers is to make sure learning occurs.  I don’t want to waste my students’ time and learning opportunities by having them do activities that aren’t challenging or are too simple.  Many of the resources I find online are for early-elementary and aren’t rigorous enough.  I would LOVE to incorporate more centers that are easy to set up, challenging, and provide opportunities for higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy.

Whether or not you are a teacher, what suggestions do you have?  I know you’ve all been in school!   Tell me your best ‘center’ memories.

And so my transformation began

Amy posted this story by Jamie Vollmer, which encouraged me to reflect on the differences between businesses and schools.  Before teaching, I wholeheartedly believed that schools should be run like businesses.  Now, after 8 months in a classroom, I see several flaws in my previously ignorant beliefs.  Vollmer highlights this issue in a cheesy but meaningful way.  Although the story is long, it’s worth your time to read.

“If I ran my business the way you people operate your schools, I wouldn’t be in business very long!”

I stood before an auditorium filled with indignant teachers who were becoming angrier by the minute.

I represented a Business Roundtable dedicated to improving public schools. I said that public schools were antiquated and that teachers and administrators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by a monopoly. They needed to look to business. We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! Continuous improvement! TQM!

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up. She appeared polite, pleasant–she was, in fact, a razor-edged, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

I smugly replied, “People’s Magazine chose our blueberry as ‘The Best Ice Cream in America,’ ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”
“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.
“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.
“Superpremium! Nothing but AAA.” I was on a roll. I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of the room, I could hear the trap snap. I knew I was dead, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries. We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant. We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all! Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business. It’s a school!”

In an explosion, all 290 teachers, principals, bus drivers, aides, custodians and secretaries jumped to their feet and yelled, “Yeah! Blueberries! Blueberries!”

And so my long transformation began.

I have learned that, unlike business, schools are unable to control the quality of their raw material, they are constantly mauled by a howling horde of disparate, competing customer groups, and they are dependent upon the vagaries of politics for a reliable revenue stream.

None of this negates the need for change. We must change what, when, and how we teach to give all children maximum opportunity to thrive in a post-industrial society. But these changes occur only with the understanding, trust, permission, and active support of the surrounding community. For the most important thing I have learned is that schools reflect the attitudes, beliefs, and the health of the communities they serve, and therefore improving public education means more than changing our schools, it means changing America.”

Transparency v. Confidentiality?

At Joe and Michael’s urgings, I’m owning up to the fact that I’ve been ignoring this blog for the past four months.  Honestly, I’m quite disappointed in myself.  I love blogging and sharing about my classroom and students.   However, there are several reasons I’ve been avoiding posting/pretending I don’t have a blog.

-In order to keep all posts confidential, I do not discuss private information or anything that might make a student vulnerable.  Even when I keep student names anonymous, it is still easy to recognize who I am talking about.   Anyone who googles Hannah Budde can end up here and find out about my students.  That narrows down the world of anonymity to a small selection of 15 fifth graders [the most intelligent and fantastic fifth graders ever].

-Because this blog isn’t anonymous, I tend to avoid writing about ‘the bad.’  I don’t believe that it’s appropriate to publicly discuss my struggles in the classroom- with instruction, behavior management, investment, my school, etc.  These things aren’t only about me, but they involve others.  I have to respect their privacy.

-This leads me only posting about two things:  success in the classroom and generalized stories.  While I absolutely LOVE bragging about my students and sharing their success, it is misleading to omit the setbacks and daily struggles.  second, generalized stories aren’t as meaningful.  I’d much rather tell the other kind.

So, my faithful readers who remembered this long lost blog, what should I do?  I’d love to re-enter the blogging world, so give me your suggestions!

I’ve been distracted

 

We finished up our last week of school before break, and I meant to post an update on the happenings of December.  But, I’ve been extremely distracted lately.  I’ve been spending almost all of my free time playing Rock Band [which I got for my brother Joe, althought I'm not sure who's more excited].

Catching up with old friends…

A recent gchat conversation with my good friend Michelle:

me: hows life
Michelle: it’s ok. reassessing my career choices as always
yesterday i googled ‘what should i do with my life’

It sounds like all of us 20-somethings are in the same boat. Post-college, confused, and googling.

Ya’ll Kids is Crazy

Monday’s writing lesson was ‘author’s voice.’  To teach this, we discussed how people can communicate similar messages using different words.  I wrote phrases on the board that teachers in our school use frequently.

• “Ya’ll kids is crazy.”
• “You’re wasting learning time.” [that one is me]
• “We throw children out the window.” [note:  this teacher is definitely kidding!]
• “Children, listen up!”
• “Boy, shut your mouth!”

Then, students identified which teacher says each phrase.  We discussed how all of the teachers are communicating that the students need to be quiet so they can learn, but each teacher chooses different words to express themselves.  To practice, the students did the same activity in pairs.

I think that the lesson went well, but I’m having trouble deciding how to assess student understanding.  To mirror the activity they did in class, they would write different ways people express something.  However, is that truly assessing their understanding of author’s voice?  And if not, doesn’t that mean my lesson didn’t accurately teach what they should know? (If it did, it would be able to easily allign with an assessment).

Any thoughts?

I’m going home!

By this time tomorrow, I’ll be home in Columbus, Ohio!  Today, there was a big smile on my face all day because I cannot wait!  I haven’t been home since early August, and three months later I definitely miss Columbus.  Things I’m excited for:

• Thanksgiving dinner with my mom and brother in Coshocton, Ohio
• Catching up with college friends on Friday
• Decorating for Christmas
• Thanksgiving dinner with Joe and Lindsay on Saturday
• Brunch at a friends with girls from high school
• The Ohio State University basketball game (O-H…)
• Celebrating Thanksgiving again with Dad

There’s so much that I have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving; for the ability to go to Ohio, the friends and family I’ll see, and the relaxed happiness that I’ll have.  Thanksgiving, you’re pretty much my favorite Holiday right now.

Education is today’s Civil Rights movement

I have come to believe that the one thing people cannot bear is a sense of injustice. Poverty, cold, even hunger, are more bearable than injustice.

- Millicent Fenwick,
Speaking Up