Comments

I've decided that middle school is TOTALLY DEVELOPMENTALLY INAPPROPRIATE.

-- CarolynJohnston - 08 Sep 2005

boy oh boy

we have had sobbing and crying, and we're only on Day 2

meanwhile I just read the Course Expectations for math:

[quoting]

• Homework is not excused for unexcused absences, and homework is not given out in advance of unexcused absences.

• Students are responsible for handing in homework due on the date of absence immediately upon their return to school. Late work will affect students' grades. Absent students must refer to the homework board to get missed assignments. Absent students are responsible for obtaining and making up missed homework in a timely fashion.

• Homework left in a locker means the student is unprepared and will not receive full credit for the assignment.

etc.

5% of the grade is based on the journal

-- CatherineJohnson - 08 Sep 2005

Ben's older half-brother Colin worked on combination locks with him this summer. I was really sweating the combination lock thing. I have memories of fumbling with my lock in the short period between classes, messing up when I was most of the way through, and having to start over.

I now have nightmares in which I am dialing 20-digit phone numbers, and screwing up after 17 digits. Sometimes it happens in real life too.

Poor Christopher.

-- CarolynJohnston - 09 Sep 2005

There are special lockers at Daniel's school. They are push button especially for students with difficulty with lockers.

My son has a regular combination lock though. His teacher wants to make him as independent as possible. She says he opened on his own today.

Daniel had a melt down in the school office today. He wants to be on the cross country team and the school office lost his paperwork. Daniel brought it in and gave it to his teacher. His teacher handed it in the the office. The office ....I don't know what the office did, but they can't find it. It figures that they pick the kid with ASD and lose only his paperwork. And you know, they do a great job of scaring the kids half to death. "If it's not here on Monday, you can't run with the team." I just want to know why their losing the paperwork makes it my problem. What if I hadn't stopped into the office to ask questions?

And, of course, we are out of town this weekend at a soccer tournament.

Oh, the joys of middle school.

-- AnneDwyer - 09 Sep 2005

boy, so far......this has not been fun

Christopher was a preemie; in terms of his Conception Date he's still 10!

so we have crying and sobbing over the locker, and the teacher who stopped to 'help' him didn't teach him how to open it, but just opened it up with a master key

-- CatherineJohnson - 09 Sep 2005

Homework is not excused for unexcused absences, and homework is not given out in advance of unexcused absences.

Students are responsible for handing in homework due on the date of absence immediately upon their return to school. Late work will affect students' grades. Absent students must refer to the homework board to get missed assignments. Absent students are responsible for obtaining and making up missed homework in a timely fashion.

EvilMathTeacher^? does do this also. It is a reaction to a situation where kids wait until the end of the quarter and do all of the missing assignments. Of course, this doesn't help the kids learn math. It is only work for the teacher. If the kids bring the HW with something they get 8/10 points. That's 50 points per week. There are 4 more points available (the kids give the answers to 4 HW questions) as a incentive to be on time and to get that HW out on the desk to be checked. Then there is the famous Daily Quiz which is worth 100 points per week.

-- EvilMathTeacher - 17 Sep 2006

Oh, but HW is always excused no matter what. I'll give it out early if they give me enough time. Another reason I don't do late HW anytime they want is that they've usually lost the work and I have to put it all together. It just isn't possible to get all the different permuations of assignments that each of my 150 kids has misplaced/lost. And I am keeping up with 3 different class levels/paces. Each class learns the same stuff at a different time.

Then there are all of that ridiculous training that doesn't help. And the data meetings. I've been analyzing the data for 7 years and that's why I get better each year. I'm never in my classroom with time for planning. That's what I do on the weekends. Plotting and planning to be an Eviler Math Teacher than before!

-- EvilMathTeacher - 17 Sep 2006

Evil MT

What do you think about all the data analysis??

How do you do your own data analysis - or how have you done it - how has it helped? - is your district doing anything helpful with it - are you concerned about bad data analysis, etc., etc......

If you feel like writing a Comment/Post about this, I'd love to put it on the front page.

Our district has just gone whole hog for "data warehousing," which, in theory, I favor.

In practice I'm quite worried.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics & all that.

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2006

The CONSTANT interruption of classtime, the CONSTANT "professional development" - I'm not a teacher & just thinking about it makes me crazy.

Did you read the great post about the state-test-scoring-training session the NYC teacher had to attend? It's around here somewhere...

Her friend said afterwards, "That's 3 hours of my life I'll never get back."

-- CatherineJohnson - 19 Sep 2006