Another day in Ypsi, and another substitute teacher. Mr. Tuttle typically does a few warm-up problems on the board at the beginning of every class, just to get the juices flowing. So, for the past three days that Mr Tuttle has been out, I've been doing the warm-ups.
Early in the year I noticed that number of the students just copy the warm-up off the board and turn it in to get their warm-up points. Just so I'm not giving them the answers, I end up asking the class what to do at almost every conceptual juncture, which often leads to a lot of uncomfortable dead space. For example, this past week, we were doing areas and circumferences of circles, and we had a circle with a known diameter and we wanted to know the area. I asked the class, "OK, if we have the diameter of a circle, how can we get the radius?" No one answered. Knowing from my time as a TA at U of M that you cannot give them the answer to a question, or else they will just learn to wait you out, I said, "Well, I can wait." One student, who was facing the wrong way, turned around and asked incredulously, "You're really going to wait?" Eventually someone gave me the answer, I wrote down r = d/2, and we went on. Then I did something that blew them away, and I tried it again in three other classes to the same effect. We were solving for the area of the circle and we had the diameter, so I put this up on the board:
A = pi * r^2 = pi * (d/2)^2 = pi * d^2 / 4
Usually the response I got was, "Whoa, whoa, how did you get 4?" but one student said, "Ok, stop doing college math, we're in high school here." I told her reassuringly, "Don't worry, I'm sure you can do this." I'm pretty sure what threw them was I used symbols instead of plugging in numbers right away. What surprised me was these were some of the better math students who got lost. Many of them got it when they focused on what I put on the board, but I think they are used to understanding things with just a quick glance, so it jolted them when I did something in a new way.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Subs
Over the past month and a half, for 4 out of the past 6 days that I've been in the classroom, Mr. Tuttle has been out for Michigan Merit Examination related activities. As you might imagine, it's been quite a wild ride with a new substitute teacher every week. On the one hand, it is certainly much more chaotic in the classroom, but since the students spend the hour working on their assigned homework, I appreciate the chance to interact with them more.
Behavior incidents similar to the one I described the post titled "Boiling Point" have been much more common. There have been days when I come home fuming mad because a student blatantly disregards me when I've politely asked them to put away their cell phone 3 separate times; refuses to go back to their seat near the end of the period no matter how diplomatically I ask them; or will not stop making fun of another student. In one episode, three guys were teasing a tough girl who has her heart in the right place, but frequently can't control her outbursts. Now she typically hangs out with these guys, so I was letting her fend for herself, but they were just looking for a rise out of her. As she began to get more and more agitated, one of the more insidious boys kept asking her in a baby voice, "Do you need a tissue?" Finally she yelled, "Would you just lay off it!" Another one of the teasing boys asked from across the classroom, "Are you mad, [name]"? She ignored him, so he asked again. By now all the class had stopped working and was watching this unfold. Now I had a reason to step in and stop things without looking like I was just trying to protect this girl, so I said, "Look, you know she's mad, so stop asking." He then asked with a smile on his face, "Are you mad?" I responded, "Save your little altercation for another time, because the entire class is staring at you instead of getting their work done." Soon after the bell rang. It's these sorts of events that remind me of why high school can be hellish for some kids. Also I sometimes get the sense that students are just trying to get under my skin, just like they were doing to this girl, because they know that I have no power to send them to the office.
On the other side of the coin, while subs have been in the classroom I've gotten to know some kids much more recently. One girl, who I've had a rocky relationship with in the past, asked me if I wanted to read her English essay that I noticed on her desk. It was a pretty emotional piece with a description of her troubles on the basketball team and her father. She showed it to me because she was proud of it, but I felt lucky that she felt comfortable letting me read it. On another day, a student told me that he had fought with his Mom a few weeks ago, has not talked to her since, and now is living with his brother. In these instances, as well as others, they usually don't want to go too far into the details, but it's so much better knowing where each individual student is coming from. Also, the girl I talked about in my post titled "Imperfect Interactions", who said, "No, and if there was, I wouldn't ask you. I don't know you," has since asked me for help several times. It's nice to see a turn around like that, and often she knows exactly what she's doing, so I just end up confirming it for her. Once she said to herself as I was walking away, "See, I'm smart."
Behavior incidents similar to the one I described the post titled "Boiling Point" have been much more common. There have been days when I come home fuming mad because a student blatantly disregards me when I've politely asked them to put away their cell phone 3 separate times; refuses to go back to their seat near the end of the period no matter how diplomatically I ask them; or will not stop making fun of another student. In one episode, three guys were teasing a tough girl who has her heart in the right place, but frequently can't control her outbursts. Now she typically hangs out with these guys, so I was letting her fend for herself, but they were just looking for a rise out of her. As she began to get more and more agitated, one of the more insidious boys kept asking her in a baby voice, "Do you need a tissue?" Finally she yelled, "Would you just lay off it!" Another one of the teasing boys asked from across the classroom, "Are you mad, [name]"? She ignored him, so he asked again. By now all the class had stopped working and was watching this unfold. Now I had a reason to step in and stop things without looking like I was just trying to protect this girl, so I said, "Look, you know she's mad, so stop asking." He then asked with a smile on his face, "Are you mad?" I responded, "Save your little altercation for another time, because the entire class is staring at you instead of getting their work done." Soon after the bell rang. It's these sorts of events that remind me of why high school can be hellish for some kids. Also I sometimes get the sense that students are just trying to get under my skin, just like they were doing to this girl, because they know that I have no power to send them to the office.
On the other side of the coin, while subs have been in the classroom I've gotten to know some kids much more recently. One girl, who I've had a rocky relationship with in the past, asked me if I wanted to read her English essay that I noticed on her desk. It was a pretty emotional piece with a description of her troubles on the basketball team and her father. She showed it to me because she was proud of it, but I felt lucky that she felt comfortable letting me read it. On another day, a student told me that he had fought with his Mom a few weeks ago, has not talked to her since, and now is living with his brother. In these instances, as well as others, they usually don't want to go too far into the details, but it's so much better knowing where each individual student is coming from. Also, the girl I talked about in my post titled "Imperfect Interactions", who said, "No, and if there was, I wouldn't ask you. I don't know you," has since asked me for help several times. It's nice to see a turn around like that, and often she knows exactly what she's doing, so I just end up confirming it for her. Once she said to herself as I was walking away, "See, I'm smart."
Boiling Point
As I mentioned in the previous post, I gave a presentation on the design of airplanes to all of Mr. Tuttle's classes a few weeks ago. As I also said below, it went really well in the first 5 classes, but the last class of the day was a different story. After discussing airplane design principles with the class, we built paper airplanes and threw them across the room to test out the concepts. Naturally this was a little chaotic, just as it was in all the other classes. However, when I asked them to take their seats though, they could not calm down. So much so that I felt compelled to say, “Look, we won’t have fun interactive lessons like this in the future, if this is how you behave.” They quieted down a bit, we talked about airplanes some more, threw the paper airplanes again, but by the end of the hour, the students started getting loud again. Through multiple waits for things to quiet down, along with asking specific students to stop talking, I got too frustrated to go on. In the middle of a sentence during my summary slide, a just stopped and said, “That’s it, I’m done.” I put about 10 hours into this presentation, so I was hurt by their attitude towards me. This stunned the class for a moment, and Mr. Tuttle chastised the class for their rudeness. Looking back, I think I handled this OK, but I should set my expectations at the right level so things like this do not get to me.
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