And we came to the end

Summer seemed like it would never come, but it eventually arrived as it reliably does. This was an interesting year and and I definitely learned a lot about teaching and a lot about kids. My intent was to have a one year experiment in a middle school and then move back to high school, but the Great Recession had other plans. I’m going to be back teaching middle school next year and I’m thankful for the opportunity to have a job. I’m growing to enjoy middle school and I’m planning on next year being filled with more successes than failures. I don’t know how long my energy to keep up with 13 year olds will last, but I’m confident that I can give it another year.

I will take another crack at blogging next year, and hopefully I’ll find a bit more time to write and share my stories. During the summer I’ll pass on any education related news I come across that I deem noteworthy, and I’ll start sharing my experiences with school again in August. Now, it’s time to hit the beach.

The Drugs Do Work

Back in 1997 the band the Verve released the song “The Drugs Don’t Work,” clearly they never taught middle school. A few weeks ago Josef, one of our trouble makers from previous posts, started taking medication for ADHD. It was like magic. Within a few days his behavior was completely changed. He started asking for work to do, he stopped distracting everyone else in class, he was generally pleasant to be around. I’ve never seen such a quick change. I don’t know what drug he is on or how much time has to pass before it takes effect, but for him it seemed instantaneous. I’m not sure it’s actually possible to get such quick results, so part of me wondered if it was the placebo effect, which means he can actually control his behavior. Whatever the reason he has been so much better to have in class that I cross my fingers everyday that it will last until the end of the year. Now I don’t advocate for medicating America’s youth, but I think that for some kids it actually works. I’ll try to keep you posted on his progress.

The hair is the window to the soul

One thing I did not remember about middle school was how important a hair cut can be. In the past few weeks, I’ve had several young gentlemen get haircuts that they considered to be less than perfect. The tip off as to when a student thinks their haircut sucks is when they begin wearing the hoods of their sweatshirts all the time. Wearing a hood is against the rules in our school, but they would rather be asked to remove the hoods about a 100 times and possibly receive detentions for non-compliance than expose their locks to the world.

Officer Larvell Jones

Did you ever see that movie Police Academy? The answer is yes. You may have actually seen one of Police Academy’s six redundant sequels (including that Cold War icebreaker Police Academy 7: Mission to Moscow, yes a real movie with the official tag line “Kicking buttski. Making you laughski. The Academy is backski!”) and confused it with the original, but that’s beside the point. The only thing that stands out about that movie besides Steve Guttenberg’s genius comedic timing (I kid, I kid) is the rather impressive sound effects of one Officer Larvell Jones played by comedian Michael Winslow. He makes lots of funny booping and beeping noises and uses them to outwit the Sargent and the bad guys. Now if you can imagine him discovering this talent as a middle school student and not knowing when it is appropriate to use, then you have one of my students.

Locker Room Beat Down

We had an intense girl fight in the locker room the other day. It pitted the a fairly run of the mill student against the hardcore girl from school. It was the hard girl who attacked, and we as teachers probably should have know that something was up because she actually showed up to school that day. She rarely comes to school even though she is court ordered to do so, and the days that she does show up she mostly spends skipping class. What do middle school kids even do when they cut class? That was so far off my radar when I was in middle school that I really couldn’t tell you what I would have done. It seems that staying home would be way better than wandering the streets as a 13 year old or in the case of our students  hanging out in the woods behind the campus. Sounds really fun doesn’t it?

I luckily did not witness this fight, but I did hear the aftermath. There was clumps of hair pulled out and punches to the face delivered. The recipient of the beat down was okay and the aggressor was taken away from school in handcuffs. I’m guessing she’s not going to be back.

Civility in the Classroom — two articles

I was recently talking (gmail chatting really) with a colleague of mine about my previous post on putting students into groups without them totally destroying each others self esteem, and she mentioned that she had a very similar problem with her 12th graders.  This seems to be a common problem in schools, and we probably all have memories from our own schooling when we encountered others who were cruel. We decided that teaching students not to be rude in school is a pretty important thing to do. We all see lots of rude people out in the real world and it’s probably true that these people were rude when they were in school too.  If we as teachers can help students to learn to be more civil to others, than we will have done the nation a great service. 

The pain of group work

Editors note: School got really busy after winter break, so I apologize for the extended break. I’ll try to do better to have more frequent updates.

The issue with Middle School kids that has really struck me lately is group work. It’s not so much what they do in groups (or don’t do in many cases), rather it’s what happens when they are placed in groups.

I am a big believer in group work because I think it’s a very authentic exercise. Not many jobs these days advertise for “solitary player” or “needs to work well alone.” Most jobs want team players and those who can function in a group environment. So much of life is based on getting results while working with others that I want to get my kids ready for it. Even low level jobs now call their employees team members. I feel like I would be selling the students short if I didn’t make them work in groups.

Middle School Dance

Last week I had the opportunity to chaperone my first middle school dance, and let me tell you that it was gold—awkward, awkward gold. Since most middle school kids aren’t supposed to stay out late and can’t legally drive, though some do, middle school dances are held directly after school. Our dance was on a Friday right after office hours, in the cafeteria.  It had been several years since I’d attended a non-wedding dance, but I’d been to enough in my secondary school and college careers that I had preconceived notions of what dances were like. This dance had some similarities to the picture in my head. What I remember of dances usually isn’t in a cafeteria with the tables folded up and pushed to the sides, or with bad party music playing (okay maybe with bad party music playing), or with lots of 12 year olds doing the Soulja Boy dance, and the dances in my mind certain don’t have the afternoon sun coming through the windows. Look, I’m an uncoordinated white guy, so dancing really isn’t my strong suit. In order to feel comfortable dancing it typically has to be dark and loud and I have to be five beers deep. I found it incredibly hard to get into the groove with a cheesy DJ playing bad music from the 90’s, near daylight conditions, and a bunch of my 12 year olds shaking it to the Jonas Brothers.

Quote of the Day #3

Today’s quote of the day is actually, the note of the day—meaning this is the best note that I intercepted this week. As it turns out, middle school kids are caught in an awkward place because they aren’t good at passing notes yet, but most of them don’t have cell phones so they can’t text. Because of these two things I intercept a lot of notes.

On to the quote:

“How’s coming to your b-day?”

“Do u mean who? Lol…”

Articulate, no?

Quote of the Day #2

Quote of the day: Said to me by a failing student, in detention, when I asked what homework he was going to work on. “None, it’s called HOME-work.” Sure it is, and I’m guessing he’s not going to do much of it at HOME.