The Spring Break Fade
“How many of your outlines contain deductive and inductive reasoning?” I asked my class today.
They’ve had three weeks to work on their persuasive speech topics and outlines. We’ve discussed types of reasoning and fallacies in reasoning for those three weeks. I’ve given them example after example. I’ve shown them example after example.
One hand went up, but it wasn’t because he had deductive reasoning in his outline.
“What’s deductive reasoning again?” he asked.
I had to take a deep breath. Nothing irritates me more than when I am crystal clear about what I’m looking for, I spend weeks teaching my butt off and explaining and re-explaining and then they just decide they’re going to ignore everything I’ve told them to do anyway. Most of the time I love teaching; but on days like today, when I feel like I’ve been talking to a concrete wall for weeks, I despise it.
So I went on one of my little tirades. Truth be told, I’ve usually had a tirade or four by this point in the semester. I should consider this a good sign. It took until the end of March for me to need to go ballistic. But the pregnancy hormones raged and I felt like my head was going to explode.
I threw the question back out at them to see if anyone had done the required reading, if anyone had been paying attention. One student raised his hand and told me the definition for inductive reasoning, not deductive reasoning. So I did what any good teacher would do. I tortured them with random topics and made them create a ready-to-go speech that was due. . . today. All speeches had to have both an example of deductive and inductive reasoning. By the end of the hour and 20 minutes, they had it down. And I was able to take a deep cleansing breath and get it out of my system.
These students are definitely showing signs of the spring break fade (with 4-8 inches of snow expected tomorrow); it’s not exactly spring. My senior has the worst case of senioritis I’ve ever seen, and my freshmen just want to go home. I think I’m going to have to start taking Hershey Kisses to class to throw at them and keep them on their toes. Chocolate is the only thing that works this time of the year.
Today, I am syndicated on BlogHer! If you missed it the first time around, go check it out here.
What NOT To Do
Filed under: Back in the Classroom, Mental Strain for Mama
Last week, I realized that my "clicker," also known as a wireless presenter, was missing its USB plug-in-thingy. Yes, technology and I are close friends. Can you tell? Then, I promptly forgot about it. . . until yesterday afternoon.
Today is the day in class where I stand up and show the students I know what I'm talking about. I perform a eulogy speech for them. It serves several purposes. First, it tells the students a little bit about me. Second, it shows them that I can deliver a decent speech so therefore, if they just pay attention and do what I tell them, they will also (at some point) be able to produce a decent speech themselves. Finally, it serves as a fantastic example of how to have a power point presentation that supplements your overall presentation without taking over your presentation.
In theory, that's what it's supposed to do. Every other semester that I have done this (all five), it has worked perfectly.
Today? Not so much.
I told Mr. BBM that my wireless presenter thingy was gone and he told me he had a solution for me. Rather than going out to buy a new one, he dug out this wireless computer mouse thing and told me it would be just like my presenter (except not really like it at all, even slightly. No).
I arrived a little early for class, brought my slide show up on the computer screen and tried it out. It worked! Sweet success! Yes!
I took my place in the center of the room, near the podium, and began my speech. I held out my hand to click to the next slide and nothing. I moved closer to the computer. Nothing. I moved right on top of the computer and finally it clicked. . . through the next three slides. This was going to be a problem.
I will spare you (and therefore myself, again) the embarrassment and nightmarish awfulness that occurred over the next few minutes. I would get it to work, click through four slides and be unable to click back. I'd have to hit "esc" and go back to the main screen again. Then, sometimes, the little message would appear on the screen, right smack in the middle of the slide that would have a little menu like "next slide, previous slide, etc." Except here's the thing, when you clicked on that, it didn't work. And then I did what I always tell my students NOT to do. . . I apologized.
I finally gave up on the wireless mouse working and just clicked the regular old computer mouse to get from slide to slide. If there was ever an example of working through it when everything technological is going wrong, I was it.
When I finished, they clapped and I shook my head in disbelief. "That was what NOT to do," I told them. "Don't ever apologize, even when you're flustered. Don't ever assume your husband knows what he's talking about when it comes to wireless mouse things either."
They laughed and I laughed at myself. What else could I do?
I normally like to give them an example of what TO do, not the opposite. Today, I hope they learned just as much by me having a major screw-up of a day. One thing that is for sure? My favorite office supply store will be selling another wireless pointer this week. This was one lesson I don't care to repeat.
One Thirsty Girl
It's that time of the year where I go into lock-down mode. I don't talk to anyone. I live in my pajamas and I pray that the next portfolio will be better than the previous five, because for the love of God, have I not taught them anything this semester?
I shudder with disappointment when I see that certain students have neglected to turn in their final reflection essay. I cringe when I see their grades at 69, 79 or 89 as I stress over what to do and whether or not I should give them the bump up (before deciding that if they truly deserved that bump up, they would have turned in all of their journal assignments and homework).
My entire life goes on hold when I'm buried under a pile of final papers, portfolios and journals and this semester has been the worst one yet because I have so many students, so many more than ever before. I created a deadline for myself to be finished by Wednesday at noon and I will do it. I might have to stay up all night. I may have to bribe myself with chocolate, a shower or a glass of wine. But one thing is for certain. . . I can't wait to be finished with grading this particular group of portfolios. There is a bottle of beaujolais with my name on it, just waiting for me to finish up.
Man I'm thirsty.
Revealing Leg Vanna Style
Filed under: Back in the Classroom, Mental Strain for Mama
Yesterday I was making my way around my classroom and dropping in on peer editing groups. I joined one group and was in the middle of telling my student that she should really avoid ending sentences with prepositions when I realized it was a bit drafty in my basement computer lab classroom that lacks any and all windows.
It was then that I glanced across the room and out of the corner of my eye, caught a view of skin that wasn't supposed to be there. With my left leg crossed over my right, the undone side seam of my upper thigh pant leg was gaping and making a huge diamond shape on my thigh of blind-you-with-the-whiteness skin.
I gasped and quickly put my hand over the hole in my pants. I mentally calculated the number of minutes I still had left in this class and the one after it. I instantly revised my lessons plans so I could sit for the next class with my legs under a desk and far out of view. I went back through time searching for something that would have ripped my pants. When did this happen? How did this happen? I bought these pants TWO weeks ago and have worn them exactly twice!
I quietly excused myself from the peer editing group, mumbling something about needing a tissue and made my way out into the hallway. As I walked, I looked down at my leg and gasped again. My pants weren't ripped. The side seam was just coming completely undone from the inside out.
I made my way down the hallway to one of my favorite secretary ladies and stuck my leg out, Vanna White style, for her to see. Her eyes got wide and she immediately started searching through her desk drawers for something, anything that would seal up my pants and allow me to return to the classroom and survive until my work day was over.
She found a small sewing kit, which seemed all kinds of promising, right up until I told her that all sewing done is our house is done by my husband. Instead she grabbed a safety pin. A nervous, partially nudist wreck, I fumbled in the bathroom until my pants were closed up the best I could get them without having to take my pants completely off. It reminded me of the time last year when my bra strap came completely undone as I was busy lecturing about annotated bibliographies. These count the two times in my life when I have been grateful for my allergies. One sniffle in front of an attentive class, and I can make an emergency run to the bathroom for nostril evacuation, or so they think.
I stopped back in the office to show the secretary my leg once again. She gave me a nod of approval.
By now, I figured my writing class would have figured out that I wasn't blowing my nose. I also realized that many of them had probably seen my pant leg slit during the 15 minutes that I took explaining to them what I wanted them to do. So I walked into the classroom and shamed them for not telling me I was revealing some serious leg.
They stared at me like I was an escaped lunatic. Not one of them had noticed, yet now they were ALL looking for the big reveal. Sometimes I forget that I teach at the crack of dawn and these kids can barely open their eyes. It's all kinds of wonderful for when you're having wardrobe malfunctions.
Thankfully, my safety pin and one strategically placed binder clip kept that thigh under wraps . . . for the most part.
The other day I told you my thighs and butt were big and hungry. Now there is proof. They clearly ate my side seam.
Teachable Moments from Silly Quizzes
Today was listening quiz day. It's one of my favorite days all semester. It's the day when students get completely terrified because "My God, she's giving us a quiz already." Then they get into the guts of the quiz and start acting like total fools (or they sit around and watch everyone else look like a fool); and then finally end up with the realization that they have not given their first assignment their all. Not even close.
It's a make or break moment in class and that is why it is so very worth it to watch 10 minutes of complete insanity. You can read the entire quiz here so you understand what I'm talking about. You can also read about another listening quiz day in class here. Ah, they are such good days. If you're too lazy to click over to read the quiz, you'd probably make it to #20 like so many of my students did today, and that's not a good thing. I'm just sayin'. (Made you click, didn't I?)
Because I have a lot of upperclassmen in this class, I figured I wouldn't be able to fool them all. However, having read their assignments, I didn't really know what to expect. Here's what I got: out of the 18 students in my class, only three people got it from the very beginning. The rest were high-fiving people across the room, walking around the classroom like they had ants in their pants, and screaming out "Yes, I'm so smart!
At one point, a student said out loud, "Oh man" and I thought she had figured it out. However, she went on to say, "I can't believe I have to do jumping jacks." She was on #19 and #20 brought complete silence and a slightly reddened and embarrassed face.
Another girl yelled out, "This is lame!" to which my response was, "No, what's lame is that so many of you didn't follow directions." There was no denying that, and the room filled with silence. I let them sit there in it for a minute.
"So, what's the point?" I asked them when I felt the silence had done its job. "Why do you think I chose to torture you like this today?"
My one freshman student, who totally got it and turned in near perfect assignments on Tuesday, nailed it. "You wanted to stress the importance of paying attention and following directions."
Thank you.
Moments like this in the classroom can do one of two things. If the student has been supremely embarrassed, they can get mad at you and adopt an attitude problem. But this has never happened in my classroom and it didn't happen today.
What did happen was pretty awesome. I partnered the students up with someone who could help them. Those who had a ton of content but no organization in their speech outlines got partnered up with those who had a perfectly formatted outline with zero info in it. And the conversations that I heard were incredible. About half of the class told me they were completely reworking their outlines and asked if I'd take a look at their new outline tonight or over the weekend. They know they're not getting any extra credit for revisions. They just want to work harder and get themselves on the right track. It felt like a major breakthrough with this class that hasn't really seemed able to "get me" thus far.
After class, I had wanted to speak with a student that I had for writing last year. I was shocked and horrified when this student turned in one of the most horribly written assignments I had ever seen. He earned next to no credit for it and I wanted to pull him aside, shake him, and scream, "I taught you better than that! What are you DOING?"
I didn't have to. He approached me after class, apologized for handing in garbage and showed me a revision he had done before even getting my abysmal feedback.
On Tuesday night, I would have told you that this group would be my worst speech group ever. However, after today, I'm quite certain that this group will be one of my hardest working groups ever. There is so much potential and it took a super silly quiz to tap it. As a teacher, there is nothing better than days like today.
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