We won our basketball game by 58 points last night.
We also scored 58 points.
Yes, that's right. We won 58-0!!!!!
Those are partly exclamation points for excitement and partly for sheer amazement that it is possible for a team to not score at all in one full game...
That is definitely not your typical basketball score!
I PROMISE I was trying not to run up the score! Yes, my starters played some in the 4th quarter, but they were trying out defenses and offenses they have never run before in a game...didn't matter.
I had my bench in a lot of the game too!! Didn't matter either! My whole team was playing GREAT (and they are already good on an off-day!)
I told them before the game that I didnt' want a repeat of the last time we played this team...last time they kind of just expected the team to roll over for them and did not come out ready to play. Apparently that little speech pumped them up to no end, because they came READY!!!
I do feel a little bad - that is an embarrassing loss...and then again, it was pretty fun and my girls really played well AS A TEAM which I don't always see :)
I have had more success stories than failure stories, in general...
One recent success story:
There was a girl in my 3rd period class (seventh grade) that was trouble. She had moved here from Florida the second week of school and had an ATTITUDE. She is white, which I think is where a lot of the peer clashes come from, but she was always trying to start messes with other students and got suspended for fighting fairly early on in the year. She also had a TERRIBLE attitude in my class. She would sit and pout or glare or write on my desks and never really did any work.
This quarter, something changed. I had talked to her a little bit before about trying to pick up her grade (she failed the first 9 weeks miserably), but I didn't think anything would change her. Suddenly, she started coming to class on time and getting to work right away. She also began to participate in class, handed in every homework assignment and scored in the high 80s on the first test she took this quarter. I was so proud of her! (I was also quite surprised!) I wrote a note home for her to take to her parents about how outstanding she had been doing in my class because I'm pretty sure they RARELY hear anything positive about her. When I handed her the note to bring home, she looked a little nervous. I told her to take it to her parents and that she may read it if she wanted to. At the end of class, she came up to me to hand something in and was smiling SO BIG. I asked if she had read the note and she nodded and kept smiling. I told her I was so impressed with how she's been doing and she thanked me and left.
Then it came time to pick student of the month. I thought she would make a great candidate. After all, she was one of few students that had turned in every homework assignment we've had, AND she had a great attitude in class every day! So I picked her. The day I meant to announce it to the class, I didn't quite get around to it and had to pull her aside to give it to her later. Again, she looked so surprised and HAPPY about it! I just loved seeing her expression!! I also couldn't wait to see how her progress kept up this 9 weeks with her new attitude and hoped these rewards would keep her attitude up.
It really seemed like it would..........
..........and now she's suspended for fighting. I still count this as a success story. The fight didn't occur in my room or anything, and I guess I can't expect her to have COMPLETELY changed...I'm just hoping she comes back and can catch up quickly and doesn't get frustrated! I laughed today because my "starting five" student (student of the month) for my 3rd period class was supposed to help me out, and she was suspended. HAHAHA. GREAT example!
Other smaller, but very important successes that I have done recently....
I learned to:
TAKE A DAY OFF (It just feels sooo good!)
and
DELEGATE. There are plenty of people (students, parents, etc) that are more than willing to help you with small tasks and it helps SO MUCH. I still need to do this more, but in giving my students more responsibility, we both win! They love it and learn at the same time, and I don't have as much on my plate to do every day!
:)
There are a few pieces of advice I would give to a new teacher coming in to a new school...one of those being GET INVOLVED.
I think part of the reason I'm having such a positive experience is because I got involved in extracurricular activities right away at my school. I was coaching softball right away from the time I got to my school, and now I'm full swing into basketball. It is SO NICE to have something to go to after school that isn't directly related to the classroom. It is a great reprieve from the typical day because even though you're still in charge of students, they are not confined to a classroom and they are doing something they love!
Being out on the field or the court with my students is also nice because I get to interact with them on such a different level. A lot of them act very differently after school than at school, and it is really fun to see them open up and be able to joke around with them a little bit. It's also nice to be able to have more of a personal impact on the girls. I think more life-lessons can be taught from a coaching perspective than in a classroom.
I have definitely had many memorable moments with my players that I'll never forget!
It has also been nice to be involved for the sake of getting to know parents and other faculty members. I have met so many more parents, faculty, and staff members because of being a part of extracurricular activities. ALL of the teachers and students know me because I can be seen outside of the classroom. I think I've earned a certain amount of respect for being around outside of school for different activities. I wouldn't have it any other way, though. I need it, and I LOVE IT!!!
I LOVED the idea of the post of what my students do to make me laugh. Unfortunately, whenever I sit down to write this blog, I can't think of something specific that they do....
I'm going to write a couple that come to mind right now, and hopefully I can just keep adding to it.
My kids make me laugh almost every day at some point. They are FUNNY!!!!
One thing that is really simple that makes me chuckle is their response to things. As I write homework up on the board, an exasperated voice from the back of the room says, 'Oh LAWD!!!' (I don't know if I did justice to that...it is their version of Oh Lord, just drawn out and very emotionally expressive!)
Another thing they do is dance. They dance everywhere. They dance up to the front of the room if they have to come to the board for things. They dance back to their seats. They dance in their seats. If they aren't dancing physically, they probably are in their head. They have rhythm, and they CAN dance!!! I love it, and it makes me laugh too:)
Also, because they are middle schoolers, there are a lot of things that make me laugh about how important they think some things are. Mostly I mean interpersonal things and relationships they have. Middle schoolers are just funny in general.
Like I said, not enough specifics, but I'm sure my kids will make me laugh at some point tomorrow and the next day and the next.......and I'll try to write some of them down!
I think my classroom management is getting better in some classes and worse in others. I thought maybe looking back on my classroom management plan for this assignment might help me figure out why...
Here are some observations I made looking back on my plan from this summer:
- First, I think my definition and philosophy of classroom management hit pretty head on. I still very much agree that the goal of classroom management is to create a positive learning environment with as few interruptions as possible. I realize this the most when I'm in a classroom where there is NOT enough learning going on because of the interruptions. My philosophy on the importance of consistency and communication is still very important to me, but I think I could do a better job of keeping this up in my classroom.
- I think my rewards system has been working out REALLY well. Middle school students respond incredibly well to rewards, and it works really well for both for positive and negative reinforcement because they do NOT want the rewards taken away from them.
- My consequences need another step. I am incorporating writing assignments into my consequences starting tomorrow. I have given out too many warnings and not followed up to the next step all the time. A lot of that has to do with what my next step is. My consequence list reads:
Warning......Conference Outside......Detention/Phone Call Home......Office.
I haven't made enough phone calls home, and our school doesn't have detention. I need something else!
In general:
I think my classroom management was going really well until last week or the week before. I missed a couple days for workshops, and I think I didn't come back strong enough - I was just excited to see my kids!
Today I gave a quiz to my 5th period class (my repeaters) that I'm hoping will be effective. I told them that since they weren't listening to me that they must know everything I was about to go over with them and they must be ready for a test! The ones who were talking the most did terribly I'm sure, and I'm hoping they use that low test grade as a reason to stay quiet.
...as far as finding out what might be making the differences in my success in the classroom, I don't think I found a definitive reason, but I do want to reestablish structure in my classroom. I agree with what I said this summer about the structure, communication, and consistency being the most important aspects of classroom management, and I think that is the area I can make stronger in ALL classes.
I had a major feel-good moment today :)
One of my softball girls wrote an essay about me for her English class. She (we'll call her M) and another one of my players (P) come into my classroom every morning before school to hang out and sometimes for help on homework.
Today, P said, "Coach Hall, M wrote an essay about you. It says all types of bad stuff about you. You should read it."
I knew she was joking, and I smiled and asked M if I could read it. She blushed but excitedly got it out of her backpack.
The prompt for the essay: "Write about your role model"
....and she wrote about ME!!!....
Her essay was soooo sweet and made me really happy. It was awesome to see some of the little things she picked out that I do that she admired. She stretched the truth a tad about what she comes into my room for, saying I help her with ACT stuff (and not the typical gabbing-session about the Hills or The Game)......but hopefully eventually that's what it will be for! What's even better - it was a well-written essay!
The brief history recap in the beginning of the book was a perfect concise description of why the educational system in Mississippi is so far behind other states. Sometimes I forget that the problem stems from way before the current problems that I see the kids facing: single-parent homes, poverty, etc. I knew the schools were low in funding, and the first few chapters of Delta Autumn tell why that is.
Other things I found helpful included the section on classroom management. Some of this may have been more helpful before school started, but it also talked about how your original plan could get stale and to remember that change is good and can be very effective. There are some things I need to reiterate and re-drill into my students about what is expected of them in the classroom, and there are some things that I just have to change altogether.
One thing I definitely would have liked to have read before school started was the section about special education. I have at least 10 kids with IEPs in my classroom throughout each day, and there are many challenges that come along with this that I wasn't necessarily prepared for. I still probably am not fully prepared, nor do I feel equipped to give these students the attention and instruction they need without neglecting the rest of my class. I agree with the idea of inclusion and think it is beneficial for the students, but I still feel like I am failing them and/or the rest of my class every day because I can't be at every desk at the same time! I am very interested to find out more about each of my students now that I've read some of the most common disabilities students in poverty face. I have a LOT of students with vision problems and quite a few that seem to have some form of ADD or ADHD. Trying to accommodate for all them is one of my biggest challenges.
There were some valid ideas in the teaching math section that I plan to use in my class even starting this week. I am also glad they touched on the fact that we should TRY to get as much of the frameworks taught, but that there will be remedial work needed and the students NEED that before they can move on.
One aspect of the book that I find very important is the idea of poverty being more than just financial poverty. Most of my students qualify for free lunch and live in low-income areas, but it has been interesting for me to try to think of the other resources they do or do not have at home. Some of the children seem to have a clear support system, while others are definitely lacking this. I found this out with some of my phone calls home that I've made. Some parents care and appreciate the call, and some make you feel like you're inconveniencing them by taking your time to show care and/or concern about their child. Other children are lacking mental resources, which seems to come along with the support systems. They haven't grown up with much educational support from their parents, and it shows in their school work. On the other hand, some students seem to have most of the resources besides financial, and I think this will help them get out of poverty in the future.
There were a lot of specifics about how poverty in homes affects students/teachers/parents that I didn't take into as much consideration the first time I read this book. There were things in the book about the differences of language and how they create tensions in parent-teacher conferences that will be helpful when those roll around!
The need for relationships is something I see evidence of every day. My middle school students have already created quite a bit of drama in the past two and a half weeks, and most of it stems from them wanting to belong or being upset about something some other kid said about them. I've also noticed that some of them come talk to me and tell me their life stories because I will listen (as long as it's not during instructional time!).
One more thing I found extremely important that is an underlying theme throughout the book is not assuming the children come in with previous knowledge. The hidden rules of classes is a large factor for what children come in knowing and can often describe their actions. I grew up in an extremely different situation than these children, and it is important that I remember that, and do not assume they will have had anywhere near the same childhood I did.
This book was more helpful the second time through!
Today was an especially great service. I think this was partly due to the fact that it was made personal to me right away in the beginning. The pastor started the service by having all teachers stand up (because most schools around here start tomorrow), and he prayed for us specifically for the year. There was so much love and respect in the room for all the teachers and everyone around me was thanking me and told me they'd be praying for me. Lord knows, I'll need it as the year goes on! It was such a great feeling!
One other thing from the service today that I loved was a saying the pastor said in the message. I think it is a great thing to think about especially for us while we're teaching and may hit a few rough spots.
make the right choice!! you'll be much happier :)
One thing I am going to try to always remember this year is that EACH day is a brand new day!
My Thursday afternoon was tiring. I was looking forward to the weekend sooo much and was just plain WIPED OUT.
My entire Friday was the complete opposite and it left me energized and very excited about this year again! These kids seem to have a switch that can make them complete angels one day and then there's nothing you can do to get them behaving the next!
There is beauty behind that. Even if you feel like you lost one day, the next can be completely different. I'm going to try to remember not to discount any classes or individuals just because of how they acted one day. They deserve the best I can give them every day, and if I come into their class expecting it to be poor, it probably will be.
