hipteacher

Yearbook Dreaming

I have decided after listening, once again, to students wax poetic about the potential of doing a Grateful Dead/ tie dye/ trippy-colored yearbook, that most young people are developmentally delayed in the area of taste. Struggling with the boundaries between having a student publication that is the true voice of the students and my utter distaste for any color scheme involving full-color hot pink and lime pages, I focus on remaining open and constructive about their theme ideas. Some were ok, and some were god-awful. The discussion will continue tomorrow.

But for a moment, I lost focus and came up with my own not-exactly-serious idea for a yearbook theme: The Divine Comedy. There's the hell of freshman year, the purgatory of sophomore and junior years and the paradise of senior year and graduating. You could do a black-gray-white color scheme that would have very little need of hot pink, rhinestones or stupid dancing bears.

But since my school is pre-K through twelfth, I don't think it would work too well.

Plus, it's all a PR game anyway. Hell analogies don't work too well for recruitment.

Conclusion: I will cross my fingers and magically figure out how to teach tasteful design.

The Same Stuff Again

The first week went pretty well. As usual, I wasn't mean or strict enough with my new ninth graders, and by the end of the week they a) loved me and b) acted a little K-RAZY. On Friday, though, the crazy factor wasn't entirely their fault.

It was our first day in the computer lab. Of course, all but three didn't know their passwords and the nice IT help desk lady was at lunch, so I had to sweet talk the PC tech guy* into breaking into help desk lady's office and getting the passwords for us. It was a laborious process, and the tech guy and help desk lady, once she returned, complained for some time about how the students keep having to get their passwords over and over. I nodded in commiseration, but it was a bit forced. I mean, if my password was "iU8pC4l1", case-sensitive, and I wasn't allowed to change it to something I would remember, I no doubt would be visiting help desk lady on a regular basis for a refresher.

So that took awhile.

As students logged on, I directed them to Edublogs to begin creating their own blogs. Unfortunately, due to site traffic or local weather or some other magical, mystery techno-beastie, the site's homepage would come up, but none could get past that screen to start accounts. My edublog would come up, however, so I randomly decided to show them how to leave comments on mine. I don't know what the kids think about blogging after that semi-lesson because it was all so anti-climatic, but it wasn't a total wash.

And I did get about four comments from girls in my class pretending to be girls from that show "Gossip Girl," filling me in on the activities of their characters and anticipating the new season of the show. So, I learned something too: some of my students have a natural ability to write cheesy copy for TV ads AND I better at least check that show out so I can have some clue about what the hell they are talking about all the time.

We were left with a few minutes in the period, and we are under strict instructions not to allow ninth graders to leave early for lunch, so OF COURSE, one boy goes right to a video of my band on YouTube (word gets around fast in a small school like this). They all rush over to watch it, but one kid who can't see it from the back of the group asks, "Hey, is her husband good looking?" A football player type with blond hair that falls across his forehead in a wave turns around and says, "Yeah, he's hot," which makes all the girls totally fall out laughing. One girl yells, "Dude, you're a boy. You're not supposed to say that!" And football boy is all like, "Yeah, but what was I supposed to say? I didn't want to be rude!" And that's the point when I just started marching around the room booming, "LOG OFF AND LEAVE. LOG OFF AND LEAVE."

So that was awesome.

The next time we go to set up our blogs, I pray everything works according to plan, and they can use any extra minutes creating avatars and experimenting with widgets instead of watching embarrassing YouTube videos.

*the same gentleman who once told me that it was not one of his job responsibilities to ever, ever talk to students. This he informed me of directly after asking me to ask a student to move six inches to the left so he could get to the computer he was supposed to service. We were all sitting within five feet of each other and the whole thing was a little awkward.

Everything I Need to Know About You I Learned From Your Words

Today was the first day of my fifth year of teaching.

I've decided that my ninth graders will be choose their own vocabulary words. So, instead of handing them worksheets with vocab exercises from a book or using a list of SAT words, I asked each of them to identify one word to contribute to our class vocabulary list each week. I asked them to pay attention to the words they don't yet know as they read magazines, watch television, listen to music, or whatever. Each week when they turn in their words, they will write the word, the definition and the context in which they heard the word, and then the next week they'll be quizzed on all the words chosen by the class.

I'd gotten tired of my old vocabulary book, and I want to allow the kids ownership of what we're learning whenever I can. Plus, I think it will still prepare them for future standardized testing. I got an email from a student I taught three years ago last night.

By the way, moppet was one of my vocabulary words on the SAT. I thought you would like to know that since you used to call me a moppet all the time.

So, real words from real life. I like it.

After my explanation, a cute blond in the front row waved her hand.

Um, can I pick the word high-maintenance? 'Cause people are always telling me that I'm all    high-maintenance, and I don't even know what that means.

I dunno if high-maintenance is gonna be on the SAT, but I guess learning for personal growth is a good thing too. Sure thing.