Week 3: Positives and Negatives of Summer School

When I first started my blog, my goal was for it to serve as an outlet for me to reflect on my teaching experiences. I wanted to try to keep it light and mostly positive.

So, as I have been teaching summer school for three weeks now, I decided to come up with a list of positives and negatives of being a summer school teacher.

*BACKGROUND-My husband, myself and another teacher are teaching Reading to a group of 17 kids who have failed the state standardized test twice. They come from various backgrounds and five middle schools in our district.

Positives:
1. THE MONEY—Part I. Three weeks ago I would not have put this at the top of my list of positives, but trust me, after three weeks--summer school teachers deserve every penny.
2. THE MONEY—Part II. Teaching summer school gives me an opportunity to do something besides spend money. In the summer I have an awful habit of just going shopping, our out to eat.
3. HELPS ME OCCUPY MY TIME--When I am home in the summer time, I am usually very bored. I am so used to going, going, going, during the school year I don’t know what to do with my time when I have a moment off.
4. NEW KIDS--I get to work with new kids I don’t know. Many of our kids are awesome and it is puzzling to me as to why/how they have all these gaps in their knowledge.
5. EASY WORK—It is really not that hard to teach summer school. We had two days to plan before summer school started. Plus, the subject matter is fairly easy for a “somewhat intelligent person.” I keep reminding myself, “You have a college degree. These lovely kids…well, they do not.”
6. SMALL CLASS SIZES—With a 10:1 ratio, you have the opportunity for a lot more individualized instruction your struggling students.

Negatives:
1. NEW KIDS who have a history of struggling—Your summer school kids don’t know you (or your teaching style) and in only 14 instructional days, you have a very limited amount of time to build rapport with them and get them up to speed.
2. TEACHING TO THE TEST—I hate to say it, but the goal for us is to get our kids to pass the state standardized test. So, in everything we do, we have that goal in mind. We have to give them practice and that means practice test questions and lots of reading passages.
3. BORING and slightly painful—Because I am a “somewhat intelligent person” and I know what I need to do to pass a Reading test, the work is quite boring. We find reading passages for the kids, give them multiple choice tests, and give them feedback.
4. NOT MY STYLE OF TEACHING see Negative Number 2 and 3—the best part of being a teacher is coming up with creative lessons and getting the kids excited about the subject matter. There are only so many ways to make a standardized test = FUN.
5. IT’S SUMMER, RIGHT?—Because you teach summer school, you don’t have a true summer off. I wake up every day at 5:30am and I usually get home from summer school about 3:00pm—which doesn’t leave me with a lot of extra time to do “summer stuff.”

In the spirit of staying positive, however, I am going to end my list of negatives and remind myself…

In the end, the new fence we get for our dog and our vacation to Las Vegas will be worth the loss of summer vacation…Right? Plus, maybe we will get a few more kids to pass the Reading test, so they can go on to high school.

Happy Weekend...only three more days of summer school.

Summer School Week 2

We have just completed our second week of summer school and are beginning our third. The good news: Mr. Campbell and I are still married and we have not had any tiffs in front of the kids. Haha.

The bad news: there are a few challenges as the kids get a little burned out reading (in some shape or form) for 6 hours straight. Overall, the attitudes have been good, but the kids do keep us on our toes.

The kids have some gaps in their reading knowledge-- we are working diligently to fill in those gaps.

Here is what we have done so far:

We adapted the Frayer Model as our warm up. I have them pick three words they don’t know from a list of approximately 6-8. We let them use the dictionaries, but have attempted to teach them NOT to write down words in their definitions that they don’t know.

Jon and I changed our Frayer Models to include a picture and the use of the word in a sentence. This really helps our ESL kids (which is almost all of them), to use the words in the proper verb tense. We have them share out a vocabulary word and they put their “finished product” up on the overhead.

I love using the overhead, it gets even the most unmotivated kids to volunteer. Today, one of the kids had the word “Diversity,” he drew a picture of a person from China who was visiting America. (Not bad for 8 in the morning!)

We also have access to Study Island. Here we can assign the kids areas to work on, such as Context Clues, Character Traits, Summaries and Main Ideas. Study Island is web based and has the state standards for many (if not all) states. It seems decent because it allows the kids to have access to the vocabulary they need and work on different areas they struggle in. The lessons can go back to third grade proficiencies if necessary.

Later, we break the kids into groups of 4-5 and work on different skill sets. Our summer school principal was emphatic that we do not teach more of the same and really encouraged us to break up the kids into different stations. I think it is easier in math because you can do more of the kinesthetic “stuff,” but we are trying our best in reading.

Truly, I see a little more progress everyday.

On the other hand, we have only six more days of direct instruction until the big TAKS test. So much to do, so little time!

Summer School Week 1

Summer school so far has been eye opening. Jon, I, and another teacher are working with 17 8th graders who have failed the state standardized test in Reading…twice.

If they don’t pass this time, they may or not be able to go to high school. (This will come down to a meeting where the parents and school staff will talk to decide if the kids go, or stay—and repeat 8th grade.) We have been teaching them four main areas (that are on the test): inferences, main ideas, supporting with text evidence/justifying answers, and context clues.

During summer school, the kids do some sort of reading for 6 hours a day. They have done everything that we have asked of them, and trust me, it is boring stuff. (This reading mumbo jumbo is why I am “normally” a science teacher.)

So, how did these kids get here? More importantly, why are they in summer school? I have been talking this over with my mom and sister who are also both teachers.

Is it because they really can’t read? We do have one boy who is still working on his sight words and decoding—he has dyslexia, but man does he work his butt off!

What about the others? Are they lazy? Surely, not all of them. Maybe some of their teachers wrote them off because they are behavior problems? Maybe they have attendance issues? The second day of summer school, we had two kids who were absent. ALREADY! I asked one of their teachers if that was normal. “Oh __________, she misses about two days a week.” (Yikes.)

On the other hand, some of them aren’t behavior problems at all. They are the quiet kids who sit in the back of the room and never say anything. They turn in their work, but they don’t truly understand their assignments (see a possible reason as to why, below). They pray their teacher won’t call on them, and many times they are able to fly under the radar. I have had these kids in class, and sadly, the only way I ever know if they are having any problems is when the test scores come back.

Then again, maybe some of them come from a home where English is not their first language? I would imagine about 13 of our 17 kids don’t speak English at home. I can tell because the majority of the questions they miss are ones that pertain to vocabulary. Patriotic, eagerly, offensive, entertaining—these were some words that the kids were not familiar with in one half hour block at summer school.

Lastly, I think some of our kids aren’t good test takers. They try and try, but they get thrown off with the distracter answers. They understand a lot of what is happening in class, but they just can’t pick the right multiple choice answer.

This is a problem because we are in a testing age, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post.

What can a teacher do? Well, when I figure out the answers I will share them.

I am going to start with teaching a little vocabulary each day—especially the words pertaining to emotions. I am also going to make those kids who like to be silent--speak up. I will encourage them to ask and answer questions and praise the heck out of them when they do.

12 more days ‘til the big day. The third times a charm—isn’t that what they say?

Summer School: The husband and wife teaching duo(ish)

My husband, Jon, and I decided we were going to teach summer school this year. When I first signed up for summer school, I was scheduled to teach math. But, I told the principal that I would teach wherever he needed me.

Here I go, opening my big mouth again. This is probably a blessing and a curse for me, and as you will read, my husband.

You see, Jon is a Language Arts teacher. He knows his "stuff." He can break down data and tell you where the student’s deficit is. He creates activities that keep even the most uninterested 8th grade boys engaged into Language Arts.

So, when the numbers came back, I was reassigned to teach 8th grade Reading—which means my hubby and I are teaching in the same classroom. We will have a group of 17 8th graders….who have failed the TAKS test twice. Sounds like a dream come true, right?

Luckily, we are teaching with another person—a young Language Arts teacher from another school in the district. We joked with her the other day that if things get ugly between us, she will have to be the referee. She laughed nervously…she doesn’t know Jon and I yet.

Jon and I have worked together before. Not in the same classroom, but we have been at the same school. He always used to tell his kids, I was the nice one. When we were at the same school, I taught the kids 7th grade Science and then he got to meet them the next year when they were 8th graders. It worked out pretty well.

The kids came to us today, and I was so excited to meet them. I could hardly sleep last night, I know, its dorky, but I really do love working with new students.

During the last school year, I had the pleasure of working with 30 kids who were absolutely awesome. Probably the smartest kids, I will ever teach. 100% of them passed their science and reading TAKS tests the first time, with only one having to do a retake in math. (He passed the second time.) They were an impressive group. I did not have any modifications; I did not have any true behavior problems (besides the fact that we were too comfortable with each other by the end of the school year).

So, today I get to meet these 8th graders—who are very different from my 5th graders. We started out by introducing ourselves and tossing a ball to each other to learn names, schools and something they are interested in/do in their spare time. We had a variety of responses, ranging from kids who were interested in shopping, watching movies—-to, my personal favorite, a boy who said he likes to “sell stuff.”

(Oh, lord, I am not in 5th grade any more.) This was the same boy who, when Jon tried to shake his hand—brushed past him without even a look. He was also wearing an "I love boobies" bracelet and a "WWJD" bracelet on the other wrist. Nice.

Our summer school kids were too quiet today. They worked hard and read a ton of TAKS passages, even the “Seller,” did a good job. We are going to change some things, but it was a good day.

They have a long way to go, but, I am very optimistic we are going to have quite a bit of success this summer!

Oh, and if it helps any—I bought some candy for tomorrow. No one said anything about bribery being a bad thing in the summer.

Summer Vacation Day .5 (No students)

Ok, so today technically did not count as a day off as I had training for 7 hours on Standards Based Grading. Oh yes, it was as exciting as it sounds.

But, yesterday was my first half day off without students.

After I packed my classroom up and brought all my boxes home, this is what I did:

1. Unloaded my car and organized the boxes in the garage.
2. Walked my dog.
3. Worked out.
4. Bought airline tickets to Las Vegas and booked our hotel.
5. Went to the movies with my husband. (Hangover 2…it was ok.)
6. Went out to eat.
7. Read a book.
8. Complained about being bored and that our home laptop stinks. (I had a brand new school issued laptop all school year. I vowed to complain everyday until I get a new one.)
9. Watched The Voice.
10. Went to bed early.

Seriously. I have no idea what I am going to do with this free time. One of my friends told me I should go back to Michigan and watch her newborn baby so she could sleep. I think she is joking. I know absolutely NOTHING about babies. Plus, they kind of freak me out.

I guess I do work too much during the school year. My nights usually consist of lesson planning, making PowerPoints, grading or answering parent emails.

Tomorrow I have the day off…no training whatsoever. Friday I have a 6 hour GT Update, Monday I have nothing to do and then Tuesday I will start planning and teaching summer school.

Yes, summer school. I will be teaching eighth grade Math to a group of kids who have failed the state standardized test twice. I am pretty excited to meet my kids—especially after working with fifth graders this year. I think it will be an adventure…plus it will give me something to do with all of my free time.

Bleak Outlook for College Graduates...DUH!

Sunday, I watched “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. She had a roundtable discussion with a group of new college grads--from particularly fancy colleges, and two successful businessmen.

Out of the four students participating in the round table, one simply doesn’t have a job, one will be continuing with higher education, one has two job offers—not in career fields he wants to pursue, and one was rather vague on if he has a job prospect or not. Yikes.

Here’s the link if you are interested:

http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/roundtable-graduates-ceos-13713737

I have to say, I am so glad that I graduated from college when I did. Almost ten years ago, (OMG, I am old!) I was in the same shoes as these college graduates. Truly, I loved every moment that I spent at Michigan State University. I have a liberal arts degree in Social Relations. (No, I am not a professional party planner, the major is actually more about public policy.) I loved what I studied and I loved my friends from 2 South. I graduated in three and a half years and I worked my butt off. It was not easy!

My first job was at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, and I worked there for eighteen months. It was not my dream job, but I needed something to pay the bills. I washed and rented cars while wearing a suit. I was in their “Management Training Program.” I made less than $30,000 a year and I worked over 50 hours a week. I was thankful for that overtime, because that mean extra money. I would scarf down my lunch at my desk in between rentals, so that I didn’t have to clock out.

After Enterprise, I worked at several other jobs—some were better, some were worse, but I still felt like I was missing something.

It wasn’t until five years ago that I found that missing “link.” It was at this time that my husband and I decided to sell our house, quit our jobs, and move to Texas. I wanted to teach and there were no opportunities in Michigan.

Thankfully, my husband is ridiculously supportive and we had this blind faith that everything would work out.

Lucky for us, it did. I got a teaching job within three weeks of moving to Texas. I didn’t get my first paycheck until almost two months later, but we made it. On the other hand, my first year of teaching is a whole additional blog post…and then some. But that is neither here nor there.

So, here is where the show, “This week” comes in. One of the businessmen who was being interviewed stated that there are tons of jobs in Silicon Valley for people who are in technical or engineering fields.

Here is where I come in. It is my job as a teacher to prepare my kids for the real world. No matter what grade they are in (Yes, even elementary age kids.) They must be exposed to STEM fields (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics). They need to know what possibilities are out there—because that is where the jobs are at now and in the future. We need to teach our lessons and integrate our curriculum so that STEM is in everything we do.

I never thought I could be an engineer because I always hated math. This last year my district started a STEM magnet program for 4th and 5th graders. (I was one of the fifth grade teachers.) I have learned a bit about engineering, and I have seen what a difference it makes for kids. Kids are natural engineers. They love to work with their hands—to design and create improvements to technology. They can do it! I am sold on STEM, and I think more teachers would be if they had the proper resources.

So maybe, if we start our kids early and get them interested in STEM fields, they will realize there are fantastic opportunities out there. And, by the time they graduate from college they will not only have a job, but they will be working in a field they love to work in (and making lots of money that they can donate to their long lost teacher?)

Seriously, what we are doing is not working. We have to get our kids ready for the job market. Otherwise, things will never change.

The end (of the school year) is near and I am not ready!

Ok, so if you have been reading my blog, you know that I have been counting down to the end of the school year since spring break. It is not because my school year has been bad, it is just that I always like to know when my next break is. After 179 instructional days, weekends filled with lesson planning, and an average of 2-3 after school meetings a week—I am a little tired.

Well, now the end is approaching and I will admit, I am not ready to say goodbye to my fifth graders. I seriously love my students this year! One of the reasons I wanted to move to elementary school was so that I could build relationships with my students. When I taught middle school I had over 100 kids and I wasn’t able to get to know them as well as I wished I could have.

No, my fifth graders have not always been perfect, and I have had to lecture more as of late—but truly my students this year surpassed my expectations and helped me to raise the bar for years to come.

They are the sweetest and smartest group of kids that I think I will ever teach. I won’t forget being amazed the second day of school, when I asked them to bring a book for silent reading for the next day and every single one of them showed up with a book! (That would never happen at my old middle school.) Just last week at lunch I noticed that one of my boys had brought a Lunchable and a nice looking sandwich—I made a comment to him that he had a good lunch that day. He looked at me with an “aw shucks” look on his face and said his mom packed an extra sandwich for one of my boys, who, the day before told our class about how money was tight at their house and he didn’t want to ask his parents for lunch money. I know it is just a sandwich, but I thought that was a true testament to the kindness of my students.

I have witnessed some amazing things this 2010-2011 school year. From my students engineering creations, to the wonderful story of the little boy who was homeschooled and four years behind in his academics-- he worked his little heart out this year. He was able to make friends AND pass both the reading and math standardized tests! His metamorphosis has been nothing short of a miracle.

I will still visit many of my kids when they are at middle school. I love to go to sporting events where I get to see my “old students.” To me there is nothing better than getting to catch up with a kid I used to have in my class. I usually tell them when they leave my room they can do one of two things. One, they can come up and say hi, and if they want a hug, I will give them one. Or, two, they can ignore me completely. Either way, I will still be their “old teacher.”

So, this Thursday we have our 5th grade awards assembly. I hope I can keep it together. I have never cried on the last day of school, usually I am so ready to get my next group of kids (and start my summer break). I have a feeling that this Friday I will probably shed a tear or two.