Month: September 2016

I gave my sophomore kids a diagnostic test today. Multiple choice/things they should know. It didn’t really go as well as planned and, by that, I mean it went poorly. “The repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of words” got 50% correct answers. That’s alliteration. “Rhyming the vowel sounds in the middle of words” got 50% correct answers. That’s assonance. And these are kids in honors English, which is why I chose not to cap honors.
Of my 30 regular kids who turned in a paper (one chose not to) 20 out of 30 missed the alliteration question, 22 of 30 missed the assonance one.

I used to lay blame in places, but I go back to previous posts. A kid can only get so many free passes. The olive branch can only be extended so many times. At Day 9 I sit at the crossroads and wonder what the next 171 days have in store. I read their writing this weekend–it was just fine. And then there’s 33% on an alliteration question. MIXED SIGNALS. But, once again, their writing is fine, which means you have to DRILL AND KILL these terms in their heads. It’s like math. If you don’t know what eight times seven is, you are doomed by 3rd or 4th grade. Learn it over and over, practice it, and perhaps it will stick.

Luckily for me, I speak to my students. Tomorrow I will ask them what’s what. Really? You’re a sophomore in high school and don’t know what alliteration is? In multiple choice format? The other choices were repetition, onomatopoeia, assonance, and imagery. I suppose if they knew their lit terms that they might think repetition of consonant sounds could be repetition. After all, it has the same word in it. And onomatopoeia deals with sounds, as does assonance, and imagery. But if you knew these things, you would also know the answer was alliteration. Really rough ’round here.

My students watch Youtube videos of Matty B and Jacob Sartorius. I will include the latter so you can vomit a little in your mouth. Everyone thinks cussing in songs and adult themes are the cause of problems in this world–I argue that the damned will be punished in Hell by having to listen to these children fulfil their parents’ dreams. Not for the squeamish. Oh, and 30 million views.
http://https://youtu.be/IvxRsDpXPGo

Today was a bad day at work. The only thing that made it thus was my inability to have a Plan C, which I usually don’t have to have.
Plan A was simple–import quizzes that I wrote into classes that I teach and have students take said quizzes. Didn’t happen. Cursors just spun and nothing was imported. Bummer.
Plan B was simple–finish poems and stories and literary terms, since plan A didn’t work. Some classes put up with it, others did not. Not sure I blame them. I don’t think I sold it too well, but I get tired of always having to sell it.
Plan C was not present. Really, though, I never need a plan C, but I did today. Lesson learned.

We start Antigone and Greek Tragedy and the Oedipus Cycle (though we only read Antigone) this week. That is always fun and does not require a Plan C. One kid today knew who Oedipus was, and he’s a transfer from another school. Some things never change. One of the hardest parts of teaching for me is that nothing surprises me. Yes, kids say funny things, or I do, and we laugh at the surprise. But I can tell you how most days are going to go this year, who’s going to get what grade, what students won’t understand, and where I have to help them.
I don’t mind the last part–I like helping kids, but English should be different. There should be those who rise above it all, who come through when I have sold them short because others before me have scarred them, who do something that didn’t happen last year, and the year before that.
Monday! We’re usually better than today.
At least we have Nick Cave.
https://youtu.be/LWSDIpSg2b0

How do I start my own high school?

No. Really.

So, it was an assembly day today, which throws off everything. Kids are everywhere at once, or not at all, but there’s an assembly and the classes are shorter. For all that, not much happenened that was interesting.
I knew I didn’t have much lunch today–there was only a sandwich in my bag–so i took two bananas this morning, figuring the additional banana could take the place of something bad for me, like chips, or cookies, or both. My next-door teaching neighbor walked in, and because I wasn’t feeling like eating two bananas, I offered him one.
“Hey, I have two bananas. You want one?” I asked.
He said no.
I told him, “Hey, man, it’s got enough potassium to get you through the day. And I got two.”
He said, “Yeah, you got today covered for your potassium, but what about the rest of the year?”
“I’m gonna need a lot more bananas for that,” I said.
“There are not enough bananas,” he said.

We speak in riddles that have no solutions.

Gosh, I feel like I’ve thrown some shade just from the title of this post. Not true at all.
Chelsea Ha went to North High School for a little over a semester in her sophomore year (she came late), all of her junior year, and 5 days of senior year. She checked out yesterday. I don’t know any of the particulars, have no idea what school she’ll be attending in the future, or if this was just some move that had to be made and she’s actually working her way back to North High. But it doesn’t matter.
She was never my student, though she should have been. Simple story–when she came to school she got put into my wife’s speech class, which does not get many sophomores. My wife quickly put together that Chelsea was pretty talented and told her counselor to put her into Honors English, which I teach. Her counselor was also quick to note that Chelsea had not received all A’s at her previous school(s) and by not moving her into my class she was doing me a favor by keeping my workload down and keeping Chelsea at a level where the counselor had figured she belonged. Never mind that my wife had taught at North for 20 years, had classes of Honors and AP English and was the GATE coordinator for years. A quick scan of some C’s at some other school was the deciding factor, and it’s not like Honors English is the end-all/be-all.
Last year, as a junior, she took AP Language and got a 5 on the test (that’s the highest score you can get). But that was not her biggest achievement. In November she got to go back to New York to participate in the annual TED Youth Conference. She was one of five high school students who got to do this. IN THE WORLD. My wife had her in Speech, recorded her speeches (as she recorded everyone’s), sent them in to TED, and TED picked her to speak at their event. One of five in the world. TED flew her and her family back to New York for the extended weekend, all expenses paid. They flew my wife out and gave her a room, but it was just her.
Chelsea spoke, got to see New York, hung out with others in the TED world–my wife got to participate with other educators and learn new things and be immersed in a world of innovation and cutting-edge technology.
And, yeah, my wife still is a big deal with TED. She went to Banff this summer for TED Summit and now can host TEDx events. Chelsea is featured on TED’s YouTube channel and her image sometimes comes up when I’m searching for things TED. There might be more that she has going, but TED Youth was a big deal, it was a big deal that she was one of five picked, and that she came from just some old public high school in Torrance.

There may have been some recognition for Chelsea long after the fact on our daily bulletin, but that’s not the recognition you want (you can search NHS bulletin on YouTube and make up your own minds). My wife sent numerous emails to our administration singing Chelsea’s praises and what a positive moment this was for her and the school. None of those emails were returned. One in five in the world equalled no response from administration.
I asked Chelsea at the end of last year if the school had done anything to acknowledge her achievement, something that no one else in our area has ever done. Did they roll out any carpet? give her a lunch with the bigwigs in the district? make a plaque? trophy? Surely they used her in photo-ops to make themselves look good.
She said the principal saw her in passing in the office and shook her hand. Nothing else.

And so, Chelsea is gone. She could not say goodbye to my wife because she is gone, too.

As Vonnegut would write–so it goes.

I don’t want to be negative, or beat a dead horse. BUT, 18 students out of 64 that took a test on their summer reading book FAILED that test.
I tell them–
“It’s a summer assignment.”
“School starts today. Let’s move forward.”
“This is merely a diagnostic that allows me to see where you’re at.”

When I tell them that I exclude the 11 students who received an A, three of them with a perfect 50 of 50. The fifteen that received a B probably don’t need to hear it.

It’s tough. You have to keep everyone in the game so that each student reaches their fullest potential.

Hence, we tell them things. Cue Built to Spill.

One of my favorite books in college was Catch-22. It’s so long ago that I don’t know what drew me to it, but I just watched the Mike Nichols’s movie version this summer and understand much of the Catch-22 philosophy through teaching experience. The scene with Snowden came to me today–it’s the flashback that Yossarian has with Private Snowden, who is just a young kid that rides in a bomber plane with Yossarian, who is more of a veteran. The flashbacks get longer and longer as the novel progresses, as Snowden goes from the kid who is injured (a leg injury maybe) to the final flashback where Yossarian pulls at the uniform and we see guts spill out all over the plane and it becomes apparent that Snowden can’t be saved because the problem is much worse than originally thought.

Today I gave a baby test on The Count of Monte Cristo. 31 kids got an A (three perfect scores), B, or C, but five students got a D, and 18 received an F.

They just pulled back their uniforms and out came the guts.

There, there. There, there. There, there.

Here’s how I started my day. It was a direct message on Twitter.
“hey mr. stover. do you know the assistant principal’s email or number or something. north hasn’t updated the website and i need to get in contact with her or him. i don’t even know who the assistant principal is”

I gave her the names of the assistant principals that could help her. I checked the web site to make sure of the student’s claim, but it had the names of the people I gave her. Yeah, there was no picture of one assistant principal. Yeah, the activities director and site supervisor aren’t correct, but how are you a junior in high school and not know who your assistant principal is? Not blaming the student or the web site or the assistant principals–it just makes me sad that there’s such a disconnect.

Kids are funny otherwise. My formers come by to tell me what they think I want to hear–“Oh, that teacher is no good,” or, “I miss your class,” or, “School is so boring,” or, “Got an A on my first paper.” Okay, I DO like hearing the last part because it means they know I taught them something. But I got into teaching because teachers are, sometimes, not so good and school is, oftentimes, so boring. Working on it.
This can’t be all students have to look forward to.

It’s 9/11. It was, and will always be, a surreal experience for me. However, the aftermath for our country was one of understanding and care and value of others. Race, wealth, vocation didn’t seem to matter in the dialogs after 9/11.
That written–
Four weeks ago, I sent out an email, concerned about personal issues that seemed to go against me, that I was the only one in my department that had to “take one for the team,” and worried that my voice at school was meaningless. Five days ago, after receiving no response, I quickly echoed similar opinions. Last night, the person I emailed answered back, assuring me that my opinion and experience are valued, and sorry that my requests for schedule equity could not be fulfilled.
I am without comment, but this is fact.

You know, day two with students wasn’t so bad. Too much talking (from ME) and they know next to nothing about anything that surrounds them all the time. We’re working on that–they just need to get out more and realize that life didn’t just start when they were born, or start last year for some of them.
6th period closes my day. I have not taught regular English in 10 years, unless Creative Writing counted, and I used to fail half of those kids. But there’s nothing worse than seeing kids who want you to go away, to ignore them, to not act like an idiot and just give them a worksheet so they can put their heads down and do it and get some credit for it because that’s the way it’s always been done. Their other English teachers, maybe their parents or siblings, maybe their friends, maybe other classmates, have so conditioned them to just not have that wrong answer, or to go out on a limb and ask a question. I’ll have their backs all year, whether they want my help, or not.
I told my 5th period HONORS class–“Five minutes, ask me anything.” I did not get one question.
I told my 6th period the same. First girl asked me “Why are you so goofy?” I responded somewhere along the lines of “I get bored easily, and I’m tired because I’ve been teaching all day, and I act this way to stay awake and stay interested because I like English and want to demystify it for you in any form possible. I want you to know that someone who is “goofy” can still OWN when it comes English, and you don’t always have to look and act the part to get things done well.” I also wondered aloud if the class would like me to be like all their other English teachers and control them, and give them work that I wouldn’t do myself.
They were not hip to this idea.
Their first assignment is a letter of introduction. I wrote one as an example, read it to them, and told them that their job is to communicate to another human.
Communicate to another human, eh? We’ll see. If it’s honest, it will all be fine.