There's one thing I must point out, or else this description will make little sense. Unlike any of the comprehensive high schools in this district, the continuation high school uses trimesters, just like the middle schools. This is my new district where today is Day 71, early in the second trimester. I assume this is so that students can make up credits more quickly -- it takes only a trimester to earn a full semester of credit.
Notice that the regular teacher has been out since the fourth day of the trimester.
8:00 -- First period is an Algebra I class. Apparently, these students just started Algebra I this trimester, since they are still in Chapter 1 of the Glencoe text, on the order of operations.
8:50 -- Now here's where the schedule is a little different. This school is introducing something new called "Fast Fridays." School is out at 12:25 instead of the usual 1:05 for those students who have at least a C in all of their classes. Those with D's or F's must attend a "Fast Friday Tutorial." As it turns out, today is the first "Fast Friday" -- apparently Fast Fridays were invented for this new trimester.
Second period is a Business Math class. Students are learning how to calculate tax withheld and other deductions from their paycheck.
9:40 -- Third period is a Geometry class -- my favorite class to blog about! At the start of the period, I pass out green "Fast Passes" for students who get to leave early and red "Tutorial Passes" for those who are required to attend a class.
Geometry is another class that began with the new trimester. The students are only in Lesson 1-4 of the Glencoe text, which is on properties of angles. I covered this lesson earlier for a special ed class (which I mentioned back in my October 18th post). That day, I lamented how Glencoe teaches angles in Chapter 1 while in the U of Chicago, we must wait all the way until Chapter 3. Indeed, today's lesson corresponds to Lesson 3-2 of the U of Chicago text.
10:35 -- Third period leaves for snack.
10:45 -- Fourth period is another Algebra I class -- but this class clearly didn't start right at the start of the second trimester. These students are learning about linear functions in Chapter 4 of the Glencoe Algebra I text.
11:35 -- Fifth period is a health and study skills class. All these students are seniors, and the whole class is run online, using Edgenuity software. Edgenuity -- hey, that sounds familiar. Recall that I was trained in the use of Edgenuity for a summer school opportunity that didn't pan out.
Only eight students are enrolled in this class. Three are absent, while a fourth decides to attend another class because he's already caught up in Edgenuity. (Again, the regular teacher has been out for a while.)
12:25 -- Fifth period leaves -- all four remaining students have green passes, so they get to go home.
There are only two students assigned to my tutorial -- one Geometry and one in Algebra I. Both students already finished their assignments for today. For the Geometry student there's an extra worksheet to assign him on vocabulary.
12:30 -- Another teacher asks for the guy in Algebra I to assist him in his own class, and invites the Geometry student to join him. The Algebra I student leaves, and since I have nothing else for the Geometry guy to do, he leaves after finishing the vocab worksheet. And thus my day is now essentially completed.
The main classroom management issue is in fourth period Algebra I. The regular teacher doesn't allow the students to use cell phones -- they're required to place them in special pouches near the front of the room. One girl assumes that subs won't enforce the phone rules (and again, I have no idea what the previous subs did about phones). The regular teacher tells me to send anyone who defies the phone rule with a referral, and this is what I do with this girl.
Many students in other classes refuse to do the work. (After all, that's the reason they're here at a continuation school -- they aren't hard workers.) But in second period, I assume that one girl is refusing to do the assignment. As it turns out, she really does have the assignment complete -- she just prefers to keep the paper hidden under her book until the end of class rather than show it to me.
Even though I do avoid yelling at her, my discussion with her might qualify as an argument. In the end, she storms out of the room and goes to the office. Apparently, she starts complaining about all the problems she has with subs all week.
How could I have handled this situation better? As it turns out, I declare second period to be the best class of the day, since all of the students here work hard on their Business Math assignment. But at the time, I'm influenced by the first period students who don't do the work -- two of those students draw pictures right on their paper instead of math!
I could tell the second period girl that I'm being tough on her because of the first period pair who fails to complete the assignment -- but that's another thing I'm trying to avoid now (that is, bringing up past incidents). Perhaps instead, I should have said something like, "I know that you'll always do your work, but some students try to take advantage of subs. Could you please show me your paper so that I can see that you're as hard-working as I know you are?" That way, I'm praising the student, and blaming neither her nor the first period students of misbehaving.
I admit that I'm not used to speaking that way. But it's something I need to make a habit of if I want to become an effective teacher, without resorting to needless arguments.
Meanwhile, the fourth period girl really does deserve to be sent to the office -- and indeed, this reminds me of something. In the LAUSD, today is the last day before the three-week winter break -- and two years ago, my charter school added a few extra teacher PD days to the LAUSD winter break.
I wrote about the last day before winter break two years ago -- and I definitely had trouble connecting to the seventh graders:
11:45 -- Now here's where that Wednesday scheduling confusion comes in. Ordinarily, right after nutrition is music for seventh graders, and the lessons take place in my classroom. But today we had the Aspiration Assembly. We try telling the music teacher that we have the assembly today, so the seventh graders can have its music lesson afterward. Anyway, the seventh graders go up to my room so that they can wait for the music teacher -- but he never shows up, probably completely confused by the whole schedule.
I could pass out the snowman graph, but I don't because I'm expecting the music teacher to arrive at any minute. While the class is waiting, a terrible incident occurs.
I see what appears to be one seventh grade girl using a cell phone. When I call her out on it, she pulls the common trick of taking out the case and making it appear that she was playing with the case, not the phone. But then several other students begin to complain that the girl was taking photos or videos of them on the phone.
While this was going on, two students are playing with a broken broomstick. I ask them to surrender the stick, but instead they decided to run around the classroom because they are entertained by my chasing them. According to the student sitting next to the girl, this is what she is trying to record on the phone. Yes, at this point I'm definitely feeling the Disillusionment of being a first-year teacher.
And so, exactly two years to the day later, I have trouble with another girl, a ninth grader this time, with a phone (although today's student is just listening to music, not taking pictures). I need to keep both of these incidents in mind if I ever have my own classroom again.
By the way, I see the following sign taped to the front board:
Whodunnit?
Clue #1
What is s more than 20?
20s: Mr. Epsilon was reading by the pool.
20 - s: The victim was not mauled by a cougar.
20 + s: Miss Beta was using a computer in the library.
None of the above: The victim was not electrocuted.
I've seen other math teachers use similar tasks in their own classrooms. For example, here's a link to Cindy Flim, a New Jersey middle school math teacher:
https://cindyflim.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/favorite-math-task/
Let's continue our review for the final exam. This is what I wrote last year about the second half of the review worksheet:
Most of the questions on this half, which cover Chapters 5 through 7 of the U of Chicago text, are mostly self-explanatory. Notice that in Question 47, we are given that ABCD is a trapezoid with one pair of opposite angles congruent and we are to prove that it is a parallelogram. In other words, we are using the inclusive definition where a parallelogram is a trapezoid. If teachers prefer the exclusive definition, they can change the Given section to:
Here is the Review for Final, Part II.
END
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