Today is the first day of the Big March -- the long stretch of school between President's Day and Easter when there are no days off from school. For many students -- and even teachers -- the Big March is the toughest time of the year. In fact, I failed to survive the Big March four years ago at the old charter school. Of course, teaching and classroom management during my first year was a struggle all year, but everything definitely fell apart at the Big March.
At some schools, the Big March doesn't start until next week, because students get the entire week of President's Day off from school. This is true in New York City, and last year I linked to a Northern California teacher whose school observes a week of February break. Actually, recently I found a Southern California district that has a mid-winter break as well. But that district clearly isn't one of the two districts where I'm employed as a sub.
In fact, sometimes I wonder whether things would have gone better for me four years ago if my old charter school had a February week off. Many of the problems that I described earlier on the blog actually occurred on the first four days after President's Day.
After that first week, I wrote that I'd stop blogging for the rest of the Big March. If I were teaching full-time this year, I might have taken off the entire Big March again this year, just to make sure that I work hard to survive it rather than spend so much time posting on a blog. Since this year I'm just a sub, I'll continue to blog throughout the Big March.
Indeed, today I subbed in a high school P.E. class. This is in my first OC district. It goes without saying that there's no "A Day in the Life" today, as this class isn't representative of where I want to be as a full-time teacher.
But I do have plenty to say about this class, including how P.E. works during the pandemic. For starters, today, like most Tuesdays, is an odd period day. But, if you remember from last year, for high schools in this district, "first period" really means zero period -- and that hasn't changed during the pandemic (I don't blame you if you've forgotten this, since it's been almost twelve months since I've subbed at a school where this definition of "first period" matters. Indeed, in some middle schools in my other district, the opposite is true -- "zero period" really means first period!)
And so today is odd periods 1-3-5-7, where period 1 starts an hour before the other students arrive. But most teachers don't have a first period -- and my regular teacher is no exception.
The real classes that I cover today are third and fifth periods. Third period is freshmen, while fifth period is for sophomores. So far during the pandemic, we've seen most classes in grades 10-12 have very few in-person students, with only freshman classes being appreciably sized. But today, there are more students in second year P.E. than first -- only four freshmen vs. seven in the other class. (Only five of those seven are sophomores -- two are seniors who must have failed P.E. earlier. Here in California, only two years of P.E. are required, so most students are in Grades 9-10.)
And if you're wondering what students do during pandemic P.E., here's your answer -- they mostly walk laps around the track. The sophomores also play frisbee -- the discs are wiped down after class.
For seventh period, this teacher is also the girls' softball coach. But as so often happens when subbing, assistant coaches take over the class and I don't need to be there. (This likely would have been the largest class of the day had I stayed -- the only Grade 10-12 students who tend not to opt out of hybrid are athletes.) And there's no need for academic support after lunch either. (Pre-pandemic, there was usually no tutorial for P.E. classes.) Thus my second straight school day also ends early.
Today is Friday, the first day of the week on the Eleven Calendar:
Resolution #1: We are good at math. We just need to improve at other things.
Unfortunately, there's not much opportunity to do anything with this in a P.E. class.
As for songs, of course I sing my "Big March" song for the first today. And since today is also Mardi Gras, I also sing "When the Scientists (Saints) Go Marchin' In" for the first time in four years. Yes, I sang it at the old charter school but never posted it to the blog -- it was during that aforementioned Big March period when I didn't write any posts. (Yes, I found my old songbook, but I didn't create it until after I left the charter -- and I copied songs from the blog into that book. And so nowhere do I have the full lyrics written down.)
Here is what I sing today, based on what I remember from four years ago:
WHEN THE SCIENTISTS GO MARCHIN' IN
If I recall, the three verses were based on what I tried to teach the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders during that haphazard "Science Week." Of course, since then I've devoted numerous blogposts to how I should have taught science at that school.
Well, since I've already added the "music" label for this song, I might as well post my lyrics for the "Big March" song again:
We go big marching in Week 1, hurrah, hurrah
We go big marching in Week 1,
We can't even stop to suck our thumb
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We go big marching in Week 2, hurrah, hurrah
We go big marching in Week 2,
We can't even stop to tie our shoe
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We can't even stop to climb a tree
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We can't even stop to shut the door
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We go big marching in Week 5, hurrah, hurrah
We go big marching in Week 5,
We can't even stop to take a dive
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We go big marching in Week 6, hurrah, hurrah
We go big marching in Week 6,
We can't even stop to pick up sticks
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
We go big marching in Week 7, hurrah, hurrah
We go big marching in Week 7,
We can't even stop to go to heaven
And we all go marching down, counting down
'Til we get out of school, BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Here's a short bridge that I added to the song:
It's the Big March!
The toughest time of school.
There's no day off,
It isn't very cool.
We got to work hard,
As a general rule.
It's the very Big March! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Once again, I'm only including the "music" label because of this lyrics -- no, this is not another one of those endless posts about dissonant Arabic guitar chords again.
In previous posts, I've mentioned how the Big March and Mardi Gras are related -- in a way, the Big March is the Lent of the school year. Both of them are countdowns to Easter.
Recall that there's another calendar -- the Andrew Usher Calendar -- that fixes Easter so that there's always seven weeks between Presidents' Day and Easter. Thus it follows that the day after Presidents' Day is always Mardi Gras. On that calendar, Presidents' Day always falls between February 16th-22nd and Easter always falls between April 5th-11th. (So in a year like 2021 when Easter falls on April 4th, both Presidents' Day and Easter fall one week later on the Usher Calendar. It's only when Bunny Day falls in the April 5th-10th range when both calendars agree for both holidays.)
Mardi Gras is supposed to be the last hurrah -- the final party day before Ash Wednesday. And so it would make more sense for Wednesday to be the first day of the Big March, not Tuesday. (We either have a five-day weekend from Friday to Tuesday, or keep it a four-day weekend but start it on Saturday so that there is no school on Mardi Gras.) Then again, a three-day week from Wednesday to Friday would be awkward on the hybrid schedule (especially those where Cohort A is Tuesday/Wednesday, like the school I'm at today).
By the way, in order to for us to help each other get through the Big March -- and to get back to posting on Twitter -- I will try to tweet every school day under the #bigmarch label. The last time this hash was used was seven years ago -- an anti-bullying campaign. (Well at least it's related to schools.) Let's see how long it takes someone to complain that I co-opted their hash (even if it's seven years later).
Lesson 10-9 of the U of Chicago text is called "The Surface Area of a Sphere." In the modern Third Edition of the text, the surface area of a sphere appears in Lesson 10-7.
This is what little I wrote last year about today's activity:
- From the U of Chicago text: calculate the surface area of the earth. Then compare the area of the United States and other countries to that of the entire earth.
The problem today is that this is a nine-lesson chapter. Just as we did with Chapter 8 last month, today we must begin our review for the Chapter 10 Test. Tomorrow, Day 110, will be the Chapter 10 Test itself, and Thursday, Day 111, will be Lesson 11-1.
Oh, and notice that I'm not making this so-called "activity" pandemic-friendly, since it's not really an activity that involves movement.
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