This is my "Day in the Life" post for the special day "Last Day Before Thanksgiving." It caps off a hectic four straight days of blogging.
8:30 -- First period arrives. This is the first of two Math III classes.
We continue working on the Google Forms mentioned in yesterday's post. The students continue to grade each other's responses to the transformation question from the district Benchmark Tests.
9:25 -- First period leaves for nutrition.
9:40 -- Second period arrives. This is the first of three Math I classes.
And of course, I don't want a repeat of yesterday's arguments. I assume that by now, I've reached the limit of how much work I can extract for the line art project without argument, and so I just give the class the answers to all of the equations and intercepts.
I then follow this with a Hero Quiz, of sorts. If the project had gone much more smoothly, I might have assigned this class a typical Hero Quiz with a review question or two from Chapter 1 (perhaps, for example, on domain and range). But due to the project problems, I instead decide to have the students tell me how this project could be improved.
Their responses were quite interesting. Some students reply that I could have explained some of the steps more clearly (the response that I was looking for). Others write how they themselves could have paid more attention and put their phones away during yesterday's Tech 55 restriction.
What one girl writes down is a bit alarming. Her response is that the class was so bad that some other adult needs to come in to keep the class under control. This immediately brings to mind the old charter school, where my classroom management fell apart. The students wouldn't behave unless my support aide was in the room, and I ended up leaving that school before the end of the school year. That's emphatically not what I want to have happen to me again this year.
But once again, it demonstrates why arguments are almost always bad. Notice that yesterday's argument technically wasn't over behavior at all, but over academics -- the students weren't giving correct equations unless I provided them, so they were basically getting 100 points for nothing. But then their behavior did deteriorate after (and likely in response to) the big argument.
Before the argument yesterday, I deducted five points each time a group member took out a phone -- and I did have to subtract points from several groups. But today, another girl comments on the "crazy" things I said yesterday, including taking off points for "phones and every little thing" -- in other words, she considers my point deductions to be part of the big argument. That's another problem with arguments -- once the conflict starts, everything before and afterward seems to be an argument.
I could have told her that most teachers forbid phones during projects such as this -- but I don't, since that would lead to a restart of the big argument. Indeed, I can already figure out her response -- yeah, but most teachers don't take away points for having phones out.
And she would have had teacher Paige Sheehan on her side. A week or two ago, I responded to a tweet from Sheehan about why grades should only reflect academics, not behavior. Surely, taking points for phones and other infractions seems like grading behavior -- exactly what Sheehan opposes.
Of course, the only reason I'm grading for behavior is that if I were to grade for academics, the most common score would be zero out of 100, since that's how little work the kids are doing. Grading for behavior is the only way I can get most scores to be higher than zero.
So that takes us right back where we started. The previous lessons could have been better, so that the students come in knowing how to find equations on their own, so that I can grade purely for academics and not have most kids get a zero, so that I can avoid having to grade for behavior instead.
10:35 -- Second period leaves. Third period is my conference period.
11:40 -- Fourth period arrives. This is the second of three Math I classes.
Since I didn't argue in this class this week, I attempt to extract more student work in this period and enforce the Tech 55 rule. I decide to go for what should be the easiest part of the line segment to figure out -- the domain.
I ask the students to find the domain of the segment whose endpoints are (0, 6) and (5, 9) -- and my worksheet already provides the scaffolding ____ < x < ____. But unfortunately, too many students end up writing 5 < x < 0. (What might have confused them here is that to find slope, they write x_2 - x_1, so I hammered home that they must write the second value first.) Only on the last domain problem -- the segment through (0, 12) and (10, 6) -- does a guy I call on write 0 < x < 10 (and even then, he starts to write it as 10 < x < 0).
After I finally get the students to answer that last domain problem on their own, I proceed as in second period -- just have them copy the rest of the answers to complete the project. Then they move on to the Hero Quiz as before.
12:40 -- Fourth period leaves for lunch.
1:25 -- Fifth period arrives. This is the second of two Math III classes.
Once again, there's not much difference between first and fifth periods. The students finish their Google Forms on grading each other's free response question from the district Benchmarks.
2:20 -- Fifth period leaves and sixth period arrives. This is the third of three Math I classes.
As I explained in yesterday's post, sixth period has already completed the project. So in this case I proceed directly to the Hero Quiz. The only difference is that with so much extra time, I add a math problem to the survey question (on what to improve about the project) -- namely, the same domain problem that fourth period eventually figures out.
After the Hero Quiz, I use the remaining time to give the sports analogy speech. There are several soccer players and fans in the class, so I use a soccer analogy. I must admit that I'm one of those people who pays attention to soccer once every four years -- fortunately, that once every four years happens to be right now, during the World Cup.
Neither Team USA nor Team Mexico has ever won the World Cup (the latter nation having recently won an Olympic Gold Medal, not the World Cup). Most champions are from Brazil or a handful of European countries. Therefore, neither USA nor Mexico should travel to Qatar to participate -- only Brazilians and Europeans (or perhaps Argentina, with superstar Messi) have any chance of winning, so only those teams should be there.
That sounds silly, yet that's exactly the path taken by students who decide not to participate in freshman math class just because of frustration and struggles with math in elementary and middle school. It's possible that USA or Mexico might finally win the Cup this year, but only if they work hard -- and it's possible that the struggling kids might pass their first math class this year, but only if they work hard.
Indeed, we don't have to go all the way to Qatar to find a first-time soccer champ. Right here in Southern California, the LA Football Club wins its first championship in Major League Soccer -- and that's a team that didn't even exist a few years ago. If LAFC can succeed for the first time, then so can my students.
I remind the students of three things -- that math is good, that people who are good at math are good, and that you are good at math (thinking of the late John Berray). I point out that my speech convinced none of my math-hating students to like math today -- nor will they be convinced in a week, nor will they be convinced in a month. Indeed, I'd consider myself lucky if I can convince even one of my students to take the other path by the end of the year.
I tell my students that they have a chance to become the new Generation of Heroes, and use their math skills to help astronauts return to the moon and beyond (referencing this week's Artemis I launch). And anyone who received an A on the last quiz is good at math and capable of becoming a hero who changes more than one world . Of course, the "last quiz" here refers to today's the Hero Quiz, on which all kids get an A (hence the name of the quiz).
3:20 -- Sixth period leaves, taking some at-home COVID tests with them. Like last year, the district worries that students and staff will pick up COVID during Thanksgiving vacation. (In past years, students would return from break with the flu, almost like clockwork.)
So that takes us to Thanksgiving vacation and my holiday blogging schedule. As in most years, I plan on making two posts during the break. In the first post, I will revisit the academic side of the line art project, and discuss how to teach the upcoming Chapter 3 more effectively (so that I don't again arrive at a major test or project with most students being unable to answer most questions).
But recall that during spring break last year, I forced myself to write final exams before blogging any holiday posts. This year, I'm part of a large math department, so I won't have to write any finals. But for Math III, all teachers are taking turns creating tests for each chapter. And I volunteered to write the test for the current Chapter 5. It will have two components -- a written part and a DeltaMath part.
So don't expect any Thanksgiving posts until I've completed making the Math III Chapter 5 Exam.
(Also, notice that this post is labeled "Days 70-71." Today is Day 70. "Last Day Before Thanksgiving" is considered a special day, but "First Day After Thanksgiving" is not. Thus there will be no post on Day 71, with Tuesday, Day 72, being the next school day post.)
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