This song, which I've performed several times before, comes from the movie Hidden Figures. Last night was my annual viewing of that film. I usually try to watch it around this time of year -- the end of Black History Month or the start of Women's History Month (since Katherine Johnson was a black woman), or late February (the anniversary of John Glenn's orbital flight, February 20th, 1962). And so it makes sense to declare "Runnin'" to be the song of the day as well.
Here is a link to today's song on YouTube. (I might as well post a lyric video since I sing the original lyrics in class.)
Today is a blank day in the Eleven Calendar to mark New Year's Eve. (Recall that 363 days of the year fit into the weeks, with February 27th, 28th, and possibly the 29th as blank days.) On blank days, I usually default to the eleventh resolution:
Resolution #11: We follow all protocols for COVID.
And perhaps there won't be much use for the eleventh resolution these days. Today is the last day, not only of the Eleven Calendar year, but also of the three-year COVID emergency as declared by California leaders.
Meanwhile, my own personal eleventh resolution is on communication and conversations. And today I have a major conversation -- not with my students, not with my fellow teachers, but with the principal, as I receive my scores from the December 6th observation.
The principal speaks to me during third period conference, but not before he makes a quick informal observation during second period Math I. The lesson is on solving systems by substitution, and the lesson is not that difference from what he saw back in December -- a few examples written in the notebook followed by practice on Desmos.
You might notice that there's a song today despite an observation by the principal (as I worry that he might tell me to stop performing, just as my principal did last year). But I'd already prepared "Runnin'" before learning about the observation -- and as it turns out, he leaves midway during the period, just before my usual performance time. So I end up singing and playing guitar as originally planned.
Then during third period, the principal reveals my observation scores. On a four-point scale, most of my scores are 2's and 3's (where 2's are passing, but 3's are preferred). I do get a score of 1 in one area:
CSTP 1.3: Connecting subject matter to meaningful, real-life contexts. (Here CSTP means "California Standards for the Teaching Profession.)
This is a tricky one. A master teacher (yes, the same one who fell behind during the systems unit in Algebra I and ended up solving only by graphing, not substitution) once warned me not to do word problems -- which is what real-life problems become -- since they confuse and frustrate students. (This applies to observations not just from the principal, but other evaluators like the WASC committee. In fact, a fellow Math III teacher suggests that we finish Chapter 8 this week and spend next week on review, so that WASC doesn't see students frustrated with brand new material.)
On the other hand, recall that the TOSA for Math I gave me an underlying theme for this chapter -- using systems to make financial decisions. During certain lessons, I highlight some of the problems from the CPM text or Desmos that involve making a choice about spending money. But unfortunately, I don't include this in today's lesson.
The Desmos activity does contain one word problem -- if a fast train departs later than a slow train, how long will it take the fast train to catch up? But I skip this question for two reasons. First, it's not directly related to the overall financial theme. And second, I fear that the kids might take up more than half the period just to figure out how to write equations for this situation, and then we'd have to rush the actual solving by substitution -- then no one would learn anything.
At the end of the meeting, the principal tells me that he'll observe my class again on Thursday, to give me a chance to remediate some of my lower scores (especially that dismal 1 score). Forced to make a quick decision as to which class to observe, I end up choosing fifth period Math III. Since Thursday's block schedule goes 1-2-5-6, I know that I want it to be either fifth or sixth period so that I can use the earlier period as a dry run for the observation period. But now that I have time to reflect, I wonder whether fifth period is really a better option than sixth.
Looking ahead to the Math I and III pacing guides, I see that the Math I lesson planned for tomorrow and Thursday is on a certain word problem from the CPM text that we discussed during two previous Math I meetings. The question does mention money, and the entire lesson is devoted to this one problem (so the issue of spending too much time on an "anticipatory set" doesn't arise). Then again, the situation mentioned in the problem is a bit contrived, so it might not be "meaningful" enough for CSTP 1.3 given above. (I'll write more about this problem in tomorrow's post, since I'm teaching it to fourth period tomorrow.)
Meanwhile, the Math III pacing guide shows a difference of squares lesson on Thursday. Not even the CPM text attempts to tie this to any word problem. But there is a word problem in the previous lesson -- so I'm considering doing this on Thursday. (Actually, "considering" needs to be replaced by "planning on," since I already told the principal to observe the fifth period Math III class.)
Well, I know what I'm going to write about in tomorrow's post. Yes, I'll discuss my fourth period class as I usually do on Wednesdays, but I'll also look ahead to Thursday's observation. (Yes, I know -- the past few weeks were about nothing but the district Benchmarks, and now the next two weeks will be about nothing but observations, whether by the principal or the WASC committee.)
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