You're failing study hall

I have 2 periods which Eastside calls "tutorials"; basically study hall. All the kids in my tutorials are kids from one of my 3 classes. And these are "math" tutorials. The kids are supposed to do their math homework, then any other work they have due.

One of these tutorials is like a battle royale every time I see them. The kids come in after a half hour break. They know they are supposed to have a book to read for the first 20 minutes. They know they are supposed to do their math homework. Etc.

But it's always the same thing: I need to go to the bathroom. I forgot a book. I don't have my math book. I need to go to my locker. I want to do my Spanish homework instead. Blah blah blah. The real kicker is, most of these kids are not doing so hot in my class. They have a homework assignment due the next day, which is generally done poorly. I make every effort to be available to answer their questions. But they don't ask questions; they just do the assignment poorly, on their own. Every time. I have recently taken to wandering the room and just swooping in on kids and saying "let me help you". Kids who are on the edge of failing the class. And these kids give me push-back; no, I'm fine, I don't need help.

So I finally resorted to using the grade to try to goad them. Typically this period is supposed to be a cakewalk; you show up for tutorial and get an A. I told them, several weeks ago, that many of them are getting C's. In study hall. Now that the first round of grades is being sent home to parents, this is finally sinking in.

So today, after a particularly frustrating, tooth-pulling, I-left-my-book-at-home-again-and-can-I-go-pee session, I had several of them come and ask me what their grade is, only to get all bent when I told them "A C, just like I told you several weeks ago."

Grrrrr.

Pizza Bribery Pays

I think I mentioned a while back that I'd instituted a Hogwarts-like points competition for my 3 classes. Classes gain or lost points, as a group, based on behavior and scholarship. I was getting frustrated with the daily battles to get the kids to just act like students: bring a notebook, pay attention in class, etc. I realized that when I yell/encourage/whatever I am just some teacher saying blah blah blah. I wanted to introduce a dynamic where the kids pressure each other.

It is working really well. The kids definitely understand and value the points. When someone loses points for the class by not being prepared or engaged, they definitely hear about it from the rest of the class.

Yesterday we had our first points payoff: the sophomore class got pizza for having the highest point total. They were definitely jazzed about it. And, as I'd hoped, they went and rubbed it in the face of the other classes.

I don't think I can do pizza for every payoff though. It was expensive. And I had to find a pizza company which is willing to deliver in East Palo Alto, and open at 9 in the morning. Ultimately I found a store which was willing to open early to do the delivery (thank you New York Pizza of Palo Alto).

I think next time around I am going to make brownies.

So today we're rebooting, starting up the points from 0 again.

Retesting

Those who did not do so well on the unit test got a chance to do a retest. They got back their graded tests and a complete, detailed solution set. I told them they had one week to study and then arrange with me a time to take the retest. Furthermore, I promised I would give them the exact same questions, just with the numbers changed (so 2x-5 becomes 4x+12). For anything they get right on the retest, they get back 1/4 of the points (so if you missed a problem worth 4 points and got it right on the retest you'd get a point added to your final score).

Pretty sweet deal, right? Especially for those who had borderline grade (e.g. a 69) or very low grades (there were some 49s).

A handful of kids did what I'd expect/hope: they got on that solution set like white on rice, went over their mistakes, and then badgered me with questions all week about everything they did not understand. Yay for those kids. They did fairly well and got a significant bump out of the retest. But some kids clearly did not even take a single thoughtful look at the solution set. They made the *exact same mistakes* on the retest as the original. And I'm not talking tricky math stuff. I'm talking "How many dimensions does a plane have". It was 2 in the original test, and sister, it's still 2.

I got *so mad* at those kids while grading the retest. Some "I'm mad at you for not helping yourself". Some "I'm mad at you for wasting my time with this retest if you're not going to put any heart into it."

Why does math have to involve so much math?

We started in on Unit 2, which is all about logic. E.g. how would you symbolize "Either Mr Jones is not angry, or Betty is not late if Tim is nauseated" where:

A = Mr Jones is angry.
B = Betty is late.
C = Tim is nauseated.

When we first got into this some of the kids were really psyched. Hooray, math without numbers. One kid even asked if there's a college major in logic. I said I didn't think so. He later came back and said yes there is. I still don't think so but I don't want to argue with him.

Anyway, it's now getting more complicated, and the shine is off a bit. And I'm sad. I really wanted them to have a whole unit where they'd feel like masters of the universe. But some of this is just really confusing. And what's extra crazy-making is it's hard to teach: for kids who are having a hard time getting it, I am having trouble coming up with new examples or ways to explain it. This is one where you really can't come up with little rules and laws to memorize: you really have to get what's going on at some fundamental level.

For whatever reason, what seems to make their brains explode is combining 'not' with 'or' or 'and'. The difference between "I do not like Ludacris or I do not like Lil Wayne" and "I do not like Ludacris and I do not like Lil Wayne". This is the new "skew lines are never coplanar": I am getting the feeling I will be explaining this many many many times in the days to come.

In other random news, a donor was visiting the school today. She was chatting with the principal in the reception are, and she was holding one of those giant checks you see on TV. I asked if it was legal tender. I was hoping to get a real answer because the lady worked for a bank. I did not get a real answer. The mystery remains.

New approach

One last thing: today I tried out my new strategy:

• Teach all the new stuff up front.
• Do some of the homework problems right then, as an example.
• Use the last bit of class to do any backwards-looking stuff (old homework, tests, etc).

This worked well. Everyone's all fried at the end of class anyway so it's easier to talk about old stuff than to push on new stuff. And now I am giving them examples of how to do the homework before they do it, instead of going over problems afterwards, as they are handing it in. So yay team.

Testing 123

So this week I gave the first major test. I was really nervous about it. The kids had generally not tested well: quizzes were coming back just terrible from all 3 classes. The last quiz I gave the average was about 65% (a D), even the in the smarty-smart class.

I felt nervous for two reasons. One, I didn't want the kids to fail and feel terrible about themselves. Two, if they all failed, I'd feel responsible; it's because I'm a bad teacher, etc.

Well, things went really well overall. The smarty smart kids averaged like high 90's, many scores over 100 (there was extra credit). The normally normal kids did reasonably well. Generally better than I expected. And I feel like the scores pretty accurately reflected how I feel the kids are doing in the class; in general.

There were some outliers in both directions. On the positive side, some kids did way better than they expected. Two of 'em I wanted to smack (just kidding, police people) because they had been acting like total goofballs in class, then they go and ace the test. Some kids in my resource class (extra class for those who need some more help) got A's, I was so happy for them.

On the sad side, some kids who generally have been working really hard still did terrible. For some people, numbers are just really, really confusing.

In other news, I have been to Google a lot to play volleyball. This is fun, good exercise and all, but I feel like it's probably psychologically unhealthy. Like continuing to hang out with your ex after you've broken up. Some part of me still wants to belong there. Worse, somehow performance reviews have come up in conversation the past few times I've been there. In both cases the person talking was getting good reviews/getting promoted. Which stirs up all the insecurities in me. I started feeling like a failure: I ran away from Google because I couldn't hack it. The saner part of me knows that's false/screwed up in many ways. But there it is, still feeling it a bit.

Fail!

1. "Fail" is the best new slang I have picked up from school. When someone screws up in a public and embarrassing way, people say "Fail!". E.g. when I call a kid by the wrong name. Or when someone tries to throw a piece of paper into the garbage can from far away and they miss. A useful phrase.

2. They have their first test coming up next week and I am freaking out. I gave a quiz on Thurs/Fri which I thought was a gift, a cakewalk. Scores were just terrible. And I realized this test is not going to be pretty, a lot of the kids are going to tank. So Friday I wound up in this terrible mood, all hostile and angry as I try to get the kids to pay attention, prep for the test, get their late work in, etc. Had my first episode of sending someone to the principal's office.

And I realized after work: I need to let them fail. I am making myself nuts trying to prevent them from failing, and they, with their animal cunning, smell that on me and will let me carry them. For those who are not trying, not pushing themselves, not making best use of the resources they have, they need to fail. I am not helping them by trying to drag/push/shove them along. The best thing I can do is let them experience the natural consequences of their actions (failure) so they can decide if they want to behave differently.

Fail!

This is not easy

So today the vice principal sat in on one of my classes (at my request). Unfortunately it was one of the worst classes I had. We spent a lot of the time covering old stuff: doing a warm-up exercise, going over a quiz, going over some questions from the homework we were collecting. By the time all of that was done, more than half the class time was used up.

So I had to really rush the new stuff I wanted to teach. Which means it probably went by too fast, and I will be getting back a bunch of bad/confused homework.

So I need to be more merciless about the upfront time in class: strict limit of 1/2 hour to do any sort of backwards-looking thing. Better to answer questions *before* they have to do homework on it, instead of after.

On the good news side, I instituted my points competition, and so far it's working well. The kids definitely get it, and care. And the peer pressure is effective: you do *not* want to be the kid who costs the class 10 points by not having his book.

Played "questions" during a break with the resource class, that was fun. All the classic 'questions' types: the one who can't help answering the questions, the one who just laughs at every question, etc.

I had this really scary moment today in class, can't even quite put it into words. Just realizing this is it, this is real. This will not speed in by in 2 hours and end with inspiring music as all the kids do well. This is a job, 40 hours a week, and I'm in it for a year. Some part of me knew that, but the reality really sunk in.

Pi is the loneliest number

Had this insight in the middle of last week: I am alone in here with a bunch of kids. They kind of look like adults but they are much, much, much younger than me. We are not peers. They are not my friends. They see me as I saw my teachers: it only barely registers that I exist outside the classroom.

And then I was able to put a finger on something I've been feeling since school started: it's lonely teaching. You spend the day with all these kids, who are people-but-not-friends, or doing stuff alone (grading/planning/etc.). You see some peers for maybe 30 minutes over lunch. And at Eastside these are great people: the other teachers are smart, cool, funny lively folks. But 30 minutes is not very much. And most of the conversations is dominated by those rotten kids. So I can go through a whole day without really having any kind of adult conversation; what's up in your life, how are you feeling about this or that, etc.

So I realize I need to be more deliberate about this. Number one, making the most of opportunities to connect with the other teachers at work. Number two, planning time to just hang with friends outside of work, and really guarding that time (that last bit is key).

In other news, we had the parents night where they all came by and I briefly explained the class to the parents and gave them my contact info. It was very interesting to meet the parents of these kids. And you feel like you have this ally now: I had some conversations with some of the kids who were not really putting out much effort. In one case while the kid was sitting right there listening. Ha ha, sucker, busted. Even better: I'd told the kids to get a protractor, and mde it a homework assignment. By the time of the teacher conference the assignment was like a week old and some kids still hadn't done it. One parent came to me and said "Do I really need to go out and get him a protractor tonight?". I explained that no, doesn't HAVE to be tonight, but they've had the assignment for a week and really should get it done. She thanked me very politely and headed out the door. Then from outside I hear "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS FOR A WHOLE WEEK!?!?!"

Meaner

One of the students stayed late yesterday and interviewed me for the school paper. She was asking why I left Google. An excellent question. I answered best I could.

She then told me that the students were taking advantage of my newness, and I should be 'meaner'. Ok, I'm down.

So starting today I am going to start tracking 'participation', i.e. classroom behavior, as part of their grade. I like the idea of using that to motivate them (my first class certainly responded). But I am not so happy about having another stream of data to track.