jumpingfish

The median score on the first test was not good. It revealed the extent to which many of my students just weren’t getting what I was trying to teach.

I was convinced that I was doing something fundamentally wrong, despite reassurances from all the other math teachers that this is a common reality we are up against, that it wasn’t my teaching. Hearing that helped, but it seemed obvious to me that I had to do something.

So Friday, we didn’t move on to inequalities. Instead, we spent a third day on absolute values — this time, done differently.

“Here’s what we’re going to do today…” I told the kids. I explained how we were going to work problems together as a class, with each of them coming up to the board to contribute.

As you might imagine, they looked at me in horror. Then I told them how we were going to do it. 

We’d start with the last problem on the sheet they had been working on (mostly unsuccessfully) the day before. One by one, we’d set up each of the problems, working backward thru the list. Our focus was going to be on the set-up part of the problem: we weren’t going to completely work them but rather set them up so that the solving part left undone was something they already knew how to do.

I listed the steps in our (new) set-up process on the board. They were tiny steps.

“The first step,” I explained, “is to copy the problem onto the board. One of you will do that. The others should check that they copied it correctly. And that’s it for that step.”

“The next step is to draw a wide horizontal line and a vertical line under it. Someone else will do that — which is kind of like “art”. And that’s it for that step.”

“The next step is to draw a circle…”

“The next step is…”

Then I proceeded to explain the other microscopic steps. I pointed to the list of steps I had written on the board in the morning. I explained how they would help each student at the board, how none of them would be alone when it was their turn, how we would back them up, how this was not a math performance, how it was a group project.

“We are doing this together,” I said.

Then I called on one of them randomly to kick things off. Then another for step two. Then another. And another. Sometimes the students would raise their hands to volunteer (often for the steps that involved drawing lines, but later for more substantial stuff). Sometimes they would call on the next person themselves. And sometimes the student I called on was too shy to come forward, so I just asked them to tell me what to write from their seats.

It worked. Magnificently.

The classroom was loud. The kids laughed. When they volunteered, they jumped out of their seats. Some of them began to work the problems in little groups so they could be ready in case I called on one of them. They got to choose their own whiteboard marker colors. They got to choose how large (or small) to write. They got to turn and ask for help.

And in each of the six periods that day, with only a few exceptions, every student came to the board (some of them several times) to work on math.

It was a good third day of absolute values.

It’s late at night. I had a cold brewed coffee in the late afternoon as I graded papers. It was after 3:00. Caffeine after 3:00: not a good idea, he says, with nary a wink of sleep coming over him.

It’s an hour before midnight. The full moon is rising and marching with Mars across the sky. A hot wind in blowing in the parched leaves of the Walnut, Ash and Oak trees. 

I’m wide awake. So I might as well tell you a story…

On Friday, I taped numbers to the desks at school. I did this to better connect the faces and names of my 150 students. Black numbers hand-drafted on white squares of paper with a blue border. (The border was a flourish that I had added on a whim, because I have a wonderful big-brush pastel blue marker.)

I put white card stock underneath the white squares when I drew the blue border around the black numbers. And after brushing four borders on 30 squares, the card stock was a randomish mishmash of pastel blue lines and dots and miscellaneously shaped marks where the brush had marked beyond the edges.

At the end of sixth period, I put the marked up card stock under the document camera. The image projected on the screen.

“Here is my modern art for the day,” I said.

There was momentary silence, and then one of the boys in the room said, “It speaks to me.”

That is my story. The moon has advanced beyond the periphery of the canopy of the Walnut tree. The caffeine is still speaking. It’s going to be a long night.

So the first week of school was pretty good.

Sure, there were a few heads down on the desks. And I did collect some phones and ear buds and a book that a student had in their lap. But there was nothing that pushed the limits. Push-the-limits events — belligerence, aggression, cursing… — have been my big question marks. And I didn’t have to deal with any. 

We all know that that day will come. But not having to deal with it at the outset was terrific. What’s more, I actually caught myself with a smile on my face on the way out of school on day one. That counts for something, eh?

The only downside was something that all teachers will understand: my feet are so sore!

In the scramble of yesterday morning, I searched for a tie. I have not worn a tie in many years. I had not opened that container forever. It was a difficult search ending in all my ties scattered on the bed and not a one tied around my neck. (For what it’s worth, I saw only two ties at school.)

This is how Izzy spent that morning. 

Daddy’s ties. I good spot to nap.

Note to self: get a few plain ties.

I should be reading the newsletter our principal sent this afternoon reiterating the things that need to happen tomorrow, the first day of school. I should be making a few more notes on my plan. I should be getting horizontal. I should be closing my eyes. 

But before that, a few words…

Morning Meeting. As we reviewed the plan for the day, the principal looked up from the front of the cafeteria. “This time tomorrow,” she said, “the kids will be here. Buses will be pulling up. Freshmen will be getting lost. Seniors will be proud of their fancy clothes.” And then she added, “Y’all, for some students, this is the best thing they have.”

We have to make the day go well for them.

Priorities. At the end of our morning meeting, she boiled it down to four priorities for the day: (1) Get ‘em off the buses and into the school with their class schedules in hand, (2) count ‘em (i.e., take attendance which has huge funding implications), (3) feed ‘em lunch, and finally (4) get ‘em back on the buses at the end of the day to take ‘em home.

Nothing clearer than that, is there?

End of the Day. As I sat at my desk writing out the assigned seating for my six periods, one of the other teachers came walking by. She looked into the classroom thru the windows along the hall. “Ok,” she said. “I just want to say this.” I looked up. She was pointing to the far corner of my classroom. “I’m impressed that you’ve got the Aztec calendar up on your wall.”

Yeah, baby.

Now. The principal’s newsletter. Then horizontal. And then eyes closed. Because… tomorrow.