Seattle Job Fair

There is a job fair in Seattle on April 3 that I'm planning on attending. I have some extra seats in my car if anyone is interested in going up with me. I don't know who will be attending as far as districts are concerned, but Alaska Teacher Placement is sponsoring it so there will be a lot of Alaskan school districts there. With the economy as such, everyone may be looking for jobs everywhere. Just for information, I was told that Alaska and Wyoming are the only two states left in the black on their budgets. Interpretted, that means teachers are not being cut and salaries are staying consistant.

7th or 8th and High School

Having been in my middle school placement for a couple of months now, I finall feel like I'm sliding into the "grove" around here. I kind of know what to expect (everything) and I'm getting to know all the kids. One surprise was the vast difference between 7th and 8th grade. Somewhere between those two ages the little teeny bopper attitude takes hold. Both are fun in their own way, but I didn't expect such a difference. In High School, there was an obvious difference between the freshman and the rest of the school but I had expected that due to the four year difference. Anyone else experience the 7th/8th grade transition?

An Alaskan Strategy

I was reading the latest NEA magazine and came across a very interesting strategy being implemented in Alaska. As most people know, Alaska often has trouble filling "bush positions" or teaching jobs out in the sticks. They often only have one highly qualified teacher for several hundred students. An even bigger problem arises when you try to get these kids into class on the numerous days that they are snowed in. Most the students live a substantial distance from the school and the adverse conditions make it that much harder to attend. Alaska has come up with an alternative. The teacher leads class across a web broadcast, where he or she can see all the students signed in and they can see the teacher. At the remote sites there is usually an adult present to manage classroom behavior. At any given time, the highly qualified teacher could be teaching well over a hundred students. Although this circumstance is not optimal, it seems like a legitimate alternative to missing class half of the days of the school year. Also, it allows the school districts who struggle with hiring to abide by the stipulations of NCLB.

Movies aren't just a cop-out

Sometimes I feel that when I use a film within my class that it's, in some way, a cop-out for actually doing some real teaching. Strangely (or not so strangely) I have found that students actually get more out of watching a film on certain things than listening to me talk. Perhaps it is the constantly changing images that holds their attention while I, when talking, feel relatively successful if I can keep them from drooling on the desk. Anyway, my cooperating teacher and I were looking for a way to introduce our Black Experience unit. We needed something to catch their attention while being informational. We found a recent film on Rosa Parks that was about 50 minutes long. I was amazed at how it held the kids' attention. It basically gave a short overview of the Civil Rights Movement beginning with Rosa Parks' protest. After the film we had a discussion where they were all participants and interested in the subject. We used this as a springboard to launch our reading and deliver our work packet. It was an incredibly successful tool for catching students' attention. It also gives me images and video clips which I can refer back to to help kids better understand a concept or assignment.

Although middle school has proved drastically different from my high school experience, I must say that I enjoy the in-your-face interaction that naturally accompanies this age group. They are an excitable bunch when you actually grab their attention. That is why I'm really looking forward to teaching my work sample. My unit is going to cover the genre of mystery and focus on the writing portion. First we are going to cover the various elements of a mystery and read a couple short stories and novels. Then we'll jump into writing. What I'm going to do is give them a list of characters necessary for a mystery. Then I will hand them a stack of newspapers and make them cut out pictures and names to fill the character slots. Beneath each picture, they will have to construct a short character profile (but not give away any guilt). Upon completion of this, they will get the opportunity to write their own short mystery. For the most part, my kids are good readers and I think they're going to enjoy the interactive nature (and the use of scissors and rubber cement) of this project.

WOW! Today I had one of those classes. You know, the kind that walk into the room and you can feel the energy at the tips of your hair follicles. This little circumstance I am about to discribe will suffice for the teaching strategy that needs improvement. Keep in mind this is a class of eighth graders. My lesson plan intended to lead us into beginning a pursuasive paper tying into black history month. I asked students to give examples of how black people were viewed by their white counterparts in the novels they are reading. I then asked half of the class to play the "Devil's advocate" by supporting slavery and segregation while the other half were civil rights leaders. I managed to keep the class below chaos level, but they threatened to blow at any moment. The slave owners were absolutely pounded by the civil rights activists. They seemed not to realize that the opposition was presenting a hypothetical perspective and not their own. We managed to bring the class back down to a gentle simmer about three quarters of the way through the period and get them working on generating position and opposition ideas for their pursuasive papers. However, I think I will change tactics next time from a volitile debate to something a little softer if the class walks in having apparently just unhooked the caffiene IV.