Borrowed Cars and Discovery Learning

It maybe because I was trained to think about research qualitatively as an ethnographer instead of quantitatively as a statistician, but I think when talking about students, letting their words do the talking is more powerful than insightful commentary. And that is how I want to begin this blog, with the kids speaking:

Dear Mr. Terch,

We are reading That Was Then, This Is Now in English class with Mr. Logan. Have you read it? Well there is a part in the book where Mark takes the principal's car somewhere but brings it back. The principal wasn't mad. He actually thought it was funny. How wouild you feel if I stole your car sometime? I debated with the class that you would be fine with it. Well anyway. I'm gonna go.
                                                     Bye
                                                           McKenzie R

Dear Mr. terch
         Could I borrow your car to run to the York County prison to go sing to the inmates. LOL
                                From: Julie M.


Dear Mr. Church terch -

I think i could hotwire your car is ok i would give it back ok

Dear, love

Charles

OK editing mistakes should be ignored. I typed the notes to our principal exactly as they wrote them to maintain their integrity. There is a lot to learn here from my students in this 3 quick notes. I learned how they view the world, what writing issues we need to conquer this year, and some insight to their personalities.

Where'd all this come from? Like McKenzie wrote to our principal, we were discussing chapter 4 of That Was Then, This Is Now and I was attempting to connect the story to their own lives by asking the question: how do you think Mr. Terch would react if he discovered one of you driving his car into his parking space after frantically looking for it. Several students wanted to argue that our principal would have been "fine with it." I encouraged them to write to him. The above were their responses.

Finally, I was able to incorporate the text from the novel for my grammar mini-lesson today. I called it a Preposition Quest. The students were supposed to work in their groups to find a sentence from chapter 4 that features a preposition and another sentence featuring a compound preposition. I reminded them that, since I had already instructed them to put the definitions of each into their notebooks, they should be able to find the definition in their notebook.

Do you remember I told you I was a Murphy's Law kind of guy? I left a copy of our writing and grammar text on each desk, just in case. You see, just because they wrote the definitions in their notebook is no guarantee they remembered to bring the notebook to class. Sometimes they bring the wrong notebook, come with no notebook, or were absent the day of the lesson. No problem. I encouraged them to use the texts if they neeed to and also reminded them how to find discreet information in a textbook. Use the index. We also discussed that if there was a chapter about prepositions, whether the index would list the chapter by a single page or a range of pages. Some kids still went to the single page reference that only obliquely referenced a prepositional phrase without defining it.

I remember having a new teacher I was charged with mentoring a few years back. He'd be irritated about something a middle schooler did and demand I explain the unexplainable: "Why'd he do that?" The answer was simple: "He's 13." My answer to everything. The mantra achieves calm for middle school teachers and it works for both sexes and all middle school ages. Repeat after me. "She's twelve." "He's fourteen" "They're eigth graders." After years of fighting the natural behaviors of early adolescents, somewhere around year 8 I figured out that instead of fighting it, I should accept it and redirect it. That's the year I traded rows for pods and silence for an unquiet pedagogy (yes, I read that book in grad school too.)

A chattering class focused on a task and slipping in references to last night's game or the latest middle school gossip is a healthy one. It was fun to bounce around the room eavesdropping on kids arguing whether the sentences fit the bill of a compound preposition while trying to slip in some off-topic conversation. You know what's funny about teachers who are obsessed with off-task dialogue? They are the exact same people who irritate me when I'm trying to listen to directions from our administrators in faculty meetings and in-service meetings. If they can do it what makes them think their kids can't? I trust my students to meet or at least attempt to meet my expectations. Ironically, I cannot carry on a conversation and listen to instructions simultaneously, so I appear to be a model audience member in those situations. Unlike their teachers, students have a tendency to police themselves when they're focused on the task. Often before I have a chance to redirect, the kids themselves remind each other "We gotta get this done!"

I can't decide which I enjoyed more today-- the letters to Mr. Terch or the 4 panel comic depicting Mark's car story. Supposedly, there is a way to embed photos onto the blog articles themselves. I am going to see Mr. Terch and Mrs. Spangenberger to investigate how to do it. Some of the cartoons were pretty cool. The lingering future assignment kept students motivated to finish the grammar assignment. My kids like drawing this year. I heard many "We gotta get this done so we can draw!" numerous times today."

That's my story. Lesson learned today--- don't let the kids know which car is yours-- they might borrow it. <grin>

Floppy-eared Children

When the alarm went off this morning I worried. How am I going to teach with no sleep? I'm not a parent of a human but I do have two floppy-eared children. I never noticed how much like kids, dogs can be.

Yesterday was a hectic afternoon, Hannah, my adorable four and a half month old yellow labrador retriever, had her second vet visit at 4:15pm after school. School dismissal for teachers was at 2:50pm and I live about 15 to 20 minutes away from school. Plenty of time right? You'd think that if you also believe that all things are equal and plans always turn out the way you expect.

That's not my experience at all. I'm kinda a Murphy's Law guy. The vet wanted a stool sample. Hannah wouldn't produce one for me yesterday morning which meant I had to hope she didn't make when she was let out that afternoon before I came home--- I used to think dog poop was gross, now neither the smell, shape or consistency bothers me-- it's just part of being a doggy's daddy. Skewering a fresh poop pile with a discreet little green plastic device didn't bother me at all. How did that happen?

Did Hannah give me the stool sample I needed? Eventually. My mother warned me that Hannah was her own person and had her own head before I even met her this summer. Hannah wanted to play. The clock was ticking. She had been in her crate all morning and a few hours that afternoon, so I gave in and let her play. All the while, I was nervously watching the time slip away on my flip phone--- yeah I don't do the smart phone yet. I didn't even have a cellphone until 2004. But I digress.

While Hannah played fetch and keep away with Daddy, Daddy almost wiped out discovering her afternoon stool sample had been hidden between the ivy covered volleyball court bowl and the court border. "Great, she already went this afternoon and I'll have to go to the docs without her stool sample again--- they're going to think I'm an idiot.." The bottoms of my shoes were fragrant with my doggy daughter's deposit but there wasn't enough there for me to scrape off for a sample.

It was 3:45 now and I was getting worried. I really didn't want to show up empty-handed again, but Hannah normally doesn't need to go number 2 in the middle of the day. Resigned to "daddy-epic-fail," I brought my happy panting puppy back inside the house. We walked by her food bowl and her crate and I noticed something. Fortunately, Hannah hadn't finished her breakfast and there were still a few handfuls of it in her bowl.  I discovered the hard way that my little girl will leave presents if she eats after a vigorous exercise when I forget to let her out again.

We practiced "sit-ups" using her leftover breakfast. I took the feed by the handful and we practiced sitting, sitting down (like a sphinx,) and  sitting up again. Each time she completed the exercise I fed her feed from my hand. When she finished the rest of her breakfast, I changed shoes, put on her car harness and took her for a lap around the house. Bingo! It was 4:10 and the vet's office was 15 minutes away.

Laugh if you want to at my not-so-smartphone, but it has bluetooth and so does my car so I called them from the road letting them know that we were running late. "It's Hannah's daddy's fault, but at least we have a stool sample."

All that and the visit lasted 10 minutes--- She's 35 pounds now-- 5 pound gain from her visit 2 weeks previous. She had another round of shots-- she didn't bark or growl but she didn't like them. The vet said "bee sting" Hannah shot me a look like "Evil trick, Daddy!" Like I said, 10 minutes and it was over.

I'm always exhausted after work. Before Hannah, I could crawl in my bed or lounge on the couch and fall asleep for 30 minutes when I got home. Hannah will sit at the foot of the couch and watch tv with me, but if I fall asleep, she will use her "big girl" voice and bark me awake. The tone is unmistakably insistent like "Hey! You left me home alone all day, you can't fall asleep now. Pay attention to me. Hey!" If I taped her barking rant, you could insert the words for the syllables of her barks. I know-- dog parents are nuts, right?

After dinner, I was awake enough to play with my pup some more. She loves to squirm on her back with her favorite toy in her mouth and playfully push my hands away with her paws as I try to play "Rubdabelly" with her.

It used to be "Rub the belly." If you saw us play--- you would see a grown man on all fours talking baby talk, nuzzling his puppy's neck and rubbing her belly. Hannah eats it up. She just grins and rolls on her back playfully.

When we were finished. Juggernaut, my ten year old English Springer Spaniel, squeezed between Hannah and I, plopped on my foot ,and leaned his head back against my shin-- his not so sublte way of letting me know he wants his neck petted. So I pet him and told him what a good boy he was and he was in doggie nirvanna,

Unfortunately, Hannah is jealous of anyone else getting my attention. She walked back up to us and started kissing Juggernaut's face. He went ballistic. First, he growled and, of course, Hannah paid him no attention and kept trying to get in on the lovefest. He then barked, chased after her, and even when she fell to the ground in supplication, he nipped at her side. She squealed that mournful, heartbreaking yelp that makes puppy-daddies die a little inside.

I was horrorified that he was hurting her. So this voice I did not recognized erupted from me. "No! No!No!No!Nonononono!" Juggernaut got off her and the baby scurried between my legs, shielding herself from her brother-turned-Cujo.

I spent the next 30 minutes cradling my puppy in my arms, petting her, assuring her she was safe, and that Daddy would not let anything happen to her. I noticed she avoided Juggernaut when we walked back in the room. I could not put her to bed yet.

We have a flea issue with Juggernaut, so all the linens and towels were being washed. This included the Hannah's bed linens. MamaDear made Hannah a mattress out of batting and boat cover material. She made a mattress linen for her with leftover material from curtains for the living room. I was not going to put the puppy in the crate to rest on a metal floor after she had become accostomed to more luxurious accomodations.

TV night was spent watchfully monitoring Hannah's interaction with Juggernaut. When the load was finally dry, I made my little girl's bed, placed her chew toys inside, and set her down. When I finally retired to bed at 11, I thought I would sleep til 5:00am as always. Wishful thinking.

At 12am Hannah started her whinebark. For those of you without dogs, its the whine that starts like a yawn and drawls until the pup is nearly out of breath and ends in an insistent bark. I remembered my mother warning me not to jump out of bed everytime Hannah called me and that I had to remain in control. I also had to get to sleep. After an hour and a half of attempting to ignore her intermittent pleading, I roused myself out of bed and went into the great room to see about her.

I took her out. She had to urinate but nothing else. She obediently got back into her crate and I went back to bed after saying good night. This time it was straight out barking from about 1:20 to 2am. I couldn't take anymore, so I went to see about her again. Did she urgently need to pass a stool sample? I took her out again and all she wanted to do was play "keep away." Heck no. Not at 2am! I squashed her keep-away fun, tackled her, wrestled her back into her crate, and told her: "Good night, Hannah Chase. Daddy needs his sleep!"

Again with the barking. What the heck? Finally I took her out of her crate at 4am, lay clean blankets and a couple of her chew toys on the floor in my room beside my bed. Peace. One hour of sleep. Awesome.

Funny thing about all that. The day turned out to be ok. We were in the library. Mrs. H. booktalked some new books and let the kids know about some free kindle downloads available that they may want to investigate. We used today's meet to post answers to my grammar question: "What is the difference between a preposition and a compound preposition?"

I received the feedback I needed about last week's lesson. I know. There was no qualitative or quantitative grade to put in my gradebook, but I got the information I needed. Isn't that what counts? Grades have to be uploaded on the 20th of September for mid-marking period reports. To satisfy the grade grubbing, I am giving a quiz on prepositions and the first three chapters of our novel on Tuesday.

If all this formative assessment and progressive feedback I have been working with works. The kids grades should remain relatively unchanged. Most kids have As at this point. They are doing their homework, they are productive in class and they seem to have a grasp on what is happening so far. Does every class always have to generate a bell-curve to be challenging and rigorous? I used to think that, but not anymore. Isn't the goal to see everyone successful?

Or is that the lack of sleep talking?