It was a sloppy yet productive week.  My plans were total garbage, but I did manage to help a few kids pull their grades from failing to passing by allowing them to make up missing work.  I usually don't do that sort of thing, but my laziness inspired generosity in spite of productivity.  The first quarter has ended.  

While I was away, I missed some gossip-worthy events.  Apparently, one of my students was involved in a robbery.  Stupidly, he flashed a large roll of bills in Spanish class and alarmed the teacher, causing administration to intervene and involve the police.  Turns out that he and a few buddies knocked over a corner store in the city, taking $15,000 in cash, cigarettes, and lottery tickets in the process.  I do not know whether or not he was armed, but it's a scary situation nonetheless.  I will admit to some celebration when I heard the news, as this kid was a major pain in my ass in my most pain in the ass class of my school day.  Since his departure, things have been a bit quieter and more productive in 8th period class.  A second student wrote a book in English class about killing a teacher.  Surprisingly, administration stepped in and acted appropriately, expelling this girl from school.  She was in my homeroom and did not bother me much, but I guess somebody else got on her nerves and prompted her to pen a work of unparalleled stupidity and recklessness.   

Officially, 25% of my work load for the year is behind me.  It's nice to think of it that way.  Of course, this leads me to all kinds of sports analogies I can use with the kids to try and rally their grades for the second, third, and fourth quarters.  

Speaking of sports, basketball season began this week.  I am the head coach of my school's varsity boys basketball team.  This is my second season as head coach and I feel more prepared to lead my team than I did last year.  Last season was a tough one;  we went 1-18.  Losing 18 of 19 games is a humbling feeling.  I don't like to lose at anything (apparently not weight, either, as I am still a gorged cow) and the memory of our dreadful season poisoned my will to coach again.  Incompetent, out of place, and thoroughly unqualified would best describe my coaching abilities.  However, I see this season as a shot at redemption for myself and the team.  I know I can coach better and I am confident that the kids I'm working with this season can and will unite to take home some victories.  There was much discord on the team last year with personality and playing style conflicts that seemed irretrievable, which left me as hopeless as one could possibly feel as a coach.  Looking at my current roster, I see a great group of kids who want to play and encourage one another to be successful on the court and in the classroom.  The atmosphere at practice has been totally positive and I am actually enjoying the season so far.  There will be obstacles along the way: days of loathing and seemingly endless and pointless practices, long bus rides to whoknowswhereneverheardofit schools, and painful, demoralizing losses.   I'm holding out hope for the high points, the victories large and small, the personal growth of my players and myself.  This will be another learning season.

I gave quizzes all day Friday.  I needed to assess all of my classes to find out where we stand.  My biology class underperformed.  Only a few kids did well, and most scored between 40-60% on the quiz.  I don't feel that it is a lack of knowledge or mastery on their part, it's a lack of preparation.  They're freshman, new to high school, and they have yet to take the transition to 9th grade seriously.  I plan to attend to this matter this week.  I will redress this mindset and look for an attitudinal shift within the next few weeks.  I will make a few phone calls home, set the slugs straight, and hopefully see results.

Both sections of chemistry did well.  They did adjust their attitudes after their first quiz and they showed me that they could change their attitudes toward school and rise to the level of my expectations.  I hope they can keep it up without needing me to keep them on top of their study habits.  Scores were high, the kids knew they did well, and I think they went home feeling good about their reversal of fortune.

Anatomy is a different story.  It's half and half.  Half of the kids want to be there and want to learn the material and half of the kids need the credit to graduate and could care less about learning the material.  I'm teaching anatomy like I've never taught it before, trying to hold them to AP level standards.  Most of the kids are 12th graders with plans of going to college, so I'm trying to show them what a freshman lecture course is like.  I give notes on Powerpoint and talk for 45 minutes.  They listen and take notes for 45 minutes.  I try to vary it and give them activities throughout the week, ensuring that it is not a totally mind-numbing lecture every day.  They may not love the lecture style; I'm pretty sure they hate it.  They complain about the amount of writing in the class.  

Do I need to write this down?  Will I have to memorize this?  How will you expect us to know all of this stuff for a test?

I like to tell them about my days as a high school student, way back when in the early 90's.  Most of my teachers gave outlines and notes and I was expected to know them by rote memorization.  Honestly, I can't remember a whole lot of active learning in my high school curricula.  Anyway, I've always been suited to memorization, having a near eidetic facility for recall.  I see it or hear it - I remember it.  Though I had this capacity for detail, I took notes.  I took notes and I took them home, taking ten or fifteen minutes each night to flip through my notes to reinforce whatever I had learned that day.  I told my students this story, with less self-aggrandizing language (this is my blog after all, and I will speak highly of myself as I am wont to do), and they immediately rejected the idea.  I asked them if they have ten or fifteen minutes each night.  Sure they do.  Can they review their notes?  Sure they can.  Will they take those ten or fifteen minutes each night to review their notes?  Oh mister, I got things to do!  

Priorities.  Straighten them out or they will straighten you out.  It's a lesson I'm still learning from today.  I'm far from perfect.  I procrastinate like crazy, fasttracking projects at the last minute to get them done.  Like all procrastinators, I like to say that I do my best work under pressure, but I know that to be false.  I do good work when I want to do good work.  When I want to avoid work, I avoid work, make excuses, focus my attention on hobbies that can't pay my bills, and irritate the people who are counting on me to get my work done.  I operate on the Good Work or No Work dichotomy.  Occasionally half-assed, usually high quality, I take my work seriously but do not work seriously all the time.  To shorten the story, I understand where my students are coming from.  I wouldn't be a very good teacher if I didn't know how to be a student first.