Happy Valentine's Day

I had the pleasure of beginning the day with a little Valentine's party. It almost turned into a tragic morning because there were no more french toast sticks. Everyday no fail, Tucker comes down the stairs saying, "daddy, I want french toast sticks," and Galen always answers, "What a shocker!" I was a little nervous to hear his reaction, but he took the news pretty well settling for 'boring' pancakes. When Mackenzie came down in her beautiful outfit, the kids each opened their valentine surprise before I headed off to KIPP. I observed 6th grade math have a wonderful discussion about the angle sum of regular polygons. A student asked a question that led them into to a discussion about material for tomorrow's lesson. Joyce just went with it because their brains were already moving in that direction. She told me later that so many teachers seem afraid to move their lessons around and be flexible, but she feels if the students are more interested in tomorrow's lesson today, a teacher should guide their interest. After block 1, I went to observe 5th grade math, but apparently a student had thrown a razor blade, yes a razor blade, across the class in block 1 so Ms. Starr was holding the students hostage until an administrator could deal with the situation and find the culprit because no one would fess up. Mr. Feliciano and Mr. Larson came down to deal with the issue. Before they got down there, Ms. Starr had each student write down what they saw. 12 students saw the blade fly across the room, but no one saw who did it, hmm... a little suspicious. When Mr. Feliciano got there, he became a CSI agent taking the razor into the hall to see how hard it would have had to be thrown to land where it did. The teachers explained the significance and danger of the situation and prompted the person who threw it to simply come forward and accept the consequence. Meanwhile, there was another integrity issue going on across the hall in Ms. Mallory's room. Some students were throwing and kicking papers, not quite as dangerous as razor blades, but again, no one would come forward to admit it was them. After Mr. Larson and Mr. Feliciano felt they had done as much as they could for the razor blade classroom, so they went to deal with Ms. Mallory's. Mr. Larson, the incredible speaker he is, gave the students a lecture about snitching which seemed to be the issue in both situations. Eventhough teammates saw the act happen, they wouldn't come forward and 'tell' on them. Mark told the students that a majority of the students were letting a few make this extraordinary school into an ordinary school. He explained that the classroom and school weren't Ms. Mallory's and Mr. Larson's, but theirs. He pointed out that they pour their whole lives, probably 12 hours a day, into this school so why would they let a dozen people stand in the way of their goal and make their hardwork mean nothing. He asked for examples from the past where a group stood up for something right even if it was scary and dangerous. The students came up with the Civil Rights Movement and the making of the Constitution. The students need to take charge of their lives and their school by not relying solely on the teachers to correct misbehaving, disruptive students. After the lecture, they left the students in the room alone to figure out a solution and talk through the problem. Mark then came back in Ms. Starr's room and sat down to talk to me. I must say that the two KIPP directors I have met share the interpersonal characteristic that they may be incredibly busy making them hard to meet with, but once they are talking to you their complete focus and undivided attention is on you. I was impressed that among the chaos, he sat down to discuss the situation with me. His phone went off a couple of times, but he silenced it and continued our conversation. He explained his theory that if KIPP makes a big deal about the little things, then the big things won't happen. So by stopping classes for the morning to address this issue of safety and integrity, they are sending a message to the students that these acts will not be overlooked and simply tolerated. He also believed that eventhough they may be giving up instructional time for the morning, they would get that time back later because they had addressed issue head on. I asked him what they were going to do now that no one knew who did it and he answered by asking me what I would do. To be honest, I really didn't have a response. After he talked to me, Mark gave the same speech to the razor blade classroom to give them a little something to think about. After about an hour and a half of this business, no one had confessed but I huge message was sent by the way they handled the situation and the lecture they received. After this big mess and lunch, I went to teach 6th grade math again. It went a lot better today because Mrs. Boubel sat in the back of the room and the students seemed pretty dead to be perfectly honest. The lesson was about the angle sum of regular polygons. We began by exploring what that consisted of and learning the meaning of regular. The students then observed a regular triangle, quadralateral, pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, and octagon on the overhead and then talked about what they saw in the angles and sides of each shape. Then they filled out a chart about sides, angle measures, and angle sums of these regular polygons. When they were finished, we talked about the relationship between the number of sides and the angle sum. It was concluded that every time you add a side, 180 degrees are added to the angle sum. Overall the lesson went well. I felt like I was talking an awful lot instead of guiding their learning. These students preform so well in math because they don't just do math, they think math and I need to learn how to better facilitate this process. After my teaching experience I went back to 5th grade to help Ms. Starr grade papers. In the process of switching classrooms a girl was caught calling a boy 'gay.' She was immediately put on bench. I don't know if I have talked much about bench, but basically it is their discipline system. Instead of placing students on in-school suspension, they make the students go to class to learn and participate but they have certain privileges taken away. They have to sit on crates, go to isolated lunch, and talk to no one. To get off of bench, the student's parent must come in for a meeting and the student must complete the extra benchwork which may include an apology or essay about their behavior. Back to girl who had never been put on bench before and was completely devastated. She was very upset and embarrassed to be put on bench. Ms. Starr explained to her that that was the point of bench to make students behave because they did not want to be singled out. Unfortunately there are so many students could care less about the whole process because they have been put on so much. Ms. Starr talked the girl though her frustration saying she could be off bench as soon as tomorrow, if her mom came up to have a meeting. The day was full of interesting experiences and I am glad to have had the opportunity to teach again.