Monday Monday

I definitely felt the effects of spring savings! Anyone else? I think I yawned like 50 times today! My day went pretty fast and there was minimal wondering! I started out observing a 10th grade math/science teacher named Anne Duffy. She explained that they had just spent the last four weeks setting up the math concepts for this project and the next few weeks they would be creating their own pigment to paint. It was during her class that I realized how important it is for me to choose one or two classes and stick with them. It is harder to observe this school than most because the teachers don't teach everyday. They set up the projects and 80 different things are going on at once so they manage the chaos. The projects do most of the teaching. While Anne was explaining the instructions for starting the rusting process for their paint project, she was careful not to actually do one because she said she didn't want to do it for someone. I thought this was interesting because you'd think in the grand scope of things, it's only one person's work, but it was important to her that EVERYONE do their own, part of the whole discovery process, I guess. The other cool thing was that there were questions at the end of her explanation as you would guess, but the questions weren't about procedures, they were about why you take the piece of metal out of the vinegar and why they were using vinegar at all. Its all about asking why and truly understanding the process. After Anne's class, I went to Dan's 8th grade math class. Unfortunately they had already gotten their new belts for passing the assessment, but I can't wait to see the huge black belt ceremony. Only about half the class passed the assessment which made him a little frustrated, but he went ahead and split the class to let those who had passed move on to the next lesson. He had those who did not pass go out into the hall with Ms. Erin to work on a review of the old material. There were three students who stayed after school on Friday to take the assessment again in order to pass it so they could move on today. Impressive! Today's lesson was about intercepts and Dan presented it in a very interesting way. He began by asking what an interception was in football. He demonstrated for students who were unfamiliar with the term by throwing a mesh ball intended for one student, but intercepted by another. He then connected it to math comparing a line to the ball and x & y axis to the opponent who intercepts the ball. He drew lots of lines on this amazingly interactive computer program and asked what all those x intercepts had in common. The students concluded that all of them had a y coordinate of 0. Basically that was the whole lesson. The students got the concept very quickly and they began working on a worksheet to practice intercepts. After this class, the students went to advisory to work on their nutrition presentation for Friday. Dan said that some teachers are on a committee to make advisory more meaningful because they don't like letting the kids just hang out and it was at this meeting that the nutritional presentation was born. Dan explained that the students stay in the same advisory for all three years and their advisory teacher is kind of like their counselor or go to person. The advisory teacher even makes home visits to all of his/her students during the summer to find out what their home situation is like to better understand the student. For lunch, I went with my new friend Erin to eat in the plaza and it was wonderful to have company. After lunch I returned to Dan's class to observe the remainder of the math/science for the first class. The first class of the day is broken up by advisory and lunch and then the second last is for a straight two hours in the afternoon. For the science portion of the class, they did a lab on electric current using balloons to pick up pieces of paper and aluminum. After this class, they had P.E., but it is not at all what you picture in your mind, its modified High Tech style. P.E. consists of the students going outside and walking on the sidewalk around a slab of grass for 15 minutes. I'm not joking. It would be better named a break. The teachers go outside to monitor and make sure everyone is 'moving.' There is absolutely no structure, the students just walk with their friends around the grass. Now this would not fly at KIPP! I'm not completely against the idea, in fact I think it's a nice break for the students even though they just had lunch 60 minutes prior. I just think its hilarious that they call it P.E. To me P.E. implies changing clothes, stretching, and playing dodge ball. After P.E. I observed the other 8th grade team’s math class taught by Ryan. He was lecturing, first time I have seen lecturing at HTH, about the periodic table for the first hour and then the students had time to work on their chemistry presentations. I sat and worked with Hannah and Erika who are the sweetest girls. They are the best of friends and cracked me up when they typed simultaneously on the keyboard, Hannah pushing the buttons on the left side and Erika picking up the ones on the right! I think its a girl friend, to be that close to friends! lol. These students create pretty amazing power point presentations. They are great at surfing the net and finding excellent sites because not a day goes by that they don't use a computer. There are either desktops or a set of laptops in EACH room. Now that's high tech! Hope your Monday was good and I will be in touch tomorrow!