Back From Break

As amazing as Chri- Holid- Christmas break was, the return is proportionally miserable. Rather than merely lament the Gregorian calendar, however, I view the first week back as one of the most important of the school year. I am a strict adherent to the Pareto Principle which, in essence, means that 20 percent of your efforts in any given endeavor produce 80 percent of your results. If you aren’t satisfied with my brief synopsis, feel free to read this more thorough attachment . Cool, moving on.

I approach the school calendar looking for roughly the 40 “most important” days of the year. Obviously I have no idea what is going to specifically occur on those days in August, but I do know in advance that they will be very structured, work intensive days. I choose these days to set and reinforce the academic and behavioral tone.

• Pre Back to School Night (20 days)—These are the days that almost every education class tells you will determine your school year. It’s probably true. If you don’t have things running by smoothly by this point then chances are you’ve crossed the Rubicon, and the inmates are running the asylum. I choose Back to School Night as the line of demarcation, though, because if you make a good impression parents are that much more likely to be on board. I literally copy and paste the following into any email response about a student’s missing assignments: “As I discussed at Back to School Night, I distribute a weekly syllabus to the students every Monday. If your son/daughter says that he/she does not have homework, you can always confirm by referring to the schedule.

• Post Winter Break (5 days)—Everyone, teachers included, does not want to be back. Kids are less likely to work hard, and teachers are more likely to be easing back into things. If you’re one of the rare people demanding the same that (or even more than) you normally do then your classes will adjust accordingly.

• Post Midterms (5 days)—The year is officially half complete and many students grow accustomed to the review days before the test and the half days during the actual exams. While it’s certainly not a break, it is invariably a week or more of non-traditional “class.” Rein it in.

• Post Spring Break (5 days)—The year is over as far as the vast majority of students are concerned. Many just went on vacation. The weather is nicer. The opposite sex is looking better. Crime, and deviant behavior, moves in unison with the weather –higher temperatures equal higher crime rates. The first three paragraphs suffice, but I would contend that this effect is even more pronounced in the Northeast where there are greater seasonal shifts in temperature. (I’d greatly appreciate it if someone found better evidence for me—thanks in advance)

• Floating Absence Days (+/- 5)—Any day that you miss is a vacation from the norm for the kids regardless of how detailed your sub plans were. Accept this and be even more on your game when you return.

First 5 Days Back Recap:

Reading
1) Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie
2) An excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers
3) Don McNay’s “Outliers and the Hillbilly Stereotype”
4) DH Lawrence’s “The Rocking Horse Winner”
5) Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”

Writing
1) A five paragraph essay asking students to analyze whether Amanda from The Glass Menagerie supported or refuted Gladwell’s assertion of the Southern “culture of honor”.
2) One page response comparing Tom from The Glass Menagerie to the protagonist Dave from “The Man Who Was Almost a Man”.
3) One page response analyzing why Amanda from The Glass Menagerie referred to DH Lawrence’s works as the product of a “diseased mind.”

Personal Highlights
1) I found a justification, albeit tenuous, for playing Nas in class. I used “Got Yourself a Gun” as pre-reading for “The Man Who Was Almost a Man.”
2) We watched a clip from Office Space to capture Tom’s (of The Glass Menagerie fame) view of working at the warehouse.
3) I launched into a 5 minute diatribe on MTV’s “Jersey Shore” after I drew the connection between the infamous JWoWW * This also sparked a conspiracy theory about JWoWW’s potentially genius marketing ploy.**


*The “grenade launcher,” who was not available for comment, reportedly did NOT use JWoWW’s “Insane Liquid formula that will gaurantee [sic] weight loss.”

**Look, we’re all agreed that her formula gaurantees [sic] weight loss. That’s beyond debate. My theory, however, is that JWoWW intentionally withheld this medical marvel from Snooki to spark “fat” comments from other girls and the soon-to-be over quoted “roll” comment by The Situation. Without these comments, and the subsequent punches JWoWW threw, she would be merely an STD Petri dish and not the budding D-list star who “brings the ultimate in Real Drama!!!!!”

Adam’s Notes: Pareto Principle for teachers, weekly workload, breakthrough medical discovery

A Day in the Life

Have you ever woken up in the morning and been so intrinsically motivated to go to work that the satisfaction of a job well done completely superseded your impending payday? Me neither. However, I was able to set pecuniary pursuits aside until the end of the school day because I was legitimately excited about teaching my “behavioral issue” class. Allow me to clarify my motives. I loathe the naively optimistic teaching caricature a la Hilary Swank in “Freedom Writers”*and not only because her incongruous grimacing smile looks like she just had a colonic. I find this Pollyannaish depiction overly simplistic, and I had to sit through far too many grad classes hearing classmates cite the movie as their inspiration to teach. Instead, I wanted to teach this challenging class because I am hypercompetitive and took a selfish interest in trying to succeed where others had previously failed.

Although I may facetiously quote Howard Gardener at times, much of what he wrote about in Five Minds for the Future about The Synthesizing Mind does resonate with me. The concept, in essence, refers to a learner’s ability to integrate seemingly disparate information from different disciplines into a cogent understanding that is greater than the sum of its parts. If this sounds familiar, and it should if you’ve taken education classes, it is because it is largely a repackaging of Susan Zimmerman and Ellin Oliver Keene’s Mosaic of Thought . Their comprehension strategies (text-to-self, text-to-text, text-to-world) are really the foundation of my reading philosophy.

Today the goal was to get students to analyze the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by the 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards, not the baby faced former Presidential candidate John Edwards. I wanted to build their background knowledge of fire and brimstone messages and offer a comparative piece from nearly three centuries later. I played an excerpt of Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing’s 2006 documentary “Jesus Camp,” and we discussed the persuasive elements of this approach before beginning the sermon.

I was so pleased with how “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” went that I assigned an impromptu journal entry examining how both works were reflective of their respective historical periods. We had a very thoughtful class discussion, and I concluded by explaining that they had just successfully made connections outside of the text which would be the same focus of the course.

As important as I think these textual connections are, Gardener was even more passionate in Five Minds. He said: “Our survival as a planet may depend on the cultivation of this pentad of mental dispositions.” Although The Synthesizing Mind is only 20% of the quintet, the message is clear—I’m saving the world. And, as glamorous as living with my parents is, I’m one paycheck closer to moving out.

Adam’s Notes: Not so Swank, religious zealots, budding Nobel Prize nominee

*If you enjoyed this movie please find the nearest book (assuming it’s hardcover) and repeatedly bang it against the bridge of your nose. If you have a soft cover version, please spread your index and middle finger while running a single page between them until you have a self-inflicted paper cut.

Intro

The concept behind the blog is simple. I really enjoy my job and, as such, I talk about it quite a bit. Several close friends and a few coworkers find these stories amusing, and they suggested that I document them somewhere. This, for now, is that place.

I’m not interested in discussing “best practice” or debating the merit of Harry Wong’s The First Days of School. I am merely recreating amusing anecdotes from my 3 year and 1 day march to tenure. If you find them to be sophomoric or offensive then, in the words of my mother, “I don’t fucking care*.”

*This is a very liberal paraphrase.