Group Projects Part 1

My daughter pulled an all-nighter. The first all-nighter, she was in elementary school and asked for coffee. This one, she was working on a "group project." The group contributed little and they are likely going to crucify her.

The group decided to make a skeleton model of the human body in laffy taffy. The group composed a list of materials consisting of a project board and laffy taffy. The night before the group work began I rushed to Target to buy these materials. A project board and a large bag of laffy taffy, no problemo.

When my daughter brought the group project home to work on it this weekend, it resembled a skeleton. She had the laffy taffy I bought, a few pieces the group contributed, and a glue gun. She worked on it on Saturday. We had to leave the house at some point to go somewhere. When we came back, we discovered Snowflake our dog had consumed the project.

I went to Target (again) and bought more laffy taffy and yet another project board. One good thing came from the consumption of the project. I suggested Taylor cut off the pieces of the project that were finished and remount them on a darker board. This made the project look a little better. Taylor had been concerned that several of the bones were not in proportion. The fact that she could redraw and remount some of those pieces solved the proportion dilemma.

Taylor stayed up all night working on the project. This morning, I found her English Project Board empty (due today sadly). I'm not sure what is going to happen.

When I asked her why the other kids were not contributing, she told me---they are busy. Taylor took it upon her self to do this project alone. Where did she learn such behavior? What is she doing correctly and what is she doing wrong?

If you guessed that Taylor learned this behavior from me then (ding, ding, ding) you are right! Now, I only need to take what I've learned here and apply to my own sad little life. Sad, because I should have learned these lessons a long time ago. Oh well. Sad because the situation is easily resolved in my sad little life. I can only hope that Taylor will see this and revise her behavior based upon seeing my revision. This is my theory anyway.

Let's see what happens.

Everyone's a little off...Monday

The grey primer colored Chevelle with jacked up back tires rides over gravel leaving a small trail of rock dust. Poof. The dust rises and falls. Nevermind, the fact that the gravel is the landscaping between my house and my neighbors and a few juniper have been killed in the process of parking. They are torn out of the ground and I see remenants of black landscaping paper everywhere. "I am home now." The car announces flatly in a voice that reminds me of Knight Rider only its a male version of that voice.

I'm outside shaking my head wondering why my daughter has bought such a piece of crap car. She's inside of the car telling it to open, so that she can get out. The trunk and the hood fly open following her directions... kind'ave. I instinctly close the hood and the trunk and shake my fist at the car and that's when the car reacts by shaking and emits a loud alarm noise.

Wait..That's my alarm! Grabbing the iphone to turn it off. I'm so tired and now and my other daughter is in front of me asking about the whereabouts of black stretch pants. After grabbing a coffee, taking vitamins, getting dressed, and helping the kids make their bus I speed to class. The dream is in the back of my mind still. I really hate what my mind does to things. How can it be at all helpful to dream such odd things? Stupid subconcious. Stupid traffic. Stupid crappin' to do list that never ends. Stupid news reports. Parking at the school lot finally. A sense of calm comes over me. Its just another day. Wait.

This class, didn't finish the agenda items from the last class, so the lesson plan has been spliced to reflect some changes. Luckily, there is enough repetitition in the lessons, so that the splice is basically seamless...to them, the students. I take roll and everything is familiar again. The people, the agenda, the activities. And just as I was settling in to calling roll the door bursts open as if Superman himself were making a guest appearance. "I'm late!" A young man in a screaming orange shirt stands in the middle of the room. He has a long ponytail all tied up in a bandana. He is wearing long basketball shorts. "Shall I come in?"
He sits down and begins pounding on his keyboard. I feel a little like Mr. Magoo when he opens his eyes for the first time. "Good morning" I manage to say, trying to be completely expressionless, because the truth is I am totally shocked. "Have a seat Mr...."
"No Mr. Just call me T."
"Oh" I say, putting a T meaning tardy next to Mr. T...who looks nothing like the real Mr. T. by the way. I'm thinking I really need another cup of coffee. Half the class is laughing and half the class is shocked, but we persist on through the agenda. What I notice, is that the students who have been absent already struggle. They have just a missed a few class periods, but still I notice. Now part of me knows these are the very people who don't want to be noticed, but still I talk to them and help them along. They don't glare at me , but I can't help it. They are the ones who need help.

T loves any and all attention that I give him. He is happy and cheerful. Now, there is a guy in my class with rough hands, dark glassess, and he looks like he just finished riding his Harley Davidson who scowls at me. I ignore all the scowling and tell him that he is sitting at a station that is too small. His knees are hitting the top of the table and he will be completely uncomfortable if he doesn't move. I correct him a few times and try to help him along during the course of the lesson. As class is excused, I can tell he is somewhat unhappy. He makes a big effort to apologize to me.

I try to tell him to go to the lab, that there's a learning curve and he really needs the practice.
"I was just apologizing to you" he said. I take that to mean he didn't want the associated learning curve speech. He grabs his backpack and leaves. Now, just like my dream I'm left thinking that I've managed to miss something big. Oh yea, once again I was too quick to react without giving a clear concise answer. Learning something new looks vastly different on everyone who hasn't had practice. I think that was his frustration and he needed reassurance. I think that's what the car wanted too. Oh well, there's always Wednesday.

First Day Back

So, I took the whole summer off.
Yes, the whole summer.
It was amazing!

But as they say in my world, "all good things must come to an end." Anyway, today was my first day back meaning no sleeping in and doing what I want to do. As luck would have it, I only had one class this morning. I got up at 630 am grabbed my coffee, vitamins, packed my lunch, and put on a decent outfit. On the way out, I reminded my youngest daughter to get on the bus. She was found in the bottom bunk with a towel wrapped on her head. She had on her school clothes, but was dozing under the covers.

"Get up!"
"Ooooohhh, I will"
"Do not miss the bus! I mean it."

I drove to school and absolutely nothing was out of the ordinary. I felt good, sang to the radio, and made it to a half empty parking lot. I was there an hour early, but figured I needed to prepare for class that I've only taught 16 million times. Upon entering the building, I saw several smiling faces. There was fresh coffee brewing, and I'm not sure why, but I don't remember school being this good. The elevator ride up was completely uneventful. Everything was just as it was when I left. My lab classroom awaited me and not that much had changed. Gasp, maybe some of the furniture had been rearranged. I opened up and revised my syllabus a bit. I printed out my student information sheets. At 8:15 my students began to fill the room. I took roll. Everyone smiled.

I asked who was brand new to the college and almost everyone raised their hand. The students listened to me as we discussed the requirements for the course. They asked a few questions and I helped them get logged in. My philosphy has not changed. I still believe that we are a community of learners and that we are here to help one another. After all of that, the students interviewed one another. They began to introduce one another. Everyone has a different story, but the story is really the same. They came here to learn. They came here to better themselves in someway. They are excited and eager. Now, as always there are characters in the classroom to be sure. After the class departed, three men stayed behind.

"You know, I have absolutely no computer skill."
"That's okay, I will help you."
We reviewed logging in and logging out. We went over how the three icons in the upper right control the windows.
"Thank you so much!"
"Don't worry, you are doing great!"
"You know, I kinda know how to type already, but I never got all this Windows stuff."
"Yea, you'll get it, we all have weaknesses and strengths."

As I ventured to the next station I saw a student who was really eager to send an email.
"Hey, sweetie!"
"It's Ms. Cole"
"Oh, yea - ummm I'm just really excited to have my own email account and I want to send something."
"Okay, I can help you with that."
We went over composing an email, but since the student could barely type it took a really long time. He pointed out each of his errors, shaking his head. "She will never understand this!"
"Well, let's edit." I said.
I showed him how to move his cursor backward and forward and suddenly a lightbulb went on in his head. "OOOHHH! Now what?"
"Click send"
"That's it?"
"Yep"
"So fast! You sure?"
"Yep!"

The final student had waited to long and was so patient I felt embarassed. "How can I help?" The fact that this man was a professor in another country made me even more self conscious."
"You explain to me how I do at home."
"Well, its probably not going to be exactly the same."
"You explain"
"Well, do you have a laptop?"
"Yes"
"Okay, bring it and I will explain."
"You review what you taught today."
"No problem."
I retaught logging in very, very slowly. Showing how you depress CTRL+ALT with one hand and hit DELETE with another hand to log in to the school system. I explained logging in and logging out in very simple english, demonstrating each and every step. The man watched me like a hawk looking over his bifocal spectacles. I felt like an insect. He thanked me profusely and told me he had to go.

Well, how could teaching make anyone tired I thought? Went to my office and read a ton of emails. I began revising the master syllabi and posting them to the discipline site. I helped lost people in the hallway. Old students stopped by to visit and I chatted with them, asking them how things were going. I went to see the new computer lab. I got everything ready for three classes tomorrow. I submitted my syllabi, my office hours, and listened to my messages. I responded to email messages.

At 4:45 my eyes were throbbing and I was tired of revising stuff for the website. One of collegues asked me to help her with her dissertation. Is it time to go home yet? I want to crawl into a hole and die and its what the first day. What am I whining for I'm asking myself? I have the best job in the world!

Library Fines for 5th Graders?

I am in receipt of your short note regarding library fines for 5th graders. I would like to know what has motivated the school to impose this fine. Is it to instill a sense of responsibility in our children? Is the library in dire need of funds? Why is it that the Rio Rancho Public Library does not impose fines and you do? I feel that this exhibits an inconsistency in the system and should be addressed. Additionally, is there some way that students can work off their fines?

There are surely some parents who may feel that their children are simply not responsible enough to return the books on time. Do we as parents have the ability to notify school personnel that we choose not to let our children check out books due to the implementation of the school fine? Does this interfere with your ethical responsibility as an educator to encourage your students to read?

Since the school has added an additional policy, I would like to point out that we were not given the full rationale and it was likely not outlined in the school rule booklet. Does this mean that the school is not following the appropriate protocol in implementing policy and procedure? Is there a process for such things?

As you can see, I have a lot of questions regarding this new rule. We live in a society where things should be questioned, where the common people have the opportunity to influence and be involved in public protocol. The questions posed here were probably discussed, but for some odd reason we, weren’t included in that discussion. I am curious about this discussion and would like to know what has motivated this policy.

Thank you for taking the time to answer and consider my questions. I look forward to your response.