Orientation for the new teachers

Today we had our first day with all of the staff at the school for this upcoming year. I must say that I appreciate the work that Arlene and I did in the Math office at Ithaca College. I helped her review the schedule and we checked the rooms, the assignments, and every detail many many times. I also knew it was right everytime I communicated the information to other people. I appreciate it, because today I witnessed a school trying hard to do scheduling correctly, but having simple errors. And since a schedule is so intricate, one mistake can cascade into many other problems.

So I was told today that instead of being on the 6th grade team, I'm on the 7th grade team. That's all good and whatever. But... they didn't go thru and make sure that I could have a 7th grade advisory, and so since I have a class during the 7th grade advisory period, I have a 6th grade advisory. So I am a little bit 7th grade team and a little bit 6th grade team. I'm all good with that. Schedules are big algorithms and are complicated by not difficult. One class had been scheduled for Art 5 periods in a row. Imagine those kids, let alone the teacher! Oy vay!

I have great people around me. My neighbor teacher Marc, helped me with his skill at moving a cabinet in my room without scratching the floor. THANKS MARK! His wife and CUTE CUTE 11 month old daughter were in today to help him. I was wishing I had a someone to help me.

So team meeting, teacher handbook, regulations, send-out policy, how kids go up and down the stairs... details detail day. Oh... funny one. the school is on the 7th and 8th floor of this building and when they take the elevator up, the class goes all in one elevator car and they must be silent. I can just see 20 6th graders all squished in the car and being quiet. I can't wait to witness this. Oh, and they take the stairs down and they must be silent, and we were advised that once during the first week we have to find someone talking and forcing the entire class to walk all of the stairs back up and then go down quietly again. I was told it only takes once and they will NEVER talk again in the stairwell.

That's all for now. I have made friends with the science teacher by giving her eyedroppers I found in my supply cabinet. :)

Off to bed and then work tomorrow. I sure will either get a lot of grading done or a lot of reading while riding the train.

Setting Up My Classroom

I have spent the last couple of days setting up my classroom. I need to go to the teacher store and get some letters for some bulletin boards. I have met so many people, and everyone says the same thing. They all say, "This is a great school." That makes me feel really good. It turns out that many of the teachers were Teaching Fellows, but most of them transferred to this school.

I love the math department. There are three teachers. Elizabeth, Shana, and myself. We have a math coach and that's Gail. Gail has been in education for many years and is just an amazing resource of information.

I still haven't received my start up supplies. I am planning to get them tomorrow. I also bought some cleaning product to get rid of tape residue. This school is masking tape happy and I do not like tape residue on doors or cabinets. So, tomorrow I am taking care of the sticky mess left on a lot of surfaces. I did see our text book for 6th grade. Still haven't seen the 7th grade text, but again I'm hopeful for tomorrow. One other thing I'll look for tomorrow is a power cord for my projector. Hmmmmm.....

I think my classroom is set up pretty well. I'll take a picture of it tomorrow. I have to be at school at 8am so I need to leave my apartment at 6:45 for the at least one hour commute. We'll see how it goes. I am getting a chance to read a book or two on my commute! I guess that's a good thing.

How about a picture or two...

I have a long list of things to do today. I hope to be able to check them off systematically. One of them is to post pictures and to blog. Last night Scott, Jeff, and I went to Randy’s and enjoyed an evening of visiting. Jeff rode with Randy in the 280ZX, and then played some ping-pong with him. Randy beat Jeff 2 out of 3 games, and the one game he lost was close and went to Deuce. Jeff felt proud to have improved his ping-pong skills while he was on vacation last week in Cape-Cod.
I spent some time with John Curry on Monday. He is the principal of Community Action School. I hope he realizes how excited I am to work for him. Scott helped me arrange the desks and chairs in my room. I happen to have the classroom right next door to the office. It’s a large room and I have about 27 student desks and my own desk. I have a wall of lockers in the back of the room that are for me to use. I have a standing cabinet that locks, and several bookshelves. I have a wall of brand new white boards with a smart board included. If you aren’t familiar with a SmartBoard, just know that it’s a way to use a computer and a white board together. I used one all summer, and will definitely use it as I teach. There is an air-conditioner in the room, so it will be reasonable in the beginning weeks of school. Our school is on the 7th floor. That’s great… except when it will come to a fire drill and going down 7 flights of stairs. I am looking forward to returning to the school next week and spending some hours there working. I will have a computer in the classroom.
As for my apartment, Scott helped me so much in getting it ready for me to live in. We got the keys on Saturday morning and then spent the next two days cleaning and fixing things. We spent hours on the stove/oven and the grease around it. I think it’s going to be just right for me. I live in an amazing community and I’m looking forward to meeting my neighbors in my building. I think that it’s between 400 and 500 square feet of space, which will work fine for me. I have a queen size bed in the bedroom and the couch opens into a queen size pullout, so I will have room for guests.I return to the city on MONDAY and start work on Tuesday next week. Of course before I go back, I help Jeff get settled into RIT. He moves into his dorm on Sunday. That will be an exciting day for him.

I have a classroom

I went yesterday to my new school. I have my own room! Wooo Hooo! I set up a few things and got really excited about the beginning of school. Scott and I also set up my apartment in Queens. I love my neighborhood!

I will write more later and add some pictures, but right now, I need to put away groceries.

I’m in Berkshire this week and some of next week. I’m just enjoying the Olympics from China and reading as much as I can. I have purchased 264 spiral notebooks for my students this year. They were $0.05 each at WalMart and at Staples. This will allow me to give the students a notebook whenever they need one in my class.
I’ve studied the 6th and 7th grade state exams and reviewed the standards. I’ve written myself notes on some lesson plan ideas for some topics:
For Central Measurement (Mean, Median, Mode, Range): I think I’ll do a discovery lesson plan. This will mean that groups will receive data sets of numbers and the actual mean, median, mode and range. Their task will be to “guess” the definitions of each term. Then they will get another data set and see if their definition still fits. Maybe they will need to modify their initial definition. After reviewing all of the data sets, their groups’ definitions should hold up to all the data sets. For identifying radius, diameter, chords and central angles of a circle, I think I’ll do the same type of lesson.
I want the students to experience the discovery of mathematics. I had an excellent class in college that allowed me to have guided discovery learning and I remember thinking that students that don’t think of themselves as being “good at math” could see these lessons as a place where they see themselves as being good in the math classroom.
I think that many people confuse the ability to do computations quickly with being “good at math.” I think the student who creates logical problem solving processes can be equally good at math. I am reminded that future workers who are prepared to perceive patterns and to solve unconventional problems will be the sought after employee. Calculations are being done more and more by machines.
Our country should think of Mathematics as a pump rather than a filter in the pipeline of American education. Students shouldn’t be filtered out of careers by our math education, but instead math should be the key that helps push students into career paths.

Quick Update... a link to my new school

Here is the website to my school:

http://www.communityactionschool.org/home.aspx

Soon, I'll be on the staff list.

I got a Job!

So yesterday was an amazing day. I was offered a position at I.S. 258 Community Action School. It's located on 154 W 93rd Street in Manhattan. It's on the west side of Central Park. The school is reviewed on a site called Inside Schools. here is the link

http://www.insideschools.org/fs/school_profile.php?id=96

I'll be teaching both 6th and 7th grade math. I am mostly excited about teaching students as they begin learning about algebra. I find introduction to the topic to be so important, and I think I'll be a really good bridge between elementary and middle school mathematics. I am especially excited that the students in this school seem to have some real connections to the staff and faculty. The homeroom students are with the homeroom teacher 4 times per day.

They have recess, which I'm so happy about. After recess they go back to the homeroom to settle back down before the classes in the afternoon. I also will have an advisory group. I look forward to that quite a bit. We meet one time per week to discuss life in general. There is a curriculum guide, but it isn't dictated. I like the idea of having some free form time with the students.

Also in this school, there are not parent-teacher conferences. There are Family-Conferences in which the students also participate in the discussions. They orally share with their parents, their personal reflections on each of their courses. I like this idea.

I also have acquired an apartment in Queens. It's in the Ridgewood neighborhood and the bakery downstairs is a Polish bakery, where I can't even read the awning sign because it's in Polish. It reminds me of my Aunt Charlotte and my Uncle Ed. I like the European feel of the neighborhood. I am also really close to the M train. I won't have to walk far in the winter. Of course I will have three trains to take to get to work. That won't be fun, but I think the right school and the right apartment didn't talk with each other before they came to me.

As for my summer school experience, I am going to miss the students. I want them to succeed on their exam next week, and I hope I prepared them enough to do just that. I loved them. I had good relationships with them and they were a bit sad that I was leaving. I found students to not know their multiplication tables, not understand that "solve for x" meant that we could find a value for x to make the equation true. They struggled with the idea of adding a negative number. It was interesting.

Student's do NOT want to be bored and given low expectations. The higher I set the bar, the higher they reached. I will be looking forward to the fall and having my own students and my own classroom.

Enough for this post. Enjoy the read.
D