Tales from the science classroom

 Couple of things that I really need to remember  1. planning and having it written down is critical to my mental health. When I have things all planned out and ready, I'm a much happier and a better teacher.  2. I have to give them time. I can't rush them. Especially the biology students. Give them time to work it out and they usually do. And they usually do a good job of it. So I need to slow down and give them a little bit of time.  That's all. Just a couple of very simple things that I have a tendency to forget. 

 Like a wildfire. Covid is rolling through the state and the country like a wild fire and it amazes me the people who are still denying it or refusing to get the vaccine. We had a teacher tell us last week that she refuses to get the vaccine since she's had Covid. Sunday she sent out an email that she had tested positive and wouldn't be in this week. It seems so clear and obvious to me and it just amazes me when people don't understand. We've had teachers requesting coverage for weeks now. Our subs are stretched to the max and other teachers are having to cover classes. It's crazy. And so much of it is preventable and avoidable with a little vaccine.  Other than that life goes on at school. Sitting a planning out what I'm going to do is so completely worth it. I did that this weekend and yesterday was smooth sailing. I did add a chemistry quiz at the last minute and I'll probably add a biology quiz on Wednesday, but that's all good. When I have everythin...

 Since we got back from winter break, I've been really focusing on the notebooks. I just have to say they are not easy. They take almost as much prep as a lesson does. Deciding what questions to ask in the big ideas and summary tables. Figuring out the template for the notes and everything else. Ugh!!!  It is a lot of work. I'm working on lectures for both biology and chemistry for tomorrow and I am just drawing a blank on how the notes should be taken. It is a pain in the butt.  I don't know if I mentioned this before but they have shuffled some of my classes and they are all much better now. The class that was giving me such a hard time is actually now a pretty good class. Some students were moved to other classes and things are much calmer now. It's not that any of them are bad kids, though some I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them, it's just that when they all get together the group mentality takes over and it becomes chaos.  I really don't have...

 And I've done nothing. At least for school. I've actually done quite a few things, but nothing related to school. So that will be my focus today. Luckily, because of a 5 day weekend, we only have a 2 day week. Which means I only need one lesson for each class since we operate on an A/B block schedule.  Today I'm going to work on the lessons for the week, but I'm also going to work on the rest of the unit. I need to lecture some and I need to show them what they need to write in their notebooks, especially biology.  I've probably talked about it before, but this year's freshmen are so immature and bad at school. There was a reason that they separated middle school from grade school and high school. It is a couple of years of great change in a child. I know from teaching 7th grade that they start the year really young and then age and mature as the year progresses. Well, these freshmen did not get that opportunity thanks to Covid. Many of them essentially missed ...

 All night while I was sleeping, I was thinking about school. Every time that I woke slightly, school would cross my mind. I'm not exactly sure why. It's possible because I have a lot to do and I'm not completely happy with the way things are going. I really thought they would be going better. But they are not. I'm still struggling with the notebooks - though I think that is just a lack of preparation on my part, and I'm struggling with the curriculum. So I need to spend this weekend getting a handle on both. Today is major house cleaning day. I'm doing the floors, moving the furniture, scrubbing the kitchen, so I may not have time today. But tomorrow I'm working on it between seeing our friends who are coming over to watch football.  Admin cancelled our staff meeting yesterday due to the spike in Covid. I'm on the fence about this whole spike thing, Just for the record, I've had my shots and my booster, so I'm not horribly worried about myself. ...

 Thirsty Bird is a simulation that is included with the modeling curriculum for biology. The way it was presented in the modeling stuff was very confusing and I had to go looking elsewhere for an explanation that worked for me. I found it. I found lots of posts about how much people like this simulation. So I thought, okay, we'll give it a go. After 2 days of doing it, I can honestly say it sucks. Big time. It is a little crazy. It is messy. We struggle with the alleles changing every 'generation'. And I'm honestly not sure that the kids get anything out of this. Also, the data doesn't really show much. Between that and the feeling that I don't know what I'm doing each day, something had to give. I realized that I have got to do things my way.  Last semester I had developed a form that I used to notate my lessons. It was a calendar type with a whole week on one page and then I list the plans for the day. This worked really well for me because I could just gl...

 I spent the winter break getting things ready for this semester. I read things. I watched things. I attended meetings and webinars. I did a lot of stuff to prepare for this coming semester. Do you know what I didn't really do? Get the lessons set up. I knew exactly what I was doing the first day and I had an idea of what I was doing the second day, but that was it. I know better than that. A situation like that creates a lot of unnecessary stress and some mild cognitive dissonance. I end up so mentally tired that I just can't function. Every day last week I had to come home and lay on the couch for an hour or so before I could really do anything. I must have things set in my mind what I'm doing or it becomes a train wreck. Which is exactly what happened and we ended up watching a video. The good news is that many of my biology students hadn't ever heard of Darwin (what???) and so we watched a little history on Darwin and Wallace so that did help them to understand a li...

 Yesterday actually went very, very well. Initially I was worried how they would respond to the whole notebook thing, but they actually did pretty well. And 4th period??? OMG, that class was awesome. Absolutely awesome. A couple of students were moved out of that class and I had a very well thought out seating chart and man it made a huge difference. So that was good.  Now I was another story. I was so tired. Sooooooo tired. My feet hurt, my legs hurt, my back hurt. I was a wreck. Then I came home and had to walk Mavy, ugh!!!! I did get things done though so that was good. But man, I was tired. Slept like a log last night.  The great thing about block schedule is that I get to do all that again today. Yay!!! The problem is that I get better and  better at it, so by the time I get to my last class, which will be the 6th time I've done that, I will be good and we will finish early. So I have to watch that.  Other than that, things are good. 

 Today we are back to school. It's weird, this is my 13th year teaching and yet I still get the first day jitters. I kept waking last night and thinking about school today, usually things that could go wrong. It's just so funny that after all this time I still get nervous. Someone once said it's because I care and I guess that could be true. I do care about my teaching. It is something that I enjoy and take pride in and so yes, I care about how I do it and ultimately the outcome.  Today will be an easy day for them, and hopefully me. We are doing a sketchnote bootcamp. I want them to take ownership and pride in their notes and so we are going to spend the first day getting back into school and into sketchnoting. It will be good for most, but I know that I am going to get pushback from a few and that's okay, they can take the L when it comes to the notebook.  I'm not looking forward to the return only because it's work. We went to a friend's house yesterday f...

 is gone, just like that. Done. Tomorrow is back to school. I'm sad and glad about it. I did get a lot of things done over the break, maybe not everything I wanted to, but quite a bit. I'm in a better headspace as far as my classes go, time away will do that. And I'm ready to tackle the new year (calendar not school).  I have a lot of ideas for next year and will be getting those ready over the break.  I don't really have a whole lot to say today, so I'm going to cut this short. I'm going to enjoy my last day of freedom with some friends and some football.