finished quarter three.
for everything i obsessed over coming into the last quarter, and all the changes i made, i came away discouraged, more or less. i had many students improve in the second quarter, but a ton of them regressed in the third. i can't allow myself to tie it directly into my performance, but it's hard not to..
my big thing in the third quarter was competition. an increase in competition should lead to increase in quality. unfortunately, the point system i had meant several extra hours of work for me each week, and i didn't see enough improvement to justify continuing it. i have a new approach to finish the year, though.
i've always been fascinated by how memory works. my experience as a teacher has only furthered my interest.. i can tell my students something involving history DOZENS of times over the quarter, and they don't remember it. on the final test, i had multiple students try to tell me that democracies have kings. even worse, one put labeled Athens to be in Persia on the map portion.
on the other hand, i can mention something else in passing and it seems to stick with 75 percent of them! one day in 8th grade, a student noticed i was wearing a silly band (a rubber band molded in a particular shape) and asked me what it was. i told them it was a seahorse, and we moved on. over a week later, i asked them about the silly band as a bonus on a quiz. EVERY SINGLE STUDENT remembered. i bet they would remember now, and that was months ago.
what do i learn from this? well, we remember things out of the ordinary (i knew that — it's part of the reason i'm so ridiculous. to spice up other people's lives/be remembered). it's not normal for teachers to wear silly bands. that fact alone turns on a new section of their brain. also, i think the students in our school are starved for pop culture. they latch onto anything that resembles the modern world.
we aren't permitted to discuss pop culture at school. every teacher has their own interpretation, but generally the rule is followed well. for the students, it's like being suffocated. it's good for them, though. most of what people rely on for entertainment is shallow and destructive. one negative effect, however, is that they will go nuts if you so much as acknowledge something they relate to. i mean, if you say "Hunger Games" in class right now, you'd have 24 students talking in milliseconds. it's absurd.
so, my new approach? i'm going to spend my extra time trying to find ways to present material that makes it stick. a few events at the end of last semester drove this home. first, i told them to think of Socrates --> Plato --> Aristotle as SPA (our school's initials). no one missed that. really. when i taught them Plato's Cave, i drew my stick figure prisoner with a baseball cap (to highlight that he's facing the back wall). the cap was replicated by a majority of them in their version on the test.
you can't expect most junior high kids to flat out memorize information. if it sticks, it sticks. well, i'm going to trick them into remembering. they won't have a choice. suckers.
by the way, the title is taken from The National/Racing Like A Pro. my favorite song currently..
"one time you were a glowing young ruffian, oh my god it was a million years ago"
Monday, March 26, 2012
Sunday, March 4, 2012
random matters
as i scan down the list of blogs i frequent, there is a pattern. no one has written anything in close to a week. that is an excuse of sorts, but i do wonder if, outside the "school" timeframe, things build up in the same way. then, what happens when you don't get breaks?!
i missed a post. i am working on a few longer-term blogs, ones that could be considered freelance material, possibly. but, in the meantime, i need material. for the fans!! speaking of my fans, there's another reason why i had to post today. it's March 4th! as my mother annually reminds me, it's the only day that commands us to be proactive!
our 9th and final week of the third quarter begins tomorrow. we have a week for spring break, then evaluations due again. then nine weeks with no breaks to finish the year.
so. i'm not here to waste anyone's time. i have settled into a process this semester when i decide what to blog aboot. first, what's on my mind? what have i been thinking about? then, i filter through to find something interesting AND related to teaching/coaching. THEN, i try to find an insightful or useful angle. then i write. it's worked much better than last semester, when i treated each entry like a column, and obsessed over it, and edited it, and blegh.
that last paragraph could be considered interesting/insightful, verdad? check.
quick aside: though i often treat things as checklists and can seem disturbingly detached, i think it's important to keep reminding you that i am not a soul-less robot. i just see both sides, that's all.
remind them i'm not a robot. check.
i could go on.
get this!! remember my post about beach volleyball? well, here is some background info on my newest coaching position. it's a first-year pilot program, meaning that this is the first time it's been a high school sport. Arizona is the only state to offer it. our athletic director is a ex-beach volleyballer, and he got us in. they started out with 10 teams in the Phoenix area, but that number has slowly dropped to 5, as schools experience problems of one sort or another.
how do i get the honor of coaching? well, our indoor coach's wife was due to have a baby during the first weeks of the season, and our athletic director was already committed to coaching junior high basketball. it just worked out. things do that sometimes.
i coached the track team at Trinity High School for two years after i graduated and was attending junior college, but this is my first legitimate, state-sanctioned, AIA-certified, high school coaching position. am i qualified? maybe. my biggest claim to fame is playing beach volleyball in Guatemala with Stefany last summer, or possibly being on the championship team for the Sigma Chi pig roast/volleyball tournament last year... also played volleyball three years in high school, and took the class twice at Hillsdale.. on that note, i'm probably more "qualified" to coach volleyball than football or soccer...
our first matches were last week. each school has five paired teams, ranked No. 1 to No. 5. each team of two plays a match that is best of three sets to 21. the school that wins 3+ (of 5) matches, wins. confusing enough? it makes sense, when you really think about it.
when we showed up to our first competition, there was a guy there taking pictures. he was a representative from AZ volleyball, there to document the "history". he even interviewed a few players.
and, believe it or not, we won. of our four possible opponents, we were matched up against the easiest. we beat them so easily it wasn't even fun. in fact, they didn't have a full squad, so our matches finished BEFORE the other game on adjacent courts. because of the perfect matchup, we had won the first-ever high school sand volleyball competition. cool beans.
on Tuesday, we play Xavier. Xavier is a 5A school (the biggest). we are in our first year at 1A (the smallest). they finished the indoor season ranked #35 in the nation at the highest level. my girls were somewhere below .500. they have a girl with a beach volleyball scholarship to USC. none of my girls had played volleyball on sand a month ago.
i'm not predicting what's going to happen on Tuesday. my point here is this — we could have started the season against this team.
the question i'm asking is this — how big of an impact do "random" variables play on our lives? who made the schedule? how did they choose the match-ups for the first week? i mean, i got three versions of the schedule before they arrived at the one we're currently following.
if we had played Xavier in the first game, and had gotten crushed, how different would our season be? it would definitely be different, and not for the better. do i have to prove it? fine.
the first game got the nervousness out of the way. we learned how everything worked without having a stressful game. we also have the ability to say we won the first match. ever. it wasn't glamorous, or intense, but it's ours. no one can take that away from us. that's a comfort, no matter what happens the rest of the season.
if you have any examples where something randomly worked out perfectly, pass them on.
i missed a post. i am working on a few longer-term blogs, ones that could be considered freelance material, possibly. but, in the meantime, i need material. for the fans!! speaking of my fans, there's another reason why i had to post today. it's March 4th! as my mother annually reminds me, it's the only day that commands us to be proactive!
our 9th and final week of the third quarter begins tomorrow. we have a week for spring break, then evaluations due again. then nine weeks with no breaks to finish the year.
so. i'm not here to waste anyone's time. i have settled into a process this semester when i decide what to blog aboot. first, what's on my mind? what have i been thinking about? then, i filter through to find something interesting AND related to teaching/coaching. THEN, i try to find an insightful or useful angle. then i write. it's worked much better than last semester, when i treated each entry like a column, and obsessed over it, and edited it, and blegh.
that last paragraph could be considered interesting/insightful, verdad? check.
quick aside: though i often treat things as checklists and can seem disturbingly detached, i think it's important to keep reminding you that i am not a soul-less robot. i just see both sides, that's all.
remind them i'm not a robot. check.
i could go on.
get this!! remember my post about beach volleyball? well, here is some background info on my newest coaching position. it's a first-year pilot program, meaning that this is the first time it's been a high school sport. Arizona is the only state to offer it. our athletic director is a ex-beach volleyballer, and he got us in. they started out with 10 teams in the Phoenix area, but that number has slowly dropped to 5, as schools experience problems of one sort or another.
how do i get the honor of coaching? well, our indoor coach's wife was due to have a baby during the first weeks of the season, and our athletic director was already committed to coaching junior high basketball. it just worked out. things do that sometimes.
i coached the track team at Trinity High School for two years after i graduated and was attending junior college, but this is my first legitimate, state-sanctioned, AIA-certified, high school coaching position. am i qualified? maybe. my biggest claim to fame is playing beach volleyball in Guatemala with Stefany last summer, or possibly being on the championship team for the Sigma Chi pig roast/volleyball tournament last year... also played volleyball three years in high school, and took the class twice at Hillsdale.. on that note, i'm probably more "qualified" to coach volleyball than football or soccer...
our first matches were last week. each school has five paired teams, ranked No. 1 to No. 5. each team of two plays a match that is best of three sets to 21. the school that wins 3+ (of 5) matches, wins. confusing enough? it makes sense, when you really think about it.
when we showed up to our first competition, there was a guy there taking pictures. he was a representative from AZ volleyball, there to document the "history". he even interviewed a few players.
and, believe it or not, we won. of our four possible opponents, we were matched up against the easiest. we beat them so easily it wasn't even fun. in fact, they didn't have a full squad, so our matches finished BEFORE the other game on adjacent courts. because of the perfect matchup, we had won the first-ever high school sand volleyball competition. cool beans.
on Tuesday, we play Xavier. Xavier is a 5A school (the biggest). we are in our first year at 1A (the smallest). they finished the indoor season ranked #35 in the nation at the highest level. my girls were somewhere below .500. they have a girl with a beach volleyball scholarship to USC. none of my girls had played volleyball on sand a month ago.
i'm not predicting what's going to happen on Tuesday. my point here is this — we could have started the season against this team.
the question i'm asking is this — how big of an impact do "random" variables play on our lives? who made the schedule? how did they choose the match-ups for the first week? i mean, i got three versions of the schedule before they arrived at the one we're currently following.
if we had played Xavier in the first game, and had gotten crushed, how different would our season be? it would definitely be different, and not for the better. do i have to prove it? fine.
the first game got the nervousness out of the way. we learned how everything worked without having a stressful game. we also have the ability to say we won the first match. ever. it wasn't glamorous, or intense, but it's ours. no one can take that away from us. that's a comfort, no matter what happens the rest of the season.
if you have any examples where something randomly worked out perfectly, pass them on.
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