My students will be working on #20Time on Fridays. But this is the first week with new students so I still need to establish classroom procedures. I realized I haven't really done any lecturing except when I asked students to reverse engineer the game and taught them how to read coordinates. So I decided this Friday is when students get to experience how a lecture day is run.
I took notes in my notebook first and took a picture of it and uploaded it on Canvas. I passed out notebooks to students so every child has the same number of pages in the notebook and the same number of lines in each page.
While I took attendance, I told students to copy what they see, exactly how they see it.
Then I gave them 2 more minutes to finish. Now it was time for the number talk. Students didn't finish taking notes during the 5-7 minutes I gave them. But I gave them plenty of time to write, so I decided to move on.
I asked them to draw what the two division question would look like as a drawing. I told them they can use a circle, a number line or something else entirely.
After the allotted 2 minutes were up, no child had anything in their notebook except for what I asked them to copy.
I had two choices at that moment. Give them another chance to show me some work or just move on and give them how I see the division problem visually.
I thought about it.
Every time I teach a class where all students failed the previous class, no child produced work. Prompting alone never worked. Then I felt like a failure. Then I started worrying about job security. Then I hated my life. I don't like that sequence.
So I decided to be that mean teacher.
I gave them one more minute to draw something for me. I walked around the room after the allotted one minute. Still no work was produced. I have 32 kids in period 2 and ZERO students gave me work. I wiped away my smile. I gave them the disturbed look. I told them that I will walk around one more time. If they still don't have anything, I will call parents. My voice was very high pitched. Too high pitched even for my own ears.
Students started saying things like, "what's wrong with her? She's wasting class time for this? Why can't she just teach?" Other kids said if no one does the work, "Ms. Choi won't have the guts to call all the parents". "She will get fired for calling our parents instead of teaching". Some mimicked my high-pitched voice.
It makes me sad that the students who fail math classes year after year have so much hatred for the subject that when a teacher forces them to work, they immediately resort to going to their parents or the principal to get the teacher fired. I maintained the serious look on my face. Inside my head, I was honestly worried that no child will budge and that I would have to call all the parents. But I told myself that I would have to take the right path and not the easy one. Thankfully, as I walked around the classroom for the third time, some students broke and nervously asked me what exactly I was looking for. I told them, "You see the two division questions I told you to copy? Okay, so if you wanted to use drawings to show how it is done, what will you draw? Maybe your first step is to show what 1/5 looks like." Then I had to reassure them that it's okay to get it wrong because I haven't taught it to them yet. I told them I just wanted to see how they think, hence the number talk.
I am happy to report that only 3 students stood strong in keeping their notebook blank. And while I called M's aunt and left a message, the other 2 students divided the first circle into 5 parts and showed them to me. So I ended up calling only one parent.
My voice softened down after that one phone call. It was difficult to keep my smile at bay. I brought it back and brought my softer voice tone. When I get upset or excited, my tone goes up automatically. I turn screechy. It's difficult to control it. But when I'm happy like the calm ocean, my soft voice comes out.
I told the whole class that no one got the visual representation correct and that's a very good thing because no one has to be embarrassed about sharing their work now. I had two students come up to the board to draw what they had in their notebook. Then I had them explain to the class why they drew what they drew. I complimented them over and over again about having the courage to come up to the back of the class to share their drawing on the board. The bell rang.
Fridays are about 37 minutes long. I spent all 37 minutes and I didn't even finish the number talk, which was the warm up. I had originally planned to finish the whole lesson in that 37 minutes so when they come back during 5th period, they can work on Imagine math.
My post for Day 5 is already getting long, so I won't talk about my next group of kids, 4th and 7th period.
But I do want to finish sharing what happened when the first group of kids came back to my class during 5th period. I added on to the two student's visual representation and explained how the division problem can be visually represented. I heard a few students say, "Oh, I get it!"
I felt joy.
Then I explained my lesson. I was proud of myself for asking my class what they think happened as I went over each line of note they copied earlier instead of telling them what was happening. (Reminder to self: I should use this method as often as possible on lecture days. )
Then came sadness again.
There was about 20 minutes left in the period. I told them to solve the 4 questions then jump into Imagine Math. No one jumped into Imagine Math. The whole class was confused over how to solve the 4 questions. Talk about misled beliefs when you do whole class lectures. The 3 students were so good about answering my questions that I falsely believed that the whole class got it.
Again. Another decision making moment. Year after year, I only cater to the students who are actively pursuing my help, not doing anything or causing problems. Then eventually at a parent conference towards the end of the semester, the parent and the child says that I never helped the child. But the child and I know that is only partially true. The child never asked for help and I never intentionally went over to the child to offer help. In the end, I stay quiet since I am also at fault. But the child also loses because the failing grade won't change. It's too late. It's a disservice.
I told myself at that moment that I will only help the students in station 5 and 6 that day. Each day, I will pick one or 2 stations and make sure I offer help to every child in that station. I'm not going to let children fall through the cracks. The students in the other stations completely lost interest and started goofing off. But I didn't waste time to correct their behavior since nothing crazy was happening. They were just not working. The 12 students that I helped only complied because they already knew from period 2 that I will call parents again if they don't do any work. Once I left one child to help another, the previous child stopped working. But now no child can say that I didn't help them. At least, not the 12 I helped. There were 3 children who persistently finished work, then walked to another station to help other students. I stayed after school to call their parents and tell them about it. Parents were so grateful to hear the good news. There were two girls who stayed after school to ask me for help since they were not part of the 12 I was determined to help on Friday. I called their parents as well to compliment them. Then I realized I had to grade their notebooks.
I learned that most students didn't solve the last 4 practice questions as I was grading their notebooks. The 12 students in each class that I helped only partially finished the 4 questions. My heart felt heavy.
When I left school, it was 5:30.
I had the #IACUE Tech Fair the next day so I hurried home. I had to update my presentations.
Then I had a good time Saturday at the tech fair. Conferences are always uplifting. It's an addiction. Meeting like-minded people and sharing strategies is something I won't be able to stop doing.
I am realizing that if I do this right, I won't have a life. I didn't go indoor rock climbing once this week. I didn't have one meaningful conversation with my babies at home. My daughter was selected as the school's ambassador for the Chinese students who will be coming to visit her school. I didn't have time to talk about how proud I am of her. I just had that 2 minute conversation today and today is Sunday. She was selected on Thursday. I didn't go hiking once.
Thankfully, tomorrow is a Holiday. I'm going to take my kids to the Los Penasquitos Canyon Trail. Hopefully the waterfall looks beautiful. It was raining all week so there should be enough water along the creek. I plan on relaxing.
So let's see if I continue to blog about my days next week.
My spirits are still high. I still have faith that my students will be better prepared to tackle Algebra 1 next year after they are done with me this semester.
I think I said this in an earlier post:
To those of you who teach students who need extra love, extra prompting and even a little bit of threat here and there, I want you to know that I respect you. Thank you for doing what you do.
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