Say What?

One of the teachers in my school district was told by our superintendent yesterday that it shouldn't matter who is in the classroom that it all came down to good curriculum.

Bad teacher + good curriculum=students will learn

So, what do you think?

Obviously if you have bad curriculum, it will have a negative impact on what students learn. However, if you want the most bang for your buck, you had better have both a strong teacher + good curriculum.

At least I now have a better understanding what this superintendent thinks of teachers!

They Don't Understand!

Latest District offering will have me paying double the amount I currently pay for health benefits for my family by July 1, 2009, increasing it to almost $1000 decrease in pay a month.

They don't understand why teachers leave the District (over 100 every year) and why it's difficult to get teachers to work there.

It is almost as if they think we should be grateful that we have a job, even if it means us paying them to work there.

Unfriggin'believable.

We meet again tomorrow. I'll keep you posted.

Interested in a Good Read?

Book Dads is giving away The Magician's Book by Laura Miller. It looks like a fascinating read, especially for those who are fans of the Chronicle of Narnia series.

Dear Goddess

Of the Flashdrive,

Please let me find my beloved memory stick, aka flash drive, aka it has way too much stuff on it for me to actually have lost it.

I will be forever grateful.

ms-teacher

p.s.
I think it is somewhat ironic that I cannot remember where I put my memory stick.

p.p.s.
I realize that I'm probably using irony in the wrong way.

p.p.s.s.
Found it! Thank you Flashdrive Goddess!

Teacher Tip Tuesday #22

Are you looking for great writing ideas to use in your classroom? Then, you need to read 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing put together by the National Writing Project. Personally, I'm saving this in my writing folder on both my laptop and my flash-drive.

Are you new to Ms_Teacher's Teacher Tip Tuesday? Then, be sure to check out my past Teacher Tips.

Subbing (or not wanting to leave my comfort zone)

Occasionally, I will sub for my co-workers. This usually means that I get the displeasure of going over to their classroom. Today, a colleague asked if I would sub for him during my prep. I agreed to it, but under the condition that the students would come to my classroom.

Boy, what a difference did that make!

I figured that by having the students come to my room where I'm comfortable, then I might encounter less problems than I have had in the past. Usually, I don't like to sub for other teachers because subbing is not fun, even if you're a teacher on campus. When this particular teacher informed me that this class was a "handful", I just figured that it might be better to have them in my room than for me to go to his room.

That was a good decision on my part. I think because they knew they were on my turf, most of the students got right to work. I was even able to reward the most hard-working students with a small treat towards the end of the period and also informed them that I would tell their teacher about how well they did.

I know that I definitely felt less stress doing it this way. This is something I will keep in mind for the next time I'm asked to sub for a colleague.

A message to CTG

or anybody that knows how to contact him! CTG, can you e-mail me please?

The ol' acting bug

When Wrestling Fan was around 6 years old, he expressed an interest in doing some plays in our local youth community theater. Imagine our surprise when he did his first play, Peter Pan, receiving a phone call from the director telling us how talented and charismatic he found WF to be. It's not often that people use that word charismatic to describe one so young, but over the years, when people meet WF that is the word that is used consistently to describe him.

In Peter Pan, WF playing Michael Darling and uttered the unquestionably adorable line, "he flewed" whilst dressed in cute yellow pajamas and clutching a teddy bear. During the run of the play, countless people would tell us how talented our young son was and wondering if would he be doing anymore plays.

The answer to that was that WF ended up doing two more plays, Bugsy Malone in which he played Baby Face and as an oompah-loompah in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. (The director of that play had thought about having WF play Charlie, but at the time WF was only 7, so we weren't sure if he would be able to remember ALL of those lines).

When he was doing plays, he was in 1st and 2nd grade. Then, 3rd grade hit and the onslaught of anxiety came crashing down around us, putting to a halt what seemed to be a pretty promising future in doing community theater. (Doing plays did not cause his anxiety. You can read some more here, here, and here, if you're interested.)

This past week, WF has expressed a new interest in getting back into community theater. As his mom, I'm thrilled for him because I see a kid before me who has a lot of talent and who is officially beating the anxiety monster. When he became consumed with anxiety, I worried about his future and worried if he would regret not doing plays. We are also investigating agencies after he wanted me to sign him up to a place online that seemed questionable. So, we shall see. The last thing I want is to appear like I'm some insane stage mom or have my child be consumed by all that is bad in the acting world.

He will audition for the next play in our community in January. I cannot wait to see him back onstage.

Type of Sentences, Part 2

As promised, this is what I did to help clear up some of the confusion my students were experiencing when I first introduced types of sentences earlier this week.

On my overhead projector, I wrote the following and instructed my students to write it in their notebooks.

• Simple Sentence: 1 independent clause - sentence can stand on its own.
  
• Compound Sentence: 2+ independence clauses connected with coordinating conjunction.
• Complex Sentence: 1 independent clause + 1 (or more) subordinate clause.
• Compound-Complex Sentence: 2 independent clause + 1 subordinate clause.

We talked about the differences between the four types of sentences. In the book my students use, there is a chart that has words that start subordinate clauses and another chart that shows coordinating conjunctions. I told them to make sure they look at those lists as we started working on the sentences.

The next step that students were instructed to do was to copy the chart that I had on the overhead. My chart had four columns. The first column was labeled "independent clause", second column "subordinate clause," third column "coordinating conjunction" and finally the fourth column "type of sentence."

The first sentence in their book was: Cuba's capital is Havana and this beautiful city has been the center of Cuban culture since 1552.

I reminded students to look at their two charts and asked them to see if there were any coordinating conjunctions OR words that began subordinate clauses. Most students were immediately able to identify that coordinating conjunction "and" in this sentence. So, I told them then that means there must be two independent clauses (sentences that can stand on their own) and asked what those two independent clauses were.

They were able to identify the independent clauses, which I told them to write in the column labeled "independent clause." Once they did this, I told them to also write "and" in the coordinating conjunction column. Then we looked at the four rules for the types of sentences. They were able to identify that this was a compound sentence.

We were able to do this for the remainder of the sentences in the book, breaking them apart and putting the chunks of the sentences into the appropriate columns. Most of the students understood it and were able to do a worksheet yesterday independently.

No Part 2 Today

Unfortunately, I've been dealing with major headaches (literally) for quite some time. I have an appointment set for next Thursday to find out exactly what's going on with me. (Thankfully the doctor has prescribed me midrin until I'm able to get in next week. Advil just wasn't cutting it for me anymore, especially since I've been taking between 12 to 15 almost daily for two months.)

My part 2 for Type of Sentences will be posted tomorrow.

I promise :)