Middle School in December

 In my school setting December dawns with the first change in grading periods. On a trimester system in a school that begins after Labor Day, the first Friday in December is the last day of the first term, making the first full week in December report card week. It also means the first two weeks of the new term are the last two weeks before a two-week break. That plus the schedule interruptions due to the time of year means content tied to a specific unit takes a back seat in December.

This year's first report card cycle was brutal. I'm 24 years into my teaching career, and every year before this, as I got into writing comments, I felt less and less overwhelmed by the process. This year was the opposite. Our new learning management system has a bit of information overload built in. I had seven fields per student per class to fill in, resulting in 838 comments to write, proof-read, and edit. The reports end up being about 30 pages long, so there's a solid chance families skimmed rather than actually read all of words I spent over ten hours composing.

On top of the report cards, high school application teacher evaluation forms were due to the front office on the same day report cards were locked. The middle school team entered the new grading term exhausted and cranky.

Planning for lessons needed to be simple in the midst of all of the above. So, I had my eighth graders chose a Revolutionary War figure (as we were between our "The Road to the Revolution" and "Fighting for Independence" units) and I tasked them with deciding whether Santa would place their chosen person on the "naughty" list or the "nice" list and to back up their claim with evidence researched from trustworthy sources. 

Then, for fun, I had them tell me what unique gift Santa might bring their historical figure. My favorite was the student who wanted to bring Benedict Arnold a time machine so he could go back and change his actions, since he expressed regret for his actions on his death bed.

After presenting their findings, students were tasked with using their research to create a meme to add to our United States history meme wall. There were many gems among them. Here are few.

The seventh graders were in transition between a unit I call "Civilizations Around the World" where we touch on empires in the Americas, Asia, and Africa and a look at the European Rennaissance. Since there was less continuity, I had them each do preliminary research on the Christmas/Advent traditions and customs of four different countries (not only can I get away with that at a Catholic school, it's encouraged) and choose one. They found a holiday recipe they thought sounded tasty and illustrated a scene showcasing at least three different holiday traditions from their chosen countries. Those who were able brought in their chosen dish to share with the class.

It was a low-key way for me to get in a Christmas celebration for them, and many of them tried new foods. Two unexpected hits were a Filipino shrimp wrap and a mash up of foods brought in from Greece and France turned into a sandwich. The kids tried new foods and conversed with their friends during our last class before the break.

In addition to all of the above, my room parents put together a Jeopardy Christmas trivia game for my students, 

we built gingerbread houses in our advisories, 

and ended the last half day before break with our annual school wide activities. The day begins with staff caroling to the students and families at drop off as they drank hot chocolate and munched on cookies. From there, we all head to the auditorium where we have our final Advent prayer service for the year before heading to our classrooms for attendance. I handed out my gift for my class, crocheted jellyfish with a poem about jellyfish and a couple of Hershey's kisses. The jellyfish became instant fidget toys (twirled around), sensory toys, (fingers shoved through the stiches), water bottle decorations, and even hats.

 

Then we separated into our school families, each with a couple of kids per grade level for one last practice before the big caroling competition. The day ends, with a grand indoor snowball fight by grade band. The middle schoolers watch and cheer on all the younger kids before getting their turn to pelt each other for fifteen minutes. 

I commented to my coworkers during the snowball fights that our students, especially those who grew up at our school and never attended anywhere else, have no idea how lucky they are. What other school comes together as one community for the entire day before Christmas break to celebrate, compete, show school spirit, and have so much fun?

Middle School Matrix

 How is it already December on Friday? While I was home sick for Thanksgiving, alone with my multitude of pets, I had a thought that began, "In October..." and I genuinely thought for a moment that October of THIS year hadn't happened yet. I don't know if that explains my lack of posting this fall or not, but this fall has been a time warp of sorts. It's gone on for years and years, but also it just started.

It's report card week. The first third of the school year ends on Friday. I've spent time over the past two or three weeks doing what I can to get my students to turn in their work or complete work they submitted incomplete, even blank in some cases. I've sent a myriad of emails with the message that I really want their report cards to show their abilities. I have end of unit projects due on Friday in most of my classes, that should be included on the first trimester report cards, which means I'll have to spend this weekend working on my report cards.  Maybe I'll be able to plan better for the end of the second trimester.

October was packed with blog worthy events, but somehow I never found the time to sit and reflect on them. We took a field trip to the Gates Foundation Discovery Center. We participated in the middle school color games, with pep rally-like activities that pitted the three grade levels against one another.  Students participated in a north African trade simulation. On Halloween the staff dressed up as Care Bears and my favorite student costume was "Lilliana Jones." The primary years Spanish teacher put up the annual Dia de los Muertos altar and we honored our deceased loved ones.

Suddenly it's the end of November.  The past couple of weeks have been a blur. Our middle school spends one day each trimester devoted to service. My advisory went to a local assisted living facility and spent a few hours raking in the morning before spending the afternoon creating Christmas gifts and Mother's Day gifts for the residents. A local author, Carl Dueker (who used to teach in my classroom) came in and gave a writing lesson to our middle schoolers. He had them write a story in small groups. Even the most reticent of my students was highly engaged.

My school has fall conference week the week of Thanksgiving. I had three conferences on Wednesday morning and had intended to meet a friend for lunch afterwards. Instead, I came home and slept. I proceeded to sleep through Thanksgiving, while the rest of my household traveled out of state to celebrate Thanksgiving and a baptism with my in-laws. I woke up on Friday with a fever. I woke up on Saturday feeling okay, but by the evening my stomach was a wreck. I slept through Sunday. And then school started again... with report card week. 

And did I mention that it's also the week the middle school teachers get together and discuss high school applications? Maybe it's time to plan a winter getaway.

A Very Happy Friday

 My first real week of classes (after last week's overnight retreat) included standardized testing and my students had extra choir practice in advance of the first all school mass of the year. Suffice it to say that as of yet, we have not had our normal schedule. Even so, in many ways it was a typical first week - I was exhausted each night, my throat hurt as a result of using my voice much more than usual, and we ended it with a well-attended staff happy hour at a local restaurant.

Some of my favorite lessons of the school year come right at the beginning. I was able to run my version of Dave Burgess' crash survivor lesson in the auditorium with both seventh-grade classes at the same time. Although there was a technical hiccup once they were broken into groups to begin discussing who should be rescued and who should remain on the island, I was able to begin by asking the students to sit in two rows of two on the floor. They became part of a simulated crash which was likely instrumental to their ability to sustain their attention through the technical glitch and ensuing transition back to the classroom. 

At first it was difficult for some of them to believe that there was not a right or wrong answer, just solid reasoning and less solid reasoning. But once they understood, passionate discussion ensued. It was fantastic. Most small groups decided that the survivor list contained many pairs of people with the same basic role. For example, they thought the priest and comedian were interchangeable on the island: both able to maintain the mental health of those left behind. But while everyone agreed that getting the priest to his destination in order to donate a kidney to his niece was of time sensitive importance, several saw the comedian's lack of experience "roughing it" would amount to dead weight on the island, becoming a problem for those left behind. They saw the priest as better able to cope with all of the challenges involved, his niece's urgent health crisis included. It was fascinating to listen to the debate, which could have gone on much longer than time allowed. I hope they can bring this same level of critical thinking to all the tasks and assignments they encounter this year.

The middle of the week brought a couple of compliments from former parents that really stuck with me. One came across me in the hallway, and rather than a typical greeting, she said, "You have glorious hair!" It would have made my week, except today I responded to a request from another former parent for a letter by asking who to address it to and where to send it. The response I received began, "Have I told you lately how much I love you?! Honestly, your heart is one of my favorites." I hope there are many more moments like these throughout the year, but even if that does not materialize, these two moments will easily sustain me for some time to come.

This afternoon my principal came in during the last few moments of the day to take the eighth graders to the upper field to be the first students to view and walk on the brand-new turf. Turf that has been much anticipated for many years. The principal was grinning from ear to ear. It was awesome.

It is going to be a fantastic year!

And That's a Wrap on the First Week!

The start of the school year is always a rush of activities and deadlines that bring an abrupt end to summer break. The position I've had since last year has the extra crazy of planning an overnight field trip for the second and third days of school. I am now a huge advocate of overnight field trips. Admittedly, I spent some time sobbing at how overwhelmed I was the night before I took my first class of fifth graders away for three nights at the end of October. But nearly 20 years later, even the added load of arranging all the paperwork before the start of the school year (when families are still often out or town - or the country - and not motivated to respond in a timely fashion to emails from the school), I'm solidly on board.

The "meet and greet" on Tuesday was great. I teach eighth grade in a PreK through 8th grade building. But every family showed up, and nearly every parent took the time to spend a few to several minutes chatting with me. I discovered one family spends their free time much as mine does - playing tabletop games together. Another parent does marketing for a game that my 18-year-old spent all summer playing and offered to send merch. Most of the few who have not signed their student up for the spring trip to Washington DC discussed it with me and plan to sign up before the discounted rate expires within the next week.

Students and their families alike took in the new decor. Some were interested to find out who their congressional representative is, somewhat embarrassed to admit they didn't know. I tried to put their minds at ease. It's my mission to ensure my students become informed voters because I know there are many who don't engage with politics in this day and age.

Many laughed out loud at the history meme wall I started this summer.

And still others were surprised to discover that Clarence Thomas is still a Supreme Court Justice.

I gave my homeroom students, remember that they're eighth graders, welcome bags this year. I put rubber duckies that came with gold chains, sunglasses, and cowboy hats in the bags. Someone put their duck on a communal table. Others added their cowboy hats, and one girl took it upon herself to glue the hats together to provide more stability. The boy who may or may not have donated the duck christened him the class mascot: Johnatan Quackington III. There are lots of signs that indicate it's going to be a fantastic school year.

However, this year's group got off to a rough start on the annual first week retreat. Gum was a huge issue last year, with students chewing it constantly, rolling their eyes, and even popping a new piece in immediately, when asked to spit it out. It was found stuck to the bottom of brand-new student desks and chairs, the blacktop on the playground, and in planters near the back entrance to the school. So, on the first full day of school I made a point to tell every participant in this year's retreat to leave their gum at home. I said the same in an email to their parents. The bus driver who drove us from school to the retreat said gum was not allowed on his bus. It was the ONLY rule he gave them. At least five kids were caught chewing gum on the way to the camp.

During dinner on the first night, one table of a cabin of boys got food everywhere except their plates. Underneath the table was a solid smear of pasta sauce and frosting. Someone turned over a salad plate, with a pool of dressing still on it, in order to have a clean surface for the very moist cake that was dessert. Crumbs from said cake and the dinner rolls sprinkled the length of surface of the table. The principal, who attends this retreat meant to build leadership, teamwork, and community, was NOT happy. I was happy to let him handle the "talk" with the kids in both situations.

However, I can report that these kids showed visible growth over the two days. Not only was gum not an issue on the bus ride home, but they were kind, caring, and generous toward one another during every activity and meal. Two students in my group took it upon themselves to help others into their harnesses for the high elevation activities in order to ensure that as many kids as wanted to had time to attempt each challenge. Others who were so afraid of heights that they did not attend last spring's retreat at High Trek Adventures attempted challenges this week or put on harnesses and seriously considered attempting something incredibly far out of their comfort zones. They were thoughtful and reflective during the evening activities and became more comfortable responding to the deeper questions asked during these more serious times.

Two former fifth graders of mine attended the retreat as cabin chaperones. It was great to see them and reminisce about the time they were little boys (both were small for their age at ten). It was affirming to hear how they remembered my class and see how they interacted with my current students. Best of all, they were able to pick up the slack I left as I'm still dealing with my knee injury. I accepted rides in an off-road golf cart to get to the high elevation sites while they hiked there with my small group. 

One of my former students did 7 pushups on the catwalk.

I am exhausted and my husband had to go onsite at in a client's office to help with some important IT fix just as I was settling in after my post-retreat cleansing hot shower. So I had a "girl dinner" - cheese melted in refried beans, tortilla chips, and a margarita. An early bedtime sounds lovely. But I can't wait for Monday. It's going to be a fantastic year.

First Day Eve 2023

 As one of the last teachers in the nation to return to school, tomorrow is the official first day of school for my students. But it's really just three hours in the morning set aside for families to come into the building and drop off supplies. Since the first full week of school - beginning September 11 - includes several schedule interruptions (like an all-school mass and standardized testing) and I will be gone with the eighth graders at an overnight retreat this Thursday and Friday, it's going to be a choppy start to the year. It's the same as last year, but I had forgotten since this is only my second year with this start up schedule.

I spent most of this holiday weekend about five hours from home at my nephew's wedding. He was the first of his generation in my family to marry. He's the third oldest, but the first three were born in quick succession in the spring and summer of 2000 and the fall of 2001. It was a beautiful wedding in a beautiful corner of the world. My husband and I enjoyed the sunset the night before the big day and a rainbow the morning of the wedding.

The highlight of the reception was when my nephew sang "Your Man" by Josh Turner to his new bride. I had no idea his voice could go so low.

Click here to watch my nephew singing.

We came home on Sunday. Not only were the wedding festivities at an end (though we did inadvertently end up in the same hotel as the bride and groom), but I have to work this week, with an overnight retreat on Thursday and Friday. According to the news, we missed some nasty traffic by coming home before the end of the long weekend.

Thankfully, my first week of school doesn't involve much planning. I have the first day, tomorrow, to greet students and their families as they drop off supplies. Wednesday is the first full day of school, and we will run our normal schedule, though obviously there will not be any core content taught. Thursday my students and I will leave prior to the start of the normal school day for our overnight fall leadership and community building retreat.

However, I had literally just finished my lesson plans through the first full week of school* (this Wednesday and next week) when I received notification of a new email. The fall standardized testing schedule was sent out - and we go in order from oldest to youngest. While I know I will use the plans I made, I can't be sure when. The middle school will need to meet tomorrow, after the "meet and greet" supply drop off morning, to discuss the testing and all school mass schedule for the first full week of school.

Given that I spent two of the three in-service meeting days at home with a migraine AND that last year was my first year as a middle school teacher in my current building, I realize it's fine that I forgot about how crazy the start of the school year is. Well, I DID remember how crazy the start to the school year is, but I had forgotten the specifics of what makes it so crazy.

Regardless, it's going to be a great year. I just need to adjust my expectations. Maybe I'll remember how and why my expectations need to be adjusted before the night before the first day of school next year?

*I would like to add that my first several lessons for both seventh and eighth graders are designed to get kids excited for my classes (thanks, Dave Burgess aka the pirate of Teach Like a Pirate fame) and to think like historians (thanks, Standford History Education Group) and are SO MUCH FUN that I'm disappointed we won't get to them all as quickly as I had imagined.

Summer Classroom Setup

 I live and work where students still don't come back to the classroom until after Labor Day. We are among the last holdouts in the country. I am well aware that many other teachers are already weeks into their school year while I am still working to set up my room. Of course, those who are already in the thick of it will be done sometime in May while I will toil in my room until the middle of June.

I have appointments (and my birthday) next week, so I have been spending the mornings of the past two weeks in my room doing a little bit at a time. I hope to be done with set up before in-service the final week of August.

I spent a large chunk of my summer at civics professional development. My classroom reflects those experiences. Last year I made a set of Presidents to hang up, but never found the correct location to hang them. This year I remembered that the beams across the classroom are metal and I can use magnets to hang things on them. Last week I cut up business card magnets (one of my favorite classroom helpers) and stuck them on the back of the Presidents, and spent about 20 minutes today climbing up and down a ladder to affix them to the beams. The photos don't do the result justice. This addition to my classroom décor was very satisfying and made me incredibly happy as I sat and ate my lunch, admiring them today.

One of my professional development experiences this summer began with a fancy dinner in a hotel ballroom. On the table were questions like: "Can you name three supreme court justices?" "Can you name an American Idol?" There were probably five of each - current United States officials vs. current United States pop culture. As a result of that professional development experience, I also made a display of our current Supreme Court Justices and the Congresspeople of Washington State.

The "Who represents you?" display photographed the best and I am happy with all three... but the Presidents are still my favorite.

I still have a long way to go to get my classroom ready. I got three new sets of textbooks delivered within the past week - one free from the We the People Summer Institute, one to replace the U.S. History books from the early 2000s that were great, but falling apart, and one to replace the Washington State History books from the 1970s. Boxes and old textbooks are taking up a lot of real estate on my classroom floor right now - waiting for next week when middle school students are invited to come help in classrooms to earn service hours. They will be taking many runs to the dumpsters...

This photo was even after at least two other faculty members had pilfered boxes and packing peanuts from my rubbish pile.

I am really looking forward to the start of this year, but I also have a lot of work to do between now and then. However, I'm still taking the next five days off.

Summer of PD

It feels like most of my summer has been spent in professional development. I attended two government/civics workshops and spent a week writing curriculum with a co-worker and friend. When I came home from my latest trip, one of my husband's first questions was, "When are you ditching me again?" I guess I should plan less travel for work next summer!

My first trip was actually five weeks into my summer, to War Week at the George Washington Teacher Institute. But I had only been home for a week before I took off to a small island, accessed by a teeny tiny car ferry that held maybe 20 cars, to write unit plans. The learning management system our school will be using for grading this year requires that units are entered into the platform and tied to specific standards, both state and IB, before anything can be graded. Since I took over for a teacher who had not yet started using the new platform, I had zero units ready for this. I was skeptical at the beginning of the week that I was going to get all of my units entered in just one week, especially when my co-worker said it didn't matter if we got any work done on Monday after we arrived at our destination.

Did I mention that our destination was a beautiful house owned by a school family? Near the end of the year, one of the parents who is in the building volunteering nearly every day asked my co-worker and I about our summer plans. We told her we were planning to stay in an Airbnb on the beach to put our units into the new learning management system. This parent LIT UP at the opportunity to offer us the use of her family's second home on a small island. We decided free was way better than not free, and took her up on that offer. The house did not disappoint!

We arrived in the pouring rain and had to call the school family to gain entry to the house. It was a beautiful space, and the rain continued on Tuesday, making it easy to stay at our computers and get lots of work done. We did walk to the island store on Tuesday after the rain stopped, which turned out to be a three-mile walk, round trip. My knee wasn't too happy about that, so for our afternoon break on Wednesday we sat on the private beach across the street from the house and drank wine. We even finished early, completing skeleton unit plans for every unit we intend to teach this year by Wednesday evening. Since we weren't paying for a rental, we felt at peace with our decision to head home on Thursday, giving us an extra day to do laundry and rest before heading out to a weeklong PD across the state.

After three days at home, four teachers from my school, including the co-worker I had just spent most of a week with and myself, went to the We the People Institute in Spokane. This program can BE one of my eighth-grade units, and even includes a process based summative assessment. One of the other teachers from my school who attended the institute is a science teacher, and we have plans for morphing this into a transdisciplinary unit for the eighth graders. One of the other teachers from my school in attendance will be a first-year teacher this year. She took the spot of someone who cancelled at the last minute, and turned out to be a very fun travel partner. She is going to be a great addition to our team this year!

The institute was excellent. The whole thing was for one specific resource for civics, We the People: the Citizen and the Constitution. It could have felt like a high-pressure sales pitch but wasn't. The institute was given a federal grant to bring teachers together to teach them about the resource and how it is designed to be used, culminating in mock hearings. In addition to the classes, each teacher had their own room in a historic hotel, was fed catered meals (or given cash for the meals not provided), and is getting a FREE class set of textbooks! We even went wine tasting and had a winery tour as part of a session on federalism.

I am excited to bring everything I have learned and worked on this summer back into my classroom next month. My classroom is a long way away from being ready for students, since we don't start until after Labor Day. But I can't wait for school to start!

George Washington: War Week

I am sitting in my hotel room tonight, after a week of professional development at the George Washington Teacher Institute at Mount Vernon. I stayed an extra night for a variety of reasons - including not doing a close read of the itinerary beforehand that told me the airport drop off time on the final afternoon. But I chose not to change my flight once I figured that out because one of my best friends from high school lives about an hour out from Alexandria, Virginia. I had planned to spend the afternoon and evening after the institute hanging out with her, on her coast, as she likes to say. But alas, she had a bonafide family emergency this afternoon and couldn't make it to the hotel to see me.

So I took a nap - teacher brains are often mush after the firehose of information spewed at them during a PD like this - and found dinner on my own. If you ever run across the opportunity to do a whiskey tasting paired with Girl Scout cookies, you MUST partake. It was so good. It would have been better with my friend there who was a Girl Scout for far longer than I was, but still, I'm glad I had the experience.

This week was an incredibly deep dive into content I have taught to fifth or eighth graders 17 different times already. But those 17 previous classes have missed out. My instruction on the Revolutionary War will be different going forward. I have ideas for Black History month, Lent, partnering with the design/robotics teacher, and am already looking into bringing historical re-enactors and what additional documents and art I can bring in for use as primary sources to study. I know how I'm going to make a museum exhibit summative assessment better and can't wait for the week after next when I am going with a colleague to spend a week writing curriculum for the coming school year.

For me, the most impactful activity we did was visit the newly opened National Museum of the United States Army. My parents' lives were shaped by the Army, which means mine was too, at least indirectly. Still, when I saw it on the schedule, I didn't think much of it. I had intended to spend most of the self-guided two hour time slot resting since I spent the week wearing my knee brace to correct the placement of my patella due to a deep fissure in my cartilage, and using a cane. However, walking into the museum, I was confronted by silver pillars depicting the images and brief stories of men and women who had served in the Army from the very beginning. One of the first pillars was for a Captain Szeto who was born the same year as me. I attended high school with a Szeto - not the same one - but from that moment on, I was holding back tears while perusing the exhibits.

My mom was an Army Brat. She was the daughter of a career military man who was deployed to Korea and sent to Germany as the wall was being erected. My mom spent her middle school years on a base in Frankfort. After retirement, my grandparents settled their family in the Dallas, Texas area. My dad had moved up from Peru at age 18 and was drafted into the Army during the Vietnam War (I still don't understand how that worked for a non-citizen...) and after boot camp was sent to Texas to work on vehicles. He met my mom at a dance on base. Although my dad was never deployed to Vietnam, his Army experience had a profound impact on the adult he became and decisions he made as the head of my household growing up. Two of my uncles also served in the military (Army and Navy) and I have a great uncle who was killed at Pearl Harbor.

I don't know how long I'll be processing my visit to National Museum of the United States Army, but the experience was emotionally evoking and deeply personal for me. I am so glad I got to experience it.

There were a several moments where I felt the history of George Washington's Mount Vernon profoundly. As a student of mine said while we were at Jamestown in late May, "I feel the history! Or maybe it's the humidity." It was ridiculously humid, especially on our last day, but I felt the history at the gristmill, a reproduction of the one George Washington used. It is an inaccurate reproduction but watching the workings of a mill that was reconstructed with 18th century technology and seeing the grain milled and separated transported me. 

We were also lucky enough to see more of the Mount Vernon mansion than most  tour groups and were able to spend more time in each room than when with middle schoolers. Seeing the room and bed where George Washington died and then going up to the third floor to where Martha Washington retreated after deciding not to spend another night in the room where her husband died was powerful. 

Another powerful moment was our trip to the Carlyle House, where we got to stand in the dining room where General Braddock sat and disregarded the advice of colonials who advised him to not fight the French and indigenous people in straight lines wearing bright red coats. (Spoiler Alert: the battle did not go well for him.)

This morning we attended and participated in wreath laying ceremonies, both at the slave memorial and Washington's tomb.

It was a long and eventful week. I can't wait to get home, but I am so glad I got to experience this. My students will benefit immensely and I will treasure the memories and friendships I made for the rest of my life. I am also hopeful that I will get to come back to experience a different GWTI week in the future.