School through the eyes of a Zombie Parent

It's always fascinating to read a story through the eyes of another character, to see the world from the perspective of a different person. I think that's why I enjoy reading sci/fi fantasy fiction so much. You get almost an out-of-body experience that let's you sit back and say, "Huh. I never thought of it quite like that before".

I had one of these body-snatcher experiences today, opening my eldest son's backpack. Ethan has graduated from pre-pre-school, to plain old pre-school this year, where he'll probably stay for the next two years. Some parents hold their kids back from kindergarten because of sports or academics; Ethan is just not going to be ready for the social scene, or mature enough to deal with the rigors of today's competitive kindergarten classroom for a while. 

You might think I say that sarcastically, but I don't! I have subbed in kindergarten classrooms, and the kids are already flex-grouped by skills, reading level, and neediness pretty soon after walking through the door. Add in full-day madness, and you've got a huge stress ball for a high-anxiety kid. Not a good match. 

Alas, I digress. So as I'm digging through Ethan's backpack, I come across yet another "letter to the parents" and start groaning. In big bold print across the top, is the sentence, "Please discuss with your child", complete with a parent/kid worksheet stapled to the back. And here you thought that preschoolers and kindergarteners didn't have homework!  That's right, they don't! The PARENTS DO.

Parent Assignment #1- before Ethan even started pre-school, we parents had our own homework, to sign up for a separate parent/child class to get our "rounding out" of the ECFE experience... OR we have to complete what is literally called a "parent homework" self-directed learning packet, or Ethan gets kicked out of the class.

Parent Assignments #2 and 3- attend a pre-school conference (during my work day), and then a pre-school open house (also during my work day), and OH YEAH you can't bring your other kids. So add in Homework #3B - find a sitter.

Parent Assignment #4- Check the snack schedule and pack adequate food for the entire brat pack, and don't forget, no nut products, and there's a milk and egg allergy too. Graham crackers it is!

Parent Assignment #5- Read the weekly/daily agenda, try to talk to Ethan about the topics covered, fill out the little post-class reflection for families and tuck it back in his backpack. Getting a 4-yr old to talk about his day is literally like pulling teeth. "What did you have for snack today, son?" (he looks at his dinner plate, picks and item, and states that that is what he ate). "Who did you sit by at snack today?" (he mumbles some name I didn't understand, but I think was a kid from last year's class). "What did you do at school today?" (cars and trucks!) Helpful.

Parent Assignment #6 - Find yet another wall space or door frame to hang the ever-growing collection of childhood art. Honestly, does anyone ever look back on their pre-school art and say, "wasn't that just the neatest thing ever?"  Maybe a couple turkey hand-prints, or poems to mom that the teacher obviously helped them to finish. This worked great last year when I had crappy wall-paper space to stick all the tape and glue-covered creations. But now that the kitchen is painted, where does the junk art go!?

So my epiphany, after having assigned my own "parent homework" at my middle school, was to NOT be too hard on the parents who didn't complete it. I have one kid, in one class, in preschool, and I'm already super tired of looking through all the scraps and treasures and instructions every night. Can you imagine how bad it must be to have 2-3 kids, with 6 classes each, and nearly every teacher asking the parent to sign something? or read something? or fill out 10 paragraphs about what is neat or challenging about their kid? AHHHH! 

I have passed through to the other side of the mirror and am looking back at my zombie self, saying, take it easy on your students' parents. They have a lot on their plates; like teen know-it-all attitudes, masters classes, full-time jobs, soccer practice, band concerts, friend drama, and maybe some time with their spouse. (probably not any for themselves). It's time to cut them a break and let them have a life. God knows I WANT ONE!!!

9-19-11: Official Website Launch

www.mathbymandy.com

Holy techno babble, Zombie Bat Woman! You have a website? 

Whoaaaa....

After putzing around sending emails from my Yahoo! account to various local teachers and not making very many sales on my book (5 to be exact, and at least 2 of which came from close friends), I realized that I needed to get legit. Too legit to quit.

So I sucked it up, spent $10 on a domain name from GoDaddy.com (yes, I know, go ahead and snicker) and purchased a software hosting package with 1000's of templates. And boy oh boy, is this junk easy to use!!! The hope now is that I can help my hubby to get his own eBiz site up and running, thus saving on a zillion eBay fees. 

(Insert shameless plug here:) http://stores.ebay.com/HockeyRealm

In the mean while, I need to download the Mobile site app, research the insanity of starting a classroom or facebook blog, check into Hoobble to see how that mobile homework app is coming along, and FIGURE OUT HOW TO SKYPE!!! 

My poor sister is all alone on the east coast, teaching Freshman English 101 at UMass/Amherst... and I have hardly been able to talk to her except on Facebook and LinkedIn. As tech savvy as my family is, even I feel like a shmuck. Hang in there Ashley, I'll get there soon :o)  Miss you honey!

Silliness rules the day!

I dedicate this post to my hubby on his 34th birthday. He is a major inspiration for my attitude in the classroom. Growing up, I was always silly and odd, and even a bit inappropriate. I always thought there was something wrong with me. Trying to fit into the cool crowd, as a gawky, gangly, goofy brainiac was a major worry in school, and I have vivid memories of how I failed at it.

When I met my husband Chris, one of the things that I fell in love with the most, was watching a home movie of him doing karaoke in a whiny effeminate voice to "I'm With You" by Avril Lavigne. He swayed to the music in his Hawaiian shirt, shoved a buddy away from the mic when he tried to join in, and proudly belted out the "Yeah yeah yeah! yeah yeah! Yeah YEAH, YEAH YEAH YEAAAAAAAAAAH YEAH!!!!!!!!!!" ending in a screeching soprano voice. It was such an obnoxiously care free performance, that I thought, "I could really be myself with this guy, and he'd never call me a loser!" That song was later the first dance at our wedding, with a huge crowd belting out the tune as we danced. Ah, the memories. 

I started my first year teaching long before I met Chris, and I tried really hard to be firm with my discipline, strict and consistent with the way I ran the class, (meaning I talk, they take notes and study and regurgitate for tests) and I didn't make much effort to keep in touch with parents. I think if I remember correctly, I was borderline afraid of talking to parents about what their kids were (or weren't) doing in my classroom. Working in a remedial classroom setting, the news I needed to pass along was often bad news, and I felt way more responsibility for the students' lack of effort than I should have. 

Now beginning my fifth year teaching, I have lost all those pretenses. I am who I am, silliness and goofiness and zombieness all showing through proudly. I dance and sing and tell goofy stories about my kids, I shamelessly plug the latest young-adult fiction book I'm reading to students who might share my interests, and I state as many sarcastic comments and random movie & book quotes as I can fit into one class period. When it comes to subject matter, I look for the oddest, silliest, funniest, most original tidbits I can relate to a concept, doing anything I can to get a laugh. 

Are they laughing at me? Or with me? Who cares! I'm having fun and hopefully the students are too. Because laughter = endorphins = more memory retention.

The best part of my day is hearing the laughter and seeing the smiles of teens who walked into my room looking sad, or grumpy, or defeated. They know my room is a safe place, and they know they are going to get some genuine attitude from a caring adult. They know I care about them, because I am one of them. There, I said it. I may have continued growing up and out long into my high school/college years, but...

I stopped maturing when I was thirteen. 

So much for 13 going on 30! I am 30 (or maybe 31) going on 13. It's a great age to be! Go ahead, be somebody different today. Try out something new. Reinvent yourself. Change your attitude and your friends. Who cares what people think of you!? Normal is boring! Weird is fun! And if you don't like something about me, just keep your mouth shut because I don't want to hear it. 

All of this I knew about myself, but having a caring and supportive husband who not only loves me for these weird characteristics, but embodies them himself, really helped me to see the value in it. As students pass through my door, I'm sure they think I'm odd. They may think I'm a zombie or a caffeine freak. But after they put all of this aside, I hope they see that their teacher knows who she is and what she is, and loves what she does. If I can inspire them to take a couple steps down their own road to self-discovery, my life is worthwhile. And maybe they'll learn some math along the way too.

Hot new technology in the works! This is a total "duh", way to go NL!

You wouldn't believe what random tidbits you come across by joining groups on LinkedIn. I randomly sign in and BAM! there is an awesome software link or new person to network with, or personal story in the "Teachers Lounge" or tech question I can offer advice on. Last week, the top story in the "Secondary Education Professionals" group was for a new homework app that is still in the test phase. I couldn't resist checking it out. 

http://test.hoobble.com/index.php/en/site/index 

On the one hand, I'm shocked that nobody has thought of it before. But then, I think of some of the push-back that many teachers across America are having against the tide of technology that is cresting in the classroom. I'm sure there will be a loud voice crying, "they don't NEED a homework app, use the free planner the school gave them!". So which side of the fence to take... 

As a busy mom, amateur author/enterprenuer, educator and tech enthusiast, this is a total no-brainer to me. Anything to reduce the zombie-ness in my life and help me do things faster is an easy decision. I think that most parents of middle schoolers, between driving kids to soccer practice, coming/going from work, cooking/shopping/cleaning and occasionally sleeping, would jump on the chance to try this out. So here's how it works.

Step 1: Teacher logs into the website above and creates an account. The program works an awful lot like Facebook or MySpace, in that they have to add a class, type in basic school information, and then type the homework for each day into specified boxes. 

Step 2: Students and/or parents log into the website and create an account of their own. They search for their school and their teacher, and any teacher who has posted homework will show up there. They add them to their teacher list, click on a day, and Viola! they can see homework assignments listed. This much you can do now.

Step 3: Eventually the programmers will launch a free app that will be available in the Android market, and hopefully soon after, for iPhone and other devices. Parents/students visit the market, download the app, and save it to their phone favorites. Badda bing, they can keep track of homework from anywhere without lugging a giant dinosaur planner around. Saves teacher time, parent time, student time and communication time not rewriting and restating the assignment again and again. 

(Still doesn't help students who forget their homework materials at school!)

I can see huge potential if a school were willing to go full-throttle into such a program. Parents could see all of their kids' homework from every teacher with the click of a couple buttons on their phone. Students would whip their phone out at the end of the day, double check what they need to pack, and not have to run down to the teacher's room to ask (if they're even still in the building at the end of the day, or at bus duty or coaching a sport). 

There would of course be concerns about the fairness for students and parents who either can't afford or don't allow their young teenagers to have phones. This is becoming a smaller and smaller minority though, as family cell phone plans with parent protective tools become more and more affordable. As an educator, I can't see the logic of holding back a free tool from families who are willing and able to use it, when the old system of writing down homework in an agenda book and bringing supplies home in a back pack works just as well for everybody else. 

Time saving technology seems to be the way of the future, and the most logical, least expensive tools will become more and more desirable, as funding for education and teacher prep time are systematically reduced all over the nation.

Check out the site, weigh in, and share your feedback here or on LinkedIn! Erik Harinck is the co-owner of Hoobble in the Netherlands. I don't speak a lick of Norweigan or Dutch or whatever it is, so thank goodness their site can translate to English!

Technology in and out of the classroom

Welcome to my 21st century classroom. We are fast paced, high energy, tech savvy zombie information junkies, making math come alive. Here's a snap shot of class on a typical day.

Warm-ups and homework correcting on the Smart board. Write on top of the problems with electronic smart pens and save the "ink" layer for later classes. Freeze the screen while taking attendance so they can keep working. (saves 1-2 minutes)

Open to lesson 1.3 in your book, oh wait! You don't have to! The e-version of the book is on the Smart board. Follow along. Take notes as we read. I will be writing with the timed erasing ink that disappears 10 seconds after written. 

Missed the notes for a band lesson? Check out the study guide on Mrs. Bellm's website. The key is also provided, so you can see if you're on the right track.

Time for a math lab, bring your cell phones outside so we can use the timer app to track our walking rates. Make a short video of the process because Student X has such a funny speed walk. Bring the students to the computer lab to teach them how to enter their lab data into an exel spreadsheet and then use the graph feature to make it come alive. Save to your student drive in the mobile student file cloud (where any teacher, but only that student, can see it).  

Were you absent today? Check out the homework list on Bellm's website or link to her teacher Facebook page to get homework help, class reminders and notices. Network with other students and/or chat or Skype so everyone is on the same page.

Forgot your homework at school? No problem! Print a copy of Mrs. Bellm's document page on the website.  Or do your homework on the computer and email it back to her! Terrible handwriting? Type it up and print it.

Text Mrs. Bellm when you get stuck on a problem, get help right away, move on with your life. Cell phone with unlimited texting capabilities has not yet gotten a crank text or phone call. They have figured out how easy it is to get caught.

Students come to class prepared the next day, questions answered (mostly). And if they are not prepared, they have absolutely, 100% NO excuses why it isn't done. It was on the whiteboard. It was on the website. It was provided during the lesson on the Smart board. Mrs. Bellm updated her website and Facebook with the current homework. You could have gotten a copy of the assignment in class or electronically instantly.

Parents want to check in? Read up on the weekly parent "messenger" emails with class updates, homework concepts for the week and general notices for the grade. Mom or Dad can email back right away or visit my website at the link provided, and check the online grading portal to track their students' progress. 

Need I continue? 

-Computerized MAP tests fall and spring give immediate feedback on progress.

-Students pick their own Accelerated Reader books and take computerized tests for course credit.

-Web quests are often assigned as homework with 30-60 minutes of game time on Mrs. Bellm's website

-Math MCA-II tests are fully computerized as of this year.

-Independent student math software has been implemented in a variety of settings for enrichment and remediation on the computer.

Heck, our SCHOOL even has a Facebook page and a Weather bug link too! We are digital, baby!

I could put up a comparison of what a typical class day was like when I was a middle schooler, but the highlight of our day back then was getting to sniff the whiteboard markers or write with a bright purple overhead marker during class. PATHETIC. Be happy, little students, you are living in a dream world.