I feel invincible.
In all seriousness, while staying at school until 9 isn’t necessarily a thrill, it is always a blessing to have the chance to meet some of the families behind my students.
For as long as I’ve been teaching stat, I have done the same opening intro with the parents as I do with the students (“Is 99 a good number for you?”), and a lot of times that is actually more fun with the parents than it is with the kids.
Great evening.1
Monday, September 11, 2006. Anderson High. Seven years ago, today.
That was my first day of teaching, ever.1
It was a day when I honestly had no idea if I would be any good at this.2
The previous Tuesday, on my first day of observing3 the Algebra students who would make-or-break my slightly uncertain foray into the world of teaching, I was sitting in the back during passing period and a few of the rascals were making fun of Steve Irwin (the “crocodile hunter”) — who had been tragically killed by a stingray over the Labor Day weekend. They were saying things like, “He was dumb!” and “I’m glad the stingray killed him!”4 and I remember thinking to myself, “My gosh these kids are monsters, and they’re gonna destroy me. -_-“
I’m HAPPY for the stingray!
So on that 11th — the first Monday — as I was introducing myself to that 2nd period class, heart in my stomach, while passing out a stack of worksheets, one of the kids — who struck me as the “queen bee” type — raised her hand and asked, “Wait, does this mean you’re gonna be our teacher?” I thought to myself, “Yup. This is where they destroy me.” When I explained that yes, they would indeed be stranded5 with me for the next twelve weeks, she responded with a quaint:
Oh… cool.
I was a nervous wreck, and that’s honestly about the ONLY thing I remember from that entire week.6 I remember almost stopping mid-step and thinking to myself, “NO. Wait… WHY is that cool? I’ve never taught before, I have NO idea what I’m doing standing up here in front of you guys… that is NOT cool.”
And I don’t even really know if she actually meant “cool” as in “cool”, or… “cool” as in “this actually bites cuz you look like a tool but I’m going to be a polite little teenager and say ‘cool’ anyway.” But it was a nice gesture that had a bigger impact on me than I think anyone else would have picked up on. It goes to show that the smallest gestures can really and truly go a long way, and that it doesn’t take much to make7 someone’s day.8
After graduating from Texas in 2001 and taking a belly-flop of a gig with a local semiconductor joint during the dot-com burst,9 our church group spent a month on the east coast of Russia in the summer of 2004. That experience was transformational, and gave me a new perspective on — among other things — life and career. I entered the UTeach program the following January, and suddenly before I knew it, I was standing in front of two dozen+ high school freshmen, voice trembling, scared as freak, wondering if I’d be looking into a third career by week’s end… and there I was, holding on the words,
Oh… cool.
I always look back at that first day as being critically pivotal in my story. If things had gone belly-up during that student teaching gig, then these last seven years would likely have gone in a completely different direction.10 I certainly wouldn’t have ended up at McNeil the following January… and these past seven seasons — to which the word “magical” hardly does justice — would never have come to pass. For starters, I wouldn’t be preparing for my 7th Open House, which is tonight.11
A common job interview question for prospective teachers used to be12, “Is it more important to you for the students to LIKE you, or to RESPECT you?” The textbook answer is of course the latter, but let’s be honest, most decent human beings also care about the former. A lot of those kids should be graduating college this year, which absolutely blows my mind. To this day, I still don’t really understand why those kids took so well to me… but they did, and they were truly an amazing bunch.
I just finished grading the first set of group quizzes of the year in AP Stat. 1
The first set of major exams will start tomorrow. Toss in our Open House on Wednesday night into the mix, and this is why the upcoming Friday will only be matched in relief and joy by May 9 (the Friday of our AP Exam).
Ten times this upcoming year, I will go through this group quiz / major test grading run — that’s twice each six weeks until SW6, when we review for the AP exam.
The experience is about 50 percent enjoyable and 50 percent pain.
Or maybe it’s 20 percent fun and 80 percent pain. It depends.
This was today’s see-if-the-clickers-are-working question. No one picked “salad” in either class. NO ONE.
When I brought this up in 8th,1 one kid responded,
This is America. We’re all about FREEDOM.
Uh. What.
I spent a couple of hours this evening taking the 2013 Stat AP Exam International/Alternate that was released to teachers today.2
39/40 on the MC, 3-4-2-3-4-3 on the FR. 88/100 overall. Actually thought the domestic “Form O” free response was more difficult in some ways, that the Int’l was more moderate overall in difficulty.
I think two things:
(I was contemplating whether or not to post this… but why not.)
This past Friday I went down to the counselor’s office to inquire about a particular student.
The counselors were busy1, so I sat down to wait.
The new secretary working in that office looks at me and asks,
Do you have an appointment?
. . .
-_-
. . .
Mmm hmm.2
I just spent about 80 minutes grading the first AP Stat homework assignment for one class period.1 It may sound painful,2 but it was honestly a bit refreshing. As much as the students need to get back into the swing of doing homework, I feel like I need to get back into the swing of reading / critiquing / grading it as well.
I like to refer to each year of teaching as a “season” — like a season of a television show.3 My second full year in 2008-09 was “season 2”4 (my first half-year in the spring of 2007 was “season 0”).
I didn’t always grade homework for correctness.
Up through the first six weeks of Season 2, I gave mostly “completion” grades for homework — I reserved meaningful written feedback for quizzes, which would hopefully be helpful before getting to the major exams. When it became clear to me that holding students to the expectation that homework needed to be practiced correctly, I started grading about a half-dozen “randomly”5 selected problems on each assignment. I remember when I first started grading homework, it felt impossibly time-consuming and torturous, and that I didn’t think I was going to make it through the end of the week — and at the time, I was only really grading homework for 2 periods of Pre-AP Algebra II.
Students hate it, of course, because they like their homework grades to be easy 100’s. But I found that it was worthwhile,6 as it seemed that students7 started taking their “practice” a little more seriously. More importantly, though, it makes you more aware of the little things to re-emphasize and point out in class the next day, before getting to the next “game day” — a.k.a., the big unit assessments. This is especially important in a class like AP Stat, where nailing the proper specifics in your written responses is of utmost importance.
Which, by the way, if you’re a math teacher8 and are considering teaching AP Statistics, you should know… it encompasses a LOT of writing on the part of the students. I enjoy the reading and writing that is involved, but grading papers is appropriately time-consuming. For reference: I used to be able to knock out a class period of Precalculus tests in about 20 to 30 minutes. A single class set of AP Stat exams, on the other hand, generally takes me about 80 – 100 minutes9 — and that’s if I am working quickly.10 And with it being a class with that big exam at the end, there are no shortcuts — you have to force the students to practice writing, and you have to grade their responses on a regular basis.
A friend of mine once asked me if I “liked” grading papers. Knowing that he had two kids, I looked back at him and replied,
Do you ‘like’ changing diapers?
We both laughed, but… it fits. =)