A Lesson for Me-10 years into Teaching

In my tenth year of teaching and I find myself in the middle of a brand new experience. Sometimes, if you allow yourself to step back and let students figure things out for themselves, if you let them explore a topic or concept on their own, they really dig in and get involved. Furthermore, if you let them be involved in the discussion of the concept and let them be part of the decision making process, you really and truly reach more kids. So simple an idea but it took me ten years to get here and to be honest, it kind of happened by accident. I'll explain further but for the first time in years, I'm excited to be at work and excited to be a part of this project no matter where it may lead.
A couple weeks ago, I began a unit with my classes on air pollution. The usual stuff-causes, effects, solutions. It was a stereotypical lesson in which they read through the text and took notes. Then I got up and talked to them about some of the more important points made in the text. You see I was building up to my big lesson on global warming. Our text mentions it briefly along with the greenhouse effect but I wanted to go bigger and better. Using inspiration I found this summer, in music, in people, I wanted to do something a little more unique than just writing a paper. Keep in mind, my school district is severely limited this year by funding and access to technology. Brainstorming through all the directions I could go with this and the materials I have at hand, I finally decided on a multi-part project. The project had to reflect the curriculum and also had to show that my students had learned something from it. This doesn't leave a whole lot of room for creativity so I wanted to add that element to it too.
The crux of their assignment is to create an informative handout on some aspect of global warming. They can focus on global warming itself or air pollution or alternative energy. It has to be something proactive. They have been given a list of questions that must be answered in this handout. Things such as the basics: causes, effects, solutions. They also have to explore how it affects our community and what our community can do to help. While this will provide some interesting insight into what they are thinking, the poster is what excites me more. The poster is supposed to be only symbolic in nature. Not the usual listing of facts slapped on a poster board and read to the class. Instead it should be a simple picture, image, or some other creation that gets the message across without a bunch of words. They are also to include a catchy slogan.

I must stop at this point and credit Blend Apparel for this inspiration. This picture is in image of one of their posters. You can go to www.blendapparel.com and see more posters and t-shirts with similar ideas. Wonderful company with a beautiful message. As a matter of fact, when I told them I was ordering one of their posters for my classroom, they donated the whole set! When we are ready to start the posters, I will use these amazing Blend creations, along with some others, as examples for my students to come up with their own.

Ahhh, so dreams of happy children who love our Earth and are ready to be warriors for our planet danced through my head. Then as the best laid plans often do, they went astray. With some prodding from a concerned parent, I realized I owed it to my children to fully explore the other side of the global warming argument. It was in my plans to mention some of the scientific reasons why the Earth goes through climatic change but not to this extent. Now with the original project in mind, I had them go back to the computer lab and research what evidence they could find that does not support man-made global warming. We had already done research into the supporting evidence so now they had both sides of the "story." On Monday of this week, I had them write a journal entry describing what their feelings and thoughts were on the subject. Then for the past two days, we've been listing reasons to support both sides of the issue on the board. I started them off with a fact for each side and then handed it over to them. They were really into it! Hands raised all across the room eager to share! We discussed the facts they presented, what the source was for that information which allowed me to discuss bias in the media. I had kids who were genuinely upset that we ran out of time today for me to get to their information. I have four classes; three of the four are all or partly made of Academically Gifted students. The fourth is a regular class of students. The expectation would be for the AG students to excel in this but I've found that so far it has been equal across the board. Remember that after the initial instructions by me that we were to stick to the facts, remain objective, and to give a few examples, I turned the class over to them. I went in whatever direction they wanted to go with it. At the end of today, three of four classes are leaning towards man-made global warming based on what they wanted me to include on our lists. One class was really into the possible natural reasons it was happening so we went with it. We'll finish the discussion tomorrow and I'm determined to let it go where they take it as long as it stays in the parameters of being factual and objective. Teaching these kids to think for themselves may be the most important lesson I can give! Eye-opening for me for sure. You would be surprised at how few of middle school students can do this. They expect you to spoon-feed them the information and tell them how they are supposed to feel about it. However, I do remain dedicated to getting them to understand that we must be stewards of this planet and its wonderful gifts and resources. In the end, they may not agree with me and I may not have my happy band of new little "hippies" out there fighting to save our planet but I may have done something more important-given them respect, trust, freedom to think for themselves, and the beauty of the feeling you get when you come to your own educated decision.
I will keep you updated on our progress and maybe post some pictures of their creations when we finish.

The Joys of Teaching Middle School

Copied from my Facebook "blog"
So the insanity that has prevailed over my students lately prompted this note. Here are some of the things they don't prepare you for when you're going into teaching. Feel free to add your own, fellow teaching peeps. I tagged all of you for various reasons. You teach, used to teach, have a teenager, are a teenager, etc. I think we should compile all of our stories somehow. At least, create a Facebook club where we can collect them all.

Here's my updated list...Enjoy!

1. I had a 6th grader who thought she was pregnant. The father? She didn't know. One of three men. Turned out, she wasn't pregnant.
2. I once had a student who after he wiped himself would throw the soiled toilet paper at other kids.
3. The kid in "#2" (haha pun intended) had a brother who I also taught who took a dump in the middle of the bathroom floor as well as in the urinal. When the father was brought in to discuss the issue, he said it was our fault because we didn't make school fun enough for his son.
4. I once had to call my principal over for a meeting with one of my kids. His offense? He wouldn't quit playing with his man boobs in class. He would stick pencils under them, slap them and watch them jiggle, and use them as "machine guns" and shoot things. Those are mental images I can't shake.
5. One day years ago, a 7th grade boy announced to me that he was constipated and would need to go back to the bathroom. He left and came back and announced to me that everything was now fine.
6. Last year, a girl threw up all over another student while sitting in my class. She didn't even try to avoid it. The girl who got thrown up on didn't seem to care. She was fully prepared to go through her day with puke on her. We had to make her change clothes.
7. I've seen countless buttcracks and thongs. For God's sakes, parents, don't let your 11-12 year old daughter wear thongs (especially when it's the day we're having Tornado Drill Practice).
8. I've also had to tell a male student to quit pleasuring himself while in my class.
9. I get the joy of teaching 7th graders about human reproduction. Years ago, I was asked by a student, "can you get pregnant by doing it in the butt?"
10. I now spend more time trying to keep girls from making out with each other than boys and girls. A few years ago, we had a girl who was a lesbian and she created a "hit" list. Her "hit" list was a list of girls who she was going to "turn" gay. She got action all the time.
11. The same kid in #4, aka Moobs, also had an older brother that I had taught. His brother had OCD and had a hand-washing ritual he had to go through before lunch. It always involved having to ask me if he could wash his hands. I would say yes and you don't have to ask me anymore just do it. Yet the next day, he would ask again. Day after day after day. Later on when we would be back in class, he would have his finger in his nose up to his knuckle just digging away!
12. Moobs wasn't allowed to read anything that had any profanity in it at all. At this point, let me remind you that he was a 7th grader at the time and profanity was everywhere. When he heard a curse word, his mom had trained him to cover his ears and say "bad word, bad word." So the day we confronted him about playing with himself, he replied (calmly and seriously with his head hung low) when we asked if he knew what we were upset about, "I was playing with my titties." There were about 5 adults sitting at the table when he said that and not one of us lost it...until later. I should also add for visual effect that when he sat down at the table with us, he propped his moobs on the table first! Plop, Plop! We're talking D-cup, baby!
13. At Open House my third year of teaching, the first student I met was under house arrest. He had one of those bands around his ankle. He had stolen a car and tried to outrun the police. That was a sign of things to come that year.
14. I once wasted precious minutes of my life arguing with a girl who insisted that the Earth was not a planet. She couldn't tell me what it was, but she just knew it wasn't a planet. Now let me explain a little about her family. She had two brothers with the same name. I don't mean two similar names and I don't mean stepbrothers or half-brothers. I mean "this is my brother Darryl, and this is my other brother, Darryl." (Anybody out there get that reference-you gotta be old like me to get it.)
15. Apparently the lastest trend for the middle school girl is to take her camera phone and shove it up as far as she can between her legs and take a picture. Then she sends it to her true love to prove her undying affections. (FYI-they always and let me emphasize always break up within days.) The pictures are so graphic, I could send them to a gynecologist and they could do a full pelvic.
16. A couple of weeks ago, one my girls got mad at one of my boys during lunch. Apparently, he kept calling her some offensive names. She warned him not to do it again. He didn't listen. He got an entire carton of milk poured over his head. He was soaked in chocolate milk. Priceless!
17. As of last week, we are now rationing toilet paper to the 7th grade boys. Why should such drastic measures be taken? Because some idiot decided to wipe his poop all over the bathroom. This after the usual toilet paper wads everywhere. Now my team teacher stands in the doorway of the boys bathroom with a roll of toilet paper in her hand saying "one square or two." All I keep thinking of is Seinfeld and "Can you spare a square?" To date, the poop artist has not been found.
18. One of the funniest moments and best lines ever (related to the toilet paper rationing.) The teacher next door poked her head in my classroom today and jokingly asked if anyone needed any. I showed her my unopened toilet paper roll sitting on my desk. She was amazed and says to the class, "Do you not ever poop? Do you not need toilet paper?" One of my students without missing a beat and in all seriousness says "No, we're just not wipers!" I about fell out of my chair laughing. Of course, he then while all red in the face, tried to explain that he meant our class doesn't wipe poop all over the walls. Apparently my students have better toileting manners than most. However...
19. What is up with 7th grade boys and the constant touching? I don't mean they are touching themselves or even other girls. They are constantly touching other boys. Once while showing a movie in our theater, we had to break up a group of boys who were spooning. They are not gay and I wouldn't care if they were. They play with each other's hair. They walk down the halls with their arms around each other. Once, while the boys were lined up to go in the bathroom, I warned them not to be in there touching each other or trying to peek at one another (a constant problem for my class.) One of my boys gets all riled up and felt the need to defend himself and says "Hey, I only touch boys sometimes!" What do you say to that?