a little more of duggan middle
here's another installment of my journey through duggan middle school. i think i got a little confused one day to the other, but i think for the most part i got this all right. let's hope. if not, i'll lie a little. does that count as a bad thing when i put hand this all in for class?
today was not such a taxing day. i spent most of it not observing class, but the goings-on in the non-academic world. i began with guidance. i followed Mr. Scymzyc (i think that's how you spell it), and the other guidance person (officer? i don't remember the vocab here) around to the various advisories that were just beginning. here at duggan, every tuesday and thursday, we hold advisory, which is a time for all of the students from different homerooms (but the same grade and section) to build trust amongst each other and vent about different teachers, outside of school experiences, and get prepared for the MCAS and their own progress folders (8th grade and all grades, respectively). the progress folder i will go into a bit later in my reflection, or possibly in day 4, which will delve more into advisory.
the advisory tour was relatively short, and only to see and hear how things are going in a few advisory sessions. next, we came back into the guidance office, and i interviewed Mr. Scymzyc for a little while, drilling him with a few questions. the gist of these was: what is it that guidance does, exactly? the answer to which is a lot of things. they deal with parents and talk about student progress. if, say, a student is doing poorly, or if the student has been held back but wants to get into his proper grade level, guidance will discuss with the student and parents a student contract based on academics, behavior and attendance. if the students progress goes well, he will be bumped up to his or her proper grade. guidance also deals with students if they have problems, as well as individual interventions with a group called SWAT, consisting of teachers and the guidance staff.
personally, i can't reflect much on the small tour that they had. it seemed pretty routine. however, i did have the pleasure of seeing a short orientation for a new student. it's interesting to see how he was received (warmly, but not overtly and in-your-face about it), and the different information he was given so as to begin his time at duggan well. it's good to see these inner workings--how they set you up with a homeroom, and sort of get you accustomed and integrated into the scene. however, as i said, i don't have too much to go on, so i can't comment extensively.
next, i went to a physical education class. dodgeball. the ultimate sport of ultimate sports. even some of the gym teachers participated, and were quite serious about the rules. what i was quite impressed by was how quickly the "duggan cheating rule" consequence was applied. the head gym teacher explained that if you get caught cheating, they call "duggan cheating rule," and you and five other players are out. it only happened once or twice. the rest of the period, they (the students) were quite respectful of the rules, though they threw the hell out of those balls. nothing was sacred. no prisoners taken, indeed.
i noticed two things that impressed me: classroom management, or rather, management of an entire grade; and the difference between academic and non-academic settings in the school. the pure amount of energy that surfaced in those sixth graders was immense. gym class is usually a time to let loose and play around, but there's a stark difference between how they behave in gym and how they behave in the classroom. with that said, the way the head coach handled them--a simple 5-4-3-2-1--was almost immediately effective. only once did she have to use that same technique twice. she told me that she blew and blew the whistle to no avail, and then suddenly she used the countdown, and everyone quieted like mice. the way the kids are usually handled is by separating them into four different groups for four respective coaches, but when they are all together, it can obviously become a mess. this says something for the coaches' classroom management skills, indeed. how i can assimilate that technique into my own teaching is quite easy. my own worry is how to calm kids down from gym-energy to classroom-energy.
the last thing i did was a huge and lovely experience: a department meeting. it was one of the best learning experiences yet at school. i learned that expeditionary learning is not just a philosophy, but something invented, or created, rather, by outward bound. i believe outward bound is a school group of some sort, i forget what it is. i'll have to research that a bit more. with that said, most, if not all, of the department meeting was dedicated to the interim assessment corrections. after a little bit of practice, with looking at a rubric as well as what are called "anchor papers," i began correcting a few of the papers that the 7th graders handed in as their open response essay. correcting is difficult; especially if the rubric and anchor papers are practically worlds apart. i got the hang of it after a while, but still certainly question my grading and am not quite comfortable with everything that is involved in grading. but i think i did fine for my first go at it, and there was a general consensus on my grades and the other teachers in the department that i compared grades with.
it's really quite nice to get to know who is in my department, although i still don't know everyone's names. i'll learn them soon enough. i've only been here for two weeks. there was lots of communication between all teachers and the department chair, and there were no arguments and mostly positive attitudes. i was very impressed and pleased. i can't wait for the next meeting to learn a bit more about this process.
that's all for now, folks. have a nice night.
andrew
andrew
today was not such a taxing day. i spent most of it not observing class, but the goings-on in the non-academic world. i began with guidance. i followed Mr. Scymzyc (i think that's how you spell it), and the other guidance person (officer? i don't remember the vocab here) around to the various advisories that were just beginning. here at duggan, every tuesday and thursday, we hold advisory, which is a time for all of the students from different homerooms (but the same grade and section) to build trust amongst each other and vent about different teachers, outside of school experiences, and get prepared for the MCAS and their own progress folders (8th grade and all grades, respectively). the progress folder i will go into a bit later in my reflection, or possibly in day 4, which will delve more into advisory.
the advisory tour was relatively short, and only to see and hear how things are going in a few advisory sessions. next, we came back into the guidance office, and i interviewed Mr. Scymzyc for a little while, drilling him with a few questions. the gist of these was: what is it that guidance does, exactly? the answer to which is a lot of things. they deal with parents and talk about student progress. if, say, a student is doing poorly, or if the student has been held back but wants to get into his proper grade level, guidance will discuss with the student and parents a student contract based on academics, behavior and attendance. if the students progress goes well, he will be bumped up to his or her proper grade. guidance also deals with students if they have problems, as well as individual interventions with a group called SWAT, consisting of teachers and the guidance staff.
personally, i can't reflect much on the small tour that they had. it seemed pretty routine. however, i did have the pleasure of seeing a short orientation for a new student. it's interesting to see how he was received (warmly, but not overtly and in-your-face about it), and the different information he was given so as to begin his time at duggan well. it's good to see these inner workings--how they set you up with a homeroom, and sort of get you accustomed and integrated into the scene. however, as i said, i don't have too much to go on, so i can't comment extensively.
next, i went to a physical education class. dodgeball. the ultimate sport of ultimate sports. even some of the gym teachers participated, and were quite serious about the rules. what i was quite impressed by was how quickly the "duggan cheating rule" consequence was applied. the head gym teacher explained that if you get caught cheating, they call "duggan cheating rule," and you and five other players are out. it only happened once or twice. the rest of the period, they (the students) were quite respectful of the rules, though they threw the hell out of those balls. nothing was sacred. no prisoners taken, indeed.
i noticed two things that impressed me: classroom management, or rather, management of an entire grade; and the difference between academic and non-academic settings in the school. the pure amount of energy that surfaced in those sixth graders was immense. gym class is usually a time to let loose and play around, but there's a stark difference between how they behave in gym and how they behave in the classroom. with that said, the way the head coach handled them--a simple 5-4-3-2-1--was almost immediately effective. only once did she have to use that same technique twice. she told me that she blew and blew the whistle to no avail, and then suddenly she used the countdown, and everyone quieted like mice. the way the kids are usually handled is by separating them into four different groups for four respective coaches, but when they are all together, it can obviously become a mess. this says something for the coaches' classroom management skills, indeed. how i can assimilate that technique into my own teaching is quite easy. my own worry is how to calm kids down from gym-energy to classroom-energy.
the last thing i did was a huge and lovely experience: a department meeting. it was one of the best learning experiences yet at school. i learned that expeditionary learning is not just a philosophy, but something invented, or created, rather, by outward bound. i believe outward bound is a school group of some sort, i forget what it is. i'll have to research that a bit more. with that said, most, if not all, of the department meeting was dedicated to the interim assessment corrections. after a little bit of practice, with looking at a rubric as well as what are called "anchor papers," i began correcting a few of the papers that the 7th graders handed in as their open response essay. correcting is difficult; especially if the rubric and anchor papers are practically worlds apart. i got the hang of it after a while, but still certainly question my grading and am not quite comfortable with everything that is involved in grading. but i think i did fine for my first go at it, and there was a general consensus on my grades and the other teachers in the department that i compared grades with.
it's really quite nice to get to know who is in my department, although i still don't know everyone's names. i'll learn them soon enough. i've only been here for two weeks. there was lots of communication between all teachers and the department chair, and there were no arguments and mostly positive attitudes. i was very impressed and pleased. i can't wait for the next meeting to learn a bit more about this process.
that's all for now, folks. have a nice night.
andrew
andrew