by any other name

Assignment sheets offer up this deathtrap: 'create a PowerPoint'.

We assign PowerPoints when we should assign presentations.

But they're tough to assess. They're tough to teach. There's no time to teach presentations. There's state assessments. There's unit planning, curriculum writing, content, gobs and gobs of content to cover. And, of course, there's no time.

Time is not a constraint, it's our responsibility.

this is your student on myspace

Her message is important:



But to our students, it probably resonates with as much impact as, oh, say:

paralyzed by multiplication

The coupon will save me twenty cents off per gallon, maximum of fifteen gallons.

At a participating gas station, the attendant, a young girl wearing a necklace with a class of '02 pendant, instructs me to pump, pay, and bring the receipt and coupon to her when finished.

I hand her the receipt and coupon. She looks at the computer monitor to her right.

"Oh, you pumped fifteen gallons."

She's cheery, happy for me. I've maxed out the coupon, I'm taking it for all it's worth.

She stares at me. She looks back at the monitor. She's clinging to the coupon and receipt. And it hits me:

She's powerless, ill-equipped, paralyzed by multiplication.

There is a solution, and it's sitting on the shelf behind her. It's laminated (the company must know its employees). It's a spreadsheet. Her right index finger moves across the x-axis.

She's found the 15. She proceeds down the y-axis, finds the field that tells her how much money I'm owed, and exclaims:

"You get three dollars!"

She's so happy for me. And I'm filled with educational sadness.

adieu, sweet cat, i'll miss you

In honor of my recently surrendered cat:



He wasn't one for using the toilet. Near the end, he wasn't one for using the litter box.

y txtin is betr

C...u ask me a ? that needs a 1 word answer, but 4 me 2 get it, I have 2 open the First Class icon, type in my username and password, click on the 'mailbox' icon, click on the unread message icon, read the email, click 'reply', click 'send', click 'file', move cursor down to 'exit', then click on the 'start menu', click on 'log off', reinforce my intention to log-off by clicking on the 'yes-i-really-do-plan-on-logging-off-now' icon and then sit motionless, staring at the screen to insure that the computer lives up to its end of the bargain, and does, according to my double-swear, log itself off of the network.

Now, w/ txtin:
C...u ask me a ? that needs a 1 word answer, but 4 me 2 get it, I have 2 open the First Class icon, type in my username and password, click on the 'mailbox' icon, click on the unread message icon, read the email, click reply , click send , click 'file', move cursor down to 'exit', then click on the 'start menu', click on 'log off', reinforce my intention to log-off by clicking on the 'yes-i-really-do-plan-on-logging-off-now' icon and then sit motionless, staring at the screen to insure that the computer lives up to its end of the bargain, and does, according to my double-swear, log itself off of the network.

an ambulatory approach

Each teacher at today's DI workshop had "no more than five minutes" to complete a randomly assigned RAFT activity.

Role: Hard to reach student
Audience: Teachers
Format: Advice column
Topic: How to reach me

Tick, tock. Tick, tock:

Mr. Stonehenge,

I'm sure you've heard this before, but engage me or enrage me.

You can't stand in one place,
Teach at one pace,
And expect me to sit stationary in one small space.

If you move, so will I,
If you provide choice, I'll fly,
If you raise the bar, I'll jump exceptionally high.

But only if...

If you.

Looking to move

Doesn't matter if you compose it, present it, or plop it in a three-minute poem: if you're going to teach, you need to accept the reality that you do have a responsibility to vary everything you do.

Start moving.

unlimited tutoring

We tried meeting on weekdays, but it's tough. Sunday mornings work best, but even then, the unpredictability of life makes these morning tutoring sessions, at best, intermittent.

So I text the student:

- Do u hv unlimited txt?
- Y
- Do u hv web?
- Y
- R U mendacious?

There's a delay, a gap of time, and it passes by until eight minutes later:

- R U calling me a liar?
- Would U prefer b n sagacious?

I'm rolling a size-1 soccer ball to Quinn. She's just mastered sitting-up, and when the ball stops between her legs, she leans over, picks it up, and treats it like a teether.

- Yeah, wise. That's me. Ms. 2400!

So now I tutor and the student responds at varying times. I'm not going to claim this is perfect; a substitute for face-to-face, pull out the Kaplan, Princeton Review, and College Board books. But when our lives seem to pull us in every direction except the one that brings us together, this strategy keeps us cognizant of our task, and provides another way for students to learn and teachers to teach.

not the happy kind of hour

• He turns his papers in. Not on time, and never early. But when he’s good and ready, he is the master of ‘early entry printing’. He arrives three minutes before the bell, feigning assiduousness. He grabs a laptop, plugs in his flash drive, and is considerate enough to print on the ‘lowest quality’ setting. He never sees the blazing irony in any of this.

• He’s broke. Tough economy, scarce job market, but this student needs recreational spending money. The lesson on the Federal Reserve is over. Twelve dollars worth of one dollar bills sit on the teacher’s desk. Mrs. Teacher is collecting homework. And five days later, no one, absolutely no one admits to the crime or any awareness of it ever happening. No worries: our school is only one month in to the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. It’s almost unfair of us to expect any student to do the right thing.