A Thanksgiving Project - StoryCorps: The Great Thanksgiving Listen

Ever hear of StoryCorps? It's a fantastic repository of recordings of ordinary people interviewing each other about ordinary to extraordinary events in their lives. Via the Story Corps website you can search by topic, then link to or embed them. There's even a StoryCorps podcast!

In addition to providing great supplementary content to your lesson planning, you can even have your students participate in this project. They have a StoryCorp app that can be used to record interviews and upload them directly to the StoryCorps repository. 

How is this related to Thanksgiving? StoryCorps has an initiative named The Great Thanksgiving Listen, encouraging teachers across the nation to assign their students to interview a relative over the holiday to capture an entire generation's worth of stories (free Teacher Toolkit available!).  Is this a FACS project or what?? (Or history, English, speech, math, science... You could work it in for any subject!)

Here's a short intro to the initiative, followed by a couple of examples from the last year's Great Thanksgiving Listen. I think you'll immediately be hooked, just like I was!

Drive-In Proposal

Bucky the Mailman

Governor Clark & Mother

What I Wish My Teacher Knew & Mandated Reporting

By now most of you who have even the most fleeting of relationships with social media have probably seen the "Finish this sentence: What I wish my teacher knew..." assignment that went viral a while back.

First let me put aside the book controversy: the teacher who created the assignment is publishing a book of the finished sentences. That doesn't feel right to me, but I don't know enough about i (permissions received, etc) to broadcast a real opinion yet.

I'm curious about the groundwork laid before this assignment, and if other people really thought this through and laid their own groundwork before giving it out thinking "Oh this is great I'm using it tomorrow!" Because that question is a land mine. The value of it is immense, no doubt. But you are going to learn things that you are going to have to, going to be required by law to, deal with.

So the questions I have for people who have used this assignment: Were you ready for that? Did you prepare your students for that? Because if you just had them fill it out and hand it in with no disclaimer, you are seriously putting their trust in you at risk. You are opening the door to their most painful secret, and potentially will be forced to share it beyond the walls of your classroom. Do they know that before they begin writing?

I start addressing the issue of mandated reporting from Day 1 of the semester. I give out this getting to know you sheet:

And then my patter and explanation while they are working on it opens the discussion. For instance, when we get to "One thing you should know about me," I tell them "Now don't tell me that your parents lock you in a basement all summer chained to the wall, because then I have to deal with that." They laugh, then ask "Really?", and I go into my spiel about how it would be against the law for me to keep it to myself, and give a few other examples. When they get to "My favorite (legal) things to do in my free time," they all laugh. I laugh too, but then say "But seriously, if you tell me that you like to sell drugs to elementary kids and beat them up when they don't have enough money, I have to do something about that." And so on and so forth. And then I work in little reminders on the topic throughout the year.

I do not do this to discourage them from talking to me - in fact, I do this because I encourage them to come to me when they need someone to talk to, and because so many of them take me up on it. I just want them to know from the outset that there are certain topics of conversation that will absolutely not be kept confidential.

Not only that, I think it actually increases the number of students who privately approach me for help. One, that bit of honesty I give them up front builds trust. Two, some of them desperately need real help and just don't know how to get to it - when I tell them that if they tell me certain things I have to get other people involved, they come to me when they need other people involved. I can't begin to count the number of students who have come to me and confessed they've been thinking about or have attempted suicide - that is an immediate hand-off. I know that, they know that, they are coming to me to make that happen.

My advice: if you invite this kind of information, please, do know what you may be getting yourself into. And do take care to make sure your students know what they may be getting themselves into.

I've shared one of the ways I do it - how do the rest of you address the issue of mandated reporting with your students?

Cell Phone Polling

There are oodles of web-based Audience Response apps available that students can use their mobile devices to respond to ("oodles" is in fact a scientific quantity). In this post we'll take a look at Poll Everywhere (yes, it's free!).

Poll Everywhere allows you to create polls or surveys, then provide your students with an access link. The polls can also be embedded within Powerpoint or Google Slides, a nice touch to any presentation. Here's a short survey example so you can get an idea of the different types of questions available:



Trouble accessing this poll? Try accessing it at pollev.com/denisec573, then think of the possibilities!

Another Cell Phone Idea

Continuing with the idea of using cell phones in class for good and not evil, how about a backchannel? Today's Meet is an easy to use (and free!) service that allows users to post to a feed remotely, using desktop or mobile devices. You create a free account, set up a "room," provide the link to your students, and they can add their thoughts, questions, or responses to the feed. There's a nice projector view you can use if you'd like that option, and you again have moderator control (you can even mute specific students without them knowing they're being muted).

You can give it a try right here! Just enter a name (or alias) where it says Nickname, click Join, then type in your thoughts. How about something you're reading this summer?

Using Cell Phones for Good Instead of Evil - Padlet

Cell phones. They are permanently attached to our high school students' hands (although a lot of adults aren't much better!). Dealing with mobile distractions during class is now a routine part of the job, so how about some routine ways of using them for learning?

Over the next couple of posts I'll share a few fun ways to incorporate cell phones into lessons. The first is Padlet - think of it as an electronic Post-It note board. After signing up for a free account, you can create customized boards then share the link with your students. When students pull up the board, they double click and a "sticky note" appears. They can enter text, images, hyperlinks... all sorts of fun stuff!

As the owner of the board you have the option to moderate the posts, so that something doesn't appear to everyone that shouldn't. You know what I'm talking about.

You can use this for all sorts of activities: brainstorming, asking questions, sharing resources, adding feedback. You could revamp activities you did using physical Post-Its like this one.

Give it a try here! You can visit the full-screen board to participate, or double-click on the smaller embedded one below. How about sharing something fun you're doing for yourself this summer? And yep, I'll have to approve your post before it's visible to others - gotta look out for the spammers!

Created with Padlet

Don't You Miss Having Summers Off? Part 2

It's now been two full years since I left high school teaching and transitioned to the community college. And still the question I am asked most often by far: "Don't you miss having summers off?" And still my answer is an emphatic NO. Because,

TEACHERS DO NOT HAVE SUMMERS OFF.

For the full explanation of this, see Don't You Miss Having Summers Off? Part 1. But simply put, teachers have a lot of work to do over the summer. To replace 1,000 words with a picture, here is what my hubby and I were reading on the flight to our summer vacation in August a few years ago:

How wild and crazy can you get?

Next Year: Past Years

Yesterday I wrote about thinking ahead to changes in procedures and routines you'd like to make for next year, and I gave a couple of examples of bigger issues I tackled in this arena. Because some of you asked, here are three of my favorite "next year I will" promises I made to myself that made a big difference when I implemented the changes.

1. I removed all pencil sharpeners from the room and just left out a box of sharpened pencils by the door. We've all dealt with the pencil fight. Students should bring their own pencils. They do not. We want them to learn responsibility. I get that. But one year there were three staff meetings in a row that I had to lend a writing utensil to a co-worker. You know what? Even in the "real world," a great many people don't take responsibility for their own pencils, and I am not going to fix that problem with my own personal classroom war. Also, I hate pencil sharpeners. 99% of them are total garbage. And they're an excuse for students to walk around, talk to their friends, create a distraction, etc. Just accept that part of your salary will always go to pencils and move on with life.
2. I refused to accept any individual assignments. Students love to throw assignments on your desk, in the wrong tray, in your hands, in their friends' hands hoping they will somehow get into your hands... enough. I had students keep all of their work in their folders, and only graded what was in their folders. That way it was completely on them to keep track of their papers, and completely the end of "you must have lost it," which was never true anyway. (More about my folder system here - I. LOVE. IT.)
3. Students received two hall passes per quarter, no questions asked, but no more than that. It really ticked me off when a kid would decide that my class was their bathroom class. Or when one kid asking to go somewhere set off a chain. So, at the beginning of each quarter I stapled two passes into their folder (again, love the folder system). They could use them for whatever and almost whenever they wanted, but once they were gone, they were gone, and if they had an "emergency" they would owe me a detention. At the end of the term unused passes could be redeemed for some teeny tiny reward. Excluding medical conditions, no one should need more than four passes a semester, and in fact after implementing this most kids didn't even use one. Problem solved!

What "Next year I will" promises have been big successes for you? I'm sure others would love some suggestions!        

Next Year: I Will...

Continuing on with the what you can do at the end of the year for the beginning of the year ideas...

What Didn't Work This Year

As you work on your classroom cleaning and organization, this is a good time to think over what didn't work this year. Specifically, what do you wish you had done/hadn't done/had done differently the first week or two of class. So many of our procedures and routines become so entrenched by the end of those first two weeks (whether intentional or not) that it's really difficult to hit the reset button and start over. 

Many of the ones that come to mind for me were lessons I learned starting in a new district. About two weeks into my third teaching assignment I desperately wished I had instituted a purse policy. This had never occurred to me because at my previous two schools hardly anyone carried a purse and for those who did it was just not an issue. At this school, however, not only did most girls carry purses but they carried ENORMOUS purses. This caused endless headaches. Purses on desks took up all the writing space, while purses on the floor blocked walking paths. Girls would spend half of class digging through these cavernous items trying to locate a writing utensil, and the other half "covertly" texting inside the purses. Fast forward to my second year: purses were to be placed on the back counter (in full sight of everyone in the classroom), and if you didn't take out everything you needed at the beginning of class too bad, you weren't going to the counter to retrieve something. Might sound harsh, but that alleviated everyone's fears of theft, eliminated constant disruption, and prevented texting trips. (BTW, same rules applied to backpacks - gender neutral policy!)

Starting at my fourth school, I noticed there were hand sanitizer dispensers by every classroom door but thought nothing of it. Mistake. Should have had a sanitizer procedure in place from day one. Especially because at some point the school stopped purchasing sanitizer and just put foaming soap in it instead (and this was a junior high - come on people, think these decisions through first!), so kids would get giant handfuls of foam when walking into the room and well, you can guess what happened.

Beyond bizarre examples like these, there are probably some daily annoyances you have to deal with that you could knock out by establishing a procedure right off the bat. 

• Are there areas of your classroom that experience too much congestion at the beginning or end of class, when assignments are handed in, or when students are collecting supplies? 
• Does a lot of time get wasted by dealing with minor needs (pencils, tissues, trash can)?
• Do the same kids always ask to go to the bathroom, their locker, etc?
• Does your desk fill up with random crap students toss onto it?
• Is the end of a class/lab/lecture/video/activity complete chaos?
• Is taking attendance/lunch count/whatever a headache? 

Those are just a few prompts to get your mind going. What isn't working for you? What could you fix with a little training or change in routine? Think about it now, while you're still in the trenches and aware of the aggravations. By August you may think "That wasn't really such a big deal," and you'll probably be sorry by September that your judgement was clouded by New Year Goggles!

Next Year...

While stressful, the end of April is also a wonderful time for teachers as you begin to develop hope and interest in the possibilities of "Next Year..." Over the next few posts I'll go over a few "Thinking about next year" tasks that I found to be indispensable. We'll begin with:

Clean and Organize!

I know that amid all of the grading, flurry of special activities and schedules, prom, and other hurdles along the track toward the finish line, cleaning and organizing is not high on the priority list. It's definitely one of those "in a few weeks I'll have all the time in the world..." for to-do list items. Here's why it's important to jump on it now:

• No matter how good your intentions, by the time the last day comes around you will be completely drained. 
• And completely drained means that your end of the year cleaning is going to consist of cramming items into any cabinet, drawer, etc that gets the job done with the promise that not only "I'll take care of it in early August" but also the perennial classic "I'll definitely remember where I put everything in August." Riiiiiiiiight...
• Just a little bit at a time will make the end of this year - and beginning of next - so much nicer. 
• This is the perfect time to purge! You know you're storing a bunch of stuff that you're never going to use, and the clutter it causes and space it takes up is a big stressor. Sneaky tip: have the tossables all ready to go by locker clean-up day, so when they roll the big trash cans into the hallway you can quickly and easily dispose of them!
• Clearing out all that stuff you don't want will make storing everything else for the summer so much easier.
• Purging and organizing will help you see what you really need for next year. 

Do not forget to enlist help! 

• You know those kids who are always eager to help? Give them something to help with! They'll be delighted!
• The bored kids who have "nothing to do" in study hall, after tests, etc. These kids are almost always super grateful to be given something to pass the time.
• The kids that you have to win over time and again. Ever notice that when you ask a kid to help you with something they seem to start to like you better? That's a real thing, it's called the Ben Franklin effect. Google it. Then start building relationships by asking kids to do things for you. Bonus if you can involve kids you don't currently have in class but know that you will next year. Don't forget the positive reinforcement. (NOT reward, positive reinforcement. They are different. I'm looking at you, PBIS.)
• Steal kids who are in detention, nab kids who are killing time after school before extra-curriculars, borrow kids of co-workers who are waiting for their parents to finish grading something so they can go home. Seriously, they're everywhere, help them be productive!

Cookie Monster and FACS

FACS teacher friends, this commercial was made for us! I don't know about you, but I have seen my kids do everything in this video (well, I haven't seen anyone actually swallow a wooden spoon, but definitely some gnawing). Enjoy!