Day 3; Perception walk

Perception walk

• materials: reporters note book or marble notebook
• walk, stop, percieve, record, sketch
  

Day2; Perception

Perception

• collect contracts
• procedural mini-lesson: habits of conduct

1. participate fully
2. be kind
3. be safe
4. take care of our space
   

• 5 senses plus the mind: intuition, instinct, gut reaction
• memoir writing: What I percieved- at lunch/on the way to school
• drawing activity

Week 1, day 1 Introduction

Introduction

• seating chart
• discuss URL, ISP, browser, email
• students will use their ID numbers as password for wjps.org accts
• class URL
• HW assigned: read intro blog post, print and sign contract for success

Personallearningspace.com

http://personallearningspace.com/dryggirl/weblog
Here's where I've been, and where it's at daddy-o! But seriously, I think you have to become a member to see the stuff we're doing because it's a kid safe space.

Whew!

I don't know what I've been doing to keep me from posting...let's see;

• NWEA aternative assessment prep. and admin
• checking in new equipment, computers and cameras etc.
• formatting and tagging the new machines, facilitating lockdown and security
  
• making our Fall orientation video with two days notice; see it HERE, (15 min., 72Mb)
  
• and making phone calls home becuase some of my advisory girls are cutting class and generally not doing so well academically and conduct wise
• prepping for 4 different elective classes. Advisory is not supposed to involve prep but it does, and Yoga is pretty easy to prep for, math elective needs a lot of prep. 7th video is an easy prep.
  

Saturday we have a College Board PD all day, and I'm having my bathroom renovated. Maybe I should hold off on the bathroom until things calm down at work. Do things ever calm down in a first year school?
Tomorrow if all goes acording to plan, the 7th graders will be having thier first shoot day. It is possible that I will be pulled away from that to continue proctoring exams.
I am overdue in getting progress reports out to kids. This is my first foray into using rubrics, (bottom of webpage). Next week is our first open school event.

The Rules, from Madeline at BSGE

BSGE.org

1. Be kind
2. Be safe
3. Participate fully
4. Take care of our space
   

Advisory; sitting in circles

I've known this, but hesitated, if I want engagement I have to be engaged. If I ask them to do something I have t0 do it with them. Much of my frustation with their bad manors, poor group ettiquette, and general teen bellyaching, has been relieved by simply putting more into our time together myself. We sit in a circle in my beautiful Yoga ZONE space. We did a couple pages from our College Board (CB) college planning guide workbook regarding how our choices indicate our values, how things we are good at and like lead us towards career exploration. This led to a discussion of family, and in particular sisterhood, since the results showed that the group valued: family, friends, entertainment, and fashion(shopping).
I took one girl aside to speak to her about something that has been on my mind, she is very negative and unkind/insensitive in her remarks to the group, any group; she doesn't really talk to anyone in particular but blurts out loud negative feedback like " would someone turnoff the music it is really annoying" " I don't want to write right now, I can't write when some forces me to write". I expressed my observations, she got defensive, I explained that I wasn't saying she is bad, i am just sharing with her my impressions, and that I want to help her get along in a more positive way in class participation. I also suggested that if she really didn't want to write, to write about what that feels like, she rolled her eyes and gave a big sigh of boredom. So I suggested that she write it sometime later in the day on her schedule and show it to me tomorrow. She was absent 'tomorrow' for the first time this year, maybe coincidence.

Meanwhile, it was highlighted that my family is not, was not, as close as some of these girls' families are, and we should share about it. So the writing reflection was on sisterhood, this and a little talk took the entire advisory. I invited everyone to bring in 1-2 family photos that represented something that showed up in their reflection. They were eager to share their story and photo, and commented on one anothers, and we only made it through half the group...to be continued on Monday.
The girls want t0 order in food as a group since we don't have open lunch. Maybe next year we will?

7th video; location scouting

Thursday we went down to the Queens Child Guidance Center room in the basement at IS25, our campus, to look at it as a loction for our projects. All three groups want to use it of course. So I am working on setting up a schedule with teh counselor down there to send them down independently by group for a rehearsal day and shoot day. Thay are doing great, directing themselves to learn.

MAC's are fun!

We got 24 G5 imacs and 30 mac book's this week...I haven't finished inventorying last weeks camera delivery! I'm playing sround with flickr now becuase I want to get those little moo calling cards, so cute. I like the macbook screen, very shiny...the remote control has a magnet by which it hangs on the monitor for both th eiMac and macbook, not like we'll be putting them out for class use...OK, what to do first, next, ...

702; Creating the shooting script

... and editing the rough draft script. The kids think they're done, they did it once, have thier plan, are ready to go, they think. They probably are, they could make it happen now, but ai want them to learn about thorough planning and preparation. Also, the laptops arrived today, (someone along the way thought the security cart might bounce, it doesn't and we've got them in low security lockdown overnight) so the kids will get to go right into editing with iMovie and the writers and recorders can start doing that soon in class. Shooting script sample.

Advisory; choices and values

We sat in a circle and each girl responded to this inquiry: "Describe something that you chose to do this weekend and what that choice tells us about what you value." Several girls did family gatherings, some shopped, several went to the movies to see "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre", and one girl admitted to being a bad babysitter for her two year old sister. It was a good session. I realize that I need to be fully involved if I want this kind of bonding to happen, otherwise the girls will separate into cliques and not focus themselves, yet...I notice this because in my other classes I am learning to guide them into self-directed inquiry and learning habits.

Remembering The Apology

There was a great moment for me involving a student last Friday.
On a bus trip this otherwise nice, coperative student called me a name, I gave him detention, and immediately felt guilty. Why? He's a nice kid, I was acting out of anger and frustration and I don't want to be that way...I was hoping to let it slide and that he would pretend he forgot and not show up like some kids do, but he showed up. I said " oh yeah" and sat down next to him to talk about it. I asked him what he thought about the situation and I sensed that he was trying to figure out what I was wanting him to say. I fed him some lines, like "well, why are you here?"" how do you feel about that?" and he said " I'm sorry" almost in question form. I said, "thank you, and I have to be honest with you, I wasn't feeling so well today, and I was annoyed with some other kids on the bus more than you, and I probably came down harder on you than I should have. I didn't think it was quite like you to call me a name, but i understand that you were angry and didn't like being talked to in that way just like I probably wouldn't have liked it either. So I'm sorry too and hopefully we can both do better next time." He looked at me with wide eyes and said "well that's a first". I asked "what?". He said "a teacher apologizing to a kid". I asked "what do they usually do?". He said, "they usually say they were right". I said " well, if I'm not acting in a way that I want to, I want to be able to see where I made a mistake and do better next time"
I think this was a first for me too.

this week has been a blur

Our media equipment came in and the electricians are still working where the computers are supposed to be installed next week, my program changed again, and tomorrow we have a field trip. One or two girls in advisory have had high drama crying episodes to try and get us not to call there mommies about some inappropriate boy-related behaviors. Two of my 7th grade boys almost had a fist fight over something silly, well silly to me.

But I made it into the city for a good burger with some friends tonight and met the art teacher at the other school in our building today.