The End of the Year

Well, we've finally come to the end of another year. It's been a good year. After doing this for over 20 years, I would think that I had it all figured out,  but every year I learn something new. Maybe when it's time to retire I'll get it down. : )

Spending a year with these students, you really get to know them and when it's time to say good-bye, it's not that easy. There are those students who you are happy to see leave, but I didn't have that many this year. This year has been tough for a lot of my students, and I worry about them as they enter the busy drama-filled life of high school.  I had students who have lost a parent due to illness. Other students had to deal with parents going through divorce. Just recently, one of my students received the news that cancer will be taking his brother within the month. This was especially tough, since I know the family. When we hear news like this, I find the stress that I feel when my students don't turn in their work or when parents blame you for their student's lack of progress so insignificant. I have no problems when compared to some of what my students are dealing with. It's in these times when I have to rededicate myself to my primary job as care-giver to these students. Whether they understand the concept of Manifest Destiny or remember the names of the generals at the Battle of Gettysburg is secondary to the lesson that I must teach them that there is a future for them that is better than the negative present that they are experiencing, and if they can't find someone in their immediate circle who will show them compassion or sincere concern for their well being, I must. I will - especially to those students who I previously stated was happy to see leave.

Today's Tip for New Teachers: Make sure you have something busy for the students to do during the last week. Kids normally check out a week before school ends. If you're trying to give a last test or a major project, you may find students who are absent or not really into school anymore. I know you are taught to teach to the very end, but you can't get too much across to kids on the last day of school. I use that day for my End-Of-The-Year speech, where I encourage them to do their best and to ignore the negative influences in their life. I also like showing an End-Of-The-Year slide show of the students. That's always fun.

See you next year.

Sam
SuccessInTheClassroom.com

Build a Civil War Soldier

Hello again,
It's been a while since my last post. All of a sudden, you'll find as a teacher, things just pile up on you and you have no extra time.  Your prep periods are taken with grading an important project or meeting with parents, etc. Well, now that I have time to post, I wanted to tell you about a project I tried for the first time. A good teacher is always looking for new ways to teach the old subjects. You know you're ready for retirement when you are doing the same projects that you've been doing for the last ten years. I never want to get that predictable.

I wanted to have my class learn about what life was for a Civil War soldier, but instead of just lecturing or giving them book work, I created a project that I call "Build a Civil War Soldier." Next year, I'll probably call it something more clever, but this was almost an experiment for me. What I had the students do was watch a video on life as a Civil War soldier - It's Discovery.com video called, "Foot Soldiers - the Yankees."
As they were watching the video, they were supposed to write down important facts about the soldier's life.

Once the video was over, I divided them up into groups. (I've tried different ways to group my students, but the best way that I've found is randomly. I'll discuss grouping in a later post - maybe.) Once they were in their groups, I passed out long sheets of white butcher paper (about 6 feet). Then, each groups was to select one student to lay down on the butcher paper while someone else traced their silhouette. (This, I found was a lot more difficult that it sounds.)

Once the form of the student was on the paper, the group then proceeded to draw a face, a uniform, guns, etc. They even gave their soldier a name. Then they would write the facts that they took from the video all around the soldier. They then took turns presenting it to the class.

I was a little nervous that this project was going to be a flop. (Yes, I've had projects that have flopped. Every teacher has lessons that bomb. Don't stress about it. It's part of the learning process.) This project, however, worked pretty good. I even posted the better soldiers around the hallway by my class. I told the kids that our hallway was being guarded by Civil War soldiers. The kids enjoyed it. It got them out of their chairs, and they actually learned a lot. I've uploaded a picture for you to see. You could probably do this with almost any topic - characters in a story (Language Arts), a famous mathemetician or scientist, etc.

I'm sure I'll be doing this project again in the future.

Today's Tip for New Teachers: If you're doing a new project, try and do it with your highest achieving class first, that is your Honors or Upper Level class. The reason I say this is that they will most often give you the best work. Students in those classes seem to compete with each other for quality and creativity, so they will give you the best "sample" work for you to show to your other classes. You want to show the best examples for the other classes to shoot for. This is what I did with the Build a Soldier project. I had my non-honors classes see samples from my honors students before they started working. It gave them something to aspire to.

That's all for today,

Thanks,

Sam
SuccessInTheClassroom.com