From Ecclesiastes 3. 1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

After school today, one of my students from last year came by to talk to me. She was so excited to tell me how well she’s doing in all her classes, but that she really wanted to have me in class again. In 4 weeks, I’m going to have to send my current students onto Algebra 2 with the other math teacher. I think I might cry. I love them SO much. I didn’t think it was possible to get SO attached to a group of students. In the past 4 weeks (we are on 8 week terms), I have seen them each grow so much, not only in math but also as people. I can’t believe we’re at the half way mark and that I’ve taught an entire semester of Algebra 1 in 4 weeks.

I can’t believe how quickly this school year is going! My first day with students was on Wednesday, July 27th. This year I am teaching Algebra 1. We are having 8 week terms at my school. In this 8 weeks, I have to teach my students the ENTIRE year of Algebra 1. Whoa. Thankfully I have them 3 hour a day, Monday through Thursday. Here are the PROs & CONs of this change…

Pros:

1. 100% direct instruction- if I use netbooks it’s a teaching tool not as the main source of new information

2. Small classes (I have 5 students in the morning & 4 in the afternoon)

3. I teach during the day all week.

Cons:

1. I lost my prep period Monday through Thursday due to the new schedule.

2. Since I am teaching the same students 4 days in a row during the day, I have to teach a 12 hour day every two weeks. Our night students have different teachers every night… it’s a bit chaotic right now.

3. My new prep time is on Friday…. which has also turned into the day of meetings so really no prep time.

4. 3 hours of instruction is a REALLY long time to plan for. I have between 3 and 5 objectives a day.

My student took their first unit exam this past Thursday. Overall, they did really well. My afternoon class did much better and their attendance was also much better. If a student misses 1 day, they get SO behind since I cover so much material. It’s kind of crazy how much they are learning in 1 day. But, I think they are really enjoying it.

One of my biggest goals this year is to help my students overcome math anxiety. In the pursuit of helping students LOVE math, I am going to be having a monthly topic in my Math Matters section of my room. Every other month, I will highlight a career that uses math. And then on the opposite months, I’ll be highlight different topics in math (math anxiety, reasons why algebra is important, etc.).

End of July/August is going to be math anxiety month! I am going to be giving my student a survey about math anxiety- Math anxiety an emotional reaction to mathematics based on a past unpleasant experience which harms future learning. A good experience learning mathematics can overcome these past feelings and success and future achievement in math can be attained. And then I’ll be offering 10 strategies for overcoming math anxiety.  I’ll put up pictures when I finish putting it up in my classroom.

Question: What is one thing that you liked about this class and why?

Student #1′s Answer: “My teacher because she has helped me a lot and never gave up on me like my past teachers have.”

Students #2′s Answer: “The teacher is very helpful at all times. Why? Because she loves her job.”

There have been moments when I felt so frustrated with a student that I wanted to just give up. On my desk, I have the DCA competencies…and I always hang on to the asset based thinking. This past year I have really grown in my ability to look outside of all the negative to find the positive. Student #2′s answer really shocked me. I was convinced she hated me until I read this. And the thing is… I don’t love my job. But I love my students.

3 more days of students and then we begin our summer break of… 2 weeks! YAY for working at year-round school.

Follow-up…

I finished giving student surveys today. There were some really heartfelt answers from students…

Question- What is one thing that you liked about this class and why?

1. “Miss B’s a nice, good teacher, very welcoming and patient with people like me in math as well.”
2. “The teacher is always so happy.”
3. “How my teacher is always here to help and the fact I like math.”
4. “Cause Miss B will help whenever I need and she help me understand I can open up to her”
5. “The commitment. The teacher is so helpful.”
6. “How nice Miss B is and how she always willing to help”

Question- What did you learn this year in Miss B’s math class?

1. “I learned that math is not some ‘monster’ I can’t handle.”
2. “She wants us to be graduates.”
3. “How to be more positive”
4. “Not to let math get me upset”
5. “That is takes time and you have to be willing to work hard to learn the math to pass”
6. “Taking my time to listen Don’t be afraid to ask question”
7. “I learned that I was smarter than I knew. I learned so much there’s no room to write it all.”

It’s great to hear students like me. I’d much rather they write that they liked the class because they like doing math. I know that every student won’t love math, but I’d really like for students to leave my class confident that they can do math. I will have the same set of students for the 2011-2012 school year, so there is more time for convincing!

Last week one of my students finished his LAST credit (in Algebra 2) and became a high school graduate. Another one of my students finished up his last credit tonight and is now a high school graduate. I am so PROUD of each of them. They have both overcome so much in their life and have worked relentlessly to reach their goal: graduate high school. I would use their initials when I talk about them but they have the same first name… random. One of them is joining the army, the other is applying to 4 year universities– he is going on a campus tour tomorrow with our college transition adviser.

In my high school yearbook, the parents of seniors could buy ad space to write their graduate a message. My mom had the following poem put in it for me:

After a while you learn the difference,
Subtle difference,
Between holding a hand and
Chaining a soul.

You learn that love
Doesn’t mean leaning and
Company doesn’t mean security.

You begin to learn
That kisses aren’t contracts and
Presents aren’t promises.

You begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open,
With the grace of an adult,
Not the grief of a child.

You learn to build
All your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground
Is too uncertain for plans.

After a while you learn
That even sunshine burns
If you get too much.

So you plant your own garden and
Decorate your own soul
Instead of waiting
For someone to bring you flowers.

You learn
That you really can endure.
That you really are strong.
You really do have worth.

I wish the same things for my new graduates. I hope they are leaving our school knowing that life is what you make of it, that you never ever ever give up, and that if you work hard you get smart.

This time last year I was preparing for finals, packing up my apartment in Chicago, and having way too much fun in my last days as a college student. Some days I really can’t believe how different life is now. The above quote is a perfect quote about my life right now. I don’t know if I’d quite say I’m in love with my job. But, I am in love with giving amazing hard-working individuals a second chance at an education. My job also breaks my heart on a pretty regular basis. Some of my students go through tragic event after tragic event, and yet they are still going. It breaks my heart to see them go through so much sorrow, but yet it’s so hopeful to see their resiliency. It’s a really hard thing to hear so many heart breaking stories every day. At point do you become numb to it– or is it worse to become numb to it? Hearing these stories still gets to me. I feel like all my patience and emotions get used up at work, and by the time I’m home I can’t handle anything extra that’s emotional. I can only imagine that my friends would say I’m not as much fun to be around… when did I become old, emotionally drained, and exhausted?

About a month ago I started posting a graph of how much time each student spent the week before. I drew a line across the graph to show where students needed to be reaching. I went back and forth about should I put their names or not. I ended up giving them numbers at first. But last week I put it up with their names. No one freaked out, which was my biggest fear.

This is one of the graphs, with names cropped out of course. One thing I know I need to do is discuss the graph with students more consistently. In my smaller classes, I am better at checking in with students about their progress. In some of my bigger classes (particular in my evening courses), I don’t always get to every student every day. 

1. www.brightstorm.com- this website has been amazing for relearning a lot of things I’ve forgotten from Geometry and Algebra 2. I also give links to my students for them to watch. Most of the videos are less than 10 minutes.

2. Kuta Software- I have been fortunate that my school purchased Algebra 1, Geometry, & Algebra 2 for myself and the other math teacher. There are free worksheets on their website http://www.kutasoftware.com/ I’d HIGHLY suggest purchasing the program. It’s like $100 for a personal license. You can copy and past problems into a word document. You can make practice sheets for students in just a few clicks. It has been a life saver!!

3. Slope and Y-Intercept This is a new link I received from a session today. I can’t wait to use this with my students to show them what changes in slope look like.

4. www.ck12.org – this is FREE textbook that you can edit! I attended a session today that was put on by CK12. They have textbooks for all STEM classes in middle and high school. The potential of these open textbooks is pretty limitless. I’m excited to explore this more!

5. www.engrade.com – free online grade book. There are a lot of features of this website. You can give students quizzes using the website and it goes straight to your grade book. Students can view their grades using the website. And it’s free!

6. www.math-drills.com- free printable worksheets. I used the 5 minute frenzy worksheets at the beginning of the year as a warm up for my students to practice their multiplication facts (most didn’t know them). Students set goals each day for how many they wanted to get correct (out of 100) and then recorded their progress each day on a goal sheet. 100/100 earned them Multiplication Master Status. After that, I differentiated different fast facts sheets for students- division, adding integers, subtracting integers, etc.

7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFSrINhfNsQ -My absolute favorite factoring video! Plus the math teachers in the video are pretty cute. I dare you to watch this video, and then try to tell me you aren’t singing to yourself “teach me how to factor”

8. http://radicalmath.org/ Interested in incorporating social justice issues into math? This is your website!

9. http://www.khanacademy.org/ – A HUGE selection of videos in math and other content areas

10. http://www.regentsprep.org/regents/math/algebra/math-algebra.htm

11. http://www.youtube.com/user/derekowens Derek has a pretty extensive math video collection

12. http://www.flashcardexchange.com/tag/Algebra Tons of printable flash cards with great info!

13. http://www.mathplayground.com/wpdatabase/wpindex.html Great interactive website to practice math word problems

I’ll try to keep updating this as I find more resources.

Oprah gives the best advice. I really love this idea of a grateful journal. The more I talk about the parts of my job that I absolutely love, the more I love my job. And the negative aspects don’t seem to matter as much.

So here goes my 5 things I’m grateful for today:

1. My students trust- one of my students today talked to me about her relationship (or lack there of) with her father. She told me a lot of details about some painful experiences in her childhood. It took her a lot of courage to tell me about this.

2. My new student student, S- She told student from #1 that she admired her. S started yesterday, and said she appreciate how this student was welcoming and helpful, showing there were good people still in this world. She also told this student that she could tell that she was really “going at it”, and that she could tell how determined she was to earn her high school diploma. My students are constantly saying things to uplift one another. How could anyone not appreciate that much positivity?

3. My 2 roommates- they both offer different perspectives to situations. Often times another perspective is all it takes to see the good in a situation or find a solution to a problem.

4. Giving Sum- This amazing organization is full of individuals focused on making their city better. Tonight, I had the opportunity to talk to some of the members about what I do every day. It definitely gave Indy another bullet point under my pros on my Indy pro/con list. Perhaps Indy is growing on me….

5. The song “Dog Days Are Over” by Florence and the Machines- This song has the ability to pump me up even on a challenging day. The power of music to alter your mood is amazing.