Thoughts on a first week

It is hard to believe that I'm back at school already (a brief five weeks after leaving school early in Turkey), but I am happy to report that I survived my first week of student in my new school. More than that I am realizing why I made the choice to change schools. I wanted a smaller school, which I definitely got as I teach all of the grade 9 and 10 math classes (there is just one other math teacher in the high school, who also happens to be one of my housemates). I wanted the freedom to teach how I wanted and try out some of my crazy ideas. I've tested that freedom (successfully) already...taping down a coordinate system on the auditorium floor to check and see if my students remembered how to plot points, pulling out individual whiteboards to force each of my students to attempt a problem, putting letters up all around my room to test students ability to name lines, planes, and points meeting specific criteria (I can't tell you how often I heard the question, "Miss, why are there letters all over your room?" although they were surprised when I pointed out there were some on the ceiling as well!). I'm not sure if I'll be able to stay as creative but it is nice to know I do have the freedom to do what I want. Now I just need to work on learning those 90 new names.

How difficult should it be?

Do you ever have moments when you know something exists but you just can't seem to find it? When, despite your best efforts on Google search you just can't seem to hit on the exact key words you need to pull it up? I got quite frustrated today trying to find sample advertisement that made claims based upon some sort of undisclosed statitiscal analysis. You know the ones that I mean...the 9 out of 10 dentists recommend, with better highway mileage than any other domestic car, more washings for your money....After over half an hour of searching I *finally* came across two that I thought would work out okay for my statistics unit. And I have to document them so that I don't completely lose them again in the future!

It's fun to be a math teacher

Once you get past the idea that lots of kids hate your class because they are afraid of math. Wednesday was World Math Day, and our department decided to be geeky enough to celebrate. There was an online competition held worldwide where students could compete against kids in other countries in minute long speed arithmetic (adding, subtracting, dividing and multiplying only) challenges. It was great fun to see my kids excited about doing math problems. Its amazing how the aspect of a bit of competition can motivate and excite some kids. Sometimes its fun to be a math teacher.

I had to laugh

Many of my students call me Ms C, as my full last name is a bit of a mouthful for students that are not native English speakers (as well as for some native English speakers). I had to laugh though when I received a paper and the student had written my name as Ms. See, I guess that is what it sounds like, but it strikes me that he was missing the point a bit.

oh the confusion

It's amazing the little things you sometimes take for granted as a teacher. Like knowing how many students (roughly) you'll have show up for class the first day, and having a schedule before classes start. I was told this morning that my schedule will change at least one more time (for the third day in a row) before it is set. I'm not really complaining, after all I'm losing periods which means a lighter load for me, but it does seem a bit ridiculous when school technically started today. Thank goodness we don't see kids until tomorrow. In the meantime I'm making enough copies to cover what the maximum class size will be and hoping they'll be smaller. Its just enough to make your starting week seem stressful (above and beyond the normal first day of class nerves).

"Responsibility Exams"

"Responsibility Exams" (Sorumluluk) - n. The exam a student who has failed a class a previous year takes in order to get credit for the course. Each exam can be up to 80 minutes in length, and a person can try as many times as necessary to pass this exam.

So why are they called responsibility exams anyways? (Although who knows if that is an accurate translation from the Turkish.) Perhaps because it is the student's responsibility to show up to take the exam. Or because it is their responsibility to actually study and pass this test. Or maybe because it is one of the responsibilities of the teachers to provide this last shot chance to make up for a year of slacking off. I don't really get it. All I know is that it requires A LOT of running around and signing official forms. Turns out that all our work this week to prepare an exam, make sure it was in proper form, and getting all the necessary signatures was for 1 student (ONE!) who in the end never turned up to take the exam. (I guess he didn't follow up on his responsibility) I can't be to upset, although I am annoyed that we had to even prepare the thing, at least I'm saved the hassle of grading the thing (a huge improvement over the 17 we had to deal with in February). This means I am now officially done with all of my work for school. Woo hoo summer here I come!

I have to admit that this system is a bit bizarre. How is it that a single 80 minute exam can make up for a semester or a year worth of under par work? The rules also say that if you fail grade 10 but pass grade 11 (in a single subject - not the entire year) then the pass you earned in the following year negates the failure the previous year. I believe it remains on the report card as a failure, but the students do not need to take a test to pass out of it. When I start to think about I get really confused....better to leave it alone and just do what I'm told is necessary.

What's the point?

Today I got very fed up trying to fill out one of the necessary hard copies of things that is required of us. We do all of our grade entry on the computer, use the program to print out report cards, even allow students to access their past grades via the program. Yet we still have to fill our a little red book which lists the main grades (3-4 per semester) for each student to satisfy ministry requirements. What's the point of using the computer if we still have to hand write copies as well??? Really I'm just annoyed because about half way through completing my books (I have to many students/classes to fit all my grades into a single book) I realized I was writing down geometry grades for math grades. So I had to go get two new books, tear out all the pictures of my students, paste them into the new book and start all over again. (white out is not acceptable!). Grrr!!!

Just two more points....please!

One of the things I hate about the time coming around for calculating the final semester grades is that it never fails, I always have a handful of kids come begging for 1 more, 2 more, 3 more points on their grade. In some ways I understand, they're close - but I refuse to just give it to them! Arbitrarily I decided this year that I wouldn't even talk to anyone who needed more then three points (seemed like a reasonable cut off to me). I've made a couple of kids take a make-up exam to prove to me that they can pass an exam before I'll even consider the possibility of them passing for the semester. The others, who just want a few points to make a difference between a 3 and a 4 or a 4 and a 5 (ultimately about their overall gpa) I required them to complete a few math puzzles (found on-line). If you're bored, see if you can solve them:

1) Use the digits in the year 2007 and the operations +, -, x, /, sqrt (square root), ^ (raise to a power) and ! (factorial) along with grouping symbols to write expressions for the counting numbers 1 through 30. All four digits must be used in the expression. Only the digits 2, 0, 0, 7 may be used, and every digit must be used for each number. Multi-digit numbers such as 20, 207, or .02 may be used.

2) Your challenge in this puzzle is to move exactly 3 toothpicks in the following arrangement to make 5 triangles:
ΔΔΔ

3) The challenge in this puzzle is to place the numbers 1-8 in the rectangles below so that no two consecutive numbers are next to each other horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. For example, if the 5 is placed in the far left box, then the 4 or 6 can't be placed in the box directly to the right of the 5 or the two boxes that are diagonally above and below the 5.



4) You are going to mix up some concrete, and in order to get it just right you need exactly 6 liters. But you only have a 4-liter and a 9-liter bucket. How can you do this? Assume you have an unlimited supply of water and that you are putting the water into a third, un-measured container.

Choices in writing utensils highlight cultural differences

Sometimes I find myself noticing and focusing on really small differences. Case in point: this past week I keep going back to the idea of how many of my students here use pencils. I find it interesting that in the three countries I’ve taught in the preference for a writing utensil has been unique to each place. In Guinea every one of my students came to class with a red pen and a blue pen. The majority of the writing was done in blue ink with the red used to highlight new entries in the outline form, or to highlight important information. I could never use more then two colors on the board because then my students didn’t know what to do in their notes. Blue and red pens were the only choice they had. I’m not even sure if they sold pencils in the market. I know that I switched to using pens almost exclusively while I was there (unusual for a math teacher). In the US I had to take pens as collateral for pencils whenever I gave a quiz or test. Since there was a greater variety of writing tools available I could be more demanding about what my students used on material they turned in. Pencils were required for any material I collected. However the majority of the time (not for every student) pens were more common. But these came in so many forms and colors that sometimes I felt like I could tell whose work I was looking at just by the ink color. Writing utensils in Savannah could best be attributed to a wide selection or options. In Turkey my students are most attached to pencils. Every single student has a pencil case in which you can usually find at least 2 pencils (usually mechanical), a separate eraser and lead for the pencils. All exams, no matter the subject are done in pencil. In fact I’ve had minor crises when my students couldn’t find a pencil for a quiz. While pens and available and used, it has become clear to me that pencils are their preferred choice. I also find it interesting to think about what these choices mean in terms of neatness. In Guinea, students were fanatical about their paper being clean. What this usually meant is that anything they did they wrote twice. One copy would include all of the mess ups and work; the final copy had to be almost pristine in appearance. In the US we tend to encourage our students to work steadily, simply crossing out anything that they don’t want considered. Sometimes this results in a rather messy final product, but I think actually gives a student more time to think about what they are putting down. In Turkey, like in Guinea, they really don’t like to include work that is not correct. Oftentimes I receive problems which show two little work, where I can tell that some of it has been erased. The benefit of the pencil is that Turkish students don’t have to completely start over if they make a mistake, but they definitely make liberal use of the eraser to end up with a copy that is neat enough and accurate enough in their mind.

I survived!

There's always something satisfying about finishing up your last class for the school year. I know I'm not completely done working but I am finished teaching. The best part is that it means I've survived my first year of teaching in Turkey. Really, having to grade exams and then babysitting the few students who actually show up the last week will be nothing compared to what I've been through the rest of the year. It always amazes me though how few students want to spend their time the last couple of periods reviewing. I'm here, I'm willing to answer questions, but they just don't want to work anymore. I had more questions today then the past week combined, and I think that is just because the math exam is actually tomorrow...so they're running out of time to prepare (although they weren't ready to work yesterday). Whatever. It's time for me to CELEBRATE I've survived another school year!

Observations

I finally am done with all of my required observations (my department head coming in to observe my class) and best of all have all of the write -ups completed and approved. It's not that I'm against being observed, in fact when implemented well I think its one of the best methods for improving my own teacher skills. I look forward to being given a specific thing to think about and try to adjust to. Its where I first became aware of trying to make sure I space my questions out around the room, and how the need to get kids up to the board has been reinforced. Sadly though, it's not always useful feedback. My entire feedback to my write up this time: "This looks great. I have nothing to add except that you are a very effective teacher..." That's great. Thanks for the compliment, but what can I do to get better?

Instead I've taken to using the write ups as a way to highlight some of the problems with the system at our school. My focus this time - the fact that I only had 9 out of 18 kids at the end of the lesson (after starting with 5). An excerpt:

The bell rang to start class and I looked around at a mostly empty classroom. Okay, there’s an extra five minutes built into the schedule, I’ll give my students a bit more time to filter into class. I’m supposed to have 18 in this section, and frankly it hardly seems worth starting up with just 5 of them present. About 10 minutes into the lesson I finally got up to start working with the 7 students who had shown up. I started class by completing another example of what we had done in the previous lesson, important I thought because the variations we were to explore today followed a similar procedure and depended on understanding what we had already done. Turns out that was a very good choice, since when the problem was first put on the board they were all staring blankly. Was it just because they tend not to be very awake at 8, or do they really remember that little from Tuesday (only 2 days ago)? I guess it doesn’t matter, what does matter is working them through the process in a way that will trigger their memory so that we can then expand the method for finding area to new situations.

Why oh why are they allowed to miss so much class? 45 days total (out of only 180 school days) are permissible. Frankly, it's ridiculous. I understand some of it, and it's relation to the external nation wide testing system here - but come on. It's okay to miss 1/4 of the total days of school? Give me a break! At least we only have 4 more days until exams begin. Funny how they all show up for the days they assume will be set aside for review. As long as I'm not expected to reteach the material 20 times I guess that is okay with me.

Laryngitis

One of the special joys that comes with teaching is losing your voice at least a couple of times. For me I tend to get laryngitis at least twice a year, usually as the seasons are changing (don't know how that affects it). The good thing about not being able to speak above a whisper is that my students are forced to stay quiet if they want any chance of hearing me. Forcing kids to stay quiet isn't going to happen (especially here in Turkey) but they seem to have a certain level of respect that makes them stay quieter when a teacher can't physically get any louder. It's nice too because it means that I don't even have to think about yelling at them for whatever reason...I can't yell so it's not an option. There's a certain relief from normal classroom management that comes with having no voice. And at least for a couple of days my students are respectful of that.

Tricky Students

I was introduced to a new trick by my students today. It's always amazing to me what they can come up with...

Friday afternoon classes are always difficult, all anyone wants - students and teacher - is to be done and get outside into the sunshine. I probably have the least control over my Friday afternoon class. I just go and teach, hoping they will focus enough to learn something before the bell rings. As soon as that bell rings the kids are out the door, happy to be free for the weekend. So imagine my surprise when I heard the bell but only two of my students made a move to the door. Huh, odd. Maybe I imagined it. It was a little early for the end of class. Sit down, let's move on. Five minutes later I heard a faint bell again. Now I know that wasn't the real bell - there's no denying when it really rings. Come to think of it, one of the other teachers warned me off a trick some of the students were trying...recording the sound of the bell on their cell phone and then playing it back in the hope of getting out of class early. The third time the bell "rang" I was positive of it. My students were trying to trick me! OK, not so surprising, this is what I would call a mischievous class. Enjoyable but always testing the boundaries. Lucky for me I didn't bite the first time they tried it, little do they know that it was only their own lack of movement which made it fail. Just one more reason cell phones and i-pods should be barred from the classroom. The smaller technology gets, the more it seems to disrupt class. I ended the lesson as the real bell rang (much louder then the recorded versions) with a warning to the whole class "The next time I hear it I will take the first phone I see for a week." It'll be interesting to see if they try it again.

Exams

Well it's exam time, which means that I have a pile of grading to do. It also means that I'm procrastinating on that in any way I can. There's only so long you can look at students murdering math before you go crazy and want to do someone some harm or else take a nap. I'm 3/8 of the way through my grading. Unfortunately that doesn't seem like too happy of a number to me right now. Daily I'm regretting the format of the math department here. Thanks to the Turkish ministry of education, math and geometry are considered two separate courses requiring their own notes, exams and schedules. What that means is that for my 6 hours I have each group in class I have to come up with grades for two separate courses. All in all not so bad until I realized that it means I have double the number of exams to grade - 2 for each of my students. Sigh....back to the grindstone.