Notes from the Playground

Subject:	Interpretive dance?
Time:	12:01 am.
Mood:	confused.

Still going through teacher feedback. Almost done (and I sincerely hope it wasn't as tedious to teach the unit it has been to put together the feedback). But, I just came across a truly mystifying comment:

Question: Please comment on your students' response to this session.
Answer: I have a Christmas tree in my room.

UM. WHAT.

[edit]
Wow, and later on she said it again!

Question: How successful were students in conducting their small-group discussions?
Answer: This was a little difficult. I have a Christmas tree in my room.

I guess from this one could infer that the tree was distracting, but...seriously, WTF?

Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Cycles
Time:	7:56 pm.
Mood:	determined.

One of the wonderful things (yes, there are some) about my place of employment is that we are known for actually testing our curricula in actual classrooms with actual teachers and actual students. (Seriously, it's kind of horrifying to think of the number of programs on which school districts spend millions of dollars that do not do this.) After we go and teach the stuff ourselves to try it out, we then send every unit out for a national field trial. This essentially means that we mail some teachers a box of materials, a giant binder, and a bunch of tests -- cold turkey. In return, we get mountains of feedback about what worked and what didn't.

Typically, the original developers of a unit are not assigned to rewrite that same unit based on the teacher feedback. This is simply because it is human nature to become wedded to what one has written and to lose the ability to look at one's writing objectively after one has -- just for example -- spent half of the hours one was supposed to be on vacation on it, scribbled notes about it on bar napkins, or written large parts of it while nursing hangovers. One tends to get attached.

Despite this policy, however, I have been tasked with rewriting a unit for which I was one of the original developers. This means that for the past week I have been poring over feedback from teachers I have never met about curriculum materials I wrote during the first few months at my job. Some of the feedback is a little harsh, but I am trying hard not to take it personally. After all, I have had much worse, much more immediate feedback -- no one is throwing a chair at my curriculum. No one is vomiting on my curriculum. No one is running away from my curriculum. This is an improvement over my previous curriculum development attempts ("please, please, write down something. ANYTHING. Okay, just don't eat the paper and I won't call your parents").

The good news is that teachers, all in all, received almost everything pretty favorably. Students tested well in most areas, and appear to have learned a few things. I don't think we even made any students cry (although there were many unfortunate reports of groaning). However, there was one comment that truly slayed me:

Question: What would you change about this curriculum if you were to teach it again?
Answer: I would cut out all of the unnecessary language arts material*. Great science lessons!

Uhhh...what part of integrated science and literacy curriculum did you not understand??!?

* = everything I wrote

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	I've got your moon phase right here.
Time:	5:07 pm.
Mood:	confused.

Dear Fellow Curriculum Developers,

I realize that I do not have a background in science. This is why part of my job is to read over what you have written and apply what is rapidly gaining the unfortunate moniker "The Jen Check." The Jen Check ensures that your prose is very clear and detailed, so that poor average elementary school teachers such as myself can finally understand, for example, why the moon has phases, which we were certainly taught at some point in an unhelpful way by some teacher who didn't get it either. And, I appreciate that I am in the unique professional situation of having my lack of knowledge be helpful.

However, when you have included a note to teachers entitled "To Avoid Confusion" -- that would be doing it wrong.

Thank you,

Ms. Jen

Comments: Read 8 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Peachy
Time:	2:53 pm.
Mood:	grateful.

Because I am a glutton for punishment, I volunteered to come back to Georgia. Once again, I am torturing classes of fourth graders by giving them a 90 minute test. What makes it worse than last time is the fact that it's a pretest, which means that -- ideally for our research purposes -- they are not supposed to do very well. Imagine being nine or ten years old and being subjected to an hour and a half of silently answering questions about stuff you have never heard of. Good times.

But, on the up side, this time we are working just outside of Atlanta and I have a GPS -- which means a significant reduction in navigation-related freakouts. The oddly poetic brand-name of the GPS is "Neverlost," which for me means "Onlyoccasionallylost." Since I have a serious spatial relations deficiency, this is a major improvement.

However, the actual point I wanted to make was that last night I ate tempeh. At a bar. At 9 PM. In a suburb. In Georgia. If you did not grow up vegetarian in the South you may not realize what a huge deal this is, but trust me, I almost keeled over from shock when I saw the menu. So, you heard it here first: vegetarianism has officially arrived.

Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Testing, testing
Time:	2:47 pm.
Mood:	exhausted.

This week, I am administering assessments to fourth graders in rural Georgia. Here are some things I have discovered:

1. You know the disclaimer on internet directions that says "for planning purposes only"? Unless you are in a major urban area, the disclaimer is lying. These directions do not help with planning, not to mention driving, navigating, or locating any address.
2. In Georgia, same apparently goes for commercially printed maps.
3. People who give good directions should be sainted. Good directions do not include the phrase "that road round somewhere over there."
4. I am not adverse to students calling me ma'am.
5. When students tell you "This test is just like the state test!", that is not a compliment.
6. Fourth graders groan and roll their eyes instead of crying.
7. If you are writing a test for elementary school students, 42 questions in one section is too many. Especially if you bugged your colleagues repeatedly about spending too much time on their part of the test, which contains 20 questions. If you did this, you are lucky that your colleague who is administering the test does not strangle you. This is to say nothing of the grammatical error that you repeated in a dozen or so of your questions.
8. I'm all for standards-based education, but seeing over and over again that teachers do not currently teach anything that is not explicitly written in the standards freaks me out a little.
9. Textbook companies now print editions for each state. I knew that, but still, it's disturbing to see the phrase: "Math: Georgia Edition."
10. People really like Jesus.

Comments: Read 23 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Know thyself
Time:	9:02 pm.
Mood:	blah.

I did that career meme and the top 10 were all some ilk of teacher. So, yes, yes, I GET IT, thanks, interwebs. Your first question was whether I enjoy working with children. You are a rocket scientist.

Although, one of the suggestions was music teacher, which is probably only slightly ahead of PE teacher in the category of 'things I am technically certified to teach but which would cause irreparable damage to children if I did so.' My music education curriculum would probably consist of: "OMG, kids, this is the greatest band ever!!! No wait, this one's awesome too. Have you heard this track? I forget who this is, but...wow."

In the meantime, I gotta go be a good little curriculum developer and figure out how to get purely theoretical children to explain condensation in one neatly organized paragraph. After this deadline (10/1), I hope I never have to think about the water cycle again. I realize life on Earth depends on it, but right now I totally hate The Water Cycle.

Which would be a good band name.

Comments: Read 7 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	intoner sez we're old, continued
Time:	2:02 pm.
Mood:	amused.

I have been packing and throwing stuff out for approximately 30 minutes and already I hit paydirt. Here's a sentence from the beginning of a paper I wrote for sociology class in 1993:

"The 1980s saw the advent of industrial music, which used technology to create strange, noisy effects that stood in direct opposition to traditional melodic music."

Don't even get started on the 87 things wrong with that sentence...but it gets even more hilarious from there. There are quotes from FLA and Baudrillard on the same page. I used the phrases "cyberpunk generation," "hegemonic society," "the introduction of electronic mail," "dynamics of social interaction," "laser technology," and "nihilist end."

This is one of those moments when I'm glad I'm old. At least I don't write like that any more.

Comments: Read 29 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Coachella Index: Year 2 (or, I Didn't Do My Homework But I Can Still Follow Along With the Class)
Time:	2:11 pm.
Mood:	jubilant.

My new favorite band: The Teddybears. Trust me, you have not lived until you have seen Swedes in three-piece suits and giant bear heads playing guitars. (Said

defenestr8r:"Well, that was unexpected!")
Trend alert: Bands with "Wolf" in their names are out. Bands with "Bear" in their names are in.
Biggest disappointment: tied between The Decemberists and Sonic Youth
Best show of the festival, and possibly ever: Gogol Bordello
Number of bands with accordions: 3
Number of bands who whistled: 3
Number of hiphop bands with a tuba: 1
Oldest people at the event: We were close. This year felt really young. But then again, there was the mass exodus of people who were clearly over 30 after Rage played "Bombtrack." That made me feel slightly better.
Best thing to blame logistical problems on: Rage Against the Machine fans
Most popular t-shirt: Well, discounting Rage shirts, Led Zepplin, which I thought was weird.
Biggest mystery: Why is the ghost of Joey Ramone DJing instead of Daniel Ash?
Most popular genre: What's a genre?
The new black: inane lyrics (yeah yeah yeah, la la la, whoo whoo whoo, etc)
Most popular band activity: commenting on how much hotter it is here than in the UK
Best quote of the weekend, from

fightingwords: "Worried your girlfriend can't see the show? Try dating taller girls." This was followed by the throwing of bottlecaps at girls on their boyfriends' shoulders who were blocking the view. Rock.
Best comment from the audience, during Arctic Monkeys (recall that they're Scottish): "What the fuck are they saying?"
Length of time my excitement at seeing the Red Hot Chili Peppers lasted: 90 seconds
Best team effort: subsequently running away in terror from the Red Hot Chili Peppers
Sentence I never want to utter again in my lifetime: "I think it's time for Willie Nelson."
Weirdest musical transitions: Explosions in the Sky --> The Roots --> Willie Nelson
Biggest increase in age of performers from one show to the next: Arctic Monkeys --> The Jesus and Mary Chain
Band that seemed the most freaked out by being there (but in a cute way): Silversun Pickups
Worst facial hair: Anthony Kiedis
Second worst facial hair: Interpol
Best dressed band: The Arcade Fire
Hottest band: Placebo, duh
Funniest moment: The people in the truck next to us who decided to kill time while stuck in traffic by having sex. In broad daylight. So we of course had to point this out to everyone on the road. And take pictures.
Best musical moment: The Roots covering Bob Dylan (and did I mention the tuba?)
Best non-musical moment: champagne + hot tub
Number of bands I saw: 33
Number of bands that sucked: 7 (up from last year, but still not bad)
Most missed person at Coachella:

bodyfour
Women who rock:

kampachi,

defenestr8r,

fightingwords

Comments: Read 26 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	N=0
Time:	7:10 pm.
Mood:	working.

It is Big Scary Presentation season once again, and once again I have somehow landed in the position of having to explain statistical results to an audience who probably expects me to know what I am talking about. I have absolutely no idea what the numbers I am looking at mean, and I sold my statistics textbook the minute my class ended. All I know is, we did good. Think I can say that?

Ack.

Oh, and tomorrow is the last day I have to get up at 6 AM and commute to the school far, far away. I'm pretty happy about that. But I will really miss the students that I have been working with for the past two months. They are wonderful kids, and it makes me have faith in humanity again that such a class exists (and especially that it is in a school that, at least physically and socioeconomically, is quite similar to the School That Ate Ms. Jen). Today they asked me if on the last day they could do science through recess. I know it's trite, but seriously, if you really want to warm a teacher's heart, ask them if you can work through recess. Also, the other day we were having a discussion and the kids got into a very spirited argument about what constitutes an atmosphere on various moons in the solar system. One of the students actually exclaimed, "Oh my god, don't you get it? There is NO ATMOSPHERE on Miranda!" Kids cannot possibly imagine how cute they are when they are geeking out.

I don't get to teach again for another two years, probably. Bummer.

Comments: Read 13 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Scholastic skills
Time:	11:28 pm.
Mood:	drained.

This morning, I asked the fourth graders in the land far, far away to write about what they had learned about objects in the Solar System. Their teacher always makes them write a minimum of a page, so, although I hadn't planned on requiring them to write all that much, they did. The problem is, this means some of them really had to stretch things out to fill out the required lines. My favorite well-okay-you-still-get-credit sentence was: "There are moons in space RIGHT NOW."

Think about it, folks. Moons. In space. Right this minute. Technically, this is true, right? This kid is so going to be an English major. She has already mastered the fine art of bullshitting your way through an assignment.

The bulk of the responses were very good, but there was a fair amount of filler. Other stunning revelations included that the Sun is big, people do not live on Jupiter, the rocky planets are made of rock, the gas giants are made of gas, and that comets come from space. Hey, at least they weren't wrong.

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	More potential trauma!
Time:	7:14 pm.

This month's winning ridiculous comment from the Paranoid Publisher:

They claim we will traumatize children irrevocably if we tell them that they have many of the same genes as earthworms.

How lame is that? However, I just realized that I don't know why my co-workers are constantly using earthworms as examples in books. That's really what the publishing gestapo should be asking: "What is it with you people and worms?" (

jetspeaks, I'm sorry yet again!)

Also, I have been given the heads up that the book I wrote about solar energy may be deemed too heavy-handed. They should have seen it before I removed the "we-are-all-going-to-die" angle! We'll see if I feel like going ten rounds on that one. I suppose I'd better. Because I'm a hippie.

Comments: Read 9 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	What is the sound of one ball falling?
Time:	7:50 pm.
Mood:	rejuvenated.

I only had that one brief and nightmarish experience with older students, so I am not as familiar with their ways as I am with the little ones. However, I have been teaching fourth graders for about two weeks now and I am finding them to be quite pleasant. More than pleasant. In fact, it's kind of appropriate for an astronomy unit, because I think they are all from outer space. They are from Planet Excellent Listening Skills. It's creeping me out.

The first day I taught, I said in a normal voice: "Boys and girls, I need your attention, please." Honestly, I did this just to see if it would work. And they all stopped talking, put down their pencils, and looked at me. Instantly. I do not know if you know this, but this is not something children do. Ever. For anyone. I have about ten million tricks for getting the attention of a group of students, and I have not had to use them at all. (Fourth graders are obviously too old for the Magic Quiet Wand or the Puppet Who Looks Sad if You Talk Out of Turn, but I at least thought I'd have to do the Clapping Thing or the Counting Down Thing or everyone's favorite, the Quiet Coyote. But no, all I had to do was ask.) Recall that the last time I tried to get a class of children over the age of nine to listen, they threw things at me. I would have been less shocked if these kids had started reciting the soliloquy from Hamlet.

So, that's good. I am glad we have a class of nice kids to experiment on. But, even though they are all hyper-polite and well-behaved, you still have to be careful what you say to the more savvy older student. They're pushing ten: they know what's up. So today, I was editing a draft of a book that I am supposed to read with the kids tomorrow, and something was definitely not right. I asked my co-worker who used to be a fourth and fifth grade teacher, to make sure I wasn't being paranoid.

me: You taught fourth and fifth grade, didn't you?
my coworker: Yeah.
me: So, it would be suicide for me to read this book with them that begins, "Imagine two balls falling." Right?
my coworker: (hysterical laughter)
me: That's what I thought. I'll be editing that sentence out of the text now.
my coworker: Did I ever tell you about the difference between fourth and fifth graders?
me: No, enlighten me.
my coworker: Well, once I was lining up my fourth grade class for recess, and they were all dribbling the playground balls. So I told them, "Get in line and hold your balls."
me: (hysterical laughter)
my coworker: It went right over their heads. They had no idea.
me: Really?
my coworker: But if they were fifth graders, you wouldn't have been able to teach for the rest of the day. That's the difference between fourth and fifth grade.

This explains why we have been saying "The Earth is round like a ball" all week with impunity. Now, if only I can say "balls" with a straight face from now on, we'll be in business. Because if there is one group of people who are infantile and think these things are funny, it's teachers.

Comments: Read 10 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Underwater adventures
Time:	3:38 pm.
Mood:	blah.

Starting tomorrow, I will be testing another curriculum unit for work. This means that I will be spending time almost every day in a fourth grade classroom in a land that is a far, far BART ride away. I have to be in this faraway land at 8 AM, which sucks. But do I hope that teaching about space will prove more interesting than teaching about light was. We shall see. If I am awake enough to remember any of it, that is. I have to admit that I am a little nervous about teaching the upper grades again, but I'm just going ahead and operating on the assumption that these fourth graders will not be trying to maim each other.

Anyway, one of my coworkers started testing a different unit, which is about aquatic habitats, last week. She had something funny happen to her, so I thought I'd repeat it here: one of her fourth graders stood up in front of the class and announced, "There is an aquatic orgasm in my tank."

At least she got most of the word right?

Comments: Read 5 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	I cannot go to school today, said little Peggy Ann McKay...
Time:	8:08 pm.
Mood:	sick.

Dear Germs,

This isn't cool anymore. You've been intermittantly couch-surfing in my respiratory system since Labor Day. The moment I think I can go one week and not hack up a lung, you are back. I have been washing my hands ten million times a day and pounding vitamins and wearing warm socks and still you persist. Get the message: I don't like you. You might drive me to do something blatantly Californian like acupuncture or aromatherapy or dropping out of society and living by myself on a carrot farm just so no one will pass you off to me ever again.

I know how the world is going to end. We will all have colds forever -- and they will be just bad enough to make us irritable and snotty, but not bad enough for us to miss work -- then all of we will shoot ourselves in the head and humanity will go out in a glorious blaze of cough drops and tissues.

Fuck you and the microscopic horse you rode in on.

Sincerely,
Ms. Jen

Comments: Read 6 or Add Your Own.

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