Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

Today is officially Pi Day, although we celebrated at school yesterday. Before I started teaching I never would have believed an 8th grader could recite 300 digits of Pi. Yesterday afternoon "J" proved me wrong. I also didn't think I would ever "celebrate" Pi Day but, sure enough, I did.

As part of our "celebration" of Pi Day, the student in each advisory that memorized the most digits won the opportunity to throw a pie at their (favorite) teacher. At least that's what I am telling myself. I am a 32 year old male first year 6th and 8th grade teacher in an inner-city school who runs a pretty tight ship. I didn't stand a chance. And sure enough, I didn't even make it through the 6th grade. It was a humbling and hilarious moment. I can still smell the cheap whipped cream in my beard. Thank god for the teacher happy hour last night.

"These were called breadlines."

It's Sunday night and I'm grading papers - specifically an essay exam from last week on the Great Depression. Due to the recent push for the state ELA exam I feel like my 8th graders are really at the top of their game right now when writing. Of course there are still hilarious (or disappointing) syntax problems, but a lot of students are writing great thesis statements, accurately using specific details to support their arguments, and just writing better.

That said, there are three problems I encounter perpetually: (1) inability/refusal to follow directions; (2) the "pile on," whereby a large number of seemingly arbitrary facts are grouped together in hopes of answering a question; and (3) "the blur," where issues and time periods are blended together and dumped onto a page - references to the Industrial Revolution in the midst of answering a question about the causes of the Great Depression.

Oh, and as you probably guessed the photo is by Dorothea Lange, 1940 near Bakersfield, CA.

A long way to go

I plan on blogging a lot more about my first year teaching in Room 507, but thoughts like this have crossed my mind a lot this year. It's funny to think that by Gladwell's theory, I was about 2 years past being an "expert" lawyer when I quit.

Small Change

I don't know why, but small stories like this make me feel good (even better) about the election.