Post #50 - Home Happily

With a short night, an early morning, and a long flight... well, not that long...

I'm home safely and happily and I've already unpacked some! So glad to be back. My glasses don't fog up, the temperature drops when the sun sets, and my parents cook for me! The smallest tidbits are joyous occasions now, including my carpet and a firm bed.

Twas a great, challenging, enriching and transformative summer. Thanks for sharing it with me!

-Holly

Check in my pocket, I'm done!

The posting hiatus has been rather boring. We've cleaned our site, typed our detailed evaluations for every student, had them edited and revised 4 times and stuffed envelopes to send off materials. That's a run-on sentence.

We also had a catered lunch, various closing exercises and each Teacher and Admin did a Presentation of Learning where we spoke or presented for 10 minutes about what we learned.

I completed all my work on Thursday; today was just helping other people, stuffing envelopes with the evaluations and checking facebook. Oh yah, lots of facebooking.

So, I left today with my paycheck and not too much regret. I was surprised to care SO little; I'm never going to see any of these people again (high probability), but I didn't leave on a sad note. There are a couple of people who I would love to keep in touch with but I doubt I'll actually see them again... and for the most part, that doesn't bother me at all.

Now, I'm back in the room... starting to pack. I know it'll all fit. Yes, Dad, it WILL all fit. I have a ride to the airport at 7:45am... and my flight leaves at 10:45. I'm riding with someone else who has a flight earlier than mine. Whoow. Gotta pack and get dinner tonight and I'm set to be home. So ready to go home. So ready! Mom, can we have lasagna or turkey curry or gazpacho this weekend?!

Thanks to all of you who've been following along... I really appreciate it.

Sick Day

When I came to teach here, I was confident I would catch something from the germy kids or the new Teachers. That whole new germ pool thing. Well, I made it 7.5 weeks...

Today, was spent working on the student evaluations, and when I turned my in before lunch, I was ready to go home. I had a fever, upset stomach and sore throat (Dr. Dad, I know you'll be trying to diagnose me...!). The weather reflected how I felt inside. I got a ride home and after getting a delicious bowl of chicken noodle soup from Panera, I went home (dorms) to sleep and medicate. It was nice to just zonk out for a few more hours and when I re-awoke, I still felt sick, but much improved.

Tonight, I've corrected all 13 of my evaluations for my kids. I've cleaned my - and other - classrooms, I've eloquently praised my students, I've taken surveys and been interviewed by my Director. The last major thing to do is my "Presentation of Learning"... about which I have NO PLANS yet.

We're having a good-bye dinner out tomorrow night -- just those of us who survived Breakthrough Real World: Eaton Residence Hall.

I'm feeling better now: don't worry Mom and Dad! I'll be at work tomorrow.

E-val-u-a-tions has 5 syllables...

So I wrote my first evaluation (aka "comments" from CA teachers). I chose my easiest - which was my top overachiever kid. She's so eager and great.

I turned in my half-page narrative praise. I just met with my peer-editor and here's a sketch of what she said: "this is great, you have good examples, your paragraph flows well. Just... be careful of your wording. Remember that you're writing it to students and their parents."

(I look at the paper, and the following words are circled: sound, meticulous, astute, conscientious)

Me: So what are you saying? You want me to use small words?

Her, smiling: Yes.

Darn - I guess it's not the same at CA teachers... I have to continue to use small words. I miss intellectual stimulation. Don't get me wrong, I loved the teaching, but I miss the challenging, persepective-changing, long talks that people here (Teachers included) consider totally dorky.

Rain Rain Go Away

Sunday, we went to the beach. Only, we didn't make it.

Scorching, muggy air greeted us as we began our pilgrimage to the beach; yet, after our hour bus ride to South Beach, the green-black ominous clouds started to dampen our spirits. Then, they began to dampen then drench us. Closed beach equals time for a meal. Sunday equals half-price menus. Score!

We went to a cool Italian cafe on the sidewalk and my $12 lasagna was good -- Mom's is better -- but certainly not worth the typical $23.99. Too bad for the stomache -- it made a nice dinner in my dorm room.

Dripping, we caught the bus back, bumping into our other half (the dormers who left before us also went to SB).

New distance on my run Sunday, and I'm nearly done with Harry Potter 6 - rereading it.

Countdown: school cleaning (COMPLETE). 1 of 13 student evals complete; 12 more to do, plus a "creative presentation of learning" for Thursday. Home in 5 days. Heck yah! (Now that the kids are gone, I'm so ready to be gone too. I understand how the week after students leave is a boring time for CA teachers. Hey, I'm spending my time in meetings and writing comments too...!)

I'll post about Monday when I get home today... sorry for the two-day absense!

Celebrate, Celebrate, Dance to the Music

Saturday was Celebration, the huge showcase of student work that we've been planning for at least 10 days. There are two parts: the performance and the academic expo. You've heard about the expo - that is what my poster board was for. Every class had a visual presentation of student work to demonstrate all the learning. After parents perused the expo, we corralled them into the auditorium -- this school's theater easily seats 1000 people, and with all the kids (180), Teachers (60), parents and families, we had at least 700 people in attendance. It lasted about 2.5 hours, and included poetry reading, dancing, skits from each department, and a cool set of "hosts".


































































After all that -- we had a parent-provided feast. Of course, all the families ate first, so by the time teachers got food, much was gone. But it was a nice gesture. And we did not expect to feed 700 people...!

I treasured the chance to meet kids' families. I hugged students, shook hands with many parents and grandparents, posed for photos with families. It was heartwarming to see the kids in the hybrid of "school" and "home". It was an ironic role reversal of all those award ceremony nights at CA when my teachers met my parents. I was teacher though. Many parents had beautifully kind things to say to me. One of my favorite students showed up sans family -- he took a city bus across town by himself to attend this 8th grade Celebration, but could not bring family with him. He'll go far in life.

We worked 15 hour days last week. We were snappy to each other. We were glitter-covered. We were sick of Breakthrough. And we were stressed.















The Celebration -- expo, performances, and meeting families -- made it more than worthwhile. With all my criticisms of the program and the people here, I found this one moment, a caccoon of pride, love, respect and confidence nearly enough to decide, on the spot, so return next summer. Yah, it was that intense.

Of course, now as I write this, the euphoria and joy are wearing off now, replaced by melancholy and angst that accompany evaluations, editing, cleaning, and close-out activities.

Say "cheese!"

This is my second period - I love these kids! Roy - navy tshirt on the left - wrote me the most heart-warming note today in class.


















Here is 4th period - more rowdy and sometimes, it was a challenge to not shout at them. They are all good kids -- my one problem child quit coming on the penultimate day of the program.
















Here's what I spent the last several hours working on. It's my poster showcasing student work to present at the "Academic Expo" which is an exhibit of student work before families watch the performances on Saturday at Celebration. It takes a lot of time to set this all up - there are 60+ teachers from both sites all with these exhibits in one room. Like a college fair, only not.

Construction paper, glue, and twelve feet of butcher paper

Today brought out the artsy, glitter-covered side of me. I finished all my packages for students - I went for both the bribery (sweets) and for the sincere (personal letters). All in all, each student received a small pack of candies (I kept the leftovers of course) and I wrote a 1/2 page letter on nice water-marked paper to each kid commending them for spirited participation, diligent work ethic, inquisitiveness and more.

During class, I asked each kid to write a letter to a new student next year telling them a few things they liked and didn't like about the class. In reality, it was my sorta-deceptive way of getting an honest evaluation of the class. One of the top students in the class wrote a heart-warming letter that basically said I was his favorite and best teacher, I was fair, kind, and the material was exciting. What more could I want?! Another girl said I didn't give much homework but I send them to YO! (detention/homework make-up time).

After the typical day, we transitioned from our site at the Middle School to the Upper School (down the street) and we are setting up a series of exhibits to showcase top student work in each class. There are lots of tri-fold poster boards, lots of papers on the walls, and lots of middle school art projects. I came home (at the dorm!) to glitter, courtesy of my fellow Breakthrough Staff and basically, I'm sick of arts and crafts, yet I get to do my own now, for several hours. Hope I don't drown in paint... I'll post photos when I'm done.

Showing the love...

Special thanks to my recent commenters! I don't know how many of you are actually reading this, but I think it's around 10 -- hearing from you gives me strength (almost like we're in it together!).

Hope your summers and your adventures are as rewarding (and more restful!) than mine!

Charades, Art and Enthusiasm

Today we played brain charades, I had words including the brain lobes and actions like "walking" or "memory" or "posture" or "heart rate" and the kids in my second period had a blast! They were very competitive and had a great time. I was so thrilled to see how much they remembered! And I targeted different "intelligences" or learning styles than usual by letting them act it out.

Fourth period was an entirely different issue. How do you show up at school with no pencil, not paper, not even a purse or bookbag? She's been irritating me this summer, but all the rest of my kids are great. I think I got kids in the upper third of the cleverness spectrum, so it's been rewarding to see how a kid can drop "corpus callosum" or "reaction time" or "retina" in casual conversation at... age 12.

Today, after meetings, rehearsals, and art projects I left work around 7:15 and went supply shopping for my parting gifts for kids.

Tonight: I called all my students (which takes longer than you'd expect) to check in on their projects. About half have emailed final copies to me which is awesome. I have to make the little goody bags of sweets to say bye and also write 10 more letters (personalized for each kid with strengths and advice - I'm encouraging a few kids to consider running for student government because they are great leaders.) Oddly enough, I seem to remember someone doing that for me when I was in 9th grade... see how I turned out :-D.... And I have to format and create my newspaper template for the kids. It'll be a long night, but it's not about us. It's about the kids -- and they will appreciate the notes and tokens. Tomorrow is our last day in the classroom, which I didn't think I'd be sad about, but think I actually will be a bit.

Fun Classes, LONG day

I taught for half the class period, and I think it went really well. We started with a discussion of language in humans (sound-meaning connection) and compared it to animal communication (often a physical change). Then I discussed Broca's Area and Wernike's Area (parts of the temporal lobe that control speech production and comprehension). I barely skimmed the surface of the linguistics, psychology, and neurobiology involved. The lab I work in at Harvard researches the evolutionary aspects of animal communication, so I was excited to touch the topic with my kids.

I shared a bunch of awesome YouTube clips as a way to integrate technology. My projector didn't work, but I cannot complain. I had 6 and 4 kids, so my giant laptop screen was sufficient!

Here are links to the clips I used:

McGurk Effect (is speech JUST auditory or visual too?)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=aFPtc8BVdJk

Lyre Bird imitating cameras and chainsaws
http://youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y

Bee Waggle Dance
http://youtube.com/watch?v=-7ijI-g4jHg&mode=related&search=


The kids' projects are coming along well - ideally they will be done tomorrow, but that's quite possibly not going to happen. So, we can work tomorrow and turn in everything on Thursday, which is our last day of class. Estimating how long to spend on a project has been a challenge because with three grade levels and a varying levels of enthusiasm, some kids do a lot while others manage to spend a long time doing nothing.

The days are very long because with Celebration coming up on Saturday we have a lot of work to display, skits to rehearse, songs to learn, and all sorts of things. It's 3-4 hours long and includes an expo of all academic work (books written, collages created, posters, student essays all that jazz) as well as a recognition of every department and a 30-45 minute student-written play. It's a big deal, and the kids are psyched, but the Teachers are getting worn out.

"It's not about us. It's about the kids" is the motto continually chanted by our Admin team, but at the same time, we're just not used to this kind of demands on our time. We do it, almost always with a smile, but teaching alone is exhausting, and to add to that 3 hours of staff meeting, painting posters, training and professional development.... sigh. I got home before 6pm tonight, which was thrilling itself!!

Overachievers

My kids all wrote a ton this weekend - I was really excited. Apparently, I had underestimated their abilities. One of my kids had a full page, front and back written out about the brain lobes and their uses in football, another wrote very intelligently about the causes, symptoms and treatments for schizophrenia. I was truly amazed, and very proud!

Today has gone well - no real commitments except my letters to my kids.

We're in the midst of sun shower - it's bright and sunny and rain drops are fallin' on my head...

Monday's Lesson Plan

Because the last time I posted a sample lesson plan, I actually had to print it from this Blog because I forgot to email it to myself the night before. I have successfully emailed it, but here's another example of a lesson plan, but it's apportioning class time to work on our newspaper project.

Holly Metter / Neuroscience

Date: Week 6 / Day 1 / July 23
Subject: Class time to work on project

Lesson Objectives:
By the end of class, students will:

-complete a rough draft of full article and
brainstorm an idea for a picture

-choose a title for the class newspaper

Lesson Procedure:

Do Now: Match the following:

1. Parietal a. personality, social skills, planning, memory

2. Temporal b. spatial reasoning

3. Occipital c. sound and speech

4. Frontal d. connects right and left hemisphere

5. Cerebellum e. breathing, heart rate and connects to spinal cord

6. Brainstem f. vision

7. Corpus callosum g. coordination, walking, posture

Select Newspaper title (5 minutes)

We will brainstorm a list (Daily Dendrite, Brain Bulletin, The Brainiac)

We will vote, majority rules

Review Expectations (5 mins)

I will review with the class what I expect from their assignment:

* 4-5 paragraph essay

* Clever title for article

* an image

Student Work Time (30 mins)

* Students will spend the remainder of the time working on their essays.

* By the end of the class, I will personally check in with each student to answer any questions about their assignment or their work so far. I hope to proofread the work so far.

* By the end of class, each student will have a rough draft of their essay (4 to 5 paragraphs) and a title selected for it.

Homework: Complete rough draft and revise it – spellcheck it. Find image to include. If possible, type essay. Bring revised draft to class Tuesday.

Possible problems:

1. If students only have a soft copy of their document, I will send them to the library with a note asking a Teacher to please print and send the kid back to class

2. If students do not have sufficient information or an adequate outline, I will work with them to develop a better structure. I have given most students outside resources that are appropriate.

3. If necessary, I will pull a kid out of ALA Monday to continue working on this project.

Barbeque at the Beach... in the Rain!

It's been a slow and lazy weekend, and somewhat productive. I've done about 3 hours of work for a club at school, talked to Travis a lot, slept a lot, read a lot (HP #6), and even called all my kids to check in about their assignments this weekend and written personalized letters to several of my kids. On the last day of class, I'm going to give them each a letter and some photos of the class and the brain dissection too.

This afternoon, the Admins all hosted a BBQ at the beach at Key Biscayne today, but sadly it poured all day. We made do and enjoyed our food anyway. Burgers and hot dogs and soda and cookies... all courtesy of our Exec Director. Yum. Oh, and by car it's only 15 minutes away, in contrast to the hour and half by bus. Oh well.. it's always a fun trip. A bunch of folks played beach volleyball and several of us got in the water. It was placid and pleasant, despite the continuous drizzle.

We're back now, and dried off. Here are some photos to tell the tale. Gotta love free food and crazy companions and awesome alliterations!

Feast and Talent Show

We feasted feverishly on Friday - we don't get homecooked food often, but yesterday we had a plethora of food! The culmination of Culture Week was a pot-luck feast with various families donating dishes. In the afternoon, we prepared for and enjoyed the Talent Show. The students were impressively well-behaved. Photos below will tell the story.

A Sampling of the Delicious Foods...














Yum. The gallo pinto (brownish rice) above is courtesy of Amy, one of my Villagers (pictured below with a gray shirt)




















Students enjoying their tasty food (for once! the cafeteria food, which is catered, not cooked on site, is startlingly awful.)















Several of my crazy Villagers - in various states attentiveness. They can be a wild group - especially the monster in the pink polo.















Miss Holly, with the "shin-biters" waiting for the House to open before the Show.















Students in the Theater, awaiting the Show. They behaved so well! We are treating them all to ice cream on Monday!

Comments

I really like comments - yes, it makes me feel special. I've changed the settings so you should be able to post a comment even without a GOOGLE membership or log-in. :-)

What Teachers Make

Maybe I've been brainwashed, but I really love this program. The mission and execution are unbelievable - the growth and joy we see in the kids in remarkable, and the job is intense.

Here is one of the motivational poems that we've seen a lot. Written in 1999 by a NYC teacher and poet.

What Teachers Make, or
Objection Overruled, or
If things don't work out, you can always go to law school

By Taylor Mali
www.taylormali.com

He says the problem with teachers is, "What's a kid going to learn
from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?"
He reminds the other dinner guests that it's true what they say about
teachers:
Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.

I decide to bite my tongue instead of his
and resist the temptation to remind the other dinner guests
that it's also true what they say about lawyers.

Because we're eating, after all, and this is polite company.

"I mean, you¹re a teacher, Taylor," he says.
"Be honest. What do you make?"

And I wish he hadn't done that
(asked me to be honest)
because, you see, I have a policy
about honesty and ass-kicking:
if you ask for it, I have to let you have it.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could.
I can make a C+ feel like a Congressional medal of honor
and an A- feel like a slap in the face.
How dare you waste my time with anything less than your very best.

I make kids sit through 40 minutes of study hall
in absolute silence. No, you may not work in groups.
No, you may not ask a question.
Why won't I let you get a drink of water?
Because you're not thirsty, you're bored, that's why.

I make parents tremble in fear when I call home:
I hope I haven't called at a bad time,
I just wanted to talk to you about something Billy said today.
Billy said, "Leave the kid alone. I still cry sometimes, don't you?"
And it was the noblest act of courage I have ever seen.

I make parents see their children for who they are
and what they can be.

You want to know what I make?

I make kids wonder,
I make them question.
I make them criticize.
I make them apologize and mean it.
I make them write, write, write.
And then I make them read.
I make them spell definitely beautiful, definitely beautiful, definitely
beautiful
over and over and over again until they will never misspell
either one of those words again.
I make them show all their work in math.
And hide it on their final drafts in English.
I make them understand that if you got this (brains)
then you follow this (heart) and if someone ever tries to judge you
by what you make, you give them this (the finger).

Let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true:
I make a goddamn difference! What about you?

Weekends are the end of the week

In college, the weekend didn't feel entirely UNLIKE the week - I did not have classes on Friday last semester, so Thursday night flowed into the weekend, but I still had papers, meetings, and all that jazz to do. Yet, with a regular 9-5 job (albeit that mine is 7:30 to 6), Friday dismissal is so much sweeter. Sure, I have lessons to plan and letters to write to my kids, but in general I can relax and not think about Breakthrough all weekend. And heck, grading papers at the pool just isn't that bad!

Class went really well yesterday and today - I've changed two main things since I received the course evaluations from my kids. I plan less material per class so I can take more questions and pursue more student-generated tangents and I've done a group activity/competition every day. It slows down the pace -- and there is so much I want to tell them about the brain -- but, the kids love the competition or races or activities. It's the essence of "bridgey" -- our buzz word this summer which encompasses all things decorative, exciting, unconventional, and activity-based.

Today we enjoyed the Talent Show - today's big event as well as Culture Week which has been on-going this week. We enjoyed a fantastic, Thanksgiving-like pot luck at lunch today, where students brought in food from their heritage country. We have kids who are either directly from or who's family heritage traces to about 15 Latino/Caribbean nations (about 30-50% Cuban and 35% Haitian, which a smattering from Honduras, Nicuragua, and Argentina) so we had a good mix of foreign and American food. At lunch today, I enjoyed: baked macaroni and cheese, gallo pinto, latkes, banana pudding, and brownies. Oh, and oooodles of mangoes! Did I mention the sliced and diced mangoes? One of the teachers conveniently has a mango tree in her back yard (!!!) and brought us Dormers about 30 mangoes and hand cut about 20 for the lunch today. I was in heaven with all that food -- mangoes and rice and beans pretty much make the whole week better! (Chocolate pecan pie and maduros could have helped a bit...but I'm not complaining!)

Photos to come in my next post. Off for a run - the sun is setting and it's so beautiful to see the palms highlighted against the sky like a performer on stage.

Adieu!

Fantastic Day, Busy Night

I would not change a thing about my 2nd period class! It all worked well.

I guest taught a chemistry class since the teacher was out for the morning - it was fun to see another class and control other students. For me, they were very well behaved and pretty attentive. After that, I went to my classroom to set up for the balloon-pop surprise and it was a hit. I got exactly the result I would have liked.

I am surprised, though, at how little the kids know about mental health -- I thought they would have encountered depression as a topic in health class or seen movies with schizophrenia. Nope - when I asked them to name a mental illness, all I got was ADD, which I allowed, even though there is a sizable academic and medical debate about ADHD/ADD diagnoses.

I'm looking forward to their homework assignments and tomorrow's class. Thanks, National Institute of Health's Curric. Supplements for middle school. I pretty much lifted the whole lesson and it was fantastic.

My 4th period class, normally 6 was only three so that changed the dynamic. Much slower and distracted by neurological disorders (explaining the difference between mental illness and neurodegenerative illnesses is actually very hard!).

This evening, I have to to/ am doing: evaluation journals (narrative report cards) for my kids, finishing my lesson plans for next week (language learning, sleep, and memory), designing a final project for our class, planning tomorrow's lesson, and writing up a report about Science Department day.

My run, which I was - for the first time - looking forward to, was spoiled by construction all along my path, so I got to explore campus on new routes. I discovered the scenic side of UM and several nicely lit fountains. New high milage tonight, too.

Hope tomorrow is another good day!!

Sorry about the formatting...

I have to catch my ride and I'll fix it this evening. But, that is what they look like...

Wish me luck today!

Mental Illness - Example Lesson Plan

If you're interested in a) what I'm teaching or b) the template we have to use to create LPs, here's what today's looks like.

Here's to hoping it goes a lot better than yesterday!

Subject	Introduction to Mental Illness
Date	July 18 / Week 5 / Day 3
Lesson Objectives	Students will be able to: Think critically to make connections between evidence/experience and logical explanations
Lesson Procedure	Do Now (3-4 minutes): - Students complete “Find the mistakes” worksheet, listing errors in lab behavior http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih5/Mental/guide/nih_mental_masters.pdf Hook: In a quiet, focused moment, I will pop a balloon in the back of the room to elicit surprise, apprehension, startle responses for the students. Direct Instruction (15 minutes): - Students give responses to the balloon-pop and they are written on the board (Daily Scribe). - We will try to determine categories for the words to fall into (Behaviors/Actions, Emotions/Feelings, or Thoughts). I can propose words if necessary – “did anyone jump at the sound?” - Behaviors: jump, scream, yell, laugh - Feelings: scared, nervous, anxious, afraid - Thoughts: curious, wondered, concentrated - What regulates all these responses – actions, emotions, and thoughts? [the brain!] - Determining short-term and long-term effects: “Consider your feelings now; are you still scared or jumpy or nervous?” [no… we feel fine now] - What sort of things could result in long-term changes in the brain? [learning, drugs, mental illness] - Define mental illness: A mental illness if a health condition that changes a person’s thinking, feeling, or behavior (or all three) and that causes the person distress and difficulty in functioning Guided Practice (10 minutes) - Mental Illness worksheet, with partner http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih5/Mental/guide/nih_mental_masters.pdf Independent Practice (7 minutes) / Homework * Put last night’s homework and put it on your desk; I will collect it * Write 7 questions you would ask a patient with a mental illness to learn more about their condition (possibly, we could have a short skit about these to present at ASM?) Closing (3 minutes) - Exit ticket: summarize the main ideas of this lesson to turn in (PUT YOUR NAME ON IT!)

So today, my lesson totally flopped.

Certainly, ethical debates are more commonly found in college (as is neurosciene), but I thought my middle school kids could have an intelligent discussion err, could have a discussion about animal testing in science.

Apparently not.

That's about all there is to say - it didn't work. I expected at least a "aw, I don't want my cat to get hurt. I don't like animal testing" or a "lots of medicines come from animals - that's good." \

I had high hopes for making a poster and presentation about the kids' ideas for our final project, but now I just want to bury this and move on. Any ideas for next topics? Mental health? Language learning? Hmm.

Who are you, anonymous commenter??

To the person who commented on my Key Biscayne entry about the sussurations of the sea - can you email me and tell me which of my readers you are? I can't tell and it's killing me!

In other news, today's Jeopardy Review went very well and I was proud to see what my kids remembered!

Tuesday we start our mini-unit on the ethics debate surrounding animal testing in science. It should be a departure from the rest of the course and I hope to have some good discussion and push the boundaries for a few of the kids, and it will culminate with a giant poster summarizing the PRO and CON arguments, to be part of the display from my department at Celebration (end of the summer graduation).

More later... (Thanks for letting me talk so long on the phone tonight!)

Relaxed Sunday

Brunch with a friend - I wanted real breakfast food, do we went to Denny's. Always an experience, but tasty and inexpensive.

Relaxed all afternoon, reading, watching John Stewart video clips and facebooking. It's so nice to be able to fritter away half a day and be okay, wh'daya say!

Spent the evening at the Shops at Sunset, a " poppin' " outdoor mall: made some cute sale purchases and had a great dinner at Panera Bakery.

Back to work on Neuroscience Jeopardy questions now. Later this week, we'll have a debate about the ethics of animal research, especially brain studies.

Key Biscayne and partying with students

After a leisurely morning, we hit the beach at Key Biscayne - an hour bus (including transfer) away, but so relaxing. The water was at least 80 degrees (no joke!) and we grabbed a beautiful spot under the fronds of a low palm tree. The sand was very flat and we could walk very far out without the water coming above our waist. The very slight waves from faraway boats lightly massaged our shoulders as the sussurations of wind in the palms calmed us on the shore.















We returned in the evening, enjoying a dusk ride home. One of the families in our program hosted a Bastille Day (Jul 14) party that all the Staff were invited to. We expected an adult gathering, but upon opening the door to a strobe light, Top 40 music, and middle schoolers, we realized we were in for something a bit different. Wine, cheese, proper conversation and fraternity were what we anticipated, but instead, we got a cross-generational dance party. The catered food was fantastic (fresh fruit!), the music tolerable, and the company fun. The "Hey Miss Holly!" after 15 seconds threw me off guard, but I realized there were a handful of 6th graders, some of the high school volunteers, a group of Teachers, as well as many chaperones/family friends. Hugely bizarre and awkward at first, but then we adapted (we call ourselves Teachers, after all!) We had a spastic but fun impromptu dance party in the car (windows down, loud music blarring, dancing within the confines of a seatbelt).

College Day - A Success

It's over, but it was great! After hours of labor, anxiety, and preparation, we did it! Today's "predictable unpredictable" included an half-hour-late bus, a severely sprained ankle, and lost groups. We took 70 kids to the college campus and set them free with a map to explore, learn, and get free t-shirts unexpectedly signed by several football players passing by. Despite the 92*F weather, the tardiness, and the kids getting lost and confused, all in all, they enjoyed it. I saw more genuine smiles today than I've seen at Breakthrough.

An energetic morning took us to the bus then to UM; we disembarked and I was responsible for the pep-talk and distributing important papers to all the chaperones and station masters at the posts. In the first 20 minutes, John (my co-coordinator) and I fielded at least 20 calls each from lost, confused, or mis-guided teachers. "Where is the Wellness Center?" to "When should I expect my first group?" to "The computer activity in the library won't work, what should I do?". We handled all of them - I thrive on spur-of-the moment stress and problem-solving. I can tell already that in a month of teaching I've become so much more adaptable and quick on my feet -- and I like it!

I took Frappaccino orders for the Chaperones, became the photographer of the event, and iced a nearly-broken ankle. She'll be okay; she's tough.

Here are some pictures because I really do love my kids. I started out wanting to teach for myself; wanting to discover things about myself, and grow in my own way. Perhaps selfish, but those were part of my motivations... Now, I know I can make a difference - maybe not life-long, but certainly a difference -- for these students and that's invigorating!

Emily, chaperoning her kids.

Students putting together their puzzle; when they completed each site, they got a puzzle piece. At the end of the scavenger hunt, they created the puzzle.














Craziness at lunch. Boys will be boys, eh?














An Energizer (call and respond cheer) at All School Meeting (the assemblies we have at the close of each day. They kids were psyched today!)

Ransom Everglades School - my site.

While the kids may be "urban", "disadvantaged" or "under-priviledged", the campus is definitely not! If Cary Academy were tropical, this is it. Plus a 2-million dollar building with coral walls.

"Breakthrough Miami"
















Elizabeth and Amy, two 8th graders in my Village, walk to class in the afternoon.















Why would you have hallways indoors when you're in Miami?















Looking toward the science building; I teach in a building beyond the science building. My building is being fumigated this week, so I may have an "unconventional" class on Monday (aka the auditorium or the patio where you saw Amy and Elizabeth!)

Brains! More photos

More photos from our brain dissection lab. Here are kids in my other class. I have 8 in the first class and 6 in the second.

Real sheep brain, model of human brain (accurate size).
My closed fist is a bit larger than the sheep brain in the foreground. The antennae looking thing on the bottom of the brain is the optic nerve -- it connects to the retina in the eye and sends information to the occipital lobe, which is in the very back of the head (far left side in the image of the human brain). I always wondered why the temporal lobe (which controls hearing and language processing) is sensibly directly between the ears whereas the occipital lobe, which controls and processes visual input, is in the very back of the brain. What's exciting, is my kids noticed and asked about this. Higher order thinking skills indeed.


Malcolm and Taylor, excited about Neuroscience!
They all took glamor shots with the brain -- isn't that cool! (I'm a nerd, I know!)

Collaboration and Peer-Learning! Here's half my class huddled around the brain, pointing out the lobes we've been studying for over a week!

Yes, Kiemayah, formaldehyde does smell bad!

Hard at work, answering tricky lab questions.

27.

Sheep brains and cute kids

Today, lab guide in hand, I introduced the latex-glove-clad world of dissection to my students, complete with formaldehyde and problems.

We dissected a sheep brain. I love it and tend to forget how exciting it is to the kids: I've done it four times now. My first class was fantastic -- leading a lab was a new challenge and it worked well (I don't have a science class, I teach in a normal classroom = no sink nor appropriate science equipment). I led my second class to a science room and we did the same thing, but it wasn't quite as fun. One girl really did not want to do it, which is fine, but she ended up crying in the corner, and one of my eager kids pulled out a tooth during the lab. It was both disgusting (clad in brainy gloves...) and hilarious to me. "Go to the restroom, wash out your mouth, wrap you tooth and put it in your pocket. Come back and we'll resume" popped out without thinking. Oh, and my mentor teacher was observing the whole thing until she was called away unexpectedly for a family concern.
















































Then lunch and the afternoon full of College Day prep, photocopying onto Papermill's Astrobryte collection (aka blinding neon paper that is color coded to correspond to the correct stations at t UMiami campus). We are almost done with the planning... and have killed several thousand trees.

What exactly am I planning? 75 sixth graders exploring UMiami campus in 12 chaperoned groups. I'm assigning about 15 Teachers, coordinating the scavenger hunt and 7 locations, lunches, buses, and more. So grateful for my other co-director -- he's been a pleasure to work with and we've been productive.

It's all tomorrow. I must sort through all the paper (several inches of photocopies to distribute tomorrow).

Fingerprints and Flexibility

Wednesday, I survived Science Department Day! I had a room with an activity about Fingerprinting (yay Forensics class!). We did a 3-min intro to FPs then discussed the three classifications (arch, whorl, loop). The kids got to make their own set of FPs and classify, then I created a crime scene with 6 known prints and 2 mystery prints that the groups had to identity.

It went very well, but messily!

Amidst the stress and scurrying of the morning, I forgot to send myself an imperative file for doing my sheep brain dissection. I realized this about 10 minutes before class, and had to improvise. I did it and class wasn't too bad. "So flexible I should be a gymnast!" Just kidding, but it was incredibly exciting to be able to "wing it" without disaster.

After all the fingerprinting and cleaning and endless staff meetings, I went home to my white cinder block walls to work on College Day planning with my highly productive co-director.

"My favorite teacher is my second period science teacher. She's very smart and fun and I like the brain class!" - Roy, to the entire student body

My kids finished their Expert Presentations today = we heard about the occipital lobe, temporal lobe, Broca's Area, Corpus Callosum, Multiple Sclerosis, and Epilepsy, among other brain topics. You could say my kids are ..... brainiacs! (chaquack!).

Both classes went well, and about half my kids are really excited for the SHEEP BRAIN DISSECTION we are doing tomorrow! We're about a week behind schedule, but that's okay. They will learn a lot more by doing it now rather than a week ago. I am asking a volunteer to take lots of photos during the dissection as a way to document the experience and share it with parents as part of our science display during Celebration.

Later this week, we'll discuss some issues of ethics in brain research and I'm looking forward to seeing my kids debate rather than just note-take.

Just to get you excited... (or grossed out in some cases....) This one is from the internet: mine will be cuter because of all the kids. Though, my mom lent me a few kitchen knives and I doubt we'll be using them ever again...!

Peaceful and Productive

Today went well!

My classes were exciting; the kids presented in small groups and they loved being at the front of the class. Even my Village (like advisory or home-room) went well; we played the Human Knot and One Word Story (the class tells a story but each student can only say one word). The team builders worked well - I had not expected a positive outcome because the kids are at an age where they are too cool to hold hands or fall into a heap with others.

Here's a photo of some of my kids from Village during Spirit Week (2 weeks ago). We are Village 6, so our name (in keeping with the theme of superheroes) is the Sixth Spidey Sense. I'm responsible for the spider webs on everyone's shirt in electrical tape.

Procrastinating = posting photos

Here's the group en route to Key Biscayne our first weekend here.















The clouds and sunsets here are awesome. I have a great view as I run laps around the lake.


And the view of palm tress from my dorm window. A few of the guys had a fun afternoon cracking open coconuts.

Sunny Sunday

A sunny Sunday indeed. I have thoroughly enjoyed the nothingness of today. A tasty meal out, a steaming visit to the pool, a sunny walk, and languidly reading To Kill A Mockingbird in my room as my suite-mate plays her ukelele. This afternoon included a jog, more reading, and a dinner out. Ah, what a life.

This week will be a test of patience, preparation, and time management enough to rival exam week at school. Highlight events will include: brain dissection with my class; planning and executing Science Department Day (a half-day of demonstrations, skits, science trivia and snaziness), coordinating College Day (a day-long scavenger hunt at U Miami) and writing student evaluations (like narrative report cards).

Well-rested and well-fed this weekend, I am ready for the challenge.

Update at 11pm: now I'm actually planning what I will try to teach the kids Monday and my two classes are at very different places, so I have to figure out what to do. Reader poll: do I stall the fast class and/or accelerate the slower class or just let the quicker class continue to get through the material? By the end of the week, 2nd period will be a full class period ahead of 4th period. Is that okay?
I just graded homework, and about half my class perfectly understood a difficult concept about the "homunculus" (which is a map of all the nerves in your brain). I was very excited to see their answers!
In other news, donations of Lindt chocolate by kind owners are accepted!

"She stabbed you with a sharpened pencil?!"

Today has been a relaxed, restful day -- much needed after a rough week.

Thursday and Friday at school were tough days: we were all short on sleep, the kids are always rowdier at the end of the week, and now that they've gotten to know us, they are testing us. It's no longer a just a blast; it's really hard work too. (but still fun and rewarding.) We've had a lot of disrespectful behavior and several fights lately. The kids are great in Week 1, devious but well-behaved in Week 2, and in Week 3, they start to test us and show their true, not-so-angelic, colors.

A girl who put no effort into being at Breakthrough (no homework or participation in my class and enough attitude to go around) was expelled on Thursday after beating up a younger girl. I - and everyone else who taught her - was happy to see her go (is that too harsh?), but she really hurt the other student and couldn't care less about our program. We've had some severe "play fighting" amongst the boys and an increase in shrugged shoulders, rolled eyes, and sneers. It just makes it that much tougher, but at the same time, it makes me appreciate the quiet, well behaved, inquisitive students even more.

My students are becoming experts in specific parts of the brain and are presenting for 60 seconds about their expertise regarding the function and location of their assigned brain part. The first group to share was not great, so I will now talk with each one before to prep them, and encourage them to stand up straighter and talk more clearly -- behavior becoming for a true expert. The presentations continue this week along with our much anticipated sheep brain dissection. About half the kids are excited and half are reluctant, but I hope I can pull more of them in -- I was grossed out in the corner my first time with a brain dissection, but now I love it (excluding the pungent smell of formaldehyde...)

I have absolutely no internet on my computer now, so I will have to post from school or a friend's computer (like now). Adios...

[update at 10pm: although my wireless internet died, my LAN now works, so I have resurrected the internet. additional highlights today include: talking to the super cool Travis lots and lots (choquack!), eating a mango and talking with Albert.]

Fourth of July

I slept 12 hours today! It was fantastic. We went grocery shopping, had an awesome barbeque, watched a movie, and I'm catching up on work rather than catching up on fireworks, but I know I'll appreciate it tomorrow!

Tomorrow I'm teaching my kids about brain localization; how certain parts of the brain are specialized to do certain things. I'm using snazzy images from fMRI machines; it's doubly cool because the lab I work in at Harvard does a lot of work with fMRIs, so I am excited to explain it to the kids.

Happy Independence Day!

Lacking Internet

Not be whine excessively, but a technology-infused school shouldn't spontaneously lose its internet connection across campus for a full day.

Half of my lesson plan required taking my students to the computer lab to research for a presentation, but upon arriving at school to turn in my lesson plan, I discovered that we had no internet. No researching, kids.

Teachers must be flexible. We talked more about writing lab reports and helped the students revise their first draft. The average grammar, spelling and punctuation is abysmal. "Gunna" "you know", unnecessary "right?'s" and many more inappropriate terms are popping up. Instant Messenger and poor education will doom these kids. But, we're here to do our job, and if correcting lab reports includes brief lessons in subject-verb agreement, so be it.

Hopefully the tech works tomorrow. I'll be discussing the localization of brain function using images from fMRI machines (part of your brain does THIS and part of it does THAT...)

Wednesday is off (July 4th), so we'll see if the out-of-towners find a thing to do for the holiday. Back to writing my lesson plans for next week.

Cuban food, South Beach, Coco Walk

Sounds a lot more tame than last weekend, eh? Yet, exploring Miami with Travis this weekend was a blast. He's off to the airport (alarm clock: 4:45am), but here's the rundown of what we did.
Needing a change of scenery after a rough day in school on Friday, we went to Little Havana for a monthly cultural festival, complete with food (yay maduros!), dancing on the sidewalk, browsing art galleries, and bumping into the folks I live with. Saturday found us at South Beach after taking the "scenic" route to get there. After about and hour on the beach, a fantastic Florida storm attacked, sending us retreating to a gelato shop. After a night beach stroll and dinner, we came home and cleaned up, and headed out to a bustling area of college nightlife in Coconut Grove. On Sunday, we explored the CocoWalk commercial district of Coconut Grove - very quaint with a lot of French restaurants! Fantastic food, including a crepe avec Nutella and some great sale shopping completed the afternoon. A night run around my trail here avec a GPS measuring thing tells me the distance I'm running (which I did not know previously).


Now, to prep for school...

What I Taught Wednesday.

Here's an outline of what I taught yesterday. A random day.

Throughout the week, we've been looking at how to DO science and how to WRITE about science (as contrasted with the LEARNING science we did last week.) We were discussing Reaction Time; I tossed an orange to every student and they each returned it to me. They had no idea what I was doing, and I had their full attention. We defined RT and discussed how quickly the brain can process the outside world.

I then introduced a lab - one that I did in high school. A partner holds a meter stick vertically, and student 1 puts an open hand directly below the ruler. Without warning, the partner drops the ruler and it falls toward the ground, through the student's open hand. The student squeezes his/her fist in order to catch the ruler. The distance that it falls (measured by where the student's hand catches the ruler) is a measure of reaction time.

Each student did this 5 times, then calculated their personal drop-distance (the average of their five catches). Then each student put their data on the board and all students copied the class data. Before we started the lab, students had to make predictions about their own drop-distance, the class average, and whether there would be gender differences. After they gathered the results, they calculated the averages and for homework, they each had to write a 1-page mini lab report addressing the hypotheses they made, their own/class results, and draw conclusions.

We've DONE two experiments and WRITTEN two lab reports this week; Friday in class we'll discuss issues of experimental error and sample size and data/graphs. Several of the kids has profound difficulties doing long division on paper, so it may be a challenging topic.

No class today; kids are on a field trip and there are a few of us left here to do work. tata!

I Adore the Continuing Craziness!

Week Two: the Craziness Continues -- An Overview

Monday: A deceptively normal, quiet day. No tantrums, no spilled milk, no tears, no major disciplines.

Tuesday: Family Night (we all stayed late to present to and meet the parents/guardians/god mother etc). Relatively low turn out, but very rewarding when I learned that my students had talked about my class to their family and parents were particularly interested to hear about the upcoming sheep brain dissection!

Wednesday: Math Department Day (each dept has a day, well, an afternoon really, to organize events or stations or a carnival or whatnot to have each Village (aka "Advisory group") get pumped to do math or whatever the topic is). We chaperoned our Village through four stations, competing for points, and in the end, my Village triumphed. Surprisingly!

Thursday: Lesson Plans due for week 3 - which will be the best week yet. Drawing brains on swim caps, dissecting a sheep brain in class, and 20-Questions for brain functions. Also due: our student evaluations (aka 'report cards'). The kiddoes are all off-campus today for a field trip for Career Day; all dressed in Sunday-Best/Professional wear to shadow businessmen and professionals in Miami

I have a visitor coming for the weekend! Yippee!

Friday: Another day of normal classes; turn in my Peer Observation form. Celebrate another week completed! Adventure to find Cuban food with Travis (shouldn't be too hard; Little Havana/Calle Ocho is not far from where I live/work).

Typical days this week: up at 6:30, to school by 7:30, leave school at 6:00, back to the dorms for a run, then scavenging or foraging for dinners. Cup Noodles, PB&J or semi-stale Cheeze Nips have consisted of meals for some of us. Grocery shopping never felt so good!

A note to readers: I am deliberately NOT writing much about the content of my lessons. If you'd like to know more about what I'm teaching, drop me a Comment and say so. I'm happy to share, I just don't want to scare you off.

Drag queens, Chicken and South Beach

Now, that is what I expected when I thought about Miami. Waitresses in leopard print bikinis, "men" in make-up and pink skirts who will kiss a girl's boobs for cash (yes, the ladies pay to have a photo taken with this strange she-man kissing/grabbing her) and banana yellow thongs...on a European man at the beach.

So that's not WHY I came to Miami this summer, but it is a bit more exciting that the territory around where we live in Coral Gables at the U Miami dorms. Relying on buses, it took us an hour and a half to get to SB, then we strolled along Lincoln Road and Ocean Drive - two of the main streets in SB, enjoyed a coffee, a bit of crazy window shopping, and hit the flat, flawless, fantastic white sand beach, the sun winking off small waves as the tide came in. We enjoyed the sun, the sand, the water, and the view for about an hour until the afternoon lightning storm hit; through blasting megaphones, the lifeguards demanded we all exit the bathtub-esque water.

With an hour to kill as the heavens angrily opened, we had lunch at an old-timey, over-priced deli. Meandering through the main strip, we took macabre photos at the Versace Mansion where the clothing mogul was shot on his front step a decade ago. The blood's gone nowadays.

Returning to the beach, we had a tournament of "Chicken". I had never played, and lost my first match but won the second. We had a peanut gallery of thirty-something men watching and betting on who would win. One exclaimed "I've got my money on the pretty one." As we all glared at him for such a rude comment, we added "so I can't lose- they're both pretty". Gathering what was left of their vanishing maturity, they departed.

Finishing our homage to the beach, we sought out a tattoo/piercing shop with ease. (Some parts of SB are similar to the trashiness of Myrtle Beach in SC). On girl in our group wanted a belly button piercing, so we found the least sketchy place (it's all relative) and she did it. We all watched and engaged in conversation with the tattoo-covered store owner. I never knew the s-word could be a synonym for so many basic English words. Our friend is fine, happy, and stylishly displaying her new addition.

Sunday is passing with a much more domestic scene: a 90-degree run, tanning at the pool while grading papers, and a much-anticipated shopping trip at the local mall down US-1.