May 2, 2008, Friday

May 2, 2008, Friday

 

It’s Friday! Yipee! This week went by so fast and I just cannot believe we have been back in school for 5 days now. For the first block, I had all of my students except for one who got hospitalized. On Fridays, we change our schedule by moving up our first core subject to the next block to accommodate a complete 40-min block on discussing about their Level Status and reflecting on how they can improve their performance in class for the next week. We learned that 4 of our students made it to Peer Leader status, therefore they were given the chance to choose a pizza topping of their choice. They have been selecting cheese as their topping, even though the school always offers cheese pizza every Friday. But, it’s their favorite! Based on our schedule today, I am supposed to be with these students during Peer Leader lunch  and therefore, I got to choose which topping should I got for pizza. I chose buffalo wings toppings and I couldn’t wait for it!

Usually on Friday, one of our students always has to take out the Monopology game during the first period. And guess whom does he ask to play with him – all the time? ME! Well, I really do not mind it. In fact, I view as a way of bonding with the students and at the same time helping them learn with an important daily life skill which is calculating paper money. It is during this stage of their lives that they need to learn the basic life skills in the community such as calculating change on paper bills, recognizing coins, telling analog time (not the digital), following and telling direction from one point to a specific location among others. So, going back to Monopoly game – I am loving every moment I play this  game with the students. Our students know that I always use the thimble for my marker and I try to buy one property from each color so I could make a rainbow. One of our students is known to be very competitive when it comes to playing the monopoly, so today when he was walking past our class (he is from another class) he came in and started playing with us. He did ask permission from his homeroom teachers if he could play with us and they approved of it. I later on quit the game so give way for him. As I was watching  him play, I noticed that he does have a strategy! In fact, for the time that I was observing him, he landed on the Free Parking three times when he was on the verge of bankruptcy due to buying all the properties he could afford! This guys is just lucky!

Talking about luck, I mentioned to one of our students that being lucky is an important part of the game however, he came right back to me and told me, “Alpha, if you after luck, the luck will run away and if you don’t go after luck, the luck will come to you!”. Guess what, I was stunned and didn’t know what to tell him. But, I later on told him that despite knowing the skills yet if you are not lucky enough, you will never get on to the right destination/property you intend to do.

Today was all together a great one. I look forward for the weekend and hopefully start on my new venture of selling Barefoot Books, permitted by my daughter’s demands

May 1, 2008, Thursday

May 1, 2008, Thursday

 

Upon arrival one of my students immediately came up to me and told me that he has already picked out the book which he would be reading. Prior to this, we had a conversation around his current performance in English class. He did identify that the reason for his declined participation is that he doesn’t like the book, “The Giver” so he is not motivated at all to discuss and participate in class activities when prompted. He complies with my directives in class although he hesitates to share his opinions and ideas in class. He did picked out the books he wanted to read and we agreed on that he and I will do a one-on-one reading so he could better off his English performance.

That’s it for today! The school is actually getting ready for a DOE Audit next week. After class today at 2:15, the school is scheduled to have a meeting with the Executive Director and the two directors of each campus. I look forward for the many information that I could get out of this meeting and of course from the DOE Audit. It will be my first time to witness and experience a week-long presence of the DOE in school. There were talks today that there will be two DOE representatives who will be interviewing teachers and students alike and also observe teachers in the classroom. Hopefully it will all  go fine!

 

 

April 30, 2008, Wednesday

April 30, 2008, Wednesday

 

In English class, we finished off reading Chapter 9 and as their task they need to write 8 rules for Jonas and pretend that they were the Chief Elder giving David specific rules that he needs to follow as part of his Assignment. The students were receptive in writing down these rules. In fact, I was pretty impressed! They were able to relate the experiences they have as students with medical and clinical problems to ones of Jonas’s rules, which is Rule No. 6 “Except for illness or injury unrelated to  your training, do not apply for any medication. Three of them wrote about allowing Jonas to take medications – and the fun part was when one of them wrote about allowing Jonas to have 30-min break everyday and 2-weeks off from his job every six months! I think they feel the strains that Jonas is feeling in the book that is why some days off are necessary for them to write. But all together, I am pretty impressed with their work! Tomorrow, they are expected to present their work in class and should be ready for some questions regarding these rules.

Science today – we did a few tasks. I wrote down 7 tasks that each students must choose to do and accomplish for the rest of the block. These tasks are needed to finish off the bulletin board for Science. Each student was able to select what task they want to do (i.e. research on the net regarding the history of a suspension bridge, description of the san franciso/Oakland bay bridge, 5 fun facts about this bridge, find pictures and paste them on a colored paper, cut out the bulletin board title). They were able to follow through the directions and I didn’t need to redirect any one of them.

For Math, I worked one-on-one with one of our students. Today he is expected to finish off a multiplication worksheet. Again, just like yesterday he was tempted to use the calculator but this time, he was frustrated when Maria B. had asked him if he was going to use the calculator this worksheet will be his homework. He got frustrated upon hearing this and left the room. I followed him out to the hall and voiced out that he cannot do it. He decided not to be back in class but will just stay in the hall sleeping. He did what he said, and of course all the time he spent out of the class were counted as time off learning.

The day went by smoothly except for this one incident and I am happy that our meeting too went by very well. Btw, I love the way our school director conducts our meeting. I think every staff meeting must be as casual yet professional as she does. **wink**

April 29, 2008, Tuesday

April 29, 2008, Tuesday

 

Today I introduced my students to the world of Prepositions! Well, of course they have been familiar with prepositions since elementary so I was expecting that they’d be able to do a warm-up worksheet on identifying prepositions. The warm-up activity was for them to solve a “mystery question” by identifying in each of the given 10 numbers the preposition. Once done, they are going to match the letters of each number being asked of them to solve the mystery question. The question was: On June 16, 1963, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to accomplish this feat. What did she do? Most of them got the answer right, which was: travel in space. But for those who didn’t get it right I went over with them some of the common prepositions by putting up an overhead of what prepositions is all about and what they are commonly used for.

After the warm-up, we moved on with Chapter 9 of The Giver. This time, I told them that they are going to be responsible in highlighting the important details of the chapter rather than me telling them which sentences or words needed to be highlighted. The main topic for Chapter 9 was about Jonas’ 8 rules that was asked of him to follow every single day throughout his assignment, which we learned from the previous chapter that he was selected as the Receive of memory. We stopped on page 68 and briefly discussed about what we have just read. We ended English class this way and they are expected to remember where we left off.

For Math class, I was the back-up of Maria B. and today they discussed about vertices. However, since one of our student’s IEP is focused on getting familiarized with everyday Math skills, he was asked to do something else. This particular student also needs a scribe, so every time I am the back-up I always try to help him write things that the class is expected to do. Today, his task is to calculate how many hours he spends on a job, as part of his worksheet. He was able to identify the accumulate time in each week from the problem but asked me to write down the answer for him.

He solved the problem very well although at times he wanted to use the calculator to sum up the answer but I discouraged him. At the end of the class, he was proud of his accomplishment and I was very happy to see him feeling happy that he did something rewarding today!

For Science class, we discussed about the parts of a suspension bridge and reviewed about the two kinds of load that a bridge can hold. They remembered what we discussed two weeks ago and were cooperative for most of the time.

The day ended very well no complaints.

April 28, 2008, Monday – Journal Entry

April 28, 2008, Monday

 

Back from Spring break…and we’re back to the exciting box of teaching! It’s Monday and of course it’s Planet Health day! I thought I’d skip to teach the first block today since the students are just coming back from the break. I thought of this to make them have a smoother transition from their break back to school. I made it clear to them though that this is the first time we’ve ever had some type of free block in English class so the expectations to structure their own time was highly emphasized. They did pretty well. They chattered with their peers and stayed in class without any trouble. None of them took space or even got into trouble, they were just enjoying the first few minutes of free time just like I did.

When Science block came, of course I had to teach! One free block is enough to make their transition. I prepared this lesson plan quite well. Today the lesson is about Activity Theme with the subunit on Lifestyle. I have printed off 10 different exercises that I placed on different areas in the classroom. Each of these exercise station targets one of the three types of Physical Fitness such as Aerobic Fitness, Anaerobic Fitness and Flexibility. Initially, I had instructed the students to individually follow the exercises, however as they were doing the first three stations I noticed that some of them were not doing it the correct way and were having some difficulties. So, I went ahead and told them to stop and we are just going to do it as a class. That went smoother and everybody in class was doing it as stated in the directions. We were able to accomplish 4 out of the 10 stations and we planed on continuing the rest of the exercises next week.

 

Win 10 Barefoot Books!

 

I am having a monthly promotion of “A Basketful of Barefoot Books”, where you will get the chance to win 10 of my family’s favorite Barefoot Books with a retail value of $94.99. (See my website for the complete books)

All you have to do is REGISTER FOR FREE on my website:

http://philippines.mybarefootbooks.com

Instructions to register:

1. Go to http://philippines.mybarefootbooks.com
2. Click on the upper tab “Sell Barefoot”.
3. Once this page is displayed, click on “Register Now!” on the left side of the page. It will then redirect you to Barefoot Books Registration Page 1.
4. Once completed, you will be asked IF YOU WOULD LIKE to purchase OTHER SERVICES. If you do not want to purchase any of these, skip this part and just click on CONTINUE. It will then redirect you to the 3rd page of your registration, which is your Final Account.
5. CLick “continue” if all the info is accurate.
6. The next page will generate your Stallholder number and you will have to create a password.
7. You’re done! The next step is for you to check out your email for further instructions!

Good luck! Go barefoot!

Sincerely,
Alpha Sanford
Barefoot Stallholder
philippines@mybarefootbooks.com

April 11, 2008, Friday (Journal Entry)

April 11, 2008, Friday!

Notice the exclamation point at the end of word Friday(!)? well, it is really because it is Friday! This means teacher get to leave early from school and students who have attained a Peer Leader status according to the Point System that the school is implementing will have some free time in the afternoon!

The Point system that the school is using is divided into three groups of achieving points. The highest level is called the Peer Leader Status, when students only missed a total of about 96 minutes off their learning time on a weekly basis. Learning time, is when the students stay in class, participate in class and is a student fulfilling all his responsibilities and expectations. When students get to miss up to 400 minutes in a week, the level drops to what the school calls Level Two Status and the last one is the Level One Status. This point system is meant to motivate students to try to stay in class despite whatever issue they may be faced with in a certain day but at the same time, allowing the students to use a good amount of minutes they may absolutely need, but still achieving the level they desire. Each of these statuses equate a whole set of incentives. The Peer leader gets all the privileges in the school (that is why this is the ultimate prize!) including the use of computer in the classroom, use of baseball cap/hat all day, all week and an extra credit of getting the pizza topping they want to have. (By the way, Friday is always a Pizza day in school! – something to be happy about again on Friday!) One of our students in our class has been on this status for two consecutive months, pretty amazing, right?

It is Friday – but when it comes to lessons, I was determined to get the experiment done today and we did it! Each group worked with each other testing a set of 10 objects whether these things react better in tension or compression or both. It was fun to see all of them apply pulling or pushing forces, while some of them record their answers on their science notebook experiment! All of them worked, except for one of the students who refused to work in his group and requested to take space. Later, I talked with this student and was able to voice out the reason why he left the room when we were conducting the experiment. It was a matter of social interactions between him and his classmates, but he agreed to work on this experiment sometime next week with me.

It was a great Friday class and we got to finish the first lesson on Building Bridges this week. Next week, our lesson will be on bridges’ weight.

April 10, 2008, Thursday (Journal Entry)

April 10, 2008, Thursday

Yesterday we talked about tension and compression and how these two are important factors in building bridges. Today my students have been quite good in class. Since this morning they have been very consistent in staying in class, except for a few of them who needed to take some space and then came back in class immediately after their time for space is over.

One aspect in being a teacher at a therapeutic school that excites me is that the many avenues of teaching are practically evident in the everyday routine. These avenues include being a psychologist, counselor, mother, dictator (although I think this is the least that they would like to see from us), therapist, and possible health worker. Being a teacher is already a task filled with so many other tasks – (that is why in the field of education continuous learning about new teaching strategies and theories are important part of it), let alone put all of these masks in one day! It might be nerve-wracking, which I can admit it is at times, but that is the challenge and it is why we are, I am in teaching.

Fast forward: over at lunch today, one of my students and I were having a great conversation about what he wants to be when her grows up (well, when he is older). This is the student that we have who is really smart, great kid and really knows what he wants in life – he wants to be a journalist! He asked about how much do we make as teachers? I told him we make a decent pay. And then he went on and asked so why do I still keep on teaching if the salary is just decent. Again, good question. So I told him the story why I chose to take this job over a few of the jobs I applied and got the jobs but finally rejecting all of them, but this! I told him that God has a reason why He led me to where I am – and of course, it is pretty obvious that if I were probably teaching in a different setting right now, I probably will not understand and get to interact with students who needs clinical services, which is awesome to learn about. I forgot what his reaction was after I said that but I am sure he’ll understand more of it when he gets to become a journalist and start doing what his heart and what the Lord Has given him for a purpose.

Back to the Science lesson: We actually started 15 minutes later due to some prolonged recess with entertainment from one of our students whose talent is in dancing. This is where being at the moment and modifying in teaching comes in play. I actually planned to have them do an experiment of the Tension and Compression, but I figured we only have 25 minutes left in class and by the time we got to set up the experiment equipments and materials, we would only have 10minutes left. I decided we will just have to do some note taking and continue talking about tension and compression, and so we did! Everybody was happy!

April 9, 2008, Wednesday (Journal Entry)

The attendance in class today was quite lower than usual. There were two of our students who have been having difficulty for the first three blocks this morning and they haven’t been back in class since then. But of course, I have more than half of the class willing to learn and listen to what I am going to teach.

The lesson for today was about Tension and Compression. We discussed the differences between the two and identified objects that react very well in either tension, compression or both. Most of the students are familiar with the concept of tension and compression, but needed more time to process their answer when it came to the question what is the relation of tension and compression to building bridges. After a good while, one of the students said it is because the bridge is composed of a lot of forces that either act to pull or compress the bridge together. It was quite right and that has made my day!

***Happy Birthday to one of the world’s best teachers, my father: Conrado S. Miguel (btw, he and my mother, Leonida Miguel are both educators, and wonderful at their professions. They have been teaching in the same elementary school for over 15 years now, and they love it!) We love you Papa Dado!

April 8, 2008, Tuesday (Journal Entry)

April 8, 2008, Tuesday

Something really funny happened today: one of my students asked me politely why I got to be their English teacher and I am from a foreign country. Quite interesting, yet I am sure this student of mine has been wanting to ask this particular question even from the start of the school. (I think he was just waiting for the right time to do this.) I knew one of my students were very intrigues with this irony, yet I was prepared for this moment. I told him with (a little bit of a downplaying) that it is probably because I have experiences teaching English among college students when I was back home. He was satisfied with the answer and hopefully despite the fact that I may not be the greatest teacher (and sometimes do not pronounce words properly) that he might be able to learn something new from a foreign-born teacher teaching English. That is my hope

Anyway, today in my Science class I started to introduce the Bridge lesson to them. We discussed as a class that for this quarter we will be learning about bridges. Some of them mentioned that they have already learned this from previous grades although more than half of the class haven’t. This bridge lesson idea was a God-sent. Thanks to Casey T. and Rachel P. my classmates at the ENC class under Dr. Linda Scott for the ideas!

The activity for today is for them to find a partner whom they will be working with for the rest of the quarter. This partner will be their go-to person when we are doing experiments and building some bridges. It was emphasized to them that they needed to form a group and it is not an individual work. Of course, some of them refused to work in pairs because of some challenges working with another person, but as a teacher that is one of my goals why they need to work in pairs. As part of the lesson, I would want them to learn how to cooperate, communicate and build relationships with their classmates which are important skills in the community, specially when these kids will soon take on jobs and enter the workforce. One of my students shared that in her previous program (school), the teacher discouraged them from working with pairs, because the teachers thought that by doing so, the students depend solely on the partner therefore promoting cheating and/or weakness. I totally disagreed with this notion. I think working in groups is essential and of course a tool to improve one’s social skills. But, my policy remains unshaken: they will work in pairs.

After a while, my students finally decided to select their group mates and they were allowed to make their own journal/experiment notes to write down all the ideas and the lessons as well as the experiments we will have in the next few lessons.

The class ended very well and I was satisfied with the students’ cooperation.