In the Pressure Cooker

Howdy folks, and welcome to another exciting edition. Sorry for a two week delay but things have been hectic here at the school. Students are taking their test and quizzes and they don't like it one bit. However, who said learning wasn't going to be challenging.

I just want to talk about this week especially. Call me a "party-pooper" but I gave the students little work to complete this week and they are handing it in with blank questions. Some even up to ten or more just empty. I gave them two days to finish it plus time in class. What happened? They waited until the night before and found it too difficult to complete. I forgot the most common thing high school students will do. APPEAL TO THE LOWEST DENOMINATOR! Next time I assign work like that I need to give them some classwork to do as well. Better yet, split the assignment into a two day affair with one half due the next day and the other half due the following day.

The quizzes and tests today went horrible; as well as the quiz that was given out on Wednesday for Physics. I was told that under the former Mrs. Shaw, they liked it when they continued to work on the same problems over and over again without any instructions. They were just given work to do, then without thinking, plug the numbers into the equation. THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN IN MY CLASSROOM. Thinking will be going on. Let me be honest. I remember those days when Mrs. Shaw gave us homework and tests and quizes where we just plugged everything in simple equations, not knowing what we were doing. We were drones following a set of commands that we could not deviate from. Here hand-written homework was easy. Quizzes a no brainer; plus you could easily cheat as several students did. Tests were mostly take home and multiple choice with the correct answer always written differently. I enjoyed how stinkin' EASY it was. That was until I went into college. In my first math class (which so happened to be my first college class) I was confused and felt like I was the dumbest kid in the class. The kids around me knew what they were doing. I had no idea what function was nor how to plug numbers into an equation. I asked the professor for help, but she rejected me and said go ask the TA Tuesday. Ugh! Right then I realized that Mrs. Shaw's math class had ill-prepared me for the task at hand. She had given up on her students. That's why Trigonometry, Algebra 2, and Statistics was easy! I was not angry with her but I did feel cheated. That she let me down. She never challenged us; never gave us a chance to think for ourselves. Never gave us a chance to work on word problems; to solve difficult equations. To allow us to fail so that we would do better next time. No she never did that. Instead, she played to the lowest common denominator and let the good times role. I realized that I may have learned a few BASIC concepts from her, but most of the math I know today comes from what I had to learn in college. These high school students don't realize that yet. They don't see how math or my teaching style can help them. They complain to me saying that I'm not like Mrs. Shaw. For me, that makes me happy.

Now the students have to think; show me what they know. I know that Mrs. Shaw's tests were done sloppily and they weren't very challenging. That's were I make the change for the better. Things are different now and these kids need to realize that. No more easy questions and slipping by. The same student asked me how the physics quiz went. I told her that it went as planned, several students got B's and there were a couple A's and F's. She said that most students would consider that bad because they wanted A's. What a crazy lady! She knows that this class isn't curved so the opportunity is out there. I did not assign grades randomly. This is a reflection of how much you have studied and worked towards this grade. I bell-curve tells me that the test was just right. It wasn't that easy nor that hard. Hey, I would like everyone to get A's. That's why I don't curve grades. However, it does happen naturally that grades do end up on a curve. It's just the nature of a larger class. In my smaller classes that is not always the case. Many will receive a high grade while others will struggle. With a larger class that middle ground starts to sink in.

It's second quarter and this week is "spirit week" where the kids get to dress up and have fun throughout the day. However, there is a time and place for that. They need to know that when it's class time; it's learning time. There is no goofing off. When you do slack off, your grades reflects that. Don't blame me; BLAME YOURSELF!