movie buff...

So it's midnight and I'm not too tired...I guess that's what afternoon naps are supposed to accomplish. I'm off to bed soon, but I wanted to post this crazy story from my day at school. I've got this great kid named J in one of my sixth grade classes. He has the best personality and a hilarious sense of humor. I've realized before that he knows quite a bit about movies, but today he shocked me beyond words.

It all started when the 6'2" sixth grader (you read that correctly) put on my jacket because he was cold. Well, the jacket that is quite large on me barely fits this kid so J starts singing "fat guy in a little coat" from Tommy Boy...one of my favorite movies. Of course, being the fair teacher that I am, I cautioned him that it probably wasn't the nicest thing to say. But I did have to chuckle and congratulate him on referencing a movie not many kids his age had seen.

So I decided to quiz him a little more in his movie knowledge. I asked him what movie "FRRRRRRREEEEEEEEEEDDDDOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMM" comes from. He quickly replied, "Braveheart!" So I asked him a follow up question. "When was Braveheart made? "1995" he replied. A quick google search confirmed his answer!

So I quoted the famous line from "Cool Hand Luke." He didn't get it! I had him! So I told him what movie it was from and he said, "Oh yeah, that was made in 1967!" Google confirmed. You have to be kidding me!

"When was Ferris Beuller's Day Off made?" 1986. Correct.

The bell rang and I dragged him in my disbelief to his next class and grabbed two other teachers. I said, "Name a movie." One teacher replied, "Pretty in Pink." I hadn't seen that and I don't know anything about it. He said, "I'm not sure when it was made, but I know Molly Ringwold is in it." Correct.

The other teacher smiled and said, "Risky Business." He said, "Tom Cruise." Correct.

So throughout the rest of the day, I kept on finding J and quizzing him. "There's a boy on a tricycle saying I want my two dollars (a suggestion from another teacher)." "Better Off Dead with John Cusack." Correct. "Who played the woman in Top Gun?" "Kelly McGillis." Correct. "Who played in The Breakfast Club?" "Emelio Estevez, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson." Correct. "Who were the women in Thelma and Louise?" "Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon." Correct.

Sheesh! It was unreal. Some of these movies were even before my time! I was able to stump him on Short Circuit and Princess Bride, though. I'm gonna have to pull out my A Game tomorrow. But I guess more importantly, I'm going to have to somehow leave it alone for 90 minutes so that I can try to teach him some math. Maybe I should show "Stand and Deliver" and he could learn some calculus.

show your work!

If I've said it once on this blog, I've said it at least twice...getting old is getting old.

I teach 6th grade math to special ed kids. I was going nuts this morning trying to teach them how to put decimals in order (i.e. 3.001, 3.01, 3.1). They kept coming to me with wrong answer after wrong answer. It's not that they couldn't understand it, it was just that they were trying to cram their work into the tiny little space in their workbooks and they were writing so small they couldn't even read it...I've become pretty much able to decipher the most intricate hieroglyphics, but it was getting ridiculous.

So finally, after about the 10th time saying "show your work neatly on another sheet of paper," I flipped my lid. I made everyone clear their desks and I gave them all a giant (and we're talking giant) sheet of paper. I gave them a new problem to work on and told them they had to use rulers and write big enough that the entire paper was covered.

Once we were done and they got my point, and as I was delivering the ever-inspiring "you have to show your work" lecture, I got a flashback to my childhood. I envisioned a younger Peter sitting at the dining room table with his dad. His dad had grown a little irritated with young Peter because he was not writing his work to his math problems legibly. He was taking shortcuts and getting problems wrong. So I ended the lecture with that little story of my childhood and I mentioned how I should probably call my dad and apologize for all I put him through because now I realize he was right...I felt pretty old just saying those words...Dad was right.

One of my favorite kids, J, looked at me and said, "Why don't you call him now?" First, I laughed it off, but quickly reconsidered. Why not now? So I whipped out the cell phone and called my dad in front of the class. As it was ringing, the kids eyes opened wider and wider and J blurted out, "put it on speaker phone!"

My dad answered with, "what are you doing calling me at this time of day?" I asked him if I could put him on speaker phone with my class and he gladly obliged...he's a brave soul! I proceeded to remind him of the days around the dining room table and he quickly remembered! I then, to the applause of my students, apologized for all the heartache I had caused him in regards to the math. No wonder my high school students used to call me Dr. Phil. I ended the call and wrapped up class. I jokingly told them their homework for the weekend was to consider apologizing to me on Monday.

It is mornings like today that make me love my job even if it makes me feel old and makes me have to go back and apologize for being a stubborn teenager!

happy birthday...now back to work (paradoxes of life)

Now that it is past midnight, I guess I am officially 29 years old. Sheesh. Thirty minus 1. In some ways, it feels old. Other ways, young. For instance, when I realize that my sixth grade students this year were born at about the same time I was graduating from high school, I feel old. But when I talk to my neighbor who has sons my age, I feel young. When I realize that I've lived for nearly a third of a century, old. When I talk to the 105-year-old lady and her 80-year-old daughter at the nursing home where we visit with our small group, young. When I get a haircut and see more gray hair than brown, old. Life's pretty cool that way. We get to walk through life with people from all stages of life; those ahead and those behind, sharing our experiences and trying to teach and learn all at the same time.

At any rate, one week from today, I head back to work. I always get bittersweet feelings around this time of year. I enjoy my job, so I look forward to starting a new year. In fact, that's the best part of teaching. I get a fresh start every year to fix mistakes and capitalize on improvements I made in the previous year. I've got some great ideas to make life easier this year and I'm looking forward to giving them a shot. However, I must say that I enjoy not having to handle the drama of sixth-grade life during the summer. But I've been feeling a sense that this year will be different. I've been feeling like I really need to focus on extending extra gobs of grace to my students and coworkers this year. I also hope to get a stronger start since I'm not the new guy at my school this year and I have a pretty good lay of the land.

But having said that, this year I'll be teaching all math. And if you know me well, you know how crazy that is. I majored in journalism and I love writing (thus the blog). Math for me growing up was not too hard, I just didn't like it. I co-taught last year with a great teacher and thankfully got a crash course in teaching math. And doubly thankfully, I'm coteaching with her for two classes again this year so I can copy all of her good ideas. Triply thankfully, we're talking sixth grade, special education math, and not algebra 2 or trig. It should be fun (in some kind of weird, ironic, surreal kind of way).

summertime plans...

Today began the first day of my favorite time of year...summer! The kids finished school on Friday and I had two teacher workdays on Monday and Tuesday. I drove out of the parking lot simply amazed that a whole year had gone by. This time last year, we were in the midst of packing to move cross-country, I had just finished my classes at Cal State, I was trying to find a job here in Charlotte, we were saying goodbyes to friends in LA, and we were putting the finishing touches on the closing for our house.

So, now what do I do with my free time? Summer school, you may ask? Heck no! It's not that I'm lazy and don't want to work over the summer. I usually reply to friends when they ask this question by saying, "I don't think I can handle teaching special education students during the summer who failed my special education classes during the school year. There is an end to my love and grace!" So, my plan is to do some tutoring. I have one gig lined up and I just got a call about another today. I should also be able to line up a few photography gigs before the summer is over as well.

I plan to use my time to build my photography website back up and get some advertising out there in places other than Craigslist. I also plan to build a few things in the garage. I went to Lowe's today and picked up some wood with Kyla to build a bed to hold her full-size mattress we bought two months ago that has been sitting on the floor in her room since then. My dad is also coming down to hopefully help me put some crown molding up and I'm also hoping to use the leftover ceramic tile from the kitchen to put down in the bathroom. I've also created a little reading list for myself, and Sarah and I hope to take full advantage of our Netflix account! I probably will have to spend a little time this summer preparing for the fall as well since I recently found out I'm teaching all math next year!! If you know me well, you were surprised to hear I was teaching reading. If you know me in the slightest, you're shocked to hear I'm teaching all math! It should be a fun challenge though and I've got some good ideas on how to make it fun.

But mainly, I'm really looking forward to my time with my 3 girls. Sarah and I have devised a pretty good plan for the days that includes some family prayer/Bible time in the morning followed by school time for Kyla. She's already sounding out words and writing letters and she loves working in her reading book! The other day she started adding numbers too! She figured out how to use her fingers to add numbers less than 5 together! Avery is also a little sponge and will probably learn to read by watching us teach Kyla! We plan to hit the pool, the library, and the park on a regular basis as the weather permits.

At the end of the month we're headed to my cousin's wedding where Kyla will score a hat trick for flower-girling in a wedding. Then we'll head to VA for a week. We're in the process of booking plane tickets for Sarah to spend 2 weeks in the Philippines volunteering at the maternity clinic where she hopes to study in the near future. That will be quite an adventure for us all...Sarah overseas for 2 weeks and the girls and me at home by ourselves for 2 weeks! Overall, it's shaping up to be a nice summer. Two summers ago, my mom passed away and Avery was born 2 weeks later. Last summer, we moved cross-country, bought a house, and I got a new job. So I figure we can rationalize a little R&R this summer. Being strapped for cash is a pretty big bummer at times, but sitting here on the first day of summer vacation thinking that I don't have to work tomorrow makes teaching the best job in the world!!!

line of the day...

After the final bell at the middle school where I teach, students either head straight to the bus lot or to the front of the school to be picked up by a parent. By about 7 minutes after the bell, the school is pretty empty. But sometimes students linger about and they have to be paged to "report to the car rider line" so they can be picked up in the front.

Well, we have student with a famous name and he seems to always be a lingerer because they have to call his name several times a week. And every time they call his name, I can't help but stop and smile because I hear, "Jeff Gordon, please report to the car rider line."

mom, you're radical...

Another tale from the sixth grade special education world...the following is a real event that I experienced today. I must say that it is days like this that make me love my job.

We were wrapping up our poetry unit today and the students were putting their best poems into a little booklet to give to their moms on Mother's Day. Inevitably, the students included an acrostic poem using the word "mother" or "mom" in their booklets. We were encouraging them to use a thesaurus to look up good words to use.

With that in mind, a student (we'll call her K) walked over to me and the following conversation ensued:

K: [pointing to a word in the thesaurus] Mr. Davis, is this a good word to describe my mom?

Me: [with a puzzled, yet humored look on my face] K, I don't think "extremist" is a very good word to use in a poem about your mom. What made you think of that word?

K: [pointing to a synonym next to "extremist" in the thesaurus] Well, it says that "fantastic" is a synonym.

Me: K, that says fanatic, not fantastic!!!

K: Okay, Mr. Davis. You can get up off of the floor. It wasn't that funny.

So, I didn't really fall on the floor, but I came pretty close. I thought about calling her mom to share the funny story, but unfortunately her mother doesn't have that great of a sense of humor!

my 3rd favorite part about teaching...

As I'm sitting here sipping my homemade Americano, I can't help but think that this is my 3rd favorite part of being a teacher...Spring Break! At the end of last week, I was feeling ragged, worn down, and generally exhausted. Teaching is a tough gig, even if we do only have to work 9 months out of the year. And the job is getting tougher every year. The government and administrators heap on more expectations, requirements, and duties. Parents generally become more demanding and unrealistic. And to top it all off, many students are becoming less responsible and more apathetic. I've only been in the game for a few years and I can already tell that public education is in big trouble.

I've had the privilege of working with some very experienced teachers on the verge of retirement after teaching for 30ish years. Several of them have tried to convince other young teachers and myself to seek out other careers for our own mental health and well-being. They've seen education change so much and they can't imagine getting started now. The average new teacher only lasts about 3-5 years in the classroom these days.

I hope that I can still be standing in 30 years as a teacher because, after all, I do love my job. I love seeing kids learn how to read and write. I love walking kids through all the drama that comes with being a kid. I love sitting down with (most) parents and trying to figure out how to help a kid learn. I love teaching kids life lessons. It's the best job in the world! Hopefully, someday, someone with the influence to change things will realize that the Powers That Be are sucking the joy out of a tough job.

"So Peter," you ask, "if spring break is your 3rd favorite part of teaching, what are your 1st and 2nd favorite parts about teaching?" Good question, I'm glad you asked! Number two is Christmas break and Number one is summer break! Like I said before, I love my job...but I do love taking time off to be with my family and friends even more!

Pi day...

Anyone who knew me back in the day should be quite surprised that I teach math now. Especially Mr. Hesbach , my senior math teacher. At any rate, Friday was March 14, 3/14, which is officially known as Pi Day. For those of you who may have forgotten, Pi is 3.14 (and my nerd math friends will scold me for stopping there because it goes on for a bajillion more numbers after the 4).

So, my co-teacher and I decided a celebration was in order (except we had to celebrate on Thursday because of the field trip). We had people bring in pies and we measured the diameters and calculated the circumference and area (I know that is lame, but we had to make it somewhat educational). Then we ate pie and it was good. On a funny side note, the same boy who flushed his glasses down the toilet (see that post) decided he would brave his first taste of a pie on Thursday. How his mother let him get to the age of 12 without eating pie, I will never understand. Anyway, he got a one-inch triangle slice and cautiously inspected it. Finally, I convinced him to pop the whole thing in his mouth. When he did, his eyes bulged, he leaped out of his chair, and started running around like a man on fire. He finally flung the door open and sprinted to the bathroom to spit it out. I guess he didn't like it. At least he came back from the bathroom with his glasses this time!

Anyway, for all my math-lovin' friends, I've also posted the video we showed to our class below. It is a spoof on Eminem's "Lose Yourself." The rap is done by a guy named Pi-Ditty and it is called "Lose Yourself in the Digits." Enjoy!

(Warning: the video you are about to watch contains explicitly bad rapping by a bunch of geeky white kids who love math way too much. The owner of the blog had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the video. He simply thought that some of his friends might think it was funny. Consider yourself warned. Oh, and for some reason, the video appears twice below and the owner of this blog couldn't figure out how to get the second one to go away.)

we made it!

Well, we successfully made it back from Myrtle Beach Friday night and we didn't lose a single sixth-grader! After three hours on the bus down there, we hit up Mideival Times which is a pretty cool dinner and show. You sit in a large oval (the theater seats over 1000 people) and eat chicken and potatoes with your hands and slurp soup from the bowl (because there was no silverware, I guess, in the Midieval time period). While you eat, they put on a huge production in the middle of the ring complete with horses, hawks, knights, jousting, battle axes, and sword fighting.

Our 400 sixth-graders outshown the rest of the crowd when it came to cheering for our designated knight! The cheerleaders led the way with the "Red and Yellow" (clap, clap, clap, clap, clap). We blasted everyone else out. However, at the end when the betraying knight was revealed, and the King asked the crowd whether or not he should live, our cute little blonde cheerleaders suddenly turned into ravenous mercinaries and began shouting "kill him, kill him!" It was quite an emotional show, I must say.

Then it was off to the Aquarium for a little while. The best part about that was the gift shop sold Excedrin which got rid of my Midieval-Times-sized headache. All in all, it was a fun trip. The kids had a blast, which was the whole point! Here are a few shots from the aquarium.

We managed to get most of the kids together for a group shot. We didn't really take into consideration, though, that when we told them all to head to the buses from this point, that we might create a massive stampeed! One of the poor, stampeeded visitors grumbled, "These kids need to be kept on a leash!" Oh, well...

could use some prayers...

This Friday, I'm headed to Myrtle Beach, SC for a day trip with 460 of my closest friends...well actually it's 460 sixth-graders! Yep that's right, my first field trip. I somehow managed to sidestep all field trip responsibilities for 3 years as a high school teacher, but I scored big on this one! We leave at 6:15am Friday morning. Then we head to Medieval Times for lunch followed by a trip to Ripley's Aquarium. It should be a fun time, but I'm sure I'll be ready to be home by the time we make it home that night! I'll let you know how it goes!

down the toilet...

Another middle school adventure:

One of my 6th graders, we'll call him C, is a character all to his own. He is sort of a loner and doesn't really care too much what others think. He is well behaved, loves to read, works hard, but he has a flare for the dramatic. Thankfully, he's different enough that the mean kids actually kind of think he's cool. He is honestly one of my favorite students.

A few weeks ago, we came back in the room after lunch and as the students were settling down into their seats, I noticed C didn't have his glasses on and he was banging his head against his desk! I walked over to him and realized he was really upset so I bent down to investigate. I couldn't really understand what he was saying because he was so upset (and he's difficult to understand on a good day).

I got him out in the hallway to pry a little deeper and managed to make something out about his glasses getting flushed down the toilet! I couldn't imagine how in the world this would happen and I still couldn't really understand what he was saying, so I walked him back to the bathroom to see for myself. Finally, he took me into the stall and demonstrated that he leaned over the toilet to flush and as he was standing back up, his glasses slipped off his face and fell into the flushing toilet! There was nothing he could do because it happened so fast! They were gone.

As a glasses-wearer for the last 20-some years, I took great empathy at the loss. I walked him over to the counselor's office so he could calm down and call home. He made it back to class and could see well enough to make it through the day. Thankfully, he had a backup pair at home and his mom was able to order a new pair the next day!

oh, the joys...

When people hear that I am a middle school special education teacher, they often say something like, "you must have a lot of patience," or, "I could never do that." And while it does have its difficulties, it does have its perks. And those perks typically come in funny stories to share. Now keep in mind, that this is my reality. Some people may read this and think I should not laugh at these situations, but laughter is sometimes all that I have to hold onto when I work with kids who are working 2-3 grades below their level and for the most part, completely lack all understanding of social clues. Anyway, on to the story from today.

I have a very large and rather angry sixth grader who can hardly read or write and probably ranks the lowest on most every teacher's favorite list (yes, teachers do have favorites). However, J, as we will call him, has come to take a special place in my heart as I have gotten to know him and learned how to handle him. He's improved a lot and has come a long way. Well, today I intercepted a note being passed between him and another student, E. Here is what the note said:

J writes: "i joined a gang where we beat the s*** out of pepol." (he actually wrote the stars in there).
E responds: "im going to a moove with m girfend this weknd"

That is all the note said. Nothing more, nothing less. I sat for a minute trying to decide if I should be worried about J's writing, but I quickly dismissed it because of how well I know him. Then I got to thinking about how odd of an exchange it was! I shared this story with some other teachers who know J and they cracked up. One teacher brought up a good point: if the kid really did join a gang, he probably wouldn't be so concerned with censoring his note with stars to cover up a curse word! Oh, the joys...I thought you might enjoy a quick peek into my everyday life!

another great Morgan Spurlock movie

I just finished watching a great Morgan Spurlock (creator of "Supersize Me") movie called "Chalk." I had never heard of it before, but I found it while searching through Netflix On Demand for something to watch while Sarah is out with her lady friends. It is a great, documentary-style (like "The Office") comedy about teaching. It follows the fictional lives of several new teachers. I think it definitely captured the behind-the-scenes drama of teaching extremely well. So if you are a teacher, know a teacher, or ever had a teacher, I certainly recommend watching it!

A confession I hope my dad doesn't read...

Union County Public Schools (for whom I work) will possibly be shut down tomorrow due to inclement weather! I spent my day warning students that they should still do their homework just in case we do have school tomorrow. I am excited about the thought of my first snow day as a teacher (didn't get many snow days in Los Angeles) even though it is probably just going to sleet for a while and turn to rain by midday.

At any rate, I hope my dad doesn't read this, because I have to confess that I am severely under prepared for any kind of inclement weather. I do have an ice-scraper for the windshield of my car that I've already had to use this year, but I realized that I don't have anything else that might come in handy in case of a real big storm. I don't have a shovel or rock salt. That's not too big of a deal since we probably won't ever really get a huge snowfall. But I realized that if the power goes out, our phone goes out because we have voice over IP. Still not a huge deal, but I also found out that I don't have a battery-operated radio to be able to find out if I have to work. While thinking about batteries, I realized I don't even own a flashlight. Sheesh...it's a good thing we're in Charlotte where we don't get much inclement weather! If you did read this Dad, I'm sorry I have failed you as a son.

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Quick update 6:50am on Thursday: It snowed about 1/2 inch and is raining now. The roads are fine but we got a 2hr delay. I'm sure the kids will be nutty! We didn't lose power so I've been given a second chance at preparedness. Now if I could just convince my two kids to go back to bed since it's a late-start day, all would be well...