Middle School Web Highlights

• This sixth grade class has blogged itself around the world
• Here is a teacher giving blog assignments and here is another
• Here is a list of 23 middle school teacher's blogs
• Label this map of the Middle East and North Africa

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

'Feed a Country' Advisory Project

As I was driving down the interstate today I thought of an advisory class project that involves planting seeds (carrots, peas, tomatoes) and then watering each of them based on the current daily rain fall in the country represented by the different pots. I am sure a project like this has been done a hundred times in schools around the world, but it was a new idea for me. I swung by a store on my way home and bought a bag of soil, 15 clay pots and the seeds as you see in this picture. We will start preparing to feed the world tomorrow.

We are currently building a nine hole mini-golf course in advisory, but after about five days of working on it the students started murmuring about my advisory being "boring" and saying "we want to do something fun like the other advisories." So, we had a little impromptu advisory group discussion and I asked them for some ideas that would be fun. The only thing they, or at least their spokespeople, could come up with was playing hide and seek through out the school for twenty minutes. I entertained the idea for a few moments, made some comments, asked some questions and soon the class discussion burned up the 25 minute advisory period for that day. (This would count as a team building day, I guess.)

I believe that in order to get the students to finish the nine-hole mini golf course project I will have to divide the holes and the students. I will then assign one hole to each set of partners. We will try this approach instead of the group project concept where we all work together as one big happy class (which is not happening) in assembly line fashion. I am going to give them a simple one hole project that they can visualize, work on and see instant progress. Plus, the competition between groups and the individual responsibility will be helpful. The students could not see the course coming together so they lost interest and stopped engaging. I hope that they will be able to engage and visualize the single hole concept. They could surprise me and not like that either.

But, while I was thinking about this advisory class issue as I drove cross-country on the interstate today, I thought it would be interesting to give each student a clay pot, some seeds and the name of a country. They will plant their seeds and then check the daily rain fall for that country or region on the Internet or in a newspaper each day . (It would also be cool to link up to an online live webcam from that country with an outside view that shows the weather, etc.) We will then form some way of transferring the actual amount of rainfall into some equivalent measure of water in our shop. In theory some clay pots (countries) will flourish and produce the beginnings of tomato, peas or carrot plants and others may not.

I am not so foolish to think that the students are going to be excited about this project either since it is a long way from running up and down the hallways playing hide and seek. We have to finish the golf course, feed the world and then make marshmallow launchers out of PVC pipe. I do understand, though, that none of these are as much fun as running up and down the hallways screaming and hiding.

I will let you know if any of the countries get fed. If not, we may be looking at a case of world famine caused by my advisory class.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

The Paper Airplane

When I was in second grade throwing paper airplanes seemed to be an issue in the older classes. I remember hearing teachers discuss this behavioral problem and their concern for the lack of discipline in this new generation of kids emerging in the 1960's. Of course, my dad, being the building principal, was concerned about school discipline, but I think he also liked paper airplanes.

I say this because it was during this paper airplane frenzy that one night at home he showed me how to turn a simple sheet of paper into a paper airplane. Now, I am not talking about one of those paper airplanes that float like a leaf falling from a tree on a windless day in October. No, I am talking about a paper airplane design that is even yet to this day called "The Arrow" on the internet (see here for the name and the proper folding technique). I was amazed by so many aspects of the paper airplane concept. Not only did I now possess the knowledge and power to create a paper airplane, but I could throw this thing and it would fly far and straight. For the next several weeks everything that could be folded was turned into a paper, or cardboard, or plastic airplane. I still can feel the rush of excitement thinking about creating and throwing these planes as a second grader.

Well, soon the day came at school when the teacher left the room for a few minutes while we students were suppose to be reading something or working on an assignment. I had been waiting for this moment. I wanted to demonstrate to my fellow second graders this marvelous thing called flight. I quickly converted a piece of paper into "The Arrow", stood up and threw the thing across the room. Even I was captivated by the height of the flight and amazed by straight line trajectory of this paper airplane. It flew quick and straight and high until it stuck into blinds of one of the windows at the top of the wall where it met the fifteen foot high ceiling. There it stuck and there it stayed.

The student's gazes of amazement turned quickly from the plane, to a brief glance at me still standing with my arm in throwing position, then they looked straight back to their assignment to gain the appearance of having seen nothing. They were completely innocent, but I was still standing with my plane stuck fifteen feet up on the back wall with a class full of witnesses. The plane was high in the window blinds of the back wall; the back of the room where the teacher is constantly facing when she addresses the class. (These windows can be seen in the picture of this blog.) I had no idea what to do. I could think of no other option but to blend in with my classmates and return to the assignment.

I knew that when the teacher returned to the room she would see the plane stuck high in the blinds the instant she entered the room. As I waited for her to return, I looked a couple of times at the plane hoping it would fall and I could quickly go destroy the evidence. But, instead, it stayed firmly in the blinds, hanging out like a big arrow pointing at me and what I had done.

A few minutes later she entered the room, resumed class, switched subjects, took us to lunch, returned from recess, had more classes and sent us home. I never looked at the plane when she was in the room. When we went home at the end of the day I took one quick look at it before I left the room and then I worried about it all night. The next morning the plane was still there. So it went day after day for a couple of weeks. It got to the point that the plane was part of the class decor, it seemed to belong there now. I worried less and less about the plane hanging fifteen feet above the class until I forgot about it. No one looked at the plane, no one thought about the plane, no one even remembered the plane. And more, the teacher had never even seen the plane. But, it was still there . . .

Then one day, like an explosion in the midst of a quiet class, busy with their assignment, the teacher shouted, "Who did that!" We all jerked our heads up and snapped to attention with no idea what she was talking about. We all looked up to see the teacher pointing at the back of the room towards the ceiling . . . oh, yeah, I remember . . . the plane. Judgment day had come. My heart started racing. I started to feel very hot. I didn't know what to do but to sit quietly and appear to be consumed with getting my assignment done. None of the kids said anything. They appeared to have forgotten the whole thing. Maybe they had. I will never know. I never talked about it again . . . well, at least until right now.

Since my Dad's paper airplane instructions in the 1960's I have shared the folding technique of "The Arrow" with my own boys and many students from the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's (or, whatever we call 2000-2009). The reaction is still the same. They all feel empowered and they fly everything that will fold.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Flag Poles and Clean Hands

I recall several things from second grade. My dad was the building principal and we had a pretty good basketball team. I remember looking down from the open hallway above the gym one day and watching my dad and one of the coaches tape the new hash mark lines onto the basketball court before a game. (I am the tall kid in the back row, the fifth boy from the right, standing directly under the G quarter note with an A in front of it and another G after it.)

When I saw my dad at school I had to call him Mr. Wiemers. That was his rule, but, at the same time, whenever he saw me in the hallway he would whistle real quick so I would turn around and wave at him.

Second grade was the winter I tried licking a flag pole during recess. I did it three or four times before I decided that this behavior made my tongue feel like I had burnt it on some very hot hot chocolate.

This was the year our teacher (see photo above) would check our hands every morning to see if they were clean. If our hands were acceptable and we had a handkerchief (or, a package of Kleenex) we were allowed to have a white paper hand made out of construction paper with our name on it placed on the wall. But, if our hands were not clean, or we had dirt under our fingernails, or we failed to have a handkerchief or Kleenex displayed on our desk then our white hand would come off the wall and be replaced by a black hand with our name on it. This quickly became an obsession for me. Each morning the teacher would walk up and down the rows as we laid our hands out on the desk top by our handkerchief. One by one black hands began to replace the white hands on the wall. Some kids would recover and be allowed to restore their white hand the next day. The longer the year went the more stressful this became for me because I had never had to remove my white hand from the wall. My mother always had an ironed handkerchief for me to take to school, but just in case I would ever forget I also had secured a small package of Kleenex and kept them in my desk.

One day I did forget a handkerchief, but I simply called an audible and went with the back up plan. I moved the unopened pack of Kleenex to my desk top and passed inspection again. With this kind of focus and planning I was able to go the entire year without once ever having to remove my white hand. Now, there were days my tongue was very sore, but my hands were clean.

In second grade I realized that if I am going to bother pusuing a goal I should probably invest some time and effort into back up plans to attain the goal. I also decided to only lick flag poles in the summer.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

S.O.T.E.L. for Self-Evaluation

I received this week's copy of Education Week and enjoyed the article on a preparatory charter school in Boston for middle school children. Although most the students who enter this school in sixth grade are behind at grade level (less than 1/3 are at grade level for math) by the end of sixth grade they are outperforming other district students and 97% who move onto high school will graduate. They claim the key to their success is "blending tough academics with intense student support in a small, highly structured setting." A caption under a photo of students in uniform dress (khakis and ties) passing to the another class says, "Transitions between classes are silent, reflecting a serious culture."

In the commentary section is an article that contains a quick evaluation list I found useful for appraising my own personal significance as a teacher. The acronym they used was SOTEL which stood for Safety, Objectives, Teaching, Engagement and Learning. When translated these words mean:

• A climate that's conducive to intellectual risk-taking
• The lesson has a clear purpose
• Learning is skillfully orchestrated and artfully differentiated
• Students are paying attention and their minds are active and involved
• The teacher is using on-the spot assessment to fine tune their teaching

Sounds like a successful coach's daily practice routine. In the past when I have felt strongly about communicating successfully from an instructional position I would simply engage in the education process as if I were coaching.

Mr. Wiemers in a Time Out in Tulsa, Ok. in 1989
- During a time out SOTEL is essential. The coach must apply on the spot assessment and clearly communicate the team's purpose by any form of differentiated learning available to a group of athletes who are paying attention and about to resume the game that will demand they make on the spot decisions and take risks that will reflect their learning process.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Show and Tell

My first opportunity to stand in front of a class for the purpose of making a presentation came in first grade during show and tell. In first grade show and tell was one of the first things we did each morning and it seemed to be on a voluntary basis. As you would imagine some kids volunteered every day. These same kids who willing went to the front of the class to "show and tell" day after day rarely seemed to show us anything interesting or tell us anything eventful. I do not think I was one of these kids because I remember clearly the two times I choose to participate. One time I choose to show and another time I choose to tell.

My first appearance at show and tell was simply a speaking engagement. No props were required because I knew the shear shock of the tragic news I was going to tell would send a wave of grief through the class. I recall thinking before I went up to the front of the class for the first time that many of the students would probably begin to cry when they heard what I had to share. I raised my hand to volunteer and made my way to the front of a class room for the first time ever. It took all my concentration to get to the front and once I was there I did not look up at the class. I remember announcing the terrible news to my classmates as I stared at the floor: "My grandma died yesterday". Then slowly I raised my eyes to see a classroom from the front of the room. There from the front of the room I could see, and still remember, with acute detail, a sea of motion and busyness from my first grade classmates. One girl was getting a Kleenex from her package. One boy was engaged in eye contact with another boy. Another student was playing with his eraser and pencil in an attempt to build something. The activity and the details made me dizzy, but the most shocking thing was that no one seemed to have heard what I said. I repeated the news with a little more confidence only to see the distracting movements begin to increase. In a state of emptiness and failure I return to my seat from my first trip to the front of the class. I spent some time that day and in the years that followed thinking about that experience as I tried to make sense of why my compassion and my emotions were not communicated. After all, what information could be more interesting and eventful than what I shared that day? One of the conclusions I came to concerning my classmates lack of response to my presentation was that my interests were not their interests and my feelings were not their feelings. Over time I learned that in order to communicate with a class I would need to engage their interests and their feelings first before they would come close enough to be able to experience my presentation.

A few weeks later I decided to add to my show and tell repertoire my favorite molded plastic dinosaurs from my collection that I passionately organized, studied and played with. This time I would show the students my most prized possessions which included my favorite dinosaur, a green brontosaurus (We did not know back then that the dinosaur we called brontosaurus was actually a scientific error. We now know that the brontosaurus was actually an apatosaurus with the head of a camarasaurus.) The presentation went well. Everyone was attentive as I shared some of my favorite details and proudly held up the dinosaurs one at a time for the attentive students. Later that day while I was putting my stuff away to go home I realized that my green brontosaurus had been stolen. I never saw it again.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Internet

Check out this blog about getting students on the web at school: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/LeaderTalk/

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com

Early-Literacy Study

In the January 21 issue of Education Week an article reviewed a report that analyzed the results gained from early-literacy (ages 3-4) studies. One expert warned that the results of the panel's report may send the message that will cause "practitioners" (I assume he was referring to teachers) "to further narrow instruction and focus on the discrete skills." The skills that the report listed as the moderate to strong skills necessary to predict overall literacy development were:

• Alphabetic Knowledge: knowledge of names and sounds associated with printed letters
• Phonological Awareness: detecting, manipulating, or analyzing parts of words
• Rapid Automatic Naming of Letters/Digits: naming a sequence of random letters or numbers
• Rapid Automatic Naming of Objects/Colors: naming a sequence of random sets of pictures or objects
• Writing or Writing Name: writing letters in isolation or one's own name
• Phonological Memory: remembering spoken information for a short period of time

The article has a quote warning that the panel's report "places a very strong emphasis on the narrow range of skills related to decoding, phonemic awareness and other memory kinds of skills." The point being that other areas that need to be developed such as vocabulary, oral language and background knowledge may not immediately show their value in reading ability until third or fourth grade.

The article ends with another warning: "What we always have to keep in mind is that we are dealing with very young children, so the instruction needs to be playful and engaging." I have always thought instruction for any age should be engaging and if it can be presented as "playful" instead of "work" that is also a great advantage.

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Letters and Numbers

I remember in first grade how challenging the Dick and Jane books were to read. It was so hard to sound out the letters and hear the word at the same time. It was easier to look at the picture and tell the story. Honestly, what do you think sounds better, the words or the story in the picture?




This is what the words say:

"See, see. Oh, see. See Dick."

But, this is what the picture says:

"Dick was supposed to take Spot for a walk but thought it would be easier if he wore his roller skates. Everything was going fine when all of a sudden Sally's evil cat got away. Sally went to get Jane to help her find the evil cat called Puff. Sally and Jane looked and looked and looked but they could not find Puff. Then suddenly they heard Dick's roller skates coming down the side walk and Spot barking loudly. Sally and Jane jumped back off the sidewalk just in time to see the evil cat being chased by Spot who was pulling Dick around and around the block on his roller skates. Sally and Jane thought Dick was really cool. Dick thought this was the best day of his life."

To a first grader the words clearly get in the way of the story. Of course, I did not understand that there were books without pictures and that reading and writing would eventually be essential.

I also remember bringing home an arithmetic assignment and my dad explaining to me why the teacher counted the problem wrong when I had written that 0 + 0 = 1. I remember spending time thinking about the 0 + 0 = __ problem in class during the assignment. My reasoning went like this: if 1 +1 = 2 and 2 + 2 = 4 then 0 + 0 must equal one of the next higher numbers that comes in the sequence after 0. So, 0 + 0 = 1 was my argument. At home Dad took two empty bowls and dumped everything that was in them (which was nothing) into another empty bowl. He then asked me how much was in that third bowl. When he put it that way it was clear that nothing plus nothing equals nothing. Of course, ten years later Billy Preston turned this concept into the hit song "Nothing from Nothing" when he sang "nothin' from nothin' leaves nothin', you gotta have somethin' if you wanna be with me."

It is interesting to look back at the process of trying to find patterns and logic in the little numbers written on a page. It is almost impossible to make sense of the mathematical system when it is seperated from our daily experiences.




Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Saving High School Shop Programs

Check out this teacher forum that is focused on saving high school shop programs:

http://www.woodworkingteachers.com/Default.aspx?g=posts&t=93

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

American Woodworker Article

In the January 2008 issue of American Woodworker there is an article about a high school trigonometry teacher who in 1995 had classes "filled with college-bound students that could not calculate fractions or read a tape measure." This teacher concluded that the reason the students struggled with basic math was because they did not understand how numbers worked. The students had very little experience with numbers outside the realm of abstract classwork which was detached from the experiential context of the hands on physical world they lived in.

The shop program had been shut down in 1993 after the shop teacher that had began teaching the classes in 1963 had retired. But after a few years the math teacher himself investigated and followed through with reopening the wood shop as part of the math program. He and others now teach a class called Design and Construction. Many groups see the importance of having students involved with hands on projects and have come along side to help advance the program.

The math teacher who turned to shop teacher says in this article:

"I've learned that teaching woodship is harder work than teaching math. The students are more demanding, the stress level is much higher, and keeping the machinery running is a fulll-time job. However, teaching woodshop is the most rewarding thing I have ever done. I see the kids learning at rates I have never seen before. Every new batch of woodshop students reminds me of the importance of hands-on practical learning and reinforces my opinion that woodshop (or any manual-arts class) is essential for every student."

The importance of students having hands on experiences with material and academic information is more important than we realize. I appreciate the math teacher's comments above, but, of course, I think all teachers deal with demanding students, stress levels and the need to manage the day to day up keep of their class rooms. I would just rather deal with these in the shop.

a related blog

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Coloring Squirrels

In kindergarten I remember I was afraid to call the teacher by her name, Mrs. Breckenfelder, so I just called her "Hey." From what I recall, she did not appreciate the name "Hey" and spoke to the class about it.

I also remember she did not appreciate my coloring of a picture of a squirrel she had given to us. It was a simple line drawing of a squirrel on a page. We were supposed to color the squirrel and hand it in.

The picture was just a squirrel, no tree, no acorn, no grass, nothing but a squirrel. Since I had never seen just a squirrel with no background, no surroundings and doing nothing I accessorized my coloring sheet that day. As soon as I finished coloring the squirrel I brought the picture to life with grass for the squirrel to run in, a tree in the background with a hole in the trunk for an owl to look out, an atmosphere (sky) with the sun shining through and, of course, I gave the squirrel an acorn to hold with a few scattered around in the grass for him to pick up later.

I knew I had maximized my use of space and colors. I really felt I had connected with the project I was assigned. So when I had thoroughly spent my creativity and my skill on this assignment I walked to the desk to place it in the stack of the other colored squirrels.

What happen next was one of my first experiences with being blind sided by the unexpected. "Hey" took my coloring sheet and instead of studying it with appreciation for the colorful details she called me back up front. "Hey" rebuked my picture and challenged my ability to follow directions.

I remember wondering what "Hey" was upset about. I found myself incapable of following her logic as she spoke. One of the conclusions I came to at an early age was that teachers do not think in real world scenarios. My modus operandi in school for the next many years was to give the teachers minimal effort and save my resources and creativity for myself. Teachers would see the results of B and C effort, but I would save the A+ effort and extra credit for my own dreams and projects.

It worked well. In the end everyone got what they wanted . . . and they all lived happily ever after.

Here is a photo of my kindergarten class. I am the first one on the left, the smart looking kid, with the red shirt and black collar. "Hey" is the tall person in the brown sweater. Take note of how high the windows are in this building since they become an important part of my second grade experience two years later (more on that in a few more days.)



Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

A Friday Advisory Activity

Mr. Wiemers
http://mrwiemersshop.com/

Mr. Wiemers' Shop New Blog

On the way to school I was thinking about my earliest recollections of the educational system. These thoughts were the result of having spent the weekend at my Dad's place talking "shop". Since he began teaching in a shop in 1956 and became a school administrator in 1963 talking "shop" means talking about woodworking and educational issues. One of my first memories of education was the new American flag on my Dad's desk. Alaska had just become a state in 1959 and in the early 1960's I would play with this new flag that had all fifty stars on it. It was in this same office my Dad's desk held all the technology available for him in that day, a black rotary phone. I have a photo of my Dad sitting behind his desk with nothing but a black rotary phone. We were talking about that phone this weekend. I remember the phone number for the school was #52 or something. Our home number was also a simple two digits.