Some advice from my minister on Sunday:

Never give your love to something that can't love you back.

Imaginary Conversations

Much has been made of the success of the Oklahoma City MAPS program which has revitalized downtown OKC and attracted the NBA Hornets basketball team to the city. MAPS for Kids was touted as an extension of that successful building project. However, in the case of John Marshall High School the students, teachers and staff have been asked to move into a half-finished building and are being asked to do so again in regards to Centennial High School. We have been “challenged” to deal with the problems created by utilizing inadequate space in a “professional” manner. Imagine, however, if this same challenge had been given to the professional sports teams using two of the Crown Jewels of the downtown MAPS programs: the Bricktown Ballpark and the Ford Center.

I think the conversation would go something like this between Mayor Kirk Humphries and the Redhawks owners, and between Mayor Mick Cornett and the Hornets owner.

Humphries: I just wanted to get with you about the Bricktown Ballpark. As you know, you are expected to play in Bricktown the next season. All Sports Stadium is /going to be torn down.

Redhawks: Well, I’ve been to the ballpark, and quite frankly Mayor Humphries, the park isn’t finished yet. Only about a quarter of the stands have been completed and the concessions area is a mess.

Humphries: Yes, but I know that a professional team like your can “work around that.” We’ve promised the public that the ballpark will be open and we can’t go back on our word.

Redhawks: Where is everyone going to sit?

Humphries: We’ll put some folding chairs in the areas where we aren’t working at the time. That way when the construction workers need to get into that part of the park, the fans can just pick up their chairs, and move out of their way.

Redhawks: There is going to be construction going on during the games?!!!

Humphries: Of course, we’ve got to keep on schedule!

Redhawks: That’s going to disrupt the game. We can’t ask the players to put up with that!

Humphries: I thought you were a professional team. Surely, professionals can put up with a little disruption.

Redhawks: Obviously, you know nothing about playing baseball. And what about concessions? How will people get food and drink.

Humphries: We will set up some carts in the foul areas. You don’t really need those anyway.

Redhawks: No way. You get that stadium completed and then we move in. Until then we will stay at All Sports Stadium. It may be old, but at least it’s functional.

Humphries: Sorry, we made a deal with the folks who oversaw the building of that stadium and we’re going to keep it.

Now imagine the conversation between Mayor Cornett and George Shinn, owner of the Hornets:

Cornett: George, I’d like to talk to you about bringing the New Orleans Hornets to OKC for your next NBA season since the Superdome won’t be available. As you know, we have this new arena we call The Ford Center just waiting for an occupant.

Shinn: Thank you, Mr. Cornett, I’d like to see what you have for us.

Cornett: I think I need to tell you in advance that you’ll have a few “modifications” you’ll need to make to use it.

Shinn: What do you mean?

Cornett: It’s mostly about the court itself. We have a first class basketball court, but it’s only half finished.

Shinn: You expect us to play on a half-finished court!

Cornett: I’ve seen half-court games played by the kids in our park. If they can do it, surely a bunch of “professional” players can adjust their game just as well or better!

Shinn: Why do you think that a professional team would be interested in a half-finished product? You do things right over there in OKC or no one will be impressed with what you have. I’m shocked that you would ask any group of professionals to accommodate your schedule.

Well, you get the idea. If we wouldn’t expect professional teams to deal with half finished facilities, why do we get the idea that professional educators should do the same?

Kernel of Excitement

Happy Teacher
I live a day at a time.
Each day I look for a kernel of excitement.
In the morning I say, "What is my exciting thing for today?"
Then, I do the day.
Don't ask me about tomorrow.
--Barbara Jordan, American Congresswoman and educator

Quotations on Teachers

The [person] who can make hard things easy is an educator.--Ralph Waldo Emerson

15 Reasons to Love Education

1. Knowing you make a difference.
2. Creating a better tomorrow.
3. Workign with children.
4. Helping learning happen.
5. Memorable moments.
6. Being in great company.
7. Using your mind, heart, and soul every day.
8. Rewards that money can't buy.
9. Seeing a student's face light up.
10. A sense of accomplishment.
11. Shaping lives, dreams, and futures.
12. Each day can be an adventure.
13. Feeling proud of being a role model.
14. Summer vacation.
15. Recognizing that your job is important even on "bad" days.

(from "Attitude is Everything" Positive Gift Books)

This I Believe

Norman Corwin

In my Advanced Placement class, we have been reading and analyzing essays that come from the NPR "This I Believe" series. I intend to have them write their own belief statements. Here is an example of an essay we studied.

Good Can Be as Communicable as Evil by Norman Corwin

Years ago, while watching a baseball game on television, I saw Orel Hershiser, pitching for the Dodgers, throw a fastball that hit a batter. The camera was on a close-up of Hershiser, and I could read his lips as he mouthed, "I'm sorry." The batter, taking first base, nodded to the pitcher in a friendly way and the game went on.

Just two words, and I felt good about Hershiser and the batter and the game all at once. It was only a common courtesy but it made an impression striking enough for me to remember after many summers.

The blood relatives of common courtesy are kindness, sympathy and consideration. And the reward for exercising them is to feel good about having done so. When a motorist at an intersection signals to another who’s waiting to join the flow of traffic, "Go ahead, it’s OK, move in," and the recipient of the favor smiles and makes a gesture of appreciation, the giver enjoys a glow of pleasure. It’s a very little thing, but it represents something quite big. Ultimately it’s related to compassion, a quality in very short supply lately, and getting scarcer.

But look, let's not kid ourselves. It would be foolish to hope that kindness, consideration and compassion will right wrongs, and heal wounds, and keep the peace and set the new century on a course to recover from inherited ills. That would be asking a lot from even a heaven-sent methodology, and heaven is not in that business.

It comes down to the value of examples, which can be either positive or negative, and it works like this: Because of the principle that a calm sea and prosperous voyage do not make news but a shipwreck does, most circulated news is bad news. The badness of it is publicized, and the negative publicity attracts more of the same through repetition and imitation.

But good can be as communicable as evil, and that is where kindness and compassion come into play. So long as conscionable and caring people are around, so long as they are not muted or exiled, so long as they remain alert in thought and action, there is a chance for contagions of the right stuff, whereby democracy becomes no longer a choice of lesser evils, whereby the right to vote is not betrayed by staying away from the polls, whereby the freedoms of speech, assembly, religion, and dissent are never forsaken.

But why linger? Why wait to begin planting seeds, however long they take to germinate? It took us 200-plus years to get into the straits we now occupy, and it may take us as long again to get out, but there must be a beginning.

copyright National Public Radio and Atlantic Public Media

Got Any Flames?

Frank and Ernest on Blogging

Well, that's one view. Here's another:

Great Minds Discuss Ideas.
Good Minds Discuss Events.
Small Minds Discuss People.

(Think about that the next time you're looking at the supermarket magazine rack!)

Happy (?) Day Light Savings Monday

Grand Avenue


Hope you all are coping with having to get up an hour earlier (which is basicly what Day Light "Savings" is all about). Only one week till Spring Break!

School Violence

How Can We Have Safe Schools?

Here is an article that appeared in The Oklahoman about violence at New John Marshall and the community's response. What's your take on this?

Task force to address discipline issues at city district's new John Marshall

Red and Rover

Limericks

When Students Insult

Even Shakespeare Insulted

How do you respond when a student tries to insult you? I been insulted by students calling me "four eyes" or asking me when my baby is due. Usually, I try to joke back, but sometimes what students say is inappropriate such as when they try to get on the subject of sex. I have known of some teachers who have been very hurt by what students will say. One teacher, somewhat elderly, got very hurt when students asked her if she had to use a diaper to get through the day.

How do you handle insults? Are there any subject, off topic with you? Do you try to joke back with them? What are there responses that are not appropriate or at least, counter-productive?

Verbivore

Another web page I would highly recommend is the Verbivore page of Richard Lederer.

Here is one of his stories on teachers:

"Some of my favorite stories about teachers are positively heavenly:

St. Peter hears a knocking at the Gates of Heaven and calls out, "Who's there?"
"It is I," a voice responds.
"Oh no, not another English teacher," sighs St. Peter.
St. Peter welcomes the teacher into heaven and says he will show her to where she will spend eternity.

The first neighborhood is lovely. People stroll park lawns, socialize, and play golf on a beautiful course. Everyone is having a great time. The teacher asks if this is where she will live, but St. Peter says it's just for doctors. The teacher rolls her eyes and sighs.

They walk on, and the teacher sees another neighborhood that is just as beautiful -- exquisite mansions, gorgeous grounds and lavish facilities. Again she inquires if this is where she will live, but St. Peter says it's for lawyers.

On through the clouds they walk and soon come to a third neighborhood. It too is lovely, with shining mansions, parks, pools and the like. St. Peter tells the teacher this will be her new home in Heaven. The teacher is thrilled, but she notices that no one is around, and all the mansions seem to be empty. She asks St. Peter where everyone is. Didn't many teachers make it to Heaven?

St. Peter announces that yes, there are lots of teachers in Heaven, and they won't return until the next day. They are all in Hell attending an in-service training session."

Richard Lederer's Verbivore

Another Frank and Earnest Pun Cartoon

Frank and Earnest

National Pun Day

On my own, I have declared next Sunday, National Pun Day because that date answers the questiion, "What date of the year do soldiers hate the most." (You'll figure it out.)

I love good puns. Here's one of my favorites:

Veteran Pillsbury spokesman Pop N. Fresh died Wednesday of a severe yeast infection. He was 71.

He was buried Friday in one of the biggest funerals in years. Dozens of celebrities turned out including Mrs. Butterworth, the California Raisins, Hungry Jack, Betty Crocker, and the Hostess Twinkies.

The graveside was piled high with flours, as longtime friend Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy, describing Fresh as a man who "never knew he was kneaded".

Fresh rose quickly in show business, but his later life was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a smart cookie, and wasted much of his dough on half-baked schemes.

Still, even as a crusty old man, he was a roll model to millions. Fresh is survived by his second wife. They had two children, and one in the oven.

The funeral was at for 20 minutes at 350

Okay, that's my contribution to National Pun Day. Do you have a favorite pun? Send it to me and I'll post it!

Great Web Site for Great Books

I really like this site. You can find all sorts books, reference works, quotations, and encyclopedias here.

Bartleby.Com

Non-Sequitur

It's Washington's (Real) Birthday, by George!

To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country. - George Washington

Progress Report Time

Baldo

Some Advice My Mother Gave Me

Speak your compliments loudly and publicly, and your criticisms, if at all, quietly and privately.

(I haven't always followed this, but I find that my relationships with others, including my students, work best when I do.)

'Nother Frank and Earnest

For Math Teachers

The I-Search Paper: A New Type of Research Essay

I have had much success having my students do "I-Search" papers. The I-Search paper was developed by Ken Macrorie in a book he developed entitled "Searching Writing". The paper calls for students to do research on a topic they want to know more about: future careers, current events, problems they or family members have faced (i.e. abuse or divorce). The students start out by discussing what they want to know, why they want to know this, how much they think they know, what they need to know, and how they are going to learn what they need to know. They then do their research through the library, through the web, and through interviews. In their essays, they not only discuss what they learned, but how they learned it. In other words, their search for information is as much a part of the essay as the information itself. That is one reason this type of research is called "I-Search": much of the paper is a personal narrative of discovery written in first-person.

In addition to Macrorie's book, there are many good web sites covering the I-Search. Here are a couple you may wish to review:

The I-Search Paper
I-Search Paper Format Guide
The I-Search Paper: Sylvia Robins' Template

I-Search Diagram

I Love a Good Pun!!!

Frank and Earnest

I really like Frank and Earnest. The Bob Thaves, the creator of this wonderful strip, is a great lover of puns and other types of wordplay. You can go to his web site and find an archive of past cartoons through a search engine.

FrankandEarnest.com

O would some power the giftie gie us . . .

. . . to see ourselves as our students see us.

With apologies to Robert Burns

Abraham Lincoln on Education

Lincoln Reading

Today is the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln's birth in 1809. There is a Lincoln Exhibit at the Murrah Memorial downtown. Here is what Lincoln said about education:

"Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in."

When Students Use Profanity

How do you handle profanity in the classroom?

I just got through talking to a student about his use of sexual profanity. The young man is one of our better students. He's in my Advanced Placement class and is otherwise a good young man, if immature. He was chanting some lyrics during some class "down time" which involved sex, particularly boasting about having sex with someone else's mother. I had him stay after class during which I gave him "the sermon" about how he speaks about women, particularly mothers, and if he would appreciate someone talking about his mother in those words. Then I sent him home for the weekend.

Our students use profanity the way I used slang when I was their age. I have tried to fight it. Students can get points taken from their "Good Conduct Grade" or even detention, but nothing I do seems to help.

Let me know how you respond to students to use obscenities.

Remembering the Ice

Icicles!

There is an beautiful Magnolia tree just outside of my classroom. Here's what it looked like during our recent bout with ice. If you have some interesting pics of life at JM send them our way!

We Make Our Tools and They Make Us

Interest article here about how students' writings are affected by e-mail and text messaging:

Students use chat lingo in class

I haven't seen this in our students, but I bet it's coming!

Why I Teach, part one

My passion for teaching stems from my late childhood. Some teachers and counselors at my high school, who were much more an advocate for me than I was capable of being for myself, made a profound difference in my life—not just by the rigor of their academic requirements--but also by the very atmosphere of concern they created. Their attention to the details of my adolescent confusion and their encouragements nurtured in me a deep sense of civic and moral responsibility. I knew school was a good and safe place to be, where warm meals and protection would be provided along with activities and challenges. Without teachers and counselors in my high school life, I do not think I would have gained the same depth and sense of fairness and duty that I now cherish.
To surmise, it is not out of a sense of debt, but out of great inspiration that I feel part of my life's responsibility is to do what I can to provide advocacy (and a safe place to grow and learn) to all my students--especially when they seem least concerned about their own welfare.

Something We All Need to Remember As Well As Teach

Why IPods Are Bad

Bears Win Putnam City North Consolation Championship

Here are several JMHS students showing the ultimate result in teamwork.... Way to go Bears!!!!!! Congrats to Rolando Gardner and Dwonne Wilburn who were also named to the PCN All Tournament Team.

Need to Team

I would love to share ideas in any format. We are so busy, but we are being unfair to ourselves when we don't take time to support each other and share ideas. In working with the other school, I've learned that the middle school is a million times better at "teaming" than the high school. Thinking anew means working together and creating the structure to make that happen. I truly believe if YOU ARE NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION, YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM.--Charlotte Hunter

Good Times in the Classroom

In my opinion, as a teacher who is back in the classroom, I have gatherd a lot of information from others teachers about management skills that worked for them. I have tried many different approaches, and at this time have found one that is working quite well. I have also found that when I have a good time, the students tend to have a good time. I also have noted that if I talk to them or "with" them about what is important to them (even if it isn't English or Humanities), they repond to what I "need" to them to do much more effectively. I appreciate the times teachers have let me vent when things weren't so good, and offered me encouragement and ideas to make my classroom more effective.

I would like to observe other teachers in their classrooms to see what is effectivley working for them and I invite anyone who would to observe my classroom to feel free to do so. I would love the feed back. I feel that as a teacher, I need peers to let me know what I can do to become better at educating my students.

I also think that as a staff if we work together to help our students, they see us working together cooperatively and are more willing to do the same.

Dyan McGee

Earning Respect

I have always felt that I was on the side of the kids and have always been a firm believer that a teacher must EARN the respect of their students to have effective discipline. You can't demand respect, you MUST earn it. I have never had major discipline problems but then I USUALLY have kids that, for the most part, want to be in my class.

Denise Caton

What Started This

This was the e-mail I sent out to the faculty and administration following our Faculty Advisory Meeting with Ms. Thompson and Dr. Horn that gave rise to this Blog:
Some reflections on YTD's FAC meeting:

I thought that yesterday's Faculty Advisory Council meeting was positive and productive. We are operating under a new system and we owe it to our students to work together for their benefit within the system. I am only stating the obvious when I say that this year has been rather, well, unique. And as Honest Abe once said, "The quiet dogma's of the past are inadequate to our present siutation." Because our situation is new, we must think anew.


I began the portion of the meeting on school discipline by stating that we must avoid two extremes of classroom management if we are to make in progress towards moving from using all our energy in managing to using the majority of it in teaching. As teachers we must avoid the temptation to use referrals as our primary method of classroom management. This is an attempt to let someone else deal with problems we have and it strikes me as a less than responsible method of teaching. That word "responsible" at it's heart means, "able to respond" to our real situation.

The other extreme to be avoided is an administrator who sees any referral as a sign of teacher failure and that teachers have to deal with all problems in the classroom, well, "in the classroom". Teachers continually face students resist our best efforts to get involved in the education process. The damage these students do goes beyond damaging themselves. They wreck the education opportunites for all their fellow classmates. Research has shown that the number one predictor of classroom sucessful is the student's socio-economic environment. The number two predictor of classroom success is the enviroment of the student's school. Such schools have problems with negative peer pressure, disruptive class and school environment, and all the problems associated with poverty. In other words, poor students in schools in poor areas often have two strikes against them before they even begin.

So do we give up our hands and throw up, ere, make that throw up our hands and give up? I feel that is a denial of our "ability to respond" our responsibility. I've been reading over some of those "Master Teacher" tracks we have been given this semester. They are surprisingly good. The first one talks about the need for us to become "Advocates" for our students. Students need to feel that we are on their side. That's a vague, wooly concept, I know, but it teaches a real truth: we must communicate to our students that we are their allies. We are fighting on their side. That's why referrals must be seen, at best, as a "necessary evil". By that I mean, referrals must represent a student who has resisted all our best efforts to recognize our advocacy. Now, by calling them "necessary evils" that does not mean they are any less necessary. Referrals are not "failures" on the teachers part if the teacher has taken her/his advocacy responsibilities seriously.

This e-mail message has gone on long enough, but I would like to make a proposal. Let pledge to become advocates, and let us share our efforts with one another. How do we become advocates for our students? If you like, I could create a blog where we can share ideas, or we can simply us the school e-mail to share. Give me your thoughts on what I have said here. I truly appreciate all that you do in this school. I am priviledged to call you my colleague.


Yours in the fight,

Lynn Green

Greetings: What, Why and How

Some of the teachers at Original John Marshall High School decided to start a blog as a means of sharing ideas and "best practices" with each other. We also encourage you to send in news items, pictures, and notes of thanks or encouragement. For now, we will have two moderators of this blog, myself, Mr. Green, and Mr. Coursey. If you wish to post, you need to click on the "Comments" link at the end of the post and send your comments along. We will read them, and, if they past muster, post them for all to see.

Please keep your comments to the point and avoid any negative personal attacks. I hope you will find this useful and encouraging. We are all in this together and only together can we hope to help our students succeed in the most important job they will ever have.

Remember as Larry Bell has told us, “Just don’t forget, ... that even on your worst day at work, you may still be a child’s best hope for success. There is some child out there who needs you. When you care about them, they believe that they can achieve – and then they do achieve!”