Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
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Get the Same Paycheck
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12 thoughts on “Get the Same Paycheck”
Also, when you physically slow yourself down, pause, and just wait it gives students processing time, and inevitably cuts down on how much you’re talking and saves your own energy. This is a big thing that I want to focus on more this year.
Plus, the student jobs. If the students are working it not only makes classroom management easier, but it also makes it so we have less to worry about and think about.
I’m also going to experiment with giving my upper level classes a half hour of free choice once a week or once every other week where they can pick from several activities such as doing more FVR, writing a story in a small group, or even using personal devices to listen to French music, find a French website, watch a French video, etc. They will then turn in a small sheet of paper with what they did, and what they learned. I will give them a grade based on whether or not they use their time well. (Essentially just give poor grades to students who aren’t staying on task.) Voilà ! More time saved!
Another thing that I’m going to try as a job is having one or two “coaches”. The coaches write down when they see good contributions from specific students and positive/happy moments in class. You can then have them share what they saw during the last five minutes or so of class as a sort of review, and it ends class on a positive note. I also give the classes points (by level) which I add up then so that they eventually earn something special, like a little bit of free time, a game day, a French movie day, etc… Even more time saved! Boom!
Lots of power in those ideas right there Bryan. The coaches idea is major.
All good suggestions Bryan. If it was anything that has saved me these last 2 years, it has been the student jobs (make a job for anything!) and pointing and pausing. I love the student “coaches” that end the lesson on a positive note.
That’s a great idea with the coaches! I did my first OWI today. It went pretty well. The freshman definitely have bought in. Alicia Quintero was at our school visiting our classrooms so I decided to do OWI rather than the followup “Cecilia Movietalk” activities I had planned.
I’m in the process of uploading the video. It’s funny there was a bee that came into the class somehow and my visitor and some students are allergic so chaos ensued. I am editing that part out, LOL. I did assign the “class hero” job though (per Bryce Hedstrom).
It is amazing how with the OWI’s and seven step story process lesson planning and prep time is near zero and you are continously generating NEW CONTENT. When you have new content made in one class you can share it with the other classes and get more mileage out of it. Same thing with video re-tells. No more struggling to find content.
The pause and point to the class rules works GREAT too. The CI Book and the Natural Approach to Stories book are seriously pure gold.
YES my classroom is a content-generating factory these days. Well, it will be again come Thursday…the stories practically TELL THEMSELVES. All I have to do is talk slowly and take deep, calming breaths. If I did not have to commute so far or deal with idiot colleagues and clueless language directors, I would actually be excited about going to school cause being with the kids is SO EASY these days. Someone tell me that the commute will be OK. I refuse to drive and have not yet gotten in the car since coming home Wednesday night (Portland traffic LITERALLY got worse since I left on July 8, I swear, and it makes me really anxious to be sitting amongst all the fossil-fuel-burning commuters on the freeway as we burn our way into irreparable environmental destruction) so I walk or bike to the train or bus and then walk or bike from the train or bus to school. It takes between an hour and an hour and a half EACH WAY. I am so sad to have to go back to school. Maybe one day I will work on the east side of town where I live.
Someone tell me that the thing with the colleagues will be OK. I hope that they get those kids placed into second-year French. If they do not, I predict that they will have a lot of bored, restless, and challenging first-year kids on their hands. I kinda get a little shiver of revenge-lust thinking about that, about my former kids sitting there showing off, which I hope they would, but I just cannot abide thinking about how stultifying it would be for the kids.
My colleague down there never attends any PD, never attends any conferences, and has been teaching only five years. He thinks he can use this kind of pressure on my kids to get me to change my ways. I will not change. Just yesterday I was reviewing the Academic Freedom page in the contract. My favorite page of all. It says teachers are the ones who are responsible for determining the materials/methods used in day-to-day instruction.
I guess if he wants to have classes full of quite proficient French kids who are unhappy with the school for sticking them in a class to learn “Je suis, Tu es, Il/elle/on est, Nous sommes…” then have at it, Doug. Bonne chance et bon courage…tu en auras besoin.
Tina you said:
…someone tell me that the thing with the colleagues will be OK….
It will! If the kids need to repeat then they will do so. The dude at the high school has made a big mistake though, because of the fallout that will happen when your intermediate low and mid kids start kvetching at home about their plight. They are going to say that they never hear the TL in class and they will be right and it will all come around the back and bite this dude in the butt. If you are still the same Tina I worked with this summer, and I know you are, then you certainly will never give up under that kind of pressure from this person at Lincoln High School. His apple cart is going to be turned over very soon, I would predict, and apples will be EVERYWHERE. So don’t worry. Keep on kicking ass. Luckily, the way you teach is planning-free. That is a powerful factor in keeping your year as stress free as possible. AND it sounds like your principal is going to get an earful from you and that earful will become an earful chez the LHS admin team and so I predict that this colleague will be needing too do some ‘splainin’ very soon indeed.
Lets hope so and yes I am still the same Tina, cause it’s the only setting I really know. 😉 It is actually NOT my problem, it is an administrator problem. But having those portfolios certainly looks like it might help. NOT that Board policy nor my contract require me to give tangible evidence of why the student received the grades they did. It just helps when talking to people.
Weirdest thing is that the HS never contacted my principal, nor me, before sending this letter out. So it is based on, like NO information about these kids.
Sounds like some major S&%T is about to hit a fan that’s spinning very fast. What a mess that’s gonna cause.
This year, I am remaining low key, covering myself with documentation and defending our department. I was made Lead Teacher this year and it requires me to fill out some documentation and attend meetings. Mostly it is about holding my department accountable with data. While, I will be taking data from students most of it will be easy and as stress-free as possible. My first students made it to various HSs and one super star might be taking French at the community college level. I wish them the best and will defend my practice to the tee if questioned. I know I won’t because it takes too much work to do so… teachers are busy.
…will defend my practice to the tee if questioned….
You know you always have those Primers on the hard link above for defending yourself and your team. The letters to the parents there nare fantastic. Easy to cut and paste.
By the way, I just found out that Bob Patrick has a new podcast
http://steppingintoci.weebly.com