Advisory in Review (Day 180)

Today is "A Day in the Life" for the special day "last day of school." It is the last day of final exams for juniors, with Periods 4-6 meeting today. But before we begin "A Day in the Life," I have much to say about today's schedule.

First of all, recall that there are only two minimum days for finals this week instead of three -- one last effect of losing two January school days. (Something similar happened when I was a student teacher -- the school was short minutes and couldn't have three minimum days for finals. Instead, on the first day we have Period 1-2 finals for two hours each as usual, then it was Period 3-4 for 30 minutes each. The second day was similar, with Period 3-4 finals and short Periods 5-6. Only the last day was a true minimum day.)

The juniors take their finals today, but not my Ethnostats juniors. Since seniors are a supermajority in my class, I already gave my juniors their tests on senior finals day.

You may ask, what are the seniors scheduled to do today? Well, the principal is insisting that they continue to attend class everyday this week,even today -- although last night was graduation. Moreover, while they received their diploma covers during the ceremony (which was held at the football stadium on the main campus), they got their actual diplomas right outside the stadium. So this means that the seniors must attend high school today, even though they already have their high school diplomas. (And if I were a teacher giving junior finals today, I wouldn't even want seniors on campus.)

And of course, the periods that meet today are 4-5-6 rather than the more logical 2-4-6. Now that you know the schedule, let's look at "A Day in the Life":

8:00 -- Fourth period begins. This is the second of two Ethnostats classes.

Five of the nine seniors actually attend school today. So what do they do today? They just ask for passes to attend their friends' classes -- yes, they've been doing this for most of dead week (not only today). As it happens, one girl in this class forgot to pick up her diploma last night. (Fortunately, she does finally retrieve it by the end of the day.)

As for the juniors, both of them attend, though as expected one of them is late. I continue Sarah Carter's dead week tradition of introducing opening activities for next year. Since I don't wish to disturb the juniors who are preparing for their finals, I ask them first whether they are studying before giving them the activity. One student, the girl, tells me that she accidentally left her Chemistry folder at home. So since she has nothing to study, she lets me give her the Carter activity.

The one I choose for today is the Mathematical Autobiography:

https://mathequalslove.net/mathematical-autobiography-foldable/

She informs me that she enjoys answering the questions and finds it to be a suitable activity for opening week next year. But she does have a few concerns about it -- including why it's printed out on two sheets in this manner. I explain that Carter intends this to be a foldable, to be glued or taped into an interactive notebook. And this leads to a discussion about how I implemented notebooks this year.

Recall that I used Stats scrapbooks -- which are, in fact, another Carter idea. I kept these books in the cupboard and passed them out whenever we added another page to them (about once a week -- the last page we did was page 31). Notice that this isn't the same as an "interactive notebook" -- INB's are kept by the students, and they add notes to these almost everyday.

Carter doesn't really explain how she intends Stats scrapbooks to work -- but considering that the Oklahoma teacher is also one of the first implementers of interactive notebooks, I assume that INB's and Stats scrapbooks have more in common than I was expecting. At the start of the year I considered using INB's, but I wasn't sure whether it was a good idea during the pandemic.

Of course, I soon learned that the other math teacher at the school (my partner teacher) was using true interactive notebooks in her own classroom. I gradually passed out a foldable or two to attach to the scrapbooks (like a true INB), but I never had them take daily notes in them.

Indeed, the junior girl now asks, why didn't we ever took daily notes in our notebooks? She points out that more students would have completed the notes if they were collected in INB's -- recall that paying attention during notetaking was always a problem in the fourth period class. Indeed, on her sample autobiography, she writes that she was hoping her math grade would be a B this year -- compare this to her actual grade for the class, a C+. I suspect she feels that she would have caught up with her notes and assignments better -- and earned that B -- if we'd used INB's this year.

At this point, her mom arrives on campus and drops off the Chemistry notes that she'd forgotten -- and yes, these notes are in an interactive notebook. INB's are catching on in science classes as well (and note that Carter, when she taught Chemistry, also used such notebooks). The girl tells me that her science teacher even allows her to use the INB on the final exam. (Unlike math, where we expect students to memorize everything, Chemistry teachers don't expect students to learn the entire Periodic Table by heart, so an INB is the perfect place to keep the table.)

I tell her that I saw the other teachers using interactive notebooks and considered converting our scrapbooks to full INB's in the second semester, but I didn't want to switch horses midstream. But it suffices to say that I'll definitely use full interactive notebooks next year.

The girl also tells me that she also enjoyed the Vanderwerf name tents at the start of the year. Thus the autobiography and name tents work together to help me learn more about the students. She also liked the VNPS reviews.

9:15 -- Fourth period leaves for nutrition.

9:35 -- Fifth period arrives. This is the Trig class. All three students in this class are seniors.

10:50 -- Fifth period leaves. Actually, the last senior asks to visit another classroom by 10:00, and so with sixth period being conference period, he ends up being the last student I watch over at this school.

11:45 -- I receive a callback from one of the interviews I had yesterday. I post no details about any possible job leads here on the blog until they become official.

A few minutes after the call, one of my Calculus seniors arrives. She asks me to sign her yearbook and take a photo with her. This makes her the last student ever to enter my classroom.

The seniors have one more thing to do tonight -- Grad Night at Disney's California Adventure. As of the timestamp of this post, they should be at the Anaheim park enjoying the rides.

I've been thinking about this dead week, and how the principal had to keep pushing the seniors to attend classes after their finals. Once again I understand why the finals had to be given so early -- parents want the peace of mind of knowing that their kids will graduate, but it creates it dead week.

I think back to my own days as a young graduating senior. Graduation was on Day 179, but the last senior final was the day before, Day 178 (along with some Grade 9-11 finals). Graduation practice was in the afternoon of Day 179, at the location of the graduation itself.

I don't remember whether we seniors needed to attend school on Days 179-180. I do recall asking one of my two English teachers (the one who taught junior English in our magnet, whose class I needed to make up due to entering the magnet late) whether he would deduct participation points on Day 180, and he assured me that he would not. Real diplomas were handed out the day after Day 180, so there was no situation where students had to attend school after getting their diploma.

The year of my eighth grade graduation was also a bit weird, also because I had some mixed-grade classes with non-graduates. The promotion ceremony was on Day 178, but at least one teacher assigned a test on Day 179 (not a true final, since our school didn't have finals at the time). The class was either French I or Geometry, both of which had some students in Grades 9-11 (at our 7-12 school).

If it was really important for seniors to attend school these last few days, here's how I might do it. The last senior final shouldn't have been until last Friday so that parents can have peace of mind going into the final weekend, or perhaps Thursday so that the tests can be graded on Friday. Then the last final would be on Day 176.

On Day 177, have seniors turn in textbooks and hold a graduation practice at our school, and count it as attendance for that day. On Day 178, have all seniors (not just the "line leaders" attend another grad practice at the flagship school and hand out spectator tickets, and count it as attendance. For Day 179, the graduation itself can count as attendance. Hand out the diplomas on Day 180 at our school and count it as attendance. All grad practices can be held in the afternoon to guard against students who want to sleep in (justified because the real graduation is in the evening).

By the way, our seniors didn't really have a "senior ditch day" or anything like that. (Last year, I subbed in a Calculus class on senior ditch day -- on the blog that day, I mused that if I had my own Calc class, I'd give an easy test on ditch day so that all present students get 100% and all absent kids get 0%. Little did I know that I'd get Calc this year -- but fortunately there was no senior ditch day.)

The closest we got to a ditch day was the first day after senior finals (at which point the principal sent out the messages reminding seniors to attend class). And perhaps there was some slight senioritis with regards to the finals themselves -- some students might be earning, say, a B in the class and decide not to study hard for the final, since getting a B is acceptable to them. The final might be worth 10% (as it was in my class), so theoretically this entails a one-letter-grade swing. But these seniors figure that they can get at least 50% on their multiple choice without heavy studying, so there's only a 5% swing.

One way to combat this is to make the final be worth 20% instead of 10%. (At the high school that I attended as a young student, finals were capped at 10%, although magnet teachers were allowed to make their finals be worth more.)

OK, so in this post I started talking about my math classes again -- first in discussing the interactive notebooks and then worrying about much the final should be worth. So far, I've been using these dead week posts to discuss all my classes in review. There's one class that I have left to discuss -- and it's the one that I often neglect here on the blog, my zero period Advisory.

Ever since my struggles at the old charter school, I wanted to work hard to get the students, if not to like me, at least to respect me. And I believe that I've successfully earned the respect of my kids -- except in one class, namely zero period Advisory. Moreover, I think I can pinpoint the time when I lost their respect for good -- right around the start of November, when the first "quarter" progress reports (more like a third of the way into the year) were given out.

This past week I've been signing students' yearbooks (which is a novelty to me, since as a young senior it never occurred to me to ask teachers for autographs). Some students from each of my classes have asked for my signature, except one -- and of course, that class is Advisory. (Likewise during dead week when the seniors hung out in other classrooms, only once did they choose mine -- last week during fifth period -- but that's more a function of which classes their friends are in, not who the teacher is, so I don't count this as evidence of lack of respect.)

And as a final insult, during last night's graduation ceremony, each teacher was to ask the seniors in his or her mini-line to stand straight in line and wait to be called into the stadium. Of the four seniors in my mini-line, three were in my Advisory. And when I told them to line up, one student's response was "We're not listening to you! We're trying to take photos of each other." Since I don't want to get into an argument on their special day, I had no choice but to wait for a more respected teacher to ask them to stand in line properly.

Of course, one thing that's tricky is coming into a school, and being asked as a new staff member to teach the highest grade at the school. The seniors had been here for three years before I got here. Our staff is so small that some point, all of the experienced teachers have seen nearly all seniors by now. So it's understandable that the seniors would have a deeper relationship with the other teachers. But still, that doesn't explain the clear discrepancy between my Advisory seniors and my math seniors.

From the very start, I wasn't sure what to do with Advisory. I started out by extending the Vanderwerf name tents for an extra week beyond my math classes. Of course, it takes only a few minutes to answer the daily question, so the rest of the period became free time. Some students did work for their other classes -- especially Art, with so many students from that class in my Advisory.

I'd meet with the other senior Advisors to come up with ideas for this class. One of these was my partner math teacher -- she began with guidance for college (with apps due early in the year), and there were other activities for career and financial literacy throughout the year. The students didn't always listen to me when I told them to do the work -- to them, Advisory was free time for art.

But just before Halloween (on the night of parent conferences, in fact), my partner teacher told me that I needed to establish letter grades for the students. And so suddenly, I had to start arguing with them when it was time for them to put their art away and start doing their practice college apps for a grade, since they were so used to using my class for drawing.

What's so sad is that this was the class that I wanted to get to know the most, precisely because it isn't a math class, and so I could learn about them independently of their levels in math. In addition to the extended Vanderwerf tents, there were a website from which I could ask them getting-to-know-you questions (What does red, blue, etc., remind you of?). I only did this a few weeks in September, since it was replaced by the district-mandated character lessons starting in October. These lessons contained some getting-to-know-you questions as well. But it was always difficult to get the students to pay attention to me during the character lessons.

And I tried, in Advisory class only, to acknowledge birthdays. I used the template I found at Shelli's website, to give each student a small Happy Birthday note and a pencil. But one guy with a May birthday appeared to reject my gift. After class, I saw a pencil on the desk close to where he sat -- and while I can't prove it, I strongly suspect that it's the pencil I tried to give him for his birthday.

It's easy to say that I didn't implement Shelli's birthday idea properly. I'm not supposed to give the student just a birthday note -- Shelli's idea is to print that message on colorful paper. And I'm not suppose to give the student just a pencil -- Shelli's idea is to give the birthday celebrant a colorful pencil with an inspirational message. At the very least, I should have bought special pencils that are to be used only for birthdays.

But still, I think the reason this guy rejected my gift is the lack of respect this class has for me. Again, they lost respect for me in November -- by the time of his May birthday, no one there liked me. I suspect that had I been a deeply respected teacher, the guy would have accepted even my plain birthday note and pencil.

OK, so how should I have taught this Advisory class? Hmm -- after discussing interactive notebooks in this post, perhaps I could have used INB's with Advisory as well. But I don't think I really need to go as far as that. I don't really want there to be traditional notes and homework in a class like this.

For starters, I think I should have at least had Warm-Ups and Exit Passes. These would have at least sent the message that this is a class and I am a teacher, so you should please respect me.

It took me some weeks to learn that I needed to establish letter grades. With Warm-Ups and Exit Passes, at least I could count those as grades upon learning that grades matter. And if the opposite happened -- if I graded them and found out that there are no letter grades (as actually happened to the English teacher at the old charter school, when she tried to give grades for IXL time), at least they're quick enough that we didn't waste too much time on ungraded work.

And besides, attendance and tardiness are always problems with morning classes. I started to grade character lessons based on promptness. But the best assignments to grade for attendance are Warm-Ups, since students must be on time to do them.

Some may question the wisdom of having character lessons in the first place (though I couldn't avoid them these are mandated by the district.) While these do provoke getting-to-know you discussions, recall what Fawn Nguyen said about conversations -- this is not something you force or make up. Again, we're forced by the district to do the character lessons. Indeed, even asking soft questions in Warm-Ups or Exit Passes may still seem forced and unnatural from the students' perspective.

Instead, these conversations need to be natural. One way of generating natural discussion is to try, at least once a week, to have a day with only a Warm-Up and Exit Pass (and maybe something very quick), and then let them use the rest of the time to work on their own. While they work, I can walk around the room and ask them questions about themselves. If they're working on art, for example, then I could comment on how much I enjoy their drawings.

Indeed, I really have some talented artists in my class. Some of them drew 'zines for their final projects in Art class, and they were wonderful. It's too bad that the only time I talked about their art is when I was angrily telling them to put their drawings away.

And that right there is the reason that no one in my Advisory class respected me. I must do better if I ever get an Advisory class again in the future.

Today is Friday, the first day of the week on the Eleven Calendar:

Resolution #1: We take pride in our own work and cite our sources.

And I can definitely take pride in the year of teaching that I just completed. Yes, I made some mistakes this year, but that's to be expected of a relatively new teacher like myself. Next year I will be better -- that is, if there is a next year.

My summer posts will be starting up soon.