Day 45

Well, term ended last Friday and that was an adventure getting to. I'll say this, at least I survived my first term as a high school teacher.

It is amazing how many student procrastinated until Friday trying to get things in or saying that they wanted to retake one of their tests. I've had a few students come in and try to do that today, but I'm not allowing them. It isn't my fault that they didn't do it within the time allotted. I've even had some students try to argue with me about the fact that all they need is 1 point on one of their assignments and they move up the half step in their grade. I am not going to change the student's grade by 1 point because they asked me. I already gave them extra credit if they weren't absent or tardy the entire term. The rest is up to them. It isn't part of my job description to make sure that certain students pass by an A or pass by a C. That is up to the effort that the student makes. I do do this though. If I can see that they worked really hard on an assignment but they still didn't meet all the requirements or didn't do to well, I will give them a bit of leeway in the grade. But they have to prove to me that they have done their best.

I've seen a few students that come in every after-school lab that I have and they are in here during intervention making up assignments and asking questions and getting the help they need and they still were in the low C range. For them I had them write a little paragraph on what they learned and what they still don't understand and I gave them points for it. It raised them all up into the B range. I am happy to do that when they are putting the effort forward. But I will not give away grades to students who come in the day after term ends saying that they didn't know they could make-up a test and that they didn't know what their grade was. I don't give in.

As far as starting off the 2nd term right, it has been a rough morning. I've had student after student complaining about their grade. I've had a few students who decided that they were going to get the administration involved or their parents involved. I'm not going to give in to threats. That isn't my way of teaching. Then I have the students who say that they e-mailed me the assignment and it isn't their fault that the e-mail didn't go through. If they tell me that, I ask them to open up their e-mail and show me the sent mail and the date it was sent on. Usually that gets them to zip up or they get really embarrassed and ask if they can have a few minutes to pull it up. Usually I tell them no and tell them that lying doesn't get you anywhere. Many of my students know that I believe in Karma and I tell them that it is their Karma that will suffer, not mine, for lying to the teacher and to themselves. I'm thinking about finding a quote for Karma and placing it in my room.

The freshman computer tech class is moving along, although I had 3 students fail. 1 because of cheating twice and 2 because they just didn't turn anything in and they are blaming me saying that they didn't have enough time to turn anything in. If they have an extra 20 minutes every day to come in and work on their assignments and they choose not to come and do that, it is on their grade.

I'm starting to tell the students about their end-of-semester test and what is expected of them. I've had them start repeating to me what was said and what is expected. Hopefully that will help to solidify that in their brains. It is amazing that I can tell my students one simple thing and by the time that they get into the lab (about 12 steps) it has gone in one ear and out the other.

Lets hope that 2nd term goes a bit smoother.

Day 41

Wow, it is interesting to be on the other side of the end-of-term rush. I have a bunch of students coming up asking what can they do to raise their grade when they are still missing assignments. I told one student that she needs to come to after school lab and come to intervention to try and get stuff up and she just looked at me like I had told her to go and jump off a cliff. She wanted extra credit but she is still missing the for credit work. Then I had another student who wanted some extra credit and he was also missing the assigned work and when I told him that he needed to finish that, he gave me the "do I have to?" look. I told him that he can think of it as extra credit if it makes him do the work.

I don't have too many students that are failing (compared to other teachers) but I have a few. It isn't a fun feeling when I have a parent come into my classroom and tell me that I have to do something to help their student finish the assignments. Excuse me? It isn't my responsibility to make the student learn and turn things in. It is the student's right if they want to fail. That doesn't mean I won't try to get them engaged and encouraged to do the work.

But I'm trying something new with my film class right now. I decided to do a unit on Film Piracy and let me tell you, the two classes couldn't be any more different than they are right now. My first class was really into it and trying to pull me on tangents. The second class was actually reserved and they asked a lot of questions that related to what was going on. I think they will do well, but this is my first time teaching this unit, so it is a bit rough around the edges.

The film class also just finished up news stories and while some of them were good, others were really rough and some were just plain old bad! I'm going to see if it is alright for me to post a few of my student's works on here because a few of the stories were really well done. They took pride in what they do and they wouldn't be embarrassed to show their parents or grandparents what they have done. That is a question that I ask them a lot: "Would you be willing to show your parents or your grandparents the project you did?" and if they can answer it with a yes, then most of the time I let them finish the project. There are a few times that I have said no and meant it.

New up for them is either PSA or Commercial. I can't decide.

The multimedia class is finishing up their business cards and I like a few of the designs that I'm seeing. I also had them thinking about text and type and typography. It is interesting to see the differences between their font choices and what I would choose. I guess I just have a bit more experience under my belt.

I'm trying to find a few guest speakers for my classes because I think they are getting tired of hearing just from me.

Day 39

And here come the rush of students. I now have students trying to find out "how can I raise my grade?" when the term ends next Friday. I am thinking about making a sign and putting it on my door: "If you didn't do the work, do it. I don't offer extra credit. You should have done the 'for credit' work a bit more carefully. Try again next term" because I feel like I'm repeating this over and over and over again. I probably am, but students don't listen and they don't follow their grade until a week or so before the term ends then they try and catch up. It has been an interesting couple of days.

Luckily enough I have a break from my students for the next 3 days, so it will be a good time for me to catch up on some of the grading and on the lesson planning that I've been doing day-by-day and be free to finish stuff up for the next term, which will be the end of the semester . . . that I think is when students will be trying to get their grades up because of the fact that they can choose to drop out of the class.

My film students are finishing up their News stories and some are looking good, they got the hang of it and some of them don't have everything down quite yet. It'll be interesting to see what they all ended up looking like when I grade them this weekend.

The digital media class is near the end of Illustrator and I'm seeing some fun animation stuff. They should be done with their business cards on Monday, then they have the rest of Monday to finish that up and start on their corporate identity stuff. I'm thinking that they should have Illustrator finished up by the end of the term, and then I'm not sure what program I want to go into next.

Day 33

My film students are about to get a reality check. They think that they can get away with not turning in the "little" things that are required because they don't think it makes that much of a difference. And they think that they can turn things in late. But I'm not going to accept anything late from them because I think I give them enough time to get everything in. They also have afterschool labs, but not many of them take advantage of that. I think that as the semester goes along they will be taking advantage of that more and more, but this should be a good wake-up call for them.

Computer tech is moving along and I have some students who will not be getting an A in the class because they cannot follow rules or keep their mouths shut when they need to.

Multimedia is moving along. They are just starting Illustrator, which I think is a really powerful program and their final project with Illustrator will be to create a Corporate Identity and create their own personal Identity complete with logo, letterhead, business card, envelope, CD/DVD cover, and a "specialty" item. I haven't decided if I'm going to have them do something else along with that, but we'll see what happens as it gets closer.