June 8, 2010: Summer is here...

Not officially, but summer is here in the school sense. Today was the last day with students - that is, the last day of exams. Tomorrow will be make-ups and a few retests but overall, the teaching part is over (actually it has been for almost a week). We all know how much we loved the summer as a student. We remember the little song, "No more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks! Kick the tables, kick the chairs, kick the teacher down the stairs!" And it sure was fun, but from the other side of the desk, the summer is SO much more gratifying! Students progress on through their high school career (with some exceptions). Teachers do the same thing over and over and unlike most professions, there is a definitive beginning and end. At the end of each school year, while we are looking forward to the relaxation and leisure of our "mini-retirement" we look back, at least for a moment, at what we could have done differently, better. It may not be until August (September in the north) that we really reflect on it by adjusting and hopefully improving our plans from last year. But the best part of the end of the school year is knowing we have the chance to do it again better next time - a clean slate. How many people can boast that about their careers?

Today, after administering the last regular administration of our Civics and Economics End-of-Course Exam I began the process cleaning up the room from the school year. All the desks and chairs are stacked neatly against the wall and all the textbooks are accounted for (at least those that were returned). Tomorrow I will spend my time putting away papers into my unit notebooks so I can find them for next year (without having to print a new copy each time). After that, I consider myself done with still Thursday and Friday to go. Graduation is tomorrow and pretty much every teacher is assigned a duty. It is held at the Raleigh Convention Center. My biggest dilemma is to leave early (as we were given permission for) to get dressed for graduation, or stay at work, get dressed there, and proceed directly to graduation. I am leaning toward choice B so I can get more work done. We'll see, but I think I will bring my clothes to change into this way I leave my options open.

Tomorrow, what I like best about being out for the summer.

April 15, 2010: Tax Day

Yes, it is Tax Day, but it is a non event for us, have already received our tax returns. Our philosophy is simple, "Pay, pay, pay, and get a refund." We know we are not disciplined enough with our money to have money in savings in case we owe in taxes. Therefore we claim the least deductions possible, allow the government to take as much of our income as possible, and then settle up with us next year. In this way, we are involuntarily saving money and giving ourselves a gift each spring when the tax return checks come. Sure, I know, if we kept the money ourselves and held onto it in even a basic savings account we would collect interest on the money and technically we would have even more money when it is all said and done. But like I said earlier, if we see that money is in the bank, it won't be in the bank for long.

From the Classroom

I have been teaching at Leesville Road High School for almost 14 full years, but I know I still have a lot to learn about teaching. Just yesterday I made a couple of observations that will be pretty important in the future.

1) Students are superstitious.

My 1st period class, regular Civics and Economics, was viewing a Power Point presentation and taking notes. I offered to put the presentation online on my website - both the Power Point Show and the handout/paper version. The hope was to speed up the class by not having to spend so much time on each slide while the students all copied down the information. Mind you, although I have done this with my two honors classes this semester, I have been reluctant to do so in the regular class because I do not trust that they will actually view the presentation on their own time. But I took a chance and let them have a try. More importantly was that some of the students who were the biggest advocates for putting the presentation on line continued to write down the notes during class. So I did not save any time at all! From this I have that the students are superstitious, they will stick to their habit out of fear that if they don't do things the way they always have, that they will not do as well. I think I will change the expectations from the beginning and give them more independence from the start.

2) Some Students Need a Forum

I have student in my 2nd period honors Civics and Economics class who needs to be in the spotlight. This student has gone so far as to challenge me to a foot race (although we did not race, I am confident I would win). The class has discovered that his goal is to fill all silence in the class with words. He does not understand the idea of "meaningful silence." Every time I pause he will interject with a story or a "what if" type question. Yesterday this became painfully obvious because I needed to finish up a unit as I was giving test on the information today. True to form, every time I paused to allow the students to think on an idea or write some information down, he filled the space with a question. I learned a valuable lesson from this, do not give him an audience and he will eventually stop. For most of the semester I have enabled this behavior by entertaining most of his questions and comments (it is social studies, being social is an important skill). But out of necessity, I had no time to entertain him and so I was forced to move on and ignore him - which at times came of as though I was being rude. We did finish the lesson yesterday and had the test today. I must remember to keep the spotlight for myself.

From the Sports Desk

Last night, Fences of Cary Blue (our softball team) had a "West Coast" game - not literally, but since it started so late it felt like I was up late watching a game from the west coast. We learned that we are not an 8:45pm team, we do much better when we begin our game at 6:45pm. We lost 16-6, run ruled in the 6th inning. Overall our bats didn't come together for most of the game until the late innings, and our defense was less than spectacular. Tack on to that the fact they were good hitters that seemed to always find the holes in the field made it very difficult to get any momentum in the field. I did continue my usual contribution going 3-3 with two doubles, one single, one run batted in, and one run scored. I do take blame for some of the things that went wrong in the game. Right from the beginning, I tried to stretch a double into a triple to lead off our half of the first inning and was thrown out at third. It is the first game this season that I led off with an out. I put us out of our rhythm from the start. It is also the first game this season we did not score any runs in the first inning. I did learn a bit from the game, but I will see just how much come next week.

To see my website for my classes, visit: Caggia Social Studies. It will always be a work in progress. So far the only pages with content are under Civics & Economics.

April 7, 2010: Happy Birthday to Me

Does that sound to self-centered? I am not trying for that, but that was pretty much the only eventful thing to happen today. The day was typical, other than finding a big "Happy Birthday" sign on my classroom door when I arrived to school today. I gave the students their grade reports for the 3rd quarter. This is a print out of their all their grades for the class, it is not a report card which just lists the grade the student has for each subject. I had to go through the typical, "You all can do better" routine. I do believe many of them can do better, I am not just blowing smoke to try and motivate then. The challenge is, as the weather keeps getting nicer and nicer (80-90 degrees all week so far!), the students will be thinking more and more of being somewhere else.

I did demonstrate my naivety in class today. We were giving an example of the President meeting with party whips in Congress, and I innocently mentioned that I did not mean that he would be whipping them. I went on to say that of the US Presidents, he would be the most likely to be whipped himself. I am sure you are thinking the same thing a few of my students were, I was making bad, inappropriate, off color joke. A few of my students began laughing out loud, unable to believe I had said that. I didn't see what the big deal was because in my mind I was thinking that, well, of all the Presidents so far, Obama does not seem very physically strong compared to the previous US Presidents, as a result they all could kick his butt. That is where I was going, but it quickly became the race card. Fortunately, the students did NOT believe that I was making a racist comment. But needless to say, after the fact, I did feel pretty uncomfortable.

We had a softball game tonight. It went well, we jumped out to a 7-0 start in the first inning and won 12-7 in the end. I hit well (2-4, 3B, 2B, 2 R, 1 RBI). So far this season the team is 2-0 and I am hitting an awesome .750 (6-8, 2-3B, 2B, 4 R, 4 RBI, 2.000SLG%). I am feeling pretty good about it. I was a little disappointed on a play I was running out to first. I was thrown out but less than an inch, I know he got me, I am not arguing that. I am disappointed because I wonder if I have "lost a step." I joked, if I were 38 I would have beat out the throw!

April 1, 2010

I couldn't come up with a catchy title for today, so the date will have to do.

It was a gorgeous day today, and we spent part inside and part outside. Evan and I went bowling with Katie, Chris and Brendan. It was fun, but I opted not to bowl so as to not hurt my neck. It is doing fine but I didn't want to do something stupid to it and screw it up just days before our softball season opener. After the two game, we went to the game room to win tickets to cash into prizes. I dropped a dollar in the "Deal or No Deal" game and came away with 75 tickets! (the 3rd highest ticket total). Afterwards we all went to Chik-fil-a for lunch, then we parted and Evan and I came home.

At home we hung out outside for a little while. Evan helped me rake the yard, then we played a little basketball and Evan wanted to ride his bike - that is wanted me to help teach him some more. It was an absolutely gorgeous day outside!

We came inside and just hung out some. I decided to work some on my website - to create a new page that will list the handouts as we encounter them so they can be printed. It will include the date assigned, date due, and instructions. . The goal is to minimize the number of excuse students will have to not have their homework. I was getting a bit frustrated at the process today when the design was not working correctly, fortunately I discovered the problem this evening and got past the first obstacle. I will like to work on it some more tomorrow but I have plenty of things to do to keep me outside most of the day, and by the looks of the forecast, that is where I will want to be!

If you are interested on the website I am working on the link is below. Presently I am only working on the "Civics & Economics" section as that is the only course I am teaching this semester. The page I was specifically working on today is also linked below. There is no direct link to it yet from the website because I haven't prepared any content, I was only working a little on the appearance. Let me know what you think.

Caggia Social Studies

Handouts at Caggia Social Studies

March 28, 2010: The Average Day Returns!

I think I am finally ready to post here on a regular basis again. Things have been going well and I finally feel mentally up to the task again! (But does anyone really care?)

Softball season is here, and practices have been under way. We had practice today, it was a pretty good one, and our last one is tomorrow. Games begin the following week, so I think I am ready. Good news for me is that my trips to the gym combined with the education I received in physical therapy have really helped my shoulder. I threw today and for the first time in a long time, I felt strength in my shoulder and no pain! I am very excited and encouraged. I am looking forward to a great season, it should be a lot of fun.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of Spring Break, but since we had one snow day too many, we will have to make it up tomorrow instead. My plans are simple - finish showing Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. We began it in all my classes Thursday and Friday and will finish it up in all three tomorrow, which was my plan all along. It also means we are in a great place regarding pacing. For the first time in a long time I am not behind! I credit this to the fact that all of my classes are Civics & Economics (I do not have to divide my planning time between two curricula) and that I have students this semester that are inspiring me to challenge them. My biggest fear is that I am boring them. Once we get back from Spring Break it will be the 4th quarter. I am planning being refreshed and returning with some plans that will be more fun and thought invoking. We shall see!