Brain breaks - high school edition

What is a brain break?

Well, that concept is a bit foreign to us in secondary education. But for the little ones (you know, those screaming balls of energy that elementary teachers like to teach), brain breaks happen all the time. Basically, a brain break is something that students do whenever they start to get jittery and bored from sitting for too long.

Brain breaks come in a lot of different forms, depending on the teacher's preference. I have seen students do yoga or some other form of stretching. I have seen students play a quick game that has nothing to do with whatever academic subject they are studying. (Or, better yet, learning in disguise.)

I really don't know why high school teachers don't do brain breaks. Do we really expect that students will be able to sit still for 40-90 minutes? Really? No stop. Reconsider that. Could YOU sit still and listen to someone talk for 40-90 minutes straight? Why do we expect teenagers to be able to do it, if we can't?

But isn't it more effective to work longer? No, not really. Need some research? That's okay. I brought some.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/17/jobs/take-breaks-regularly-to-stay-on-schedule-workstation.html?_r=0
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132583/?tool=pubmed
http://turbinehq.com/2013/benefits-of-taking-breaks/



My coworker recently showed me a brain break website that is pretty awesome: https://www.gonoodle.com/

Gonoodle has a bunch of short videos (about 2 minutes) that take the students through some silly movement routine. The videos seem very elementary, but high school students love to be silly too! At the beginning, they will probably scoff at you. Come on, they are high school kids. They scoff at everything. You could bring them ice cream and they would complain that it's too cold.

The students that have used this find the videos to be very fun. They have even been caught showing their friends the moves at lunch time, and have requested brain breaks whenever they start to get stressed.

Whatever you're method, brain breaks are totally worth it. Try it out!

Relax already!

I know what you are thinking. It's the end of the school year (at least for those of us in the USA). State testing is coming. Summer is coming. Students are starting to bounce off of the walls. You, the teacher, are more tired now than ever. Summer break seems to be coming slower and slower, even as the days go by.

For example, this week I have a lot to do. I have IEP meetings. I have staff meetings and committee meetings. Our teacher packet is due. (It's a thing that we have to do in our first few years.) My portfolio justifying our honors courses is due. We are also having a meeting about those portfolios.

Parents need to be called. Grades need to be done. Lessons need to be planned. It is getting to that time of the year where an outside lesson would be great, because it fits with the curriculum and we are actually on pace this time. (And, again, the students are bouncing off of the walls.) Outside lessons require even more planning. In a way, they are like a mini field trip.


Would you like to know what I am doing on this lovely rainy Saturday?

Nothing.

Nothing?!?!?!

 That's right, nothing. This morning I slept in until 11:00. I walked across the street and got myself some coffee at the coffee shop. Then I online shopped to use up the rest of a gift card that I have. It's now 3:00 pm, and I haven't even considered school work.

How will you ever be ready for next week!?!?!?!? 


I know that I will be ready. I have faith in myself. I know my content. I know my students. I know that we will get it done. But let's move away from me.

Stop and think -- Does stressing out really help you to be a better teacher? Does working yourself 24/7 really help?

No, but I can't be prepared otherwise!!!

Yes you can. The key is to work smarter, not harder. Can you reuse things from last year? Can you ask a coworker for help? Can you check TeachersPayTeachers? Can you Google it? Can you put more work on the students, and less work on yourself?

The point is this - it is absolutely okay to borrow from other teachers. You don't have to reinvent the wheel. Do you really need a worksheet on multiplication? Fine, Google "multiplication worksheets". There you go. That took 3 minutes, as opposed to 15 to type one out yourself. Do you really need a lab activity for acceleration? Fine, go on TpT and look one up. Spend the $3. That took 5 minutes.

Saving yourself some time here and there leaves you a lot more time for more important things. You can focus on student learning and lesson planning, instead of on how to think of 20 practice problems.

As teachers, I know we feel the need to be "perfect". We have to be the stellar teacher that someone will make movies about someday. However, stressing yourself to the point where you are burnt out is just not helping you.

A fellow teacher said this to me last week. "I am so glad I don't have the internet at home. I couldn't plan lessons or put in grades, even if I wanted to. I am forced to work outside or read a book. It has been so relaxing!"


Lest you think "Oh, you're one of THOSE teachers that the politicians are so worried about," allow me a moment to gloat -- My students have consistently had higher test scores, and an independent company that was observing us said that I was one of the best teachers in my school.


Seriously now. RELAX. Just stop. Take 10 minutes to yourself. Take a nap. Go for a walk. Go read a book. Put the school stuff AWAY. Really, away. Don't even think about it. R-E-L-A-X.

Your students will thank you.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6e/c6/76/6ec67638305b5d1be0a38daa3335ef65.jpg

Second semester blues...

Oye... second semester really hits you hard, doesn't it?

I apologize that I have been absent for so long. This school year has been particularly rough. But, now we are on spring break (woo!) and I have some time to post!

I have a lot of news coming next week. For now, I will just update you on my TpT store. New products include:

The Amazing Dissolving Lollipops -- A lab activity on factors that affect dissolving

Phase Changes of Water lab -- Students learn what really happens when water goes from solid, to liquid, to gas

Bacteria in Yogurt lab -- Always a crowd pleaser! Students use plain yogurt and methylene blue to view bacteria cells with a microscope.

Transcription and Translation practice -- This worksheet contains 5 different DNA strands for students to decode. Students must first write the mRNA strand, and then the amino acid strand. There are 10 codons each, for a total of 50 practice problems!


If you need a specific handout or lab activity, feel free to message me and I'll see what I can find!


Cheers!
- S :)

Of Students and Testing

My school had their end of semester state exams last week. Yes, because my school does semester classes instead of whole year classes, we get to enjoy the fun of testing twice each year! Can you feel that sarcasm?

Here is how testing goes in my school, at least from what I have noticed:

• Teachers end their curriculum five to ten days early so that they can review.
• Students get inundated with worksheets and review games.
• This test counts for 25% of their final grade, so students are stressed out.
• Teachers are stressed out.
• The whole school stops for testing. Teachers don't get planning or breaks. Students get a small break before they must go back for more tests.
• Then, following the test, is a long week of anticipation and stress as we wait for the almighty state powers that be to send us back the scores.
• And teachers lose another week of work trying to discuss test scores with students, parents, guardians, and any other generally outraged member of society.

This testing thing is supposed to help, right? Then why is it such a negative experience for everyone?

The government is so worried about testing and accountability. Do they realize what they are doing? In whose mind is it okay to lose ten or more days to test review? Those days could be used for student learning, or student mastery of concepts. Instead they are full of stress and confusion. 

Why is it okay for one test to equal 25% or more of a grade? I know of several students who received A's in their classes. These students are amazingly hard workers. Their parents do everything they can to help their children. The students worked and worked to achieve that grade. Then, testing happens. If the student gets a low grade, that student's final grade is a C. How is that fair? One test knocks them back two grade levels? Do you think that shows learning?

Well, politicians would say that means that the teacher is bad. The teacher obviously let that kid slide, and now we can tell when we see the exam scores.

Do you even understand how infuriating that is? 

Imagine working for months to achieve a good grade at something. Then, one test, designed by people who don't know you or your school, takes away all of that hard work. It is demeaning. Why work hard, if everyone wants you to fail?

This fight is about teachers, yes, but it is also about so much more than that. It is about our children.

Do you want to know why some children don't like school?

It is because of all powerful adults who try to prescribe learning to them. When the child fails, and gets labeled as a failure, the child stops learning. Even more importantly, the child stops ENJOYING learning. Why would you enjoy going to a place that leads you to failure?

What of those students who want to go to college? Some colleges want pristine transcripts from high school. Let's say our child above, the one that got the C because of testing, wants to get into a college like this. Now that child's dreams of college may be gone. Scholarship donors don't care why the child got a C. All that they see is a child with a C, or a child with a low GPA. Never mind that this child can work hard and achieve A's. According to the government, hard work doesn't matter. Testing matters.

I want to find these politicians who are so worried. I want to tell them how sorry I am that their education was terrible. Clearly school must have been such a burden on them that they now want to punish the whole system and all who will belong to it.

I can't think of any other reason why this madness continues. We all need to open our eyes. They are killing learning. 

Instead of complaining about how bad education is in America, why not fix it, instead of making it worse? 

I guess that is too simple.

New semester, new ideas

Well, I procrastinated all weekend, trying to make this last longer, but it is here....

TEST WEEK.

Since my school does semesters, we have our end of course state tests this week. For teachers, this means that our planning time goes out the window because they need all hands on deck to administer or proctor tests.

May the odds be ever in our favor.

After that, we have some teacher work days, and then.... SECOND SEMESTER. Ugh. Not ready. I get a whole new group starting on the Thursday after MLK day.

One thing I do to keep myself from getting bored or losing my marbles is try out new ideas. I always have a whole bunch of ideas saved on Pinterest and other places. Last week, in preparation for the new semester, I was searching for ideas and found this:

http://www.teachingthecore.com/article-of-the-week-assignment/

This is a blog about one teacher's use of Kelly Gallagher's "article a week" idea. I really like this idea, especially for science. Students have a lot of exposure to literature and historical texts (at least, I assume they do) but very few science teachers have their students read informational science texts.

I can't say that I blame those teachers. After all, it is incredibly difficult to find good science literature that is on the reading level of our students. Everything seems to be elementary or university. There is no "10th grader" reading set for science. If there is, I haven't found it yet.

My plan is to try regular articles online. There are many websites that offer articles for current science topics:

• http://www.livescience.com/
• https://www.sciencenews.org/
• https://student.societyforscience.org/sciencenews-students

And those are just on the first page of Google!

Here is my plan to implement this into my classes. I am looking for a way to "jazz up" my bell ringers. Right now they are just bland questions and students have no engagement in them. I will do "article of the week" Friday. The student's homework on Thursday will be to read the article and respond according to Gallagher's form. (See the first link for an example of that.) Then on Friday, we will discuss the article at the beginning of the class. 

I will keep you updated on how it goes!