Algebra Babbling
Nov. 20th, 2021 03:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo...I have slept more hours total on furniture downstairs than I slept either of the past two nights in a bed, which was completely inevitable (if you don't give your body sleep, your body will take sleep) but also has had the side effect of leaving me...reasonably wired at 3:15 in the morning.
(Also man, what a gamble on my words1. This is probably the most likely I've been to miss them in a _long_ time.)
I'm not particularly worried about being able to fall back asleep once I try for it in my actual bed, but wow, this gives me some Information about how I've been treating myself this week (poorly) and is a fairly severe version of the Friday-crash I tend to have during the school year. Lesson learned: Try and sleep more, dumbass.
Despite the lack of sleep, the past few days of school have actually gone really well. Algebra especially I have been doing REALLY GOOD stuff this week --I had an okay Monday where we came back to our solving equations to review it, a shaky secondday2 where we tried (and mostly failed) to solve eqs with variables on both sides, and then a *smashing* Thursday where a little activity I whipped up to "build" equations turned out to be understandable and interesting to very nearly every student. I haven't graded their independent work yet, but the spot checks during class looked _solid_.
Part of why things are so good this week is that, after four years of incompetent and undirected volunteers (souring me on the whole idea really) I have somehow wound up with _four_ incredibly competent classroom volunteers/tutors/etc this year. Obviously I don't get every person in every class, but having 1-2 additional adults in most of the Algebra classes, who are ACTUALLY HELPFUL and able to take initiative on their own to encourage and assist students is a delight!
(One of them is actually competent enough that the school full hired him to be an additional MultiLingual Ed teacher. This is important, because we are acquiring newcomer students at a _breakneck_ pace this year, apparently our highest year in nearly a decade. For me, this means that I have had exactly one week out of twelve where my roster was the same at the end of the week as it was at the beginning. I had *fifteen* students ineligible for quarter one grades because they joined the school after the progress reports in the middle of Q1. I have three new students this week, and at least two already on the docket for starting next week. I am _so glad_ this guy got hired into a full time position because aaaaaaahhhhhhhh)
The other nice thing about having extensive classroom support (which like, is extra critical considering that my average Algebra class size is five students higher than it's _ever_ been --and yes, I know other teachers at the school regularly have 25 students, but there's a big difference between 25 students who natively speak English and 19 (20...22...) who don't.) Anyways, the other nice thing is that I am actually pushing myself with projects in a way I haven't before, and I'm getting to do one of my favourite ever projects the "Algebra About Me" posters. Students write up five equations about themselves, and then make little decorated posters and draw a picture (or at least write their name real nice) and get to have some creative colouring time.
(The equations are all things like "I have "s" sisters - 11s - 13 = 9" and it's fun to see what they come up with. Mad props to a) the student who said she has 14 best friends and b) the student who said he has 12 girlfriends. Oh, and the kid who says he has 30 cats and 100 dogs. It's hard to explain this to the kids, but I honestly love it when they blatantly lie on assignments like this, I think it's a lot funnier and can sorta alleviate stress about not being normal enough otherwise)
This is a perfect project to be working on going into the weird half-week of Thanksgiving, especially because two of my classes meet twice and one only meets once. They all had a work day today, they'll have a second work day on Monday, and then the classes that meet secondday2 will get a "okay, now you solve someone else's equations to learn about them!" day. Not too brain taxing, a little wild because they'll get to move around the classroom to look at people's posters, generally the right sort of feel for "we have two days off hell yes".
My Geometry class is on slightly shakier ground, made worse by the fact that the class which only meets once next week really _needs_ the extra time more than the class which meets twice. But we did a quite satisfying activity today in which they measured angles of a transversal through parallel lines and looked for patterns --more interesting than me just telling them alternate interior angles are congruent! I have High Hopes of getting them downstairs to the cafeteria to measure angles on the floor there (or at least out into the hallways, but those might all be perpendicular and therefore less interesting. Ideally, I really _really_ would've taken some idea photos before leaving the building today, whooooops.
It's definitely hitting the Hard Part of the year. Masking rigor is down (c'mon children), energy is down, some students are real stressed about their quarter one grades, and I routinely have 4-8 of my 20 students absent from every class (sickness, cuts, and general ???). But I'm happy that I'm also at the point where I'm starting to bond with the kids and that I mostly really get along with them and they with me.
And now I'm going to go the fuck to sleep so I can go ring bells in the morning and stuff.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: My day for 750words rolls over at 6AM, so I can write super late words, as long as they're not SUPER late. This does mean I can't write super early words but a) I'm trying to not have to be awake before six (it's going okayish) and b) I almost never am struck with the urge to write that early. I suppose I've done some early morning dreamlogging, but that gets done in my personal discord and doesn't usually get copypasted into words until later anyways.
2: The way the weird rolling schedule at my school goes, I have all three sections of Algebra on Mon/Thurs/Fri, and one section on Tues and two on Weds. Hence the weekly work schedule is "Monday, Secondday, Thursday, Friday" for them.
My Geometry kids have "Firstday, Secondday, Thursday, Friday" since one section meets Mon-Tues and the other Tues-Weds.
This means Tuesday, while only teaching three classes total, is really hard because I have to teach three *different* lessons. Meanwhile Wednesday is bestday because it's the only day of the week where all my lessons were taught the day before, so I am fully prepped going into it.
(Also man, what a gamble on my words1. This is probably the most likely I've been to miss them in a _long_ time.)
I'm not particularly worried about being able to fall back asleep once I try for it in my actual bed, but wow, this gives me some Information about how I've been treating myself this week (poorly) and is a fairly severe version of the Friday-crash I tend to have during the school year. Lesson learned: Try and sleep more, dumbass.
Despite the lack of sleep, the past few days of school have actually gone really well. Algebra especially I have been doing REALLY GOOD stuff this week --I had an okay Monday where we came back to our solving equations to review it, a shaky secondday2 where we tried (and mostly failed) to solve eqs with variables on both sides, and then a *smashing* Thursday where a little activity I whipped up to "build" equations turned out to be understandable and interesting to very nearly every student. I haven't graded their independent work yet, but the spot checks during class looked _solid_.
Part of why things are so good this week is that, after four years of incompetent and undirected volunteers (souring me on the whole idea really) I have somehow wound up with _four_ incredibly competent classroom volunteers/tutors/etc this year. Obviously I don't get every person in every class, but having 1-2 additional adults in most of the Algebra classes, who are ACTUALLY HELPFUL and able to take initiative on their own to encourage and assist students is a delight!
(One of them is actually competent enough that the school full hired him to be an additional MultiLingual Ed teacher. This is important, because we are acquiring newcomer students at a _breakneck_ pace this year, apparently our highest year in nearly a decade. For me, this means that I have had exactly one week out of twelve where my roster was the same at the end of the week as it was at the beginning. I had *fifteen* students ineligible for quarter one grades because they joined the school after the progress reports in the middle of Q1. I have three new students this week, and at least two already on the docket for starting next week. I am _so glad_ this guy got hired into a full time position because aaaaaaahhhhhhhh)
The other nice thing about having extensive classroom support (which like, is extra critical considering that my average Algebra class size is five students higher than it's _ever_ been --and yes, I know other teachers at the school regularly have 25 students, but there's a big difference between 25 students who natively speak English and 19 (20...22...) who don't.) Anyways, the other nice thing is that I am actually pushing myself with projects in a way I haven't before, and I'm getting to do one of my favourite ever projects the "Algebra About Me" posters. Students write up five equations about themselves, and then make little decorated posters and draw a picture (or at least write their name real nice) and get to have some creative colouring time.
(The equations are all things like "I have "s" sisters - 11s - 13 = 9" and it's fun to see what they come up with. Mad props to a) the student who said she has 14 best friends and b) the student who said he has 12 girlfriends. Oh, and the kid who says he has 30 cats and 100 dogs. It's hard to explain this to the kids, but I honestly love it when they blatantly lie on assignments like this, I think it's a lot funnier and can sorta alleviate stress about not being normal enough otherwise)
This is a perfect project to be working on going into the weird half-week of Thanksgiving, especially because two of my classes meet twice and one only meets once. They all had a work day today, they'll have a second work day on Monday, and then the classes that meet secondday2 will get a "okay, now you solve someone else's equations to learn about them!" day. Not too brain taxing, a little wild because they'll get to move around the classroom to look at people's posters, generally the right sort of feel for "we have two days off hell yes".
My Geometry class is on slightly shakier ground, made worse by the fact that the class which only meets once next week really _needs_ the extra time more than the class which meets twice. But we did a quite satisfying activity today in which they measured angles of a transversal through parallel lines and looked for patterns --more interesting than me just telling them alternate interior angles are congruent! I have High Hopes of getting them downstairs to the cafeteria to measure angles on the floor there (or at least out into the hallways, but those might all be perpendicular and therefore less interesting. Ideally, I really _really_ would've taken some idea photos before leaving the building today, whooooops.
It's definitely hitting the Hard Part of the year. Masking rigor is down (c'mon children), energy is down, some students are real stressed about their quarter one grades, and I routinely have 4-8 of my 20 students absent from every class (sickness, cuts, and general ???). But I'm happy that I'm also at the point where I'm starting to bond with the kids and that I mostly really get along with them and they with me.
And now I'm going to go the fuck to sleep so I can go ring bells in the morning and stuff.
~Sor
MOOP!
1: My day for 750words rolls over at 6AM, so I can write super late words, as long as they're not SUPER late. This does mean I can't write super early words but a) I'm trying to not have to be awake before six (it's going okayish) and b) I almost never am struck with the urge to write that early. I suppose I've done some early morning dreamlogging, but that gets done in my personal discord and doesn't usually get copypasted into words until later anyways.
2: The way the weird rolling schedule at my school goes, I have all three sections of Algebra on Mon/Thurs/Fri, and one section on Tues and two on Weds. Hence the weekly work schedule is "Monday, Secondday, Thursday, Friday" for them.
My Geometry kids have "Firstday, Secondday, Thursday, Friday" since one section meets Mon-Tues and the other Tues-Weds.
This means Tuesday, while only teaching three classes total, is really hard because I have to teach three *different* lessons. Meanwhile Wednesday is bestday because it's the only day of the week where all my lessons were taught the day before, so I am fully prepped going into it.
no subject
on 2021-11-20 01:51 pm (UTC)The Algebra About Me assignment sounds super-cute! Can I hear more about the building equations one?
Good luck with the Hard part of the year! And please find ways to do the specific kind of self-care which is rest for your physical body. I know for me, the worst social blunders I've made professionally have happened while exhausted, even though my math brain works fine without sleep.
no subject
on 2021-11-30 03:55 pm (UTC)