Posts (page 2)

Dear Second Years,

Thank you for your guidance and your kind words of encouragement. I can only hope our class is as wise and helpful in the development of the first years as you were for us. 

To Rob (my one and only mentor),

I apologize for that mentor meeting I missed, it was unintentional, but I think we more then made up for it during games of NBA 2k9 and the occasional black and mild. You will be missed during the upcoming year, but I have no doubt you will be successful in your future endeavors. Whenever you feel the need to visit Jacktown we will be here.

Dear MS. G (my unofficial mentor),

Sorry you never got that official title. If it was up to me you would of had it for sure. Too bad you were a Duke fan, we could have really had some fun otherwise. Thanks for always being there as a friend, pal, buddy, punching bag…..etc. See you back in the finest state in the Union sometime soon. I have no doubt you will be getting me a job at your company sometime in the near future.

To all who showed us the way…………Mississippi will miss you.

            Strip searches such as these always first come across as a terrible injustice. Most of the time they remain that way, every now and then it seems you find a case where the administrator/police/counselor was doing the right thing. The real problem with the law is that it becomes a judgment call. Many view the law as open to interpretation by the party enforcing it, which is when problems arise. Obviously, principals are allowed to search a students bag or purse without a warrant, but because the court never addressed intimate searches it becomes a gray area. You would hope a principal would have the adequate training to keep him from allowing an act like this to occur, but when a law is open to interpretation their will always be people who go astray.

            One of the people who commented on the article stated that the people conducting the search must have had a mental illness. I do not think this is necessarily true. Many people not involved in education do not understand the pressure often put on the administration to enforce rules, keep the school safe, or get test results. This will many times lead administrators to feel they have no other choice but to be super strict/rigorous in order to meet standards.

            I am not really sure that searches directly affect the area of curriculum or instruction. 99% of problems like this arise from confiscating cell phones or other small items and are easily solved with searches (if a kid refuses to give something up give them ISS or suspend them). When it is a larger issue such as suspicion of a weapon or drugs I think administrators should have the authority to search a students bags/purse without consent. An administrator should never conduct a full body search of a student. If this is ever presumed to be necessary the police should be brought in to make the judgment call (and perform the search if necessary).  

I think that the type of assessment shown in the video can be invaluable. It gives the kids a chance to showcase their creativity, think outside of the box, and show they can be successful outside of the test-setting. 

I think that the type of assessment shown in the video can be invaluable. It gives the kids a chance to showcase their creativity, think outside of the box, and show they can be successful outside of the test-setting. 

Well in Mr. Shewel class is like being honest with yourself if you did
anything be honest about what you did. Mr. Shewel is tall and skinny
and a well healthy teacher. I like him he always going to be my
teacher, my friend, and somebody I think I can come talk to. The other
students in the classroom treat my teacher a human being a teacher
also. He can have his moments his personalities do change. Also, we do
learn in his class. He teach us regardless its just whether the
student want to learn. But Mr. Shewel is a  a good teacher.  

So you hypothetically have developed a close relationship with a number of your students, certainly not necessary but sometimes the most rewarding and troubling experience of teaching. 

I envision summer school being a great place to be for students and teachers. Students will receive the instruction (individual, and differentiated) that they require. This will be possible as the student to teacher ratio will undoubtedly be very low. In the history department I can guarantee that we will be focused on reading skills, historical knowledge and analytical thinking. We will measure our students achievement by administering a pre-test along with regular follow up tests throughout the year. 

I was watching t.v. the other day right 
got this white guy up there talking about black guys 
talking about how young black guys are targeted 
targeted by who? america 
you see one in every 100 americans are locked up 
one in every 9 black americans are locked up 
and see what the white guy was trying to stress was that 
the money we spend on sending a mothaf**ka to jail 
a young mothaf**ka to jail 
would be less to send his or her young ass to college 
see, and another thing the white guy was stressing was that 
our jails are populated with drug dealers, you know crack/cocaine stuff like that 
meaning due to the laws we have on crack/cocaine and regular cocaine 
police are only, i don't want to say only right, but shit 
only logic by riding around in the hood all day 
and not in the suburbs 
because crack cocaine is mostly found in the hood 
and you know the other thing is mostly found in you know where i'm going 
but why bring a mothaf**ka to jail if it's not gon stand up in court 
cuz this drug aint that drug, you know level 3, level 4 drug, shit like that 
i guess it's all a misunderstanding 
i sit back and think, you know us young mothaf**kas you know that 1 in 9 
we probably only selling the crack cocaine because we in the hood 
and it's not like in the suburbs, we don't have what you have 
why? i really don't wanna know the answer 
i guess we just misunderstood hunh 
you know we don't have room in the jail now for the real mothaf**kas, the real criminals 
sex offenders, rapists serial killers, s**t like that
don't get scared, don't get scared 
I know you saw one them sex offenders papers 
don’t trip he live right on the end of yo block, 
Mhm yea, that nigga live right down the street from you, 
sex offender on the level 3 drug

            I am the only MS Studies teacher at Murrah. I have never had any sort of meeting with the rest of the 9^th grade teachers about curriculum (horizontal). The Social Studies department meets every now and then but we never discuss what is being taught in other classes (vertical).

            I think district based curriculum is appropriate, but it should be reviewed, at least within each department and grade level at the beginning/middle of the year. At the same time I think teachers should have the freedom to create their own pacing guides; this should be done at the beginning of the year along with the other teachers in the grade level. This way teachers can collaborate on what they are teaching at the beginning of the year, and possibly team teach certain things. 

            To account for vertical planning I think each class should have a standardized test at the end of the year (this could be made by the teacher). These tests and scores should be reviewed by the whole department to account for what has been taught and learned during the year.

            Making a curriculum map for summer school should not be difficult as both me and Patrick have taught MS studies. The problems I foresee us having to deal with are cramming everything we need to teach into one summer and how the first years will handle teaching the material when we leave. To compensate for this I think we should be as specific as possible when creating our map.

            This site references a number of articles, which I referred to for curriculum mapping ideas. http://www.curriculummapping101.com/Curriculum_Mapping.html