[Classroom Rules] Chicago

This caped teacher and one of her caped friends watched Chicago a while back on the television box.  We intended to watch something else, but this caped teacher made an error in planning.  Good news though, Rule #5 has revealed itself (see the rest of the rules here).

Roxie Hart has quite shocking language in this show, and Billy Flynn has to tell her to tone it down.  The conversation goes like so:

[Roxie Hart]   Holy s**t! I'm never gotta get this straight!

[Billy Flynn]   Pipe down the swearing. Look, from here on, you say nothing wrong. Now try it again. 

Sometimes a word or phrase strikes me, and this one did.  

Rule #5  Pipe down the swearing

My kids use language quite similar to that of Ms. Roxie Hart.  While I don't allow it, I wouldn't say it is my primary concern.  They hear it at home, in their neighbohoods, and from each other.  It isn't going to work to tell them not to swear.  It does work, or it least more useful to teach them when it's okay to swear, when to pipe it down, and when not to.  

[Classroom Management] Campfire

I've mentioned before that I use the television show NCIS for inspiration--especially my name and my classroom rules (current list here). One time I mentioned "calling a campfire," but I didn't really explain it. 

I will 'splain.  There is too much, I will sum up...

There is a character on NCIS named Dinozzo. At one point in the season he was in charge of the team because "Boss" was in trouble for being a kamikazee rogue agent.  When Dinozzo needs to talk to the team, he says "campfire" and they gather up.  This is how I get my Poodle-heads' attention when I need to talk to them about something serious.

Example?  Why sure!
One time, someone from another class came in to tell me that my homeroom was taking part in bullying another student.  I called a campfire, they sat right down, and we talked.  I don't know for sure why it works like it does, but when I say campfire, they just gather right up.  They seem to understand that it is time to be serious even though I haven't exactly said that.

Another example?  Of course!
During one campfire someone tried to make a joke after I had clearly "called campfire," and the other students shushed him and said "don't you know that means she's serious????"

The very best example?  Here it comes!
Something even better happened yesterday.  J. came up to me and said "Boss, we think we need a campfire." He was a quiet, and a little shy about it.  At first I didn't understand.  "You need a campfire?" I asked him. "Ummmm. Yeah. We think we do."

I walked over to the rest of the group and they were already sitting in a campfire (sort of a circle-ish shape formed by sitting in their desks in the right places) and waiting for me.

J: We were wondering why you seemed kind-of-maybe-unhappy-or-angry-or-something today..."
Me: [pause]
Class: [pause--wondering how I will react]
Me: I guess I'm still frustrated from the stuff that happened here on Friday.  It wasn't a very good day and I'm trying to make sure it doesn't happen again, so I guess I'm kind of serious.
Class: Hm.
Me: And, I'm tired.  It was a good weekend.  Did you all have a good weekend?
Class: [showing relief--tells stories about weekend]

What do I think happened here?  I think they showed me a few things.  First, they reminded me that they need me to be on and present and with-it.  Their world needs that. They also showed me that they understand the procedure of "campfire" more clearly than I knew.  I started using it on a whim (like many things I do). I didn't explain the procedure of how it would be used because I didn't know myself.  I didn't over use it, and viola!  It took on a life of it's own.  It became a way to say "we need to talk," and they used it as a way to talk to me yesterday.

It was a good moment.



Goal Progress: 6/20

[Student Behavior] 8th Grade Moonies

I am the opposite of cerebral.  I am intuitive, imaginative, and impractical.  I am loosey-goosey, dreamy, and have a casual relationship with time.  BUT.  I prefer provable facts over what-ifs or maybes.  If I am going to make a statement or declaration, I look it up first.
That said,  I am fixin' to make a declaration.  Actually two. Neither one of them have any support or proof that I would consider true, scientific, or accurate.  I feel like they should, and I'm going to go out on a limb.  Actually, I'm going to put my statements on a limb.

First,

My poodle-heads have 8th Grade Disease

and,

The Full Moon is making their 8th Grade disease worse.  

This week I thought my kiddos had 8th Grade Disease.  Looking back in my archives I see that I have never adequately explained this.  I will.  Just not today.  Short version?  8th graders appear to have a genetic mutation that causes them to turn in to monsters.  I don't know if I discovered this disease, just happened to name it (quite creatively I might add), or stole it from someone smarter and wittier.  I just know it exists.  It exists and it started running wild through the ranks this week.  

It got so bad today that I had to take pause.  This didn't seem like your typical illness breakout.  There had to be something else going on.  I checked the calendar, and it appears there will be a Full Moon in one week.  A week away is kind of a stretch for the Full Moonies, I realize that.  Perhaps 8th Grade Disease is compounded by the Full Moon thereby creating a new strain of the disease?  The 8th Grade Moonies?

I sure hope so. Otherwise I've lost my touch.  With my super powers AND reality.  

Whatev

I was going to title this post "god-light".  You know, the light that sometimes shines through the clouds and, some say, looks all biblical and stuff?  I did a search on it, and found... well... very little that describes it as I want it described.  Then I thought I'd use "A-Ha".  A search ensued, and I found more a-ha's than I wanted (here, here, and here). By this time in the titling procedure,  I have grown weary and a little bit pissy. You get what you get, I suppose.

What I wanted to say when I sat myself down here to write is that I had a moment today where the light showed through the clouds looking all biblical and stuff, and my little pea brain smiled.  It was tiny.  Itsy-bitsy.  Quite small, really.  I'm sharing it anyway.  I will tell you the end first.

J. said to me "Oh, don't worry.  I learned my lesson with that."

This is J. of the "I smell so good" marker debacle.  J. doesn't learn lessons because he most mightily does not want to.  More than anything he wants to NOT learn, to NOT do, to NOT feel.  Of course, no surprise here, I think he's hilarious and great.  I do quite often want to stomp on his smelly little feet and shake my finger in his impish little face and say "you have so much potential!!!"  I resist (usually).

One day J. was especially focused on doing NOT.  So focused that he had become downright defiant and was causing quite a ruckus.  The best thing to do in this instance is to strategically ignore his behavior (if you want to know more about strategic ignoring, ask me.  I'll tell you.  It's one of my super powers.  That, and over-parenthetical-izing and quotation-al-izing things.).  I did.  And then I did.  And then I did.  And then... I didn't.  I said (don't judge me for this) "Dude, do I need to call your dad?"

BAD idea.  I know. It just came out.  His eyes lit up at the idea of his "NOT-ing" getting attention from me and his dad.  He said, and read this carefully here,

"Whatever floats your boat."

Whatever.  Floats.  Your.  Boat.  Duuuuude....  I was officially irritated.  Truth be told, I was angry at myself for taking the bait.  Lucky for me when I am irritated my senses constrict in the best possible way.  I become calm, quiet, and methodical (or diabolical).  I replied with "Okay."  My dad used to say "okay."  It usually meant I was done.  D-O-N-E.  This is how I imagine my "okay" sounding.  He started to back track and I said "Consider my boat floated."  He looked at me, I looked at him.

Later that day J. asked me for something he didn't really need.  I said "Um, nope."  Soon after, he asked for something else.  I said "Um, nope."  Later still, while the kiddos who had finished their work had some free time, he asked again.  "Um, nope.  See?  This is me, floating my boat. " He looked at me, I looked at him.

The next week, he started to ask for something.  I gave him The Look and he completed his work before asking again.  This happened a few times.  I said, "I see I don't need to float my boat?" He replied with an empathic "no" and a rushed explanation of how he hadn't meant to be rude.  I explained how it might be perceived as rude in some circumstances.  He insisted it wasn't.  He looked at me, I looked at him.

Another week comes and goes with a few hints dropped here and there "Shall I float my boat?"  "Oh, I see, I don't need to float my boat?" Today, the god light/a-ha/whatev moment came.  He said I needn't float my boat any longer.  He had learned his lesson.  We nodded to each other.

Woo-Hoooo!  I wonder how to turn this into a rule?  Something about the boat-floating, or the okay-ing, or the strategic ignorer-ing, methinks.

CONTEST IDEA!!!!!
Send me your ideas about how to turn this into one of Boss's Rules, and I will send you a laminated copy of the entire set of rules so far! I will.  I really will do it. I'll even let you choose the number for the rule if you win. Maybe.

Rule #1

One of my turtle-heads tends to favor a good lie (okay, any lie) over the truth.  As this caped teacher is, along with many others, able to discern a lie in the seconds before it is told, I find myself catching lies multiple times a day.  They are often little lies--"no I didn't put that book there" or "yes I did ask permission to use this pen." Some of them are bigger lies--"no I didn't steal this poem off of the internet and turn it in as my own" or "yes I do too have permission to walk home by myself in the dark."

This caped teacher's parents may laugh loudly at this, but I just want him to learn that the lie is not easier.  It seems easier before the telling, during the telling, and for a short while after the telling, but it is, in fact, much more difficult.  Many of us know this.  One of us learned this the hard way and over a long period of years telling lies to her parents.

V. is still learning this.  Years in foster care have not cured him of it.  I hesitate to say it may have made him more certain that lies are easier.  I would guess the lies feel safer on many levels.

The other day V. was presented with an opportunity to choose a lie over the truth.  The truth was easy and painless, the lie was... just that.  A lie.  I asked him for the truth, he lied  I asked him again and said (watch out... here it comes.... a new rule!)

"Lead with the truth, dude."

And he did.  He told the truth.  He did the next day too.  Then he lied again.  Either way, Rule #1 has been added to the list.

Rule #11

It's Father's Day, and as I've mentioned before (here and here) even Super Teachers have Dads.  I want to send a shout-out to my Pops.  He was the first to support and, dare I say, read this blog with regularity.  He and I have worked through some things in the last thirty-odd years and each lesson has helped to make me who I am today.  I hear his voice coming from me when I am teaching, and I know he would recognize some of his own sayings and style in my teaching. His calm, loving, crazy-smart, and thoughtful conversations through the years have taught me many things I use daily.

In honor of Father's Day I am going to assign a Boss's Rule number (partial list here).  Just to point out, the assignment of a number is not level of importance, it's sort of a psychic choice of a number that best fits the rule.  In this case, it may have something to do with the importance of the number 11 as it refers to an age where many many lessons were learned.

Presenting...

Rule #11

Even Super Teachers have Dads.

Love you Pops,
B

Rule #8

Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs is one of my professional role models.  It is for him that I have asked my students this year to call me Boss.  I am not a TV fanatic, and I prefer not to pay the cable company any of my hard-earned money.  I have, however, watched many episodes of NCIS due to a very generous landlord who paid for cable with DVR last year. 


Gibbs has Rules.  They are good rules, but not as useful in the classroom as I would like.  I have started numbering my own rules to create a list.  This, perhaps, will increase my Gibbs-ish-ness and... well... entertain me. 

Last week I assigned a number to a very familiar rule in my classroom:


Rule #8

Before you are snarky about something, make sure you are right. 


Example of rule in use:

Student insists there are 16 days of school.  
Boss says, "I checked the calendar recently, and I believe there are 19." 
Student insists there are 16, and that Boss is wrong. Student is snarky and pokes fun at Boss for making a mistake.  
Boss again refers to the fact that she did, indeed, use her eyes and calendar to make the determination that she was, indeed, correct in her statement.  
Student continues with snarkiness and even includes a "nuh-uh" in the rebuttal.  
Boss asks student to count the days on a calendar.  
Student counts... 19 days of school remaining.  Student blushes.  
Boss says, "You know... before you are--."
Student finishes for Boss, "Before I'm snarky I should know I am right."

Viola.  Rule #8. 

A Nervous Twitch

I have my 6th and 7th grade girls convinced that if they whine, I will get a nervous twitch.  This is not technically a lie, since I do think it could kill me if I have to listen to as much whining as they are capable of ... of which they are capable ... that they are capable to do.  That much whining.