On Wednesday, I had meta and journalism with Jeremy. Not a single kid did the homework assignment. The assignment was to get all the staff members to sign their names on a treasure hunt. 10 staff members. An entire week. More than half the students are taking the class again. What the fuck??? Talk about fucking frustrating. The task really doesn't consume much brain power. You nicely ask a teacher to sign. Anyways, after that we broke students up into pairs and had them come up with definitions for community. Then we took the definition and synthesized it to make one definition. After this we had students make a list of the good and bad things about their community. 5 minutes later we talked about the list and then talked about how people outside of their community viewed it. We didn't get to finish this because we had this great guest speaker come in and talk about the prison industrial complex. She is part of an organization called "Books not bars" that is trying to shut down the CYA. I've seen her presentation before and it's always good. At first the kids weren't really receptive but then she soon gets them into it. It is an incredibly disturbing fact that the state of california spends more on prison inmates than on educating kids. It's just a clear example of profit before justice.
In Journalism, our student editor had kids do a deadline project so they would get the feel of a deadline. Too bad homework doesn' t have the same effect. Next, we had students decide on the size of the zine, and after we told them about the various departments they chose 3 jobs in the zine they wanted. They really seem to be into this project but I just hope they follow through with it. It's great having a student editor cause she has far more invested into it then Jeremy or me. Our idea is to really have it student led with jeremy and I playing consulting roles. We provide a structure and a wider outlook, they produce the product. In my opinion, this is one of the ideals of education. As Bruce Lee would say, "It is like a finger pointing to the moon. don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."
On Thursday, I started off 1st period with a read along to the book "Disposable People." The kids were blown away to find out that there was modern slavery. As we finished this up, I had one of the mentor teachers from my credentialling class come in and observe me first period. It was totally unexpected and totally sucked shit. Getting observed makes me really nervous. Then when I tried to organize the students into 2 concentric circles, they were totally lost. In the concentric circles, I had outside student tell inside students and vice versa things about Erik Erikson and the psychosocial stages of development. The silence was deafening. To make matters worse, when I moved to the next task I totally couldn't find the handouts that I had copied. This had to have gone on for a good 2 or 3 minutes. You know when you have a mini-panic attack that starts in the middle of your chest and you're like "Shit, fuck, shit, fuck, shit!!!" Luckily, I found the work and a crisis was abated. The handout was on Meta-Cognition and it's elements. I want them to think of doing things with a plan of action. In order to explain the plan of action I related it to trying to pick up on a girl that you like. You got to have a plan of action before you approach the girl. Then, when you are executing the plan you have to constantly evaluate the plan. How am I doing? Is what I'm saying to her working. After I laid out my pickup scenario, I would lay out how to make a plan of action for learning information to take a test. 1st period ended on this.
In 2nd and 3rd period, I started read along with "The Jungle Commission" by Jomo Kenyatta. It's this great allegory about colonialism. At first the kids didn't understand it. But then I started to break things down with them and they started to get it. I'm getting better at providing students the space to make the necessary mental connections, but I still sometimes give them too much information. The story of European colonialism in Africa is much the same as European colonialism in North and South America. Native people getting fucked over big time. My 3rd period class rocks. What a great bunch. They get into the activities and they are eager to answer questions. I even got one of the tough gang member kids to be into things. He's a good kid and one of the things I did was to acknowledge that from the beginning and agree/praise the statements he would make. Now he volunteers to speak up and show his intelligence. It fucking rocks.
Today...was Friday. I'm just happy for that. In all my classes, I started off with a "What's in your wallet" activity. I paired students up and they showed and explained to each other an object of importance that they carry with them. Then the pairs got up and introduced the other person and their objects. I think it will be really important and will pay off in the long run to do these community building activities and games every Friday. Anyways, after that I finished up talking about meta-cognition and evaluating your plan of action. Using the previous partner, I had students come up with 8 good questions on psychosocial development that I would use on the test. I told them that if I used their question on the test I would give them extra credit. I assigned them homework to come up with a plan of action for getting an A on the test. I told them that on Monday their homework would be to wrute up the monitoring and maintaining their plan of action. Finally, on Tuesday I would have the evaluation of their plan on the test. I also told them the homework wasn't normal homework but really a takehome part of the test. Doing the homework would actually give them points on the test. I also gave students 3 notecards to make flashcards on the 3 elements to meta-cognition. So they will be using meta-cognition to learn about meta-cognition and psychosocial development. I love it! It's delicious.
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