6 Ways School is Like Working Out

I had surgery on my shoulder last May.  At the time, I couldn't work out for 4 months afterward.  In an effort to save money, I cancelled my gym membership.  Then, I rode my bike some at the end of the summertime, and did some hiking.  Once it got cold, and school started back up, I did almost no exercise. I know I should, but between being busy, tired, not having the membership....it didn't happen.  I tried a few times, and didn't stick with it, even though it felt good when I was doing it.

Last weekend I bought a new workout video, on a great sale.  Then I got sick.  I first used it today.  Afterwards, I had a thought.  My working out (or lack of), is very similar to my students work habits.  They haven't yet established the habits to be successful in school.  They want to, and are proud of themselves when they turn in homework, or do well on an assignment, but can't sustain it.

So what can we do to help them sustain these behaviors long enough to become habits??

What other things help people develop new habits:

• We have to motivate them to want that change-- engaging lessons, connections to real life, goals, etc
• We have to provide lots of positive reinforcement
• Make it an enjoyable experience
• Provide support for them to succeed (help with homework, flexibility)
• Make these efforts sustained - it takes a long time to develop new habits.
• Keep this analogy in mind. I think its easy for us, as teachers, to think that once we've told kids something, or by the time they are a certain age, they should have school habits well established....maybe not.  Remember how hard it is to learn something new.  

What if they don't?  What if they haven't been successful in learning these habits?  Or what if its not something that is reinforced at home?

This is What It Looks Like When I Get Frustrated with Classroom Management

I have been having a lot of trouble with glue this year. I have done interactive notebooks for years, and never had the kind of problems that I've had this year.  The group of middle school kids that I have don't know how to use glue - they put TONS OF GLUE, then when they close their book it oozes out, pages stick together, and the page they glued is all wrinkled and wet.

I have tried to demonstrate, I have gotten frustrated and yelled, I have designated students to go around and glue.  Some worked better than others, but the problem is still not straightened out.

Friday we really spent sometime getting our notebooks set up for the next unit (I figured we'd get the glue issue out of the way all at once).  I was so frustrated.  I kept thinking "My six year old can do this!"

Then I had an idea....videotape my 6-year-old showing them how to do it.  He heard my complaining and said "I could show them how to do it"

I'll let you know how it goes. I think it might be crazy enough to actually work!  What do you think?

What Does it Take to Be Successful in Middle School? Be Crazy

To get middle schoolers attention, I think you need to be a little bit crazy.  That's not my strength.  My strengths are lesson planning, differentiation, and building relationships with the kids, but not being crazy and off-beat and entertaining.

When I student taught in middle school, my supervising teacher had been (honestly) a magician in Vegas before he became a teacher.  Every really good middle school teacher seems to have a "gimmick" or a way to get kids attention, whether its something consistent, or something out of the blue....Surprise candy, music, old stories, etc....some kind of "cool" factor.

When I was in 8th grade, my Social Studies teacher was a retired long-time army man. He still looked and acted very military, and that was entertaining to 8th graders.

My husband told me a story about someone he knew.  This person had broken ribs and had a cast on their torso, but it didn't show under his shirt, so the kids didn't know it was there.  It was a windy day and his tie kept blowing up and getting in his face.  He grabbed the stapler off of his desk and stapled his tie to his chest.  He said the kids behaved perfectly the rest of the day.


I know another teacher who keeps some blooper videos and funniest home videos on a flash drive. He will sometimes play them to get kids attention, or as a reward at the end of class.  Here is a compilation of funniest America's Funniest Home Videos to get you started...

When we have spirit week I do dress up, and the kids get a big kick of out it.   But how to carry some of that through the rest of the year?


Do you think that's an integral part of teaching?  Especially of teaching middle school?  What other funny stories or unique teachers do you know of?

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Getting the Most Bang for your Pin

I apologize for the blogging break.  I have not been feeling well, and have been really overwhelmed and sick and tired, so blogging had to take a backseat.  I'm still not feeling 100%, but slowly improving and with the day off, I'm trying to do a little bit of blogging while I take it easy on the couch.

One of my best finds, which surfing the internet is this site.

Do you use Pinterest, either to promote products or to share ideas and save pictures that you like?   If so, you may be curious which boards are getting the most traffic, which items you have already pinned to which boards, and if they are getting re-pinned or not.

I have been trying to come up with a way to keep track of my pins, and make sure I am handling them the best way that I can.  I couldn't come up with something that seemed workable.  I did a bunch of google searching.

You have to set up an account, and then wait a day or 2 for it to collect data.  After that, there is a gold mine of information.

It will show you things like:

• All the items to have pinned to each board, along with the date.
• The number of followers for each board you belong to.
• The number of repins that each pin has gotten.
• You can even export your data to CSV if you really want to analyze

Here are a few screenshots to give you an idea.  Wow!  This has potential, I think! 

Hope this is some help to you.  They are in the process of changing the interface, so I have seen a few slightly different things when I login, but there is a ton of information in there!  

Homework: A Controversial Topic That Will Make You Think

As we approach the second semester (midterms are this week, then we start the second half of the year).....I am rethinking my approach to homework.  I teach 7th and 8th grade in an urban district, at a very low performing school.

Every summer I re-think my approach, I have done real research, and keep coming back to the same conclusion.  This may be the year that I change it.  And not only change it, but change it mid-year.

Please add in the comments what type of homework you assign, how you grade it, or any other thoughts you have on homework.  I would love to hear your feedback!

I generally assign homework that students should be able to do independently, to reinforce the topics we are learning in class.  I often assign work from the textbook (read 2-5 pages, and answer a couple of open-ended questions, or interpret a diagram or 2, or do the reinforcement work that comes with the textbook).  I also often assign vocabulary practice (draw pictures, use in sentences, etc).  I am very lenient on accepting it late.

Our district mandates that homework counts no more than 10% of the overall grade.  I have always made the argument to kids that "that's a whole letter grade."  That will bring you from an F to passing, or you can't get an A without doing homework.

I still feel that way, and I think that kids need to practice outside of class in order to raise their overall skills, and to "catch up" to other schools.  If we have such low scores now, how are we going to catch up by doing less.

Here is the catch.....

• Only a small amount of kids (maybe 25% if I'm lucky) do any substantial amount of homework, the majority don't do any
• We are under a huge amount of pressure right now to raise scores and to put in 110% (or more)---we are having 2 grade level meetings, an RTI meeting, a co-teaching SPED meeting, a subject meeting, a committee meeting, and sometimes multiple parent conferences during a week.  This leaves next to no planning time that is actually free.
• We are also being requested asked to turn in formal lesson plans, and to help provide tutoring during lunch to raise achievement.
• I am exhausted and very stressed...something needs to change!  

I am considering not assigning homework anymore, but doing more of the 'homework' in class.  I would make a shorter lesson, start homework in class, and those that don't finish would have it as homework to finish at home?  

Or making a standard homework assignment every week that is due - perhaps Wed to Wed? 

I would love to hear any of your suggestions.  I have this week of midterm exams to figure out my strategy.  

However, I am starting to think that even for all the reasons that I believe in homework, its not a good use of my time to come up with homework (even though I don't spend a lot of time on homework), and to correct and grade it, etc, if kids aren't doing it.  Maybe time and energy is better spent somewhere else, and maybe if its not working, then I need to revamp how I'm thinking about it.

How do you structure homework?  What types do you give?  How often?  What feedback do you have?  

Do You Have New Year's Resolutions/Goals for Your Classroom?

This school year has been a year of trying new things and starting over to try to get things working better....

I wrote about some of my upcoming goals for the classroom in my guest blog post here at

I have one more to add after a conversation with another science teacher, and the SIOP training that I went through earlier this year.  I want to try to make the day's agenda and learning objectives more transparent to the students. I do have an agenda board posted, and we spent time on it at the start of school, but I am assuming by now that they know its there.  I think I may be wrong.  I'm going to devote 5 minutes each day on those business parts of class:   -- agenda and objectives   --classroom jobs   --checking in on classdojo points and giving time to cash in for prizes   -- organization (table of contents, attaching things into journal) and making sure they have homework written down I will report back here in a couple weeks and see if it makes a difference....