December 2010
20 posts
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“We need teachers and principals who are paid better for better performance, but...”
– U.S.G. and P.T.A. - NYTimes.com (via csessums)
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Fun Friday: Vindicated and it feels so good
So, soccer season is upon us. Which means that the band teacher is gone every Tuesday afternoon for games because he is the coach. Which means that there are three to five boys who have nowhere to go for seventh period. In the last Leadership Team meeting, I volunteered to take a few of them since I just do Study Hall that period.
Tuesday, Darius, Treshan, and Miko showed up without any work,...
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“Ms. Basye, not to be rude or nothing, ‘cause I know you tryin’, but...”
– Authman
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Thankful Thursday:
As the semester winds down, I am thankful for the staff and faculty at my school, who show up and instruct, as well as chase, advise, referee, call, scream, yell, laugh, grade, praise, manage, cry, bribe—whatever it takes, everyday.
Even more props to those who come back for many years. Two days away from Holiday Break and five months until I am out of this school, and I am on my last...
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Wednesday Wear: I'm not pregnant!!
In this first edition of Wednesday Wear, I am wearing a dress, leggings, boots, and sweater. Pretty typical for me, except the dress is an empire waist with very little structure between the bra top and skirt, which I promptly found out does not flatter my midsection.
Shalik: Ms. Basye, you pregnant?
Me: What? No—what? You can’t ask your teacher that.
Time passes, Shalik gets a...
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“if we switched jobs for a day,
you would yawn
and my head would probably...”
– Reece
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Toilet Tuesday: Yo soy a cabrona
After I had to call the mother of one of my students for incessantly—and I mean incessantly—screaming at me at the top of her lungs for no apparent reason. And after I got verbally assaulted by her mother in English in my own classroom in front of my kids because her kid is screaming. And after I listened as she harangued me in Spanish to her older daughter because she thinks I can’t understand....
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Moment Monday: Oops
Me: I'm sorry, Kishawn (that I playfully asked you to stop pouting when I corrected your math and then took a picture of you so you could see yourself pouting), I really thought you would start laughing. I just wanted to cheer you up. (If I had known you would start bawling and run out of the room, I would not have taken the picture or shown it to Brittnae).
Kishawn: *shrug*
Me: Will you forgive me?
Kishawn: Nope.
Me: Ever?!
Kishawn: Nope.
Me: So, you're going to be mad at me for the rest of the year??!
Kishawn: Yep. *Dramatic exit*
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Fun Friday: I forgot
Because my Friday wasn’t very fun, save for one nugget: it’s fun to see Kishawn do a quiz quietly and cheerfully because he has come to know how to do the math so well.
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“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that...”
– Pablo Picasso (via missroze)
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Thankful Thursday: Homework Turn-in Rate...
First, I’ve finally found a homework tracking solution that actually works in a low-maintenance way. It’s been a year and a half coming, but it’s here. Every morning, we go down the roster and ask for homework like it’s a big deal. If you have it, your box for the day gets colored in. If you don’t have it, you get an X. Three X’s is a parent phone call home, in...
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My TFA Education: Forget it. →
Also, I had a Conscious Classroom Management consultant tell me that “If you were teaching math at any other school, you’d be the best math teacher in the district.”
That is awesome. If you are good at the most difficult thing, logic says you are the best!
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So, I don't blog anymore
because I have stopped noticing and caring about the little moments in my classroom and have begun to notice and care about bigger issues in my school and district that probably shouldn’t be published on the world wide web. But this leaves me with a whole year—my last with this, my first, very special class—that went unnoticed.
Therefore, to make a conscious effort to notice and...
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“And while it has the feel of a charter school, a full third of its students have...”
– Baltimore Schools, a Mission for Andres Alonso - NYTimes.com
Amen
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“Kids come as is,” he likes to say, “and it’s our job to engage them.”
– Andres Alonso
Baltimore Schools, a Mission for Andres Alonso - NYTimes.com
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