Excuses

            “Landon, you didn’t finish the ‘Excellent Elections’ assignment for Social Studies.  Your grade’s down to a D minus.  You’ve got a 0/45 in the grade book.  What’s up?”

            Landon turned around from the computer he was working at and stared at me.  He was frowning, concentrating. 

            “It was due yesterday,” I reminded him.  “You had two days in class this week to get it done.”

            Landon grinned.  “My bad.”

            “Noooo.  That’s not going to cover this.  Why isn’t it done?”

            Landon’s eyes widened.  “I didn’t know that was due this week.”

            I swept my hand over to the homework board.  “Excellent Elections – due Thursday” was still written on the whiteboard.

            “But I didn’t see that,” Landon wailed.

            I walked over to Landon’s notebooks sitting on the desk.  “And you should have written it in your planner.”  I flipped through the pages to yesterday’s date.  “You should have written it right . . .” I stopped.  “Oh look.  It is written down.  Due Thursday, just like we said.”

            “But I didn’t know how to do it,” Landon moaned.

            His last remark caught Mrs. Oliver’s attention from across the room.  She was the para in his Social Studies class.  Her head popped up like a chipmunk’s.

            “Landon!” she said.  “I asked you several times in class if you needed any help and you always told me you knew how to do it and you didn’t want me helping you.”

            Landon winked one eye and pointed to Mrs. Oliver.  “True dat!”

            Mrs. Oliver and I exchanged glances.  Landon reverted to “gangsta” talk when he was running out of options.

            “So you knew when it was due, and how to do it,” I summarized.

            Landon pursed his lips together.  His eyes narrowed and darted back and forth.  Then, “I tried to do it last night, but the internet was down at our house.”

            “All night?” I asked.  “The internet was down at your house all last night?”

            “No.” Pause.  “Just a little.   But my dad said I had to go to bed when it came back on.”

            How far is he going to take this?

            “Did you tell your dad you hadn’t finished your homework?”

            “Yes.”  Pause.  “No.”  Pause.  “What?”

            I slowly enunciated.  “What did you tell your dad last night?”

            Landon stared back several seconds and then slowly began to smile.  “I told him I finished it.”

            I gave Landon a long sober stare.  “What do you think he’ll say when he gets the update on your grades Monday morning.”

            His smile slowly faded.  A sad little puppy looked back.

            “He’s not going to like that you lied to him,” I added. 

            His eyes suddenly widened.  “You won’t tell him will you?”

            “No.  You’re going to tell him.”  I opened up the grade book on my computer and clicked the tab that showed contact information.  “And you’re going to tell him now.”  I located his dad’s phone number, and began punching the numbers in on the phone.

            “You know,” I continued, “If your dad’s going to get bad news, it’s better coming from you than an email.”

            Man up kiddo.  You’ll probably be giving your dad a lot worse news than this in the years ahead.

            Now Landon was desperate.  “When he finds out I lied, he won’t let me go to Ramon’s birthday party tomorrow.”

            True dat, I thought.  True dat.

(source) 

The Help We Don't Want

            “Jeremy doesn’t want to get help from the Learning Center any more.  He says it’s embarrassing and makes him feel dumb.  Is there any way we can get him off of his IEP?”

            I could have predicted this request from Mrs. Watkins the second week of school, so I wasn’t surprised to hear it come up at Jeremy’s IEP meeting.  I paused a minute and nodded my head.  I wanted Mrs. Watkins to know I really did understand the struggle she was going through. 

            “I know this isn’t new information for you,” I softly explained.  “But Jeremy really does struggle decoding the text he’s reading.  Once he’s got it decoded, his comprehension is great.  But his fluency decoding the words is very low.  It takes him three times longer than a typical sixth grade student to read material in class.”

            “I know his reading is really slow.  That’s the main thing he’s always been working on, but it’s taking so long for him to get faster.  I just don’t know what to tell him.  He said he wanted me to get him off his IEP today.  He says the other kids think he’s dumb when he comes into your room.”

            How many times have I had this conversation with a parent? This is the most common problem parents and students with Learning Disabilities must work through in Middle School – identifying strengths and weaknesses and learning how to use one to pull up the other.

            “Mrs. Watkins, we both know Jeremy is not dumb.  In fact, he’s got to be pretty bright to be getting the grades he has considering how hard it is for him to access any reading material.”

            Jeremy’s mom sadly nodded her agreement.  “If there was only some way his tests could just be over the material he’s heard in school.  If he just wouldn’t have to read anything.  I know he’d get good grades and he wouldn’t have to be on an IEP.”

            That’s how he’s surviving right now, I thought.

            “Listening and remembering what he’s heard is his strength,” I agreed.  “The problem is, there’s going to be a ton of material in the years ahead that’s going to be in written form that Jeremy has to get hold of.  He needs to continue working on his fluency.  He’s going to need some strategies and help accessing all that material.”

            The room was quiet.  Mrs. Watkins was quiet.  The clock on the wall was making a clicking sound. 

            Then, “I know.” 

            We continued sitting in the quiet room listening to the clock click.  Mrs. Watkins stared down at the IEP sitting on the table.  She knew her son hated it, but she also knew he desperately needed it.  She picked up her pen, checked the box that said “I give my consent,” and sadly signed her name.  

 (source)

Worries

            “I’m really worried about Ramon’s math grade.  He has a C-.”

            I was one of 16 teachers sitting at 16 tables in the cafeteria at 8 p.m. There were 24 additional teachers at 24 tables in the gym.  I had been at school since 7 a.m.  Welcome to Fall Parent Teacher Conferences.

           

            “There’s only two grades in the book for the second quarter,” I said.  “You should wait until there’s at least five grades before you get excited.”  I smiled.  But no one smiled back.

            “I don’t want him to have any bad grades.”

            OK.  The humor didn’t work.

            “Well let’s see where the C- came from.”

            I flipped open my laptop and opened up the grading program.  All of Ramon’s classes came up, and I quickly scanned the list.  There it was – Math, 70%, C-.  I clicked on the grade and the teacher’s complete grade book opened up.

            “OK.  Ramon got three out of five on his last warm-up and four out of five on his group activity.  That’s only a total of ten points so far for this quarter.  He got a B+ for the first quarter in math, so I really don’t think you should be worrying at this point.”

            Why do teachers put stinky grades in just before parent teacher conferences?

            I knew the real purpose of the fall conference was to discuss the first quarter grades, but the second quarter had started, so most teachers did have a few grades entered.  Ramon was doing a great job in his classes, and I wasn’t worried at all about his grades.

            “It bothers me to see Ramon dropping the ball on any assignments.  He has to stay on top of things,” Ramon’s mother explained. “He forgets things, and I have to help him keep up with all his grades.”

            Ramon is the oldest of three children.  Tonight was the first middle school conference his mother had ever attended.  I knew she was rattled not having specific appointment times, and having to track down eight different teachers.  Her daily emails at the beginning of the year had dwindled down to one email per week.  I thought things had calmed down, but tonight’s conferences had stirred things up again.

            I wished I could tell her that three-fourths of the students had a C or lower in math this quarter.  It was by design.  It was the math teacher’s philosophy to start the second quarter grading really tough, so the kids would put in a good effort before the holiday crash began.

            I wished I could tell her that Ramon is just eleven years old and he’s allowed a bad grade every so often.  The world wouldn’t end if he got three out of five every now and then.

            I wished I could convince her that the 25 year old young man Ramon would grow into would bear no resemblance whatsoever to the forgetful little eleven year old she was fretting over.

            But instead I said, “I’ll stay close during warm-ups next week to make sure he’s more careful while he’s doing them.”

            “Thank you Mrs. Jones.  I just worry so much about him.”

(source)

Dividing Fractions - Part Two

            “Dun da-da DAH!”

            I looked up towards the sound.  Landon stood in the doorway with a big grin on his face holding his test out with a stiff right arm.

            He goose stepped towards me singing.  “It’s Friday, Friday, got to get home on Friday . . .”  His head bobbed back and forth keeping time.

            As he came closer, I could see the happy lime green Sharpie markings.

            “You got a 54%?”

            The smile dropped off his face.  “Is that bad?”

            “Yeeaaaah.”

            Landon put his tongue between his lips and made a fart sound.

            “Sit down.  Let’s do your corrections.”

            Bad news does not weigh Landon down very long.  He pulled out a chair and resumed singing.  “It’s Friday, Friday, I’m going home on Friday. . .”

            “OK Landon.  Look over at the board.  What are the things you need to remember?  And you need to stop singing, please.”

            Landon turned around and stared at the reminders still posted on the white board.

Change everything to a fraction

Keep, Change, Flip

Word Problems:  What are you dividing?

Put it first

 His singing had stopped, but his head continued bouncing back in forth.  The song played on, but it was beyond my reach.

            “Here’s the first problem you missed.  Copy it on to this separate sheet.”  I slid a clean piece of notebook paper in front of him and watched Landon copy 1-1/2 divided by 2-1/4.  “What do you do first?”

            Landon tapped “1-1/2” with his pencil.  His pencil taps softly kept time to, “Friday, Friday . . .”

            “OK.  Change it to a fraction.”

            Landon’s head bobbed back and forth, keeping time to his inner music as he softly said, “Two times one is two, plus one is three.”

            I watched as he wrote down 2/3.

            Now I tapped with my pencil.  “How does 1-1/2 become 2/3?”

            Landon turned and looked at me like I had lost my mind.  “You flip it!”

            “That’s step two.  You don’t flip until step two.  And you only flip the second one.  Remember Keep, Change, Fuuulip.”

            Landon’s inner music turned down a few notches, but his head continued the beat as he stared at his problem.  Then he turned to me and smiled.  His tongue went between his lips and out came his fart sound. 

            “My bad.”

            The music continued in Landon’s head.  I continued tapping his mistakes with my pencil, and Landon continued acknowledging them with his fart sound until his entire test was corrected.

            “Now go give this back to your teacher.”

            “Thanks Mrs. Jones.”

            “You’re welcomed.  Have a good weekend.”

            It’s Friday, Friday, got to get down on Friday.