It’s been that kind of year. Have I mentioned that here? Yes. Yes I have. Often. So you could excuse teachers who opted out of summer school. I don’t judge. Finneas and Ferb might have had 104 days of summer vacation but here in the reality-based world it’s 7 weeks, give or take a day. And this year we’re gonna need every damn one to erase the hard drive.
But in my district summer school is kind of an all-hands-on-deck proposition. And also a way to have a summer job without having to actually go find a summer job. Plus there’s still like a month to chill and go sit by the water and recharge. (Did I ever tell you about the time my principal ordered us all to come back to school in August with a tan?). It’s a pretty good gig.
So I signed up, along with a bunch of my partners in crime from last summer (and by extension, our regular building assignments). Last year was high school math on PLATO, a computer-based credit recovery plan. This year tho I’d be teaching math remediation (three standards, one each week) to incoming freshmen. In person.
Middle school. Yikes.
Not exactly what I thought I signed up for, but once you’re in, you’re in. Came to find out a lot of my colleagues were like “I had no idea I’d be actually teaching” too. I mean, it’s what we do, but still.
But we are halfway through now and can I tell you? It’s kinda cool. Classes are really small. Like I have about four kids for each of my two rotations (roughly two hours each). Which makes some of the Desmos stuff and discovery stuff I do a little dicey but does make for daily opportunities for small group, one-on-one or one-on-two instruction.
Plus, and this is huge, the instructional coach who wrote the summer school curriculum is leaning heavily on the Indiana Department of Education’s Math Framework. Legit there is a page with clarifying questions and digital resources for every standard for every math content area. The IC and our summer principal give us a wide berth to use our professional judgement in selecting the activities we want to do withour kids. I knew a few summers ago this is where all of us were headed. And I’m ecstatic that we’re on on that same page in my district.
That activity did a tremendous job of bridging my kids from interpreting slope and y-intercept to using a scatter plot to make predictions about future events. It was a fabulous way to close the week. And in chatting up one of my building colleagues, a business teacher who is in a math classroom for the summer session, we shared our enthusiasm. She appreciated the opportunity to stretch as a teacher. And I did too. I’m on my home turf with Desmos and other discovery-based activities built right into the curriculum, and I’m also digging the chance to modify my usual routine for a smaller group of students.
Also, my district has been researching a move to a balanced school calendar with built-in inter-session time for remediation and extension opportunities. We are super-aware of the need to accelerate learning after the pandemic-related changes to our instructional model. The students and standards were hand-selected for the summer school session, and I definitely could see this curriculum as a model for the inter-session days. Here’s the kids who need support, here’s the topics we want to hit, we got two weeks, let’s go.
Now I don’t want you to start thinking all is duckies and bunnies and rainbows. Unlike the high school kids doing credit recovery on PLATO during summer school, the middle school kids know there really isn’t anything “in it” for them. Even the 25% of the hand-picked kids who actually show up aren’t always “here”. They know there’s no grade, no credit, no nothing they can earn in these three weeks. That disengagement was in evidence on the Tuesday after the long Juneteenth weekend. As glorious as Friday was, hoo brother was Tuesday four long hours. There’s no ten-run rule in teaching. You just have to kind of sit back and revel in how bad you suck at this job while simultaneously trying to find something, anything, that will catch your kids’ interest again. Good luck.
Today’s activities were a little more traditional and I was able to mostly reel my kids back in. A Quizizz at the end as a review/formative assessment didn’t hurt. Who doesn’t love a game? Chalk up a small victory.
There have definitely been non-teaching-related bright spots to the summer session as well.
I cut my teaching teeth in the Clark County School District in Las Vegas. School buildings in the desert have their own vibe. Many are built in wings around a large open-air courtyard. Eggers has maybe the Region equivalent. It’s a very chill way to start my day walking in.
Also: I’m always amazed to find out what creates a connection with a student. Early last week we were talking solving two-step and multi-step equations. We ended up having to combine like terms, and I fell back on my standard analogy for something like 3x + 4x: “Three turtles plus four turtles is seven turtles. But we can’t go three turtles plus four snakes is seven turtlesnakes. It doesn’t work like that”
And just like that we had a new class mascot.
And yes, I know, seven reptiles works just fine. I was hoping they wouldn’t make that connection. Their biology teacher two months from now might have different wishes.
But that conversation would probably never have happened if I was just opening PLATO quizzes for a bunch of high school kids. Summer school was maybe not what I expected this time around, but it’s been a challenge and a treat.
But on July 1 at 12:30 I’m done teaching for about 6 weeks. Don’t judge. Mid-afternoon summer naps are glorious. And I’m gonna need a recharge before August. Because it most definitely was That Kind Of Year.
Tweaking For No Reason 