Mrs. Ram's Jams

Tag: english teacher

• A Teacher Tale: How I Tortured My Students for My Own Entertainment This Week

  Posted at 10:51 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 24, 2020

  

  It’s no secret that my class’s content is mind-numbing. I sympathize with my students who have fallen asleep, cheeks pressed to their sanitized desks and drool unspooling from the corners of their mouths, lulled into slumber because The Odyssey is boring. Who can blame them? It’s terribly long, was written eons ago, and is a poem. I struggle to contain my excitement, too.

  (You have no idea how much middle schoolers loathe poetry. But I adore yelling:  Guess what? We’re going to read a poem today!!!! And delight in the resounding chorus of teenage groans of displeasure following my pronouncement.) 

  Anyway, to further torture students, I try to make it as awkward as possible for my own entertainment.

  Because messing with the kids is the best part of my job. 

  Here’s how I tortured my students this week:

  1. I made them do their work in Kami. If you’re unfamiliar with Kami, it’s a PDF annotation program. The students despise it because despite an autosave feature, it only saves frequently not constantly. Apparently they’ve never known the despair of writing an essay in Microsoft Word that you’ve stayed up all night to complete that’s due to a professor in a couple of hours and losing your work because you accidentally closed the document without hitting “save now.” The. Horror. Google Docs has spoiled them. Experiencing the collective agony of pre-Google technology will make them better human beings.
  2. I made them talk to their laptops. Well, I specifically asked them to converse with Kami and ply her with compliments so she’d be more willing to save their work. An ALARMING number of students performed the exact opposite of my request and told Kami horrible, awful things, calling her names. One student even expressed to Kami a disquieting desire to light her on fire. Middle schoolers are terrible at being kind, but they loved talking to inanimate objects–even though they were being total Regina Georges while doing so. Weirdos. 

  

  (gif credit)

  3. I made them listen to the cyclops scene from The Odyssey straight through, it’s thirty minutes long, without stopping–on a Friday. Sir Ian McKellen narrates the audiobook for them, but Gandalf fails to impress them. I did soften the blow by playing some pop culture clips of the Lotus Eaters beforehand. At least I didn’t test them?

  

  (gif credit)

  4. I talked to myself obnoxiously to fill awkward silences. My second block refuses to warm up to me, laugh at my terrible puns and dad jokes, and to be anything but serious. I will loosen them up, and if it means I’m narrating my inner monologue audibly for the rest of the year, then so be it. 
  5. I called myself beautiful. Actually, I referred to myself as a “lustrous goddess,” like in The Odyssey, and the boys laughed in horror at a grown woman’s audacity at calling herself pretty. If you want your ego shattered, I suggest employing this strategy. Another good strategy is to ask them to guess your age. ONLY embark on either of these methods if you can brush off the comments and have a sense of humor about their reactions. (Also. What. The. Hell? What kind of society have we created that it’s not socially acceptable to call yourself beautiful and that it makes people and children uncomfortable when you do?)

  

  (gif credit)

  What did you do, teacher friends, to add a little humor to your classrooms this week? 
  Posted in education, teaching | 2 Comments | Tagged english teacher, middle school, middle school teacher, teaching, teaching middle school

• A Teacher Tale: What Teachers Really Think About Parent Emails

  Posted at 9:22 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 10, 2020

  

  Hey Parents and Guardians,

  We teachers are more than happy to answer your questions and concerns via email, but before you hit send, could you ask yourself a couple of questions first?

  Before you send that email to your child’s teacher, is it kind?

  We are working our educator booties off this year.

  A mean email can derail our entire day and even week. We cry over these emails. We lose sleep over these emails. We have panic attacks over these emails. We might even turn a little mean ourselves when we get these emails and lash out at our own loved ones in misdirected anger.

  We then have to respond to an unkind email, try to turn the situation around, and wait on pins and needles for another response, which again, could be an angry one. 

  It’s a vicious cycle.

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, can you find the information somewhere else?

  We are working our educator booties off this year, and parent emails create more work for teachers.

  Often times when you email us, the answers to the questions you’re asking have already been given to you. If you look on PowerSchool you can see the answer to why Johnny has an F. He didn’t complete three test grade assignments, and there’s a note for every single missed assignment. If you’re questioning our late work policies, the answer might be on the syllabus, which you actually signed off on, stating that you read and understood the policies laid out on it. 

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, consider if it might be better to come in for a face to face (or a Zoom) conference with all your child’s teachers.

  We are working our educator booties off this year, and parent emails create more work for teachers.

  It takes a lot less time for us to talk about your concerns versus us writing an email back.

  An email that you wrote that maybe took you two minutes to compose can devour our entire 75 minute planning period. Yes, it can really take that long to reacquaint ourselves with your child’s work, write a thoughtful detailed response, and proofread until we go cross eyed–because heaven forbid an unsightly typo exists in it that you could use against us, to further prove your point that we’re incompetent.

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, and this one is going to be hard to swallow folks so prepare yourselves, ask yourself, could your child be lying to you?

  Children lie. All. Of. The. Time. 

  They cheat. They plagiarize. They fib about why work isn’t done and tell tall tales about their assignments being done when they’re not. 

  They’ll claim that teachers aren’t helping them and that teachers don’t like them and that teachers are mean and and and and and and and. 

  And while occasionally these claims might be true, more often than not, they aren’t.

  And then when we point out these things are untrue, we still aren’t believed sometimes. 

  And before you send that email to your child’s teacher, are you a teacher too?

  These are the worst emails, emails from parents who are teachers too. 

  Have I sent a snooty, condescending email to one of Little Thing’s teachers?

  Yes.

  And I’m terribly sorry. I don’t know everything, I’ve never been in your classroom, and it was a really shitty thing to do.

  I’m trying to be better because I know how terrible parent emails can be.

  So before you email your child’s teacher ask yourself:

  Is it kind?

  Can I find the information somewhere else?

  Is it better to have a conference?

  Is my child lying to me?

  Am I teacher too?

  Posted in teaching | 3 Comments | Tagged english teacher, parent emails, teacher, teacher problems, teaching

• A Teacher Tale: How My First Week of Teaching Students During a Pandemic Went

  Posted at 12:08 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 15, 2020

  

  If you’re not a teacher, have you checked in with your teacher friends who went back into the classroom this week?

  Sent them a silly gif of encouragement via text message?

  Venmo-ed them twenty bucks towards a splurge-y bottle of Pinot Noir for them to unwind with over the weekend?

  Offered your ear for them to vent their frustration?

  Or at least liked their end-of-the-first-week-with-students-during-a-pandemic Facebook post?

  You have?

  Good.

  Because it was probably rough on them. It definitely was overwhelming over here in Mrs. Ram Jam land.

  I made it through the first two days of only in-person learners just fine, but by day two’s end, my throat was on fire. From lack of use due to a five-month hiatus or just the normal back-to-school-first-week-malaise–or so I thought.

  Where I teach in Louisana, educators are teaching in-person learners and virtual learners simultaneously, and the first day with both, our third day, was particularly chaotic. Because the district’s network broke. I didn’t have high expectations to make it through much, but the whole experience was frustrating for learners and teachers both.  

  I woke up Thursday morning with a cough and a headache on top of my sore throat. I made the responsible choice and stayed home for the day, and my awesome principal let me teach from home. Google Meet didn’t work during first block nor second block, so I didn’t get much done with those students, but my last two classes went much more smoothly. Individual students kept having issues with their devices, Google Docs and websites lagging or failing to load, and Google Meet crashing.

  I felt even worse by the end of my last class. My doctor squeezed me in for a quick phone visit and ordered a COVID test for me, telling me to stay home for a week even if I tested negative because I have no immune system with all the medicine I’m on for my ulcerative colitis. 

  So I taught from home again yesterday, and while it went a million times better than the previous day, it was still glitchy and slow and crashy and frustrating for students experiencing tech issues.

  And it’s really hard to figure out how to help them when you’re not IRL in front of them.

  I also don’t have a good gauge of how engaged they are or even how much work they’re completing while they’re logged into virtual class, if they can even get logged in, because it’s impossible to run a Google Meet, answer their questions, help students troubleshoot tech problems, check my email for other issues, AND log into 20 different individual students’ Google Docs at the same time to check their progress. 

  Here are my takeaways from week one:

  • Always take your technology home. When I left school on Wednesday, I left my three work devices on my desk because I didn’t want to detach the chargers from the powerstrip, ruining my complicated teacher desk set-up. I’m lucky that I’m married to the network administrator for the district, and we have 105 different devices floating around at home, so I was able to teach from home on an extra device and my personal Chromebook. You never know when you or someone in your family will get sick, and you too might have to teach from home.
  • Keep it simple stupid (The KISS Rule). Don’t make your lessons complicated. Don’t make lessons that require students to have ten other tabs running at once besides their Google Meet too. I had to spend ten minutes teaching students how to split their screens on Wednesday because they didn’t know how, and I couldn’t even show them how to do it right because it wouldn’t work properly on my laptop hooked up to my SMART Board. Try to keep websites that require students to log in to a minimum. Most of my Wednesday was spent trying to get students logged into CommonLit and Newsela, two websites that the students will be using all year. It’s hard enough to get students logged into programs IRL and trying to do it virtually was ridiculously hard–even though to log into both of those programs they use the same login credentials to log into their Chromebooks every day, so you’d think it would be super easy. I still have students who can’t get logged in. Then once students get logged into new websites you have to teach them how to use them too. This goes without saying for any program you want the kids to use throughout the year. You will have to teach them how to use the programs first before you can expect them to do any lesson. I’m sticking to just Google Docs and Kami aside from CommonLit and Newsela, so I can teach content instead of having to teach kids how to use a different program every single day. Remember to KISS it.
  • Closed captioning is not your friend. In each class, I had a couple of students who couldn’t hear in Google Meets, so I turned closed captioning on to help them out, but can we talk about major backfire? Yesterday, I started going over Greek and Latin roots and how to break down words for parts. I modeled using the word “abhorrent” and then tried to work through the process with the word “acerbic.” In one class, I asked my eighth graders “How many parts does acerbic have?” I looked at my Google Meet screen and glanced at the closed captioning real quick and saw that it translated that to “How many parts does a cervix have?” My mouth dropped open briefly in surprise, and I recovered quickly and just ignored it, but how mortifying. I have no idea who actually saw that roll across the screen. Needless to say, I won’t be using closed captioning again.
  • Be flexible and realistic. Guess what? I’m already a couple of days behind where I’d like to be content-wise, and imma be real honest, I probably won’t get to my curriculum until Wednesday. Am I stressed about that? Nope. Am I stressed that my lessons are going to take longer to execute and that I have to streamline them? Nope. I’ll go with the flow and adapt. I am more worried about the students themselves and how they’re adapting to online learning and their frustration with technology that doesn’t want to work.
  • Don’t be chin surprised. With all of the everything going on this week, I forgot that my students had chins. And smiles. The students who I teach at fourth block eat lunch in my room every day, and when they whipped off their masks to chow down on their Lunchables on that very first day. I. Could. Not. Stop. Staring. At. The. Bottom. Of. Their. Faces. They looked like completely different human beings with their masks off, and this made me unbearably despondent. It just made everything hit home that this school year is so different and that I’m going to be denied their full range of facial expressions while they’re in my room. 

  As of right now, I feel more like tech support than an actual English teacher. And while I’m hopeful that this will pass and I’ll get into my groove, my Ram jam, of teaching poems, The Odyssey, the Hero’s Journey, symbolism, allegories, words, and writing, I’ve come to terms with our new teacher reality and I’m going to remain dedicated to not sugarcoating what we do to the general public (even though I approach it through the veil of humor sometimes). 

  Unrealistic expectations have been placed on teachers and students during this pandemic, and teachers need to speak out about it. 

  I encourage every single educator out there to share their bad and their ugly just as much as they’re sharing their good. 

  (Good news:  I don’t have the coronavirus! I got my results yesterday afternoon.)

  Posted in education, teaching, writing | 5 Comments | Tagged digital learning, english teacher, teaching, teaching during a pandemic, virtual learning

• A Teacher Tale: Holy Shit the Students Come Next Week

  Posted at 9:39 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on August 8, 2020

  

  Monday is the first in-person learning day for my students. Wednesday is my first day teaching both virtual and in-person learners at the same time. 

  [Gulps. Takes a deep breath. Sings to herself “Everything’s gonna be alright. Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye. Everything’s gonna be alright. Rock-a-bye, rock-a-bye.”]

  

  https://tenor.com/view/good-cold-morning-lullaby-shawn-mullins-gif-15555338

  I can’t express to you how utterly mush-for-brained and overwhelmed I am right now (as are all teachers at this point). I’m going to be spending my weekend curled up in a little ball of denial on my couch singing real lullabies to myself, not the 90s rock variety, conserving brainpower and energy for the Herculean task of navigating in-person and virtual teaching simultaneously next week. 

  Can I do it? Absolutely, but you better be damn sure I’m gonna fuck it up spectacularly for a while–because I have to do eighty million and five things at one time. 

  My teacher desk set up includes three different computers. I can’t even count to three right now without needing a break between two and three. I’ve got Computer #1 hooked up to my SmartBoard that I’ll be running a Google Meet on for my virtual learners. Computer #2 I’m using to join the Google Meet, so I can interact with my virtual learners. Computer #3 is in charge of ALL OF THE OTHER THINGS. 

  I’ve got my Britney Spears headset (I don’t know how to use it yet, but, whatevs.), and you better believe that I’m gonna pretend that I’m a pop star while donning it. 

  

  https://tenor.com/view/britney-spears-turn-around-smiles-pretty-gif-15473483

  And I’ll probably get distracted by it to the point where I forget that I’m supposed to be teaching and operating three different computers at the same time and making sure that the students who are physically present are behaving and learning and healthy and socially distancing and wearing their masks and not-convinced-that-Mrs.-Ram-is-mentally-unstable. (Who am I kidding? I want them convinced that I’m insane.)

  So, there’s all that. 

  Plus, can we talk about my BIGGEST concern for this school year? How am I going to pull all of this off without dropping expletives like a sailor while I’m doing it? For realz. I’m doomed. So. So. So. Fucking. Doomed. Fuck.

  (I joke. I joke. But seriously. I’m doomed. My cursing has gotten a smidge out of control as of late.)

  Think happy thoughts for all teachers and students as the school year starts.

  We need all the good juju you can throw our way.  

  

  https://tenor.com/view/bad-juju-dont-want-that-bad-juju-friends-phoebe-buffay-lisa-kudrow-gif-13642805

  And throw some other stuff our way too if you can–like soap, Lysol, Clorox wipes, etc. You could literally throw a bottle of liquid Dial handsoap and hit me with it in the face, and I would thank you for the abuse as long as you were donating the handsoap to my classroom.

   

   

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged english teacher, school, teaching, teaching middle school

• A Teacher Tale: A Mini-Lesson on Evaluating Resources and Building Arguments (What You’ve Forgotten and What You’re Doing Wrong)

  Posted at 1:26 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on July 11, 2020

  

  Hey every adult on social media! Every. Single. Person. Not just the right. Not just the left. Not just the Karens. Not just the Chads. Not just the Boomers. Not just the Millenials. Every. Single. Person.

  You would fail the argumentative units taught in middle schools and high schools across the country. If your Facebook arguments were essays handed into English teachers and if the articles you’re sharing were the resources you’d use to support those arguments, English teachers would return your think pieces to you with glaring red Fs, inked in the upper right-hand corner and circled for emphasis.

  Okay, so everybody wouldn’t fail (Hello, glaring flaw in reasoning!)– but if you want people to listen to your opinions about controversial topics, it can’t hurt to revisit the basic rules of how to evaluate resources and build an argument.

  So can you take five minutes and listen to me–a woman with 14 years of teaching experience in middle and high schools who holds an English degree from the University of Illinois and a master’s in Secondary English Curriculum and Instruction from Louisiana State University–about what you’re doing wrong and then reevaluate your thinking? It’s the same process my eighth graders go through whenever I give them feedback.

  What You’re Getting Wrong About Evaluating Resources and Building Arguments

  1. Stop writing off vetted and reliable news organizations and media resources because of a minuscule amount of bias. It’s important to recognize bias and if particular outlets lean left or right, but that’s just one step in the complicated process of evaluating resources and arguments. Does it lean slightly left? Does it lean slightly right? That’s not enough to discredit the facts or information presented in the source. Now if a resource or news organization is heavily biased then disregard it. You’ve seen those news bias charts floating around (you can take a look at a couple of different ones here and here). And what’s alarming is some Americans–both conservatives and liberals–are choosing to get their news from the most outrageously biased sources they can find instead of looking at minimally biased news sources on both sides of the political spectrum. If you handed in an argumentative essay to me and most of your citations were from these online news sources—The Huffington Post, The New Republic, BuzzFeed News, Daily Kos, Alternet, Occupy Democrats, Palmer Report, Patribotics, The Federalist, The New York Post, The Daily Mail, Fox News, The Daily Wire, Newsmax, RedState, The Blaze, InfoWars, WorldTruth.TV, The National Enquirer, and so many others–these heavily biased resources would weaken your entire argument, potentially causing you to fail the assignment. Might there be grains of truth and facts in these resources? Maybe, but you shouldn’t have to dig through skewed information and inflammatory language for it. Also, please recognize any argument any person makes will be biased–because that person is trying to prove a point regarding a debatable issue. (And P.S., some of you don’t use the word bias and its forms correctly within sentences–which further detracts from your argument. Bias is a noun. Biased is an adjective. Examples of correct usage:  The article has bias. An article is biased. The biased article weakens your argument. Your bias is showing. Examples of incorrect usage:  Another bias article is posted on Facebook. An article is bias because it’s hyper-partisan. The bias argument is faulty.)
  2. And what about that complicated evaluation process? You have to consider multiple factors when evaluating a news source. Unfortunately, it’s not an exact science, and sometimes you can’t discredit a source for one factor alone. When looking for facts and data to back up arguments, consider these things:  is the information true, does it give a list of resources, is it opinion, is it propaganda, is the information current, is the information written by an expert or are expert sources used within the resource (authority), is the information published by an accredited institution, does it address counterarguments, is it based in fact, is there inflammatory language, are there flaws in reasoning, does the site work well, is the website free from errors, is the website organized easily, AND/OR is there a minimal amount of bias? Look at these things when evaluating sources. Is any single resource going to meet all the above criteria? Maybe? Maybe not? Weigh its merits before deciding to use it. Now let’s inspect some of the more important points made here.
  3. Is the information true and based in fact, data, and logical reasoning?  If you use a resource that gives inaccurate information (Can you find the same information on multiple, reliable resources?), it renders the entire resource and your argument invalid. You cannot argue with facts; they speak for themselves. I repeat–facts are not debatable. 
  4. Is the information up-to-date? I cannot stress this enough. When using resources to back up your point, use the most recent information available. Let’s examine the controversy surrounding masks. At the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak in March, Dr. Fauci, the nation’s foremost expert in infectious diseases, said to not wear a mask in a 60 Minutes interview. This clip, widely circulated via YouTube and Facebook, is still being used to back up people’s arguments for not wearing a mask. However, this is old news because as doctors and scientists have learned more about how this brand new virus spreads and how to treat it, they have changed their recommendations to wearing a mask. Dr. Fauci and other experts now say everyone should wear one in public based on the current research. Yes, information and recommendations can change that quickly. Adjust your wheelhouse to new information and stop clinging to outdated data. Let me put it to you like this, up until the 19th century, doctors used to bleed patients as treatment. Hey, got pneumonia? A sore throat? Let’s drain you of your blood to help you get better! Let’s make you super weak to fight this infection! Sounds ludicrous right? (Sidebar:  On the day he died, George Washington woke up with a sore throat, and as a treatment, his doctors drained 40 percent of the blood from his body.) Do doctors still use this practice? NO! Because it’s been proven ineffective and choosing to still practice it would be negligent. Now that was a super long time ago, but just like I wouldn’t want a doctor draining my blood to treat coronavirus, I wouldn’t want doctors to use treatments on me from three months ago–when they didn’t know much about the virus. When scientists and doctors are presented with new information that proves old information wrong, they change their previous stances. You need to do so as well. Take a little time. Dig around on Google. Check to see the date the information was originally published or if it’s been updated recently. Stop spreading old news as new news. If you use old information, it renders your entire argument invalid.
  5. Is the information written by an expert on the topic, and does that resource have the authority to give you the information? Am I an infectious disease expert? No. Are you an infectious disease expert? Probably not. And no amount of googling will make you or me one. Trust what people who have degrees and have studied topics extensively are telling you and then use their expertise to back up your argument. At this point, you might be thinking, Mrs. Ram, you’ve just obliterated your own authority, but I didn’t. What’s my expertise? What are my credentials? As pointed out above, I have authority when it comes to literature, writing, and 14 years of teaching both. So do I have the authority and expertise to discuss with you how to evaluate resources and arguments? Yes. But, just like I tell my students, don’t ask for my expertise about Huey Long’s assassination, why the sky is blue, or how to figure out that algebraic equation—because I’m not an expert on those topics. Here’s another example. Would you want your cancer treated by a hospital administrator, a general practitioner, a gastroenterologist, or an oncologist? This seems like a no brainer, right? So why choose articles, listen to speeches, or elevate arguments from people who are in leadership positions who ignore experts when it comes to mask-wearing and COVID-19? Why choose a resource about anti-mask-wearing or about how coronavirus-is-a-hoax penned by a plastic surgeon, gastroenterologist, rheumatologist, or even a general practitioner over experts even more knowledgable? Just like I don’t want my ulcerative colitis treated by my dermatologist, I don’t want my information about coronavirus from anyone but an expert. Again, dig. Who wrote the information that you’re reading? Do they have the authority to tell you this information, and if they don’t, did they gather that information that they’re providing from other expert sources? 
  6. Is there inflammatory language? If you want people to listen to your argument, limit or refrain from using language that insults and angers the people you’re trying to persuade. Choose resources that practice this as well. That negative language will work on people who already agree with you, but it won’t on the people who don’t. Were you offended when I told you at the beginning that you’d fail an argumentative unit? I did it on purpose to show you how negative language can affect an argument. 
  7. And finally, just liking or loving a person or an entity is not enough to use them as a resource. A good solid argument is based on facts, data, and logical reasoning and can be strengthened by using emotional and ethical appeals. If it’s built only using emotional and/or ethical appeals, disregard the argument.

  Y’all. I didn’t even touch flaws in reasoning, but you can read more about that here. 

  You might not like me now or the information presented here. You might have caught on to some flaws in my logic (feel free to point them out to me). But that’s not enough to discredit the basic rules of how to evaluate resources and how to build an argument that I presented to you. 

  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you dislike what I told you. If your argument isn’t grounded in facts, statistics, data, and logical reasoning and isn’t backed up by credible, reliable, trustworthy resources, you don’t have an argument and people aren’t going to consider what you have to say. Because you’re wrong and you’re choosing to ignore or argue with information that can’t be argued with.

  ---

   

  What I’m going to ask you to do now is to sit and reflect. How can you be better at choosing resources and building arguments? What do you need to rethink? How can we all be better about how we engage in persuasive discussions on the internet and in person? 

  Works Cited:  See links embedded in the post. 

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 0 Comments | Tagged argumentative writing, english teacher, evaluate an argument, how to build an argument, rhetorical appeals

• A Teacher Tale: Questions About the 2020-2021 School Year

  Posted at 1:54 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on April 24, 2020

  
  

  Photo by Gustavo Fring on Pexels.com

  Am I going to have to wear a mask to teach?

  If I do have to wear a mask . . .

  How are the kids going to see my facial expressions? That’s like, the best part of me as a teacher!

  Does this mean I have to up my eyeshadow game and learn how to properly apply winged eyeliner for once and for all to make up for the lack of, you know, a mouth? I’ve got to give the kids something interesting to look at. Looks like I’ll be watching a million Jaclyn Hill YouTube tutorials before August.

  Can I stop wearing lipstick to work? Who am I kidding. I rarely wore lipstick at work anyway . . .

  What happens when I sneeze? I’m obviously going to have to take off my mask to blow my nose and that’s going to break the law . . . Do I just count that mask as my Kleenex and whip it off and don a fresh one?

  Do I have to match my mask to my outfit? Or can you get away with clashing? Like is it crime against fashion to wear my orange and blue school polo shirt with a pink-ribbon-breast-cancer-awareness-patterned-ten -year-old-piece-of -scrap-fabric-diy mask that my MIL sewed for me? Maybe I need to find a subreddit about the art of mixing prints?

  Am I going to have to stand six feet apart from everybody at all times at school?

  How am I going to stand in the hallway in the mornings and stand six feet apart from the teacher in the class next to me and keep an eye on the kids inside my classroom?

  Is my temperature going to be checked daily before being allowed to enter the building?

  Are the kids going to have to wear masks?

  Is the school board going to have to change the dress code to allow for masks?

  Are the kids going to have to have dress-coded masks? 

  Are the kids going to have to do temperature checks?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while riding the bus?

  How are the kids going to socially distance while in the hallway?

  How are the kids going to socially distance in the classroom?

  Is outside school going to become a thing?

  How am I going to handle outside school? 

  Am I going to have to write kids up if they refuse to wear masks? BECAUSE YOU KNOW IT WILL HAPPEN. 

  Am I going to have to write kids up for touching each other?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for sharing food?

  How’s the cafeteria and lunch going to work? If they have to eat lunch in classrooms with their teachers, I might lose my mind. Or get the teacher’s union involved. 

  Am I going to have to wipe down desks and chairs in between classes?

  If I have to do that, who is watching kids in the hallway?

  Is the school day going to have to be longer to accomodate for lost instructional minutes because of after each class cleanings?

  Oh god, trying to crowd control 200 8th graders in the hallway. 

  Who’s going to pay for all the Clorox wipes and Lysol used at school? 

  Are kids going to try to steal toilet paper?

  Am I going to have to write kids up for not washing their hands in the cafeteria before they eat?

  Do I need to be prepared to teach from home again? I succccckkkkkkk at making videos and hate being on a screen. I’m the WORST at it and have never liked being video recorded. 

  How are they going to disinfect the library books?

  Is passing out paper documents to students going to be illegal?

  If I have to go to a paperless classrooom, how am I going to keep track of everything? My Google Drive is as disorganzied as a middle school boy who treats his backpack as a garbage can. I’m of the staunch opinion that digital files don’t really exist because they’re intangible. (Not really, but you know what I mean, right?) 

  How do I rearrange my Google Classroom so it’s easier for students to locate assignments because I might not be with students all of the time? 

  Can I convince the other teachers on my team to all organize their Google Classrooms the same way so kids don’t have to figure out 6 different organizational methods?

  If we have to switch in and out of distance learning and face to face learning, am I finally going to have to break down and use Remind? All of my assignments and due dates are posted on Google Classroom–in one place. Why do I have to do more work and post the same shit through another format? Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope. 

  Will I be allowed to write kids up for being asshats during a Zoom?

  How does virtual detention work? 

  Can I be in charge of designing and implementing virtual detention? That sounds cool as shit. GIVE ME THE REINS. I WANT TO INNOVATE DAMMIT! How can I make it as much like The Breakfast Club as possible but rated G? Step one, befriend someone who works for Zoom and convince them to make a The Breakfast Club background . . . 

  Is school just going to be completely different forever?

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged 2020-2021 school year, distance learning, education, english teacher, middle school teacher

• A Reflection on Distance Learning: How I Jinxed the 2019-2020 School Year

  Posted at 10:49 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on April 18, 2020

  

   

  I jinxed the 2019-2020 school year. For myself. For my students. For you. For your students. For everyone.

  Just kidding. While it’s intoxicating to believe I possess such powers, I know it’s due to the upending coronavirus pandemic. 

  But why make this claim? To build an argument against myself, I’ll examine my posts since the end of last school year (although not in chronological order). 

  1. Last month I wrote about the importance of student attendance, how students need to be physically present at school and miss no more than 10 days a year. Now, just a few weeks later, nobody has to physically attend school. Even though students are distance learning, it’s not the same as walking into a tangible building bustling with students, teachers, routine, and structure. My heart breaks because I miss seeing students’ faces every day and helping them grow, but it also breaks my heart because they miss going to school too. 
  2. At the end of last school year, I penned a post discussing how my classroom was ditching technology and picking up paper and pen instead, helping with retention and engagement and reducing digital distractions. Oh, how the copy machine and I reacquainted ourselves for three grading periods! Now, because of distance learning, everything is digital. EVERYTHING. Ugh. (I even miss the cantankerous copy machine in the teacher’s lounge. I bet she’s lonely.) Can you imagine being a teenager, having your entire school year reduced to a screen, and completing work daily on a device that screams at you to play games or watch Kylie Jenner makeup tutorials on Youtube instead of completing assignments? It’s a wonder students get anything done. Let’s not forget they’ve got their phone beside them, and they’re getting distracted by SnapChats, TikToks, and text messages that wouldn’t even be a distraction if they were sitting in a classroom. I could have my students read a novel for the rest of the year, but I don’t want to have them read a 330-page book on a screen. I actually had a student tell me that they missed doing work and reading things on paper. Insert crying face emoji here. And the sad thing is, I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to go back to paper once all of this, gestures vaguely with her hands, is over. The thought of physically collecting paper from 95 different kids and handling it without touching my face while grading scares the shit out of me. Middle schoolers suck at washing their hands and aren’t well known for fantastic hygiene practices in general. (I love them despite their sketchy hygiene.)  
  3. I also wrote a post about late work policies and changed mine considerably. I went from accepting late test grade assignments at a 10 point deduction and late participation work at half credit to handing out one late pass for test grade assignments for full credit and two late homework passes for full credit. Once those passes were used, grades went in as zeros unless students were in danger of failing. Now with distance learning, I’ve got to accept all late work for full credit, and while I understand this policy’s leniency and necessity, it nevertheless irks me. I’m also expected to post answers to assignments, so I’ve got kids who wait until after the answers are posted to complete the assignments. Do they really deserve full credit? Particularly if it’s just a participation grade? Furthermore, the rigor and frequency of my assignments have decreased because we were told to give students about a third of what we would normally teach and not make them too hard otherwise students wouldn’t complete assignments. Lots of the grades I’m giving, even for test grade assignments, are hey-do-this-work-and-follow-the-directions assessments. I have a hard time giving students full credit on glorified completion grades that they’ve turned in late. Now don’t get me wrong, I know some students are watching their siblings, might not be living at home, have a parent who is sick, etc., and I am completely sympathetic to those students, but there are some who are abusing the system. I caught a lot of pushback from parents for giving a participation grade for just checking into Google Classroom daily (could there be an easier assignment to get credit for????)  and ended up deleting it because dealing with the fallout for two days left me sleepless and a tad indignant. Does everyone deserve an A in an honors class because of this crappy situation? The grades don’t even count this last quarter. Ugh. So why do I even care so much? Also, don’t even get me started on the obvious cheating on true tests taken at home. 
  4. I also wrote a post about my love/hate relationship with Romeo and Juliet, and I was still in the middle of teaching it when school was suddenly shuttered. The kids finished reading it on their own because I couldn’t have them NOT finish reading it. They didn’t get to choose and scene and act it out, which is one of my favorite activities of the year. I wanted to have them perform outside this year because Shakespeare’s plays were performed outside too. 
  5. And last, but not least, I wrote something about how grading at home never works, and now it’s the ONLY option. Ack. 

  So see, my words have come back and bitten me in the booty!

  Distance learning has been an adjustment and has humbled me. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not a perfect teacher. I am a reflective practitioner, and this situation has turned my entire profession on its head. Maybe I needed to be knocked back a few notches because I’d forgotten, albeit momentarily, that teaching is NEVER predictable, but this predicament is unprecedented. We all need to cut ourselves some slack.

  Thanks for letting me vent my uglies. I cannot wait to walk back into my classroom in August. 

  (Gosh, I hope that doesn’t come back and bite me in the booty too. Let’s think happy thoughts that schools will be open in August.)

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized | 2 Comments | Tagged distance learning, english teacher, school, students, teaching

• Why I Love and Hate Teaching Romeo and Juliet

  Posted at 3:34 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on February 22, 2020

  

  Psssttt. Here’s a secret. This English teacher hates Romeo and Juliet more than the Montagues and Capulets loathe each other. (I know. Gasp. Shocked emoji face. Call Karen in HR and fire me right now.) And because it’s entrenched in the freshman canon, I will never escape its overtly romantical clutches as long as I am teaching English I. 

  Why do I hate Romeo and Juliet and teaching it?

  1. Romeo, a whiny lover boy ruled by his teenage emotions, is my least favorite Shakespeare character. I spend the entire time wanting to smack him and talk some logic into him. 
  2. Benvolio sucks too. Whenever something big happens on stage, Benvolio summarizes the just-happened events for new-to-the-scene characters. 
  3. The way Romeo and Juliet talk to one another makes me gag. Love stories aren’t my Ram Jam. 
  4. The students harp on the fact that Juliet is 13 and never recover from it. They also debate Romeo’s age endlessly (The text never gives it.). They talk about this the ENTIRE time we’re reading. 
  5. It’s full of sexual innuendo, and I teach middle school. Need I say more? 
  6. I’d much rather tackle The Taming of the Shrew, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Othello, or Macbeth. 

  And while I do lather on the Romeo and Juliet hate thick, I love teaching it for almost the same reasons I despise teaching it.

  1. I take my hate and shout it from the desktops from the beginning. It’s simple really. I let the kids know I hate Romeo and Benvolio. I don’t tell the students why. I string them along and build interest to hook them, revealing tidbits here and there why I hate Romeo and Benvolio as the acts unfold. I use my Romeo hate to teach characterization. I use my Benvolio hate to teach summarizing. I make my hate passionate, fun, and refreshing instead of letting it bring my lessons down. Frequently, the kids hate Romeo too, and we bond through our mutual dislike. 
  2. Even though it’s a love story and the ooey-gooey language makes me cringe, I appreciate the poetry. We analyze the heck out of the figurative language and poetic structure of Romeo and Juliet’s dialogue. For example, when Romeo and Juliet meet for the first time, they actually start rhyming together in their religious imagery-filled banter and wind up creating a shared mini sonnet, which is pretty freaking cool from a structural standpoint. 
  3. The kids relate to the teenage emotions running rampant throughout the text even though they pretend that all of the kissing mortifies them. We discuss why it’s important to not be ruled by emotions and how to consider situations logically. 
  4. The kids have zero knowledge of Elizabethan theater and England before they start reading and are fascinated by what they learn. The fact that it was illegal for women to act so men played all the parts blows their minds. They’re horrified and enthralled when they discover women could get married at twelve years old and were sometimes married to much older men. They have no concept that modern medicine did not apply back then, women often died in childbirth, and child death rates were high. They’re floored when they realize Nurse was Juliet’s wet nurse and that the word nurse etymologically stems from a Latin word meaning “to nourish.” 
  5. On the day we start Act I Scene 1, I tell them Shakespeare is a dirty old white guy to prepare them for the puns and hook them into the play. You might find this method a little shocking, but have you read this play? It’s full of inappropriate jokes, and while it might have gone over your head when you were in high school, my kids understand what they’re reading. If I didn’t prepare them for the dirty jokes, my lesson could crash and burn in a million different ways. They appreciate being treated like adults. When I handle it this way, it minimizes the puns, and we’re able to focus on the storyline and the structure. 
  6. Even though Romeo and Juliet isn’t my favorite play, I love Shakespeare and theater. I’m able to channel that love into a play I hate (My only love sprung from my only hate! Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.). I’m in my element when I’ve got the bard and a script in front of me, and the students see the best me when this unit rolls around each year. 

  

  What are some texts you hate but you have to teach? I’d love to hear! I’d also love to know why and what you do to combat your hate to make interesting lessons. 

   

  (Also, another shocker, I’m not a huge fan of To Kill a Mockingbird—but that’s a whole other blog post.)

   

  Posted in books, poetry, reading, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 5 Comments | Tagged benvolio, blogging, blogs, drama, english teacher, i hate romeo and juliet, juliet, plays, poetry, reading, romeo, romeo and juliet, shakespeare, teaching, teaching shakespeare, writing

• A Teacher Poem: Buzz Words

  Posted at 11:17 am by Mrs. Ram Jam, on January 25, 2020

  

  begin with the end in mind, AKA backward design
  Common Core and 504
  ELL, STEM, and IEP are not absentee (But if they were, you’d have to let them make up the work, for sure.)
  collaborate and debate
  Claim retired, and its replacement is assertion; try teaching that to little persons.

  rigor
  response
  reflection
  rubric
  will point you in the right (write?) direction

  facilitate with fidelity; provide actionable feedback . . . (but don’t call in sick unless you’re having a heart attack)
  Is your summative assessment warm or cold? (Grab a blanket–so we’re told.)
  flip the classroom; personalize learning (to get their brains churning)

  What’s the objective? 
  Does it align with the standards?
  How does the curriculum get them college and career ready?

  Scaffold.
  Differentiate.
  Rigor.
  Peer conversations.
  Rigor.
  Text complexity.

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  Build relationships. 
  Rigor.
  One to one.
  Rigor.
  Lexile.
  Rigor. 

  Rigor.
  Rigor.
  Rigor.

  TRIGGER WARNING

  The kids still find it boring.

  And by week’s end, the only buzz words we care about are Tito’s, tequila, and Tanqueray (with honorable mentions to happy hour and chardonnay).

  

  Photo by Daria Shevtsova on Pexels.com

  Posted in poems, poetry, teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 2 Comments | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, humor, middle school teacher, poems, poems about teaching, poetry, teacher, teaching, teaching middle school, writing

• A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Guide to Grading Papers at Home

  Posted at 2:16 pm by Mrs. Ram Jam, on October 19, 2019

  

  Although I manage to grade most student-written essays during school hours, inevitably home grading transpires from time to time. Here’s what my grading process looks like when I do lug home heaps of papers.

  1. Sit at the kitchen table, and empty llama tote bag of dreaded essays.
  2. Shuffle all essays into groups of five, piling them into one tower by alternating stacks perpendicularly.
  3. Grab blue Uniball pen. Fancy pens make grading tolerable. Giggle because the word “Uniball” is funny.
  4. Snap a picture of grading setup, witty teacher caption included, and post it to Insta and Facebook stories.
  5. Realize fifteen minutes has passed. Pick up Uniball. Bust into laughter again. Little Thing hollers, “What’s so funny? Can I see?”
  6. Skim first paper while chuckling. Chuckles dissolve into whimpers of distress because the first essay is ghastly, soul-crushing.
  7. Shuffle the broken paper to stack’s end.
  8. Scan the next five essays without connecting pen to paper, and hyperventilating starts. HOW CAN ALL OF THEM BE PIECES OF POO ON A STICK?????? Question career path and meaning of life. Become convinced of worst teacher on the planet status. Stash those five essays to the back of the pile.
  9. Search for best student writer’s essay. Read it. Faith in humanity is restored.
  10. Glance up and around. Am horrified by the dishes mounded in the sink and clutter-strewn house. Decide to tidy up, clean the toilets, and scrub the master bathroom’s floor with a toothbrush.
  11. Register it’s dinner time, have wasted an entire Saturday afternoon, and cook dinner.
  12. Make husband do dishes in order to get back to grading.
  13. Scroll through Facebook on the ChromeBook for an hour instead with the stack of papers as an audience. Their collective judgment is palpable.
  14. Pick up Uniball. Smirk. 
  15. Trudge through five essays, finally giving feedback.
  16. Decide grading is more fun with wine. Pour a glass.
  17. Down the glass swiftly like a college student shooting a lemon drop.
  18. Grade five more essays in half the time, because wine. Uniball has the time of his life.
  19. Pour another glass, and lose steam quickly after, only grading two more essays. 
  20. Call it a night, and resolve to spend Sunday afternoon at the library grading because Grading. At. Home. Doesn’t. Work.
  21. Tuck a wilted and defeated Uniball into bed, errrr, back into his llama tote bag house.
  22. Decide a blue felt pen is more appropriate for library essay grading. It would be mildly embarrassing to get kicked out for hysterical laughter.

  

  Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

   

  Posted in teaching, Uncategorized, writing | 1 Comment | Tagged blogging, blogs, english teacher, funny, grading essays, humor, middle school teacher, students, teaching, writing

• Search

  Search for:

• Recent Posts

  • A Poem: A Pandemic Christmas Carol November 28, 2020
  • What I Miss November 21, 2020
  • A Mrs. Ram’s Jams Tale: The Pickle’s Descent November 14, 2020
  • Mini Book Reviews October 2020 November 7, 2020
  • A Few Bad Haiku: Don’t Be Ghoulish October 31, 2020
  • A Teacher Tale: How I Tortured My Students for My Own Entertainment This Week October 24, 2020
  • A Teacher Tale: Teaching During a Pandemic Update #1 October 17, 2020
  • A Teacher Tale: What Teachers Really Think About Parent Emails October 10, 2020

• Follow Blog via Email

  Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

  Join 335 other followers

  Email Address:

  Follow

• Follow Mrs. Ram's Jams on WordPress.com