Notetaking from a video and Loving Kindness Meditation

Grades 9 and 10

Both classes practiced taking notes from a video of President Obama's speech to American school children on September 9. They all said they had seen the speech several times! We watched only about 10 minutes of it. I pointed out to them what they didn't need to write: his chatty beginning of the speech, various examples he gave. I also showed them that he gave clues that he was about to say something important which you should write in your notes. Obama uses terms like, "at the end of the day," and "today I'm here to talk to you about. . ."

The freshmen seem to be very comfortable with their note taking ability. The sophomores not as much. I would like the AmeriCorps tutors to practice taking Cornell notes alongside our students in the classroom, so the kids can see that it CAN be done. They like to argue with me about their inability to take notes in this format or to take notes at all.

The sophomores need to work on their respect for their teacher (me). They aren't trying to be rude, they just have a lot to say to each other. They are great friends with each other which is wonderful but their self-control is lacking. We will work on this together.

Today I taught both classes the Loving Kindness meditation. I couldn't believe it, but the sophomores did it beautifully!

Conclave and the Loving Kindness Meditation

Today was Conclave for the Juniors and Seniors. It was our time to share our ups and downs. Some of the juniors are struggling with sickness right now. This seems to be going around. They had fun over the weekend seeing movies, going to the Fair, football games, etc. The seniors are struggling with their World Lit class. They are having a difficult time with The Iliad and the essay assignment that goes with it.

In both classes I taught them the "Loving Kindness Meditation." This is simply repeating the following phrases over and over and trying to maintain your focus on the phrases:
May I be happy and peaceful.
May I be healthy and strong.
May I be safe and free.
May I care for myself with ease and joy.

This is a great mantra for bringing positive thoughts into our minds. You can also say this mantra for others, for example: May you be happy and peaceful. You say it in your head but direct it to others.

I thought the students might think Ms Ruiz had lost her mind and gone all "woo woo" but they said they liked the meditation.

Conclave and a Visitor!

Above is a photo from our hike at Mt Rainier on 9/26. We hiked around Reflection Lake and then around Narada Falls.

Conclave is our time to check in with each other about how things are going in our lives and in school. It's a confidential time, so I will just sum up by saying that some of the freshmen are having some major frustrations at home and one is struggling to adjust to his new school schedule and catch up with his classes. We also discussed how to deal with a messy locker partner.

I gave them a couple of nuggets of wisdom: 1. You are not responsible for other people's happiness. 2. Friends should not be toxic to you. They should be there for you in good times and bad. Friendship is give and take. So if you have a "friend" who is toxic and always taking and never giving, you should let them go!

The freshmen had a visitor: Dr. John Woodward, Dean of the Education Department at the University of Puget Sound. He was one of my professors when I got my Masters in Teaching degree there in 1993-94. He is interested in the work we are doing here at Peace and asked the students to talk about an assignment they did well on and why they thought they did well on it and then an assignment they didn't do well on and why they thought they had failed at it. For the most part, the students said they did well because they had been well-taught and understood the material, or they felt connected to the assignment and had a strong opinion and much to say. They failed because they didn't like the teacher or didn't feel good in the class atmosphere, or didn't understand the assignment and needed some re-teaching. It was fascinating to listen to this conversation.

The sophs are particularly frustrated with their Honors World Cultures class. They are having great difficulty understanding the lectures. All five of them who are in this class are struggling. There was some success on a recent Chemistry safety test. Yay! The hike to Mt. Rainier was a huge high point for our students who participated.

More time management, Juniors and Seniors

First of all, these kids have way too much time on their hands this weekend. Some evil teacher must give them an enormous assignment that is due on Monday! Just kidding.

The Juniors and Seniors received the same lesson as the Freshmen and Sophs did yesterday. I really tried to impress upon the Seniors how important time management will be when they are in college. They will practice what I taught them for the next week.

In the Spring we will learn about time management in college. Organizing your time in high school is very different from college so it takes another few lessons to learn how to do it.

Time Management for 9th and 10th Graders

Both classes received corrected work from me today. This should be put into their binders in the section for CLASS. The odd thing is the corrected work is also notes, because it is their practice of Cornell notes. I want them to store these in the notes part of the CLASS section.

Today we learned about how to manage their time. I told them to imagine they were filling a bucket with rocks, then filled in the space between the rocks with pebbles, then filled in the rest of the space with sand. The bucket represents their time. The big rocks represent their obligations. The pebbles represent what they want to do. And the sand represents time wasters.

Next, I gave them a calendar for one week with the times of the day listed for each day. I told them to fill in their "rocks" for the next 3 days. Rocks are things like school, sleep, eating, chores. Then they put in their "pebbles" like the fair, time with friends, etc.

Then I told them to pretend that an evil teacher assigned them to write a 5 page research paper on Shakespeare on Friday. It's due Monday and three of the sources have to be books. What on their calendar could they cancel or postpone so they can get the paper completed? We practiced prioritizing. It wasn't fun because we had to cancel the fair and the hike at Mt. Rainier! ouch.

Their homework is to complete a weekly calendar for next week, filling in all the obligations and fun activities they have planned. This is due on Monday.

Interesting side notes: Shanice had a weird allergic reaction to something on her face. She broke out in hives. But as quickly as they appeared, they disappeared.

During the sophomore class we got a bit off task and talked about problems some of the kids are having at home. I let them talk it through and then we got back on task.

Juniors and Seniors Practice Cornell Notes

The Juniors and Seniors continued their learning of the Cornell note taking process today. I told them the notes themselves are important, but it's the process of interacting with the material 4 times that will cement the info in their heads. The process also sets up the notes for study.

We finished the process from last weeks' notes and then practiced taking notes from a text. Students turned in both sets of notes.

Juniors had their binder checks today. Josh said they looked pretty good. Today was the first day that binder checks will count for a grade.

Yvonne got her senior pictures done by Peace Lutheran Church member Jil Hendershot. They are gorgeous!

Cornell Note Taking Process

Here is a photo of Angelina's Cornell Notes.
Cornell Note Taking Process:
Draw a line from the top to the bottom of the page about 1/3 from the left edge of the paper.
Write the topic in the upper left hand corner and the date in the right hand corner
Take notes to the right of the line
Compare notes with another student and write in your notes what you missed.
Create questions that correspond with the notes, so you have the question on the left side of the line and the answer on the right side of the line.
At the bottom of the notes draw a line from the left side to the right side of the paper.
Below the line write your summary which should include who, what, where, when, why.

When you are finished with this process you will have interacted with the material 4 times. That is the point of the Cornell Note Taking process.

Today in both the 9th and 10th grade classes we finished the note taking process. We also practiced taking notes from a text.
The students turned in both sets of notes.
9th graders had their binder check with only some small complaints from the grader, Ryan.

Wednesday and Thursday 9/16 and 9/17

Fell behind on my blogging, sorry!

The last class for each student consisted of beginning the process of learning how to do Cornell Notes.

Cornell Notes is a note taking system developed by a professor at Cornell University. He created the process in response to the disorganized notes he saw his students keeping. He realized his students were spending too much time organizing their notes in preparation for study.

If students, will follow the process I am teaching them, their notes should be well organized and ready for study when it is time to prepare for a test. My goal is for this process to be second nature to them by the time they go to college.

Last week we just began the process, so rather than explaining the process over 2 blogs, I will explain the entire note taking process in my blog after today's class.

You can check what the students have done so far. Their notes should be about the Achievement Gap and should cover the introduction of Closing the African American Achievement Gap in Washington report which was given to the State Legislature in December 2008, and the presentation of Thelma Jackson's African American Achievement Gap in Tacoma report which was given to the Tacoma School Board in September of 2009. We looked at some of her recommendations for closing the gap which include: making it a priority, having a strategic plan, and mandatory teacher training in the areas of multicultural education, cultural competency, culturally and linguistically-responsive teaching, culturally-inclusive curriculum, learning styles, understanding institutional racism, and cross-cultural communication with staff, students, parents/families, and the community. You can also ask them what these topics mean. We discussed them, but I don't think they took very good notes on that part.

Conclave Grades 11 and 12

Josh did binder checks for the Juniors and he said they looked good! Yay!

Conclave gave us some time to talk about our lives. The Juniors seem to be doing very well and are, in general, a happy group. Again, the overriding concern is time management. One kid asked another, "are you doing stuff that's important?" I thought that was a great question and from there we were able to talk about prioritizing. They did a great job at practicing The Relaxation Response. It was so quiet in there, I could practically hear their hearts beating.

Get this: the seniors are all happy with their classes! Wow, that is a rare statement! There are only 3 of them so Yvonne's hyperness rubbed off on everyone else and they didn't do as well at the Relaxation Response. Phu Tai says he's always relaxed. I am proud of him for stopping his procrastination habit. Funny thing: Yvonne's struggle class is Lisa's easy class and Lisa's struggle class is Yvonne's easy class. Do you think these two should study together? Um, YEAH!

Senior binder check on Thursday.
Homework: practice the Relaxation Response twice before Thursday.

Conclave Grades 9 and 10

Today was the first day we had "Conclave." This is a time for us to just shut the door and talk about what is going well and what is not going well in our lives. If some one wants advice we offer it. But sometimes we just want to talk and have others listen.

Issues on the minds of our 9th and 10th graders include: missing assignments, getting along with teachers, learning to play by all of their teachers' rules, taking classes they need instead of classes they don't need and where nothing is being taught, time management, staying out of trouble, dealing with drama from antagonistic peers.

On the good side, they are happy about staying out of trouble, good classes, avoiding drama, and looking forward to a summer travel opportunity.

I taught the Sophomores the Relaxation Response. They giggled a bit, but their homework is to practice it twice before Wednesday.

Achievement Gap to be Addressed in Tacoma?

Here is Thelma Jackson's report on the African American Achievement Gap in Tacoma. It addresses about 15 issues as potential causes for the gap.

http://www.tacoma.k12.wa.us/information/departments/assessment/Achievement%20Gap%20Documents/Addressing%20the%20Achievement%20Gap%20Report.pdf


Here is an article from the News Tribune about the School Board's response to Thelma Jackson's report:

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/education/story/876717.html

Freshmen and Sophomores Get Their Binders Organized

Today I learned about the "flunking pocket." This is what Jason Lee 8th Grade AVID teacher, Anne Hawkins, calls the front pocket of the binder. When it's time for binder check, if there is anything in that front pocket, you fail the binder check! Wow, she's harsh!

For CLASS the students reserve that pocket for homework that needs to be turned in.

Freshmen and Sophomores were taught how to organize their binders in the same way the Juniors and Seniors were taught (see yesterday's post). Ryan and Jamie were the AmeriCorps tutors who helped me get them organized. They all walked out of class with beautiful, organized binders. First binder checks will be next week!

No CLASS tomorrow as we are having a Staff Retreat.

Juniors and Seniors Organize Their Binders!

The Juniors and Seniors got their binders organized today! Everyone has a binder with dividers and each section should be organized in the following way:

Divider
Assignment Log
Notes and Hand-outs
Corrected Homework
Corrected Tests and Papers

AmeriCorps members will grade the binders, so Josh and Cam Tu sat in on the classes today to learn the binder organization and assist the students.

Josh said it was an amazing thing to see a bunch of disorganized papers come together nice and neat in an organized binder.

The students were a little fussy about having to organize their binders "my way." But the binder system has to be standardized so we can grade it.

I am proud of Tasia and Yvonne who showed me positive teacher comments on their corrected work. Nice job!

First Day of CLASS for Juniors and Seniors

I met with the Juniors today. They are a great group, very friendly and supportive of each other. There were 5 students in the class and each of them attends a different school! We have students from SOTA, Bellarmine, Curtis, Foss, and Stadium. They are mostly concerned about the difficult classes they are taking and having the time to do their homework and keep up with their studies. But overall, they are a happy group. I met with Andy and Nelson before tutoring started because Nelson has to go to karate and can't make class and Andy needs the uninterrupted time from 3:15 to 5pm to do his homework.

In the Senior class there are only 3 students, but all 3 have been with us a long time. We have worked with Lisa since 8th grade! It's hard to believe she's a senior. The seniors are worried about managing their time and getting into college, and they are very excited about graduating high school at the end of this year.

The agenda for both classes was:
Introductions
Expectations/Grading/Attendance Policies
Binder Organization Preview
Raid the School Supply Cabinet.

Next week we will only have one class for each grade because Monday is a holiday and Thursday we are closed for a staff retreat. So we will actually get our binders organized next week during class and also learn to use our planners and our assignment logs.

Here we go!

9/2/09 First day of CLASS!

Today was the first day of CLASS for our freshmen and sophomores. It was also the first day of school.

There were only 2 freshmen present because the other 3 are at camp with SAMI. The students were frustrated with their schedules, feeling they had been placed in classes they didn't need to graduate such as Auto Body and Marine Tech. They are both on advanced classes but they appear to be hard-working students, so they should do fine.

The sophomore class likes to talk all at the same time. We will work on that! They also have some concerns about schedules, but their bigger concern appears to be balancing extra-curricular activities with school with life in general. 10 out of 12 students showed up. Esther and Maranda are going to join us. Devin didn't show up today and Gustavo will start with us next Wednesday.

We raided the school supply cabinet and all students have the supplies they need. I have to go back to Office Depot tomorrow to stock up on binders, dividers, and those cool 3-hole punch thingies you can clip into your binder.

Our agenda today was as follows:
Introductions. We said one thing we were excited about and one thing we were concerned about in this new school year.
We reviewed my Class Expectations/Attendance/Grading Policies and students need to get this signed and return to me.
We also reviewed how to organize your binder and then we raided the supply closet.

I want to upload my documents but I have to learn how to do that.