Curing the February Blues:
Reasons for Hope!

A MiddleWeb Listserv conversation

ALSO SEE:
February Blues - Bad Days When Students Don't Listen and What to Do About It


Ellen Berg tried this "end run" on February by posting this message on the second day of "blues month."

Every year it seems as if teachers feel a little more tired and weary during the month of February. We start to panic at the amount of material we have left to cover, worry about whether students are really learning or not, and even question if we are in the right profession. For whatever reason, many teachers seem to be less optimistic in the month of February.

To counteract that event, I thought it would be nice for us to share some positive things happening in our classrooms. What is going well? What have you accomplished? What plans do you have for the coming months that excite you? Perhaps if we unite in looking at all the wonderful things we are doing, we can avoid those darn February blahs this year.

Who's with me?

Ellen


I am! Our 8th grade is in the middle of the Mars Student Imaging Project. We have divided the grade into 44 teams of 3 - 8 students each researching a topic about Mars. The goal is to write a scientific proposal that will be submitted to Arizona State University. If the proposal , actually two (one from each team), is accepted then that team will be able to use the Mars Odyssey Spacecraft's visible light camera to photograph the surface of Mars to answer their question. The amount of work is huge. Progress is being made. As of this week they have revised their question for the third time, and have begun writing their background material for the proposal. We were very wary of doing this at the start, but it's actually working. Go to

http://www.ssec.org/idis/gates/States/links/msip/msip.htm

and see what we've done.

Charlie Lindgren
Gates Intermediate School
Scituate, MA


Charlie wrote:
"Our 8th grade is in the middle of the Mars Student Imaging Project."

What an exciting project, Charlie. If Science had been like this when I was in Grade 8, I maybe would have been blasted out of my "I don't do Science" paradigm! You have provided so many student and teacher resources on this project site. I especially like the weekly progress rubric for students and student project timeline (and following quote that was at the top of the timeline page:

"As they said in Tremors, "You've got to have a plan!" Here's our plan for success!"

What great scaffolding tools. Charlie's project is a great model for online project work:

http://www.ssec.org/idis/gates/States/links/msip/msip.htm

- Brenda


Ellen,

Thanks for the change in perspective. Our team just gave out progress reports and it is looking pretty dismal. However, with your nudge, I began thinking in a different direction. Here goes:

A student of ours has been very disruptive and refused to work. We had a big meeting with principal, all teachers, and father. The boy refused to talk with everyone in the room, but for some reason decided he could talk with me. So I listened. Bottom line -- we came up with a workable plan for school work and behavior. So far, the boy is sticking with it.

This year I got involved in a program the Dept. of Fish and Game offers called "Trout in the Classroom." My class is learning all about trout. We got eggs on January 7, and I cannot believe how many fish we have in the tank. It has proved to be a winner. Every student is involved and curious including one very cynical young man. (not the same one from above). We get to release the fish back into nature on a field trip March 7.

Last, but not least, I have a small, but growing group of interested 7 and 8th graders to participate in our district's Math Field Day. Last year was the first year our school participated, and we did not win anything. However, I have a few returning students who are determined to do better and are recruiting as many kids as they can.

So, Ellen, thanks for making me look in a different direction. There are hidden jewels waiting to be found in all of our days.

Elizabeth Renaud
Fremont Elem. (CA)


Good morning,

I had a wonderful thing happen a couple of weeks ago. A student I taught in 8th grade came back to see me to ask me to fill write a recommendation for her to get financial aid for college. She is graduating this year with grades good enough to get her into college. She was a great student in middle school as well. I felt really good that a former student thought of me when she needed a teacher to fill out this form. It made my day.

Jeff Kash
Madison Middle School


We have February Blahs in Canada too. It may be cold here but most of us are starting to turn the heat up on: "What exactly do these kids know?" and "How on earth am I going to finish the curriculum?".

Determined to not succumb to the above pressures, I've been part of an inspirational Arts integration thrust in Grade 7 that has joined the talents of five teachers (Art, Music, Drama, Technology Integration and Composition). We have been meeting and thinking (lots of thinking!) ...attempting to combine our individual ideas to create a common work.

My role has been to merge the outcome into a telecollaborative project called "Highway to the Heart: The Power of an Image". We are just about ready to launch it online. Students will choose a Pulitzer winning photograph and research the story behind it. From here groups will be assigned a pair of "power words" (opposites like arrogance/humility , sacrifice/greed etc... the words are running through the top of the project homepage...) from which they will stage their own "Pulitzer Prize winning photograph.

Using a digital camera, they will "Capture THEIR Moment", display it effectively, and write about the message behind their photo and share concrete ways their photo message can be used to change their world for the better. There will be a student gallery that displays the pictures and writing that will result from this project.

The writing part of this assignment will be added this week, but here is the bulk of "Highway to the Heart: The Power of an Image". Please turn your speakers on. If you would like to join our class on this project sometime this term, please email me.

http://www.masters.ab.ca/bdyck/Image/

- Brenda Dyck
dyckba@shaw.ca


I am just finishing up my Holocaust unit and then we will be reading Streams to the River, River to the Sea to go along with the Lewis and Clark unit in social studies. After we have the novel done I am going to do a March Madness Poetry Competition. I wanted to do it at the beginning of March, but I have to coordinate the novel with the SS curriculum. But that gives me more time to collect the 64 poems that I want to use, put them into categories and get them into the brackets.

LeeAnn


This is a great idea Ellen as I was beginning to succumb to the blahs!

One thing I did this year was require my students to read 5 books per quarter in their independent reading. I was worried that this would prove to be too much, but they had almost all read at least 10 books by the end of the 1st semester, and some read many more.

I'm also in the middle of a research project on ancient Greece and Rome. Our kids routinely score low on research skills on the FCAT. So I worked with our Media Specialist to give them lessons on researching, and they are now using those in their projects. Once again, I was worried that this would be too much for them, but they have surprised me again. I'm teaching them parenthetical documentation which I thought would really throw them - they just shrugged and did it!

All this reminds me of past conversations on the list that focused on creating high expectations for our students. If we do, they will surely stretch to meet them.

Kelly


Hi!

Excellent idea, Ellen! As a habitual victim of the February Blahs, I feel like anything we can do to stick together and rise above that syndrome is wonderful. I've been enjoying reading about everyone else's sucesses. Here are mine/my kids':

Right now, actually, my 6th, 7th and 9th grade classes are just flying. The 6th graders are finishing up some fairly complicated websites presenting an imaginary tour to French Canada which may just turn into an actual class trip this May. The 7th graders are finishing up a script for an original play which we plan to video and then subtitle so as to be able to show it to the school. The 9th graders are rehearsing scenes from "La cantatrice chauve" ("The Bald Soprano"), which we also plan to video and subtitle.

My two younger classes are also well over halfway done with the textbook portion of their curriculum, and despite having set some highly ambitious class goals, are well on the way to meeting all of those standards as well. The 9th grade student who is doing French 4 as an independent study is finally comfortable reading chapters of novels, while the 9th graders in French 3 are moving steadily toward the same stage. Even the majority of the 8th graders, a perennially difficult class, are exhibiting signs that they really want to dig deeper and push themselves. Which leads me to...

Plans for the coming months - keep trying to light an eternal flame in the entire 8th grade! Find ways to keep the other kids at their current level of enthusiasm. Learn how to use iVideo. Get the rock bands prepared for their first benefit coffeehouse. Try to get an extremely exciting proposal (which must unfortunately remain secret for now) approved - right now, things are looking pretty good.

Bill Ivey
Pine Cobble School
Williamstown, MA