It has been an eventful week for us though it may not sound like it considered current worldly events.
Saturday, March 18, 2006 Monica and I cleaned house; drove to L.A. Marathon Expo and registered for the L.A. Bike Tour; and carbo loaded in the evening (Ricci's Bellflower L.B.). I began to read the Teacher's Edition for the FOSS Force and Motion Science Unit. Difficulty sleeping...I wished I could run this marathon; however, my plantar fasciitis (heel and arch pain) is not well yet. It's been 8 months since it began, after I ran up and down the hillside to and from Acro Corinth in Greece and somehow killed my legs and feet.
Sunday, March 19, 2006Monica and I awoke early at 4:00AM and prepared ourselves for the L.A. Bike Tour of 22 miles. We arrived; it was still dark and began to ride at about 6:00AM. We went slow due to the thousands of other bike lemmings that we encountered. Admittedly, I am happy to be on a bike again. I rode my old Trek road bike--Campy equipped and hi-tech for 1983--which I have converted to a straight-bar, city bike. Monica rode my DEAN Mtn. bike, which old friend Aric L. gave me in repayment of a nearly extinct debt. It was an easy, slow, flat ride. The air was chilly as well. I did not even break a sweat. Monica did fine considering she hadn't been on a bike for a year.
Monica and I nearly got to see the winners of the L.A. Marathon finish for the first time. I usually finish several hours behind the weeners, so it was fascinating to see these Kenyans and Ethiopians finishing and still looking fresh.
We returned to Monica's sister's house to pick up our dogs and promptly fell asleep. We awoke to the ring of my cell. It was our realtor, K. Maye; she informed me that we received an offer from someone who wanted to buy our town home. The offer was kind of low, so she suggested we counter-offer by $10K more. She further asked if we could come into her office and sign the counter offer. We told her we would meet her on our way back to Vista. We stopped in O-Side and did the deed. Monica and I could not resist to go and check out the shack near the beach which we wish to buy. Yep, that's the one! We still wanted it; however, we couldn't conceive of being able to live 6 blocks from the ocean or paying $600K. Yet, it's possible now.
Monday, March 20, 2006
I arrived early to work--6ish--yet was distracted by thoughts of real estate. I managed to plan some math work for the week. Science is still on autopilot. Meaning, the kids read from the outdated book individually, then answer the questions in the chapter review sections. After that, the students meet in their groups discuss what they discovered and how they answered the questions. They organize a poster presentation that illustrates what they have learned from the science chapter and finally present it to the whole class. They are graded on the quality of their answers, the effort on their poster, and peer-graded on their level of group interaction and participation.
The student grouping has worked out surprisingly well. They have worked cooperatively and creatively and produced accurately detailed, quality work. At the beginning of the year when I received these cast-off science books they would read and do the work individually and we would meet as a class and review the material. This was probably not the "best practices" way to teach science or even reading, but it was easier to manage considering I was taking on a new grade level in a new charter school with next to no resources.
Was it the best way? No. Was it effective? Not as much as I would have liked it to be. Is the group work/reading comprehension/knowledge-stuffing method of teaching science working? It's OK--especially since I have some gifted students--yet it's not as effective as using a hands-on, inquiry based science program where the students experience and experiment with science.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006I "talked-up" or began "selling" the new science FOSS kit to my students. Some responded positively while others were less than thrilled. I felt unease and dismay as Daniel L., one of my best and most enthusiastic students, exclaimed, "I hate science! Science is boring!" This shows I have been having difficulty conveying the enthusiasm and wonder that I have about learning about the universe we live in and are a part of. I had better get my rear in gear and start using the kit.
More distraction with selling the home...The people who want to buy our place finally accepted our offer. Our realtor is going out of town, so we were going to wait until Monday to make an offer of $595k for the house in O-Side. Too exhausted to do much work at night.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Work seems to be going smoother lately. My students did a wonderful job with their science presentations. They are getting better. However, I feel the need for them to use a rubric so that they understand what my expectations are for their work. I need to make this objective.
I am also pondering giving my students the survey again about science.
This afternoon, I went to 3rd BTSA/CFASST training with some teachers from our school. Afterwards, I ate dinner with Jose, my teaching partner, at great Persian restaurant (Ferdussi's?). We discussed recent events in the upheaval at our school and what the possibilities for next year would be. Work has been like a roller coaster with its internal politics. Big change is afoot of which I cannot speak further at this point in time. Speaking of change, Monica is thinking about coming to work at our school. She would be able to give some guidance to the two-way immersion/bilingual program there. She is excited by the prospect of working with me again and so am I.
My realtor called me to tell me we needed to make an offer on the house in O-Side because the selling agent called her to warn us that somebody else was going to make an offer. We did not want to lose this house. I told her I would go in and sign after work on Thursday. Meanwhile, I also found out that our town home would be appraised on Thursday and inspected on Saturday. This meant that our dogs had to be out of the house. Monica ended up taking them up to her family's home in Lakewoodie after work and then drove home (170 miles round-trip after a full day of work). Needless to say, we were tired.
Thursday, March 23, 2006Not much new in the classroom--except, it seems, I had a student think it was the end of the world because her slimeball boyfriend dumped her. We're talking 13 year olds--OK! I started taking inventory of the FOSS kit. Other work is going smoothly. I downloaded an Annenburg Science Training video on Physical Science as a Quicktime movie to my laptop. I plan to watch it this weekend.
After work, I drove to O-Side from Santa Ana to sign the offer for THE house. Monica and I drove around and scouted out the area again. We were excited.
Friday, March 24, 2006Work as usual. Jose is already seeming more admin. That's OK. He's preparing himself and planning ahead. I also helped move furniture and relocate Sylvia's office downstairs. I hauled home my science material to study this weekend.
I decided to ride my bike from the "dream house" in O-Side to Carlsbad to get exercise and check distance and times from there. It was a cool ride, except that I can see riding on PCH in O-Side is a bit sketchy--lots of traffic and parked cars and no bike lane. Carlsbad had bike lanes, yet some lady pulled in front of me to park and I almost slammed into the rear of her minivan. When I approached the beach overlook in Carlsbad, I heard my cell ring. I pulled over to check my voicemail where it would be safer. It was my realtor saying that the people had counter offered back from our $595k up to $615k. This was above our limit; however, it was previously decided that we would counter their counter offer at $605k. I had to ride back quick to O-Side on my bike and get to the office to sign papers. Monica met me their and we did just that.
Afterwards, we walked down to the O-Side pier and split a turkey burger and onion rings. I could not resist a chocolate malt. Man, it was beautiful down there by the water. That's where I want to live. We were curious to see how long it would take to walk to the house, so we walked there and also got to see the sun set. It took about a half hour due to our slow walking.
We then returned to downtown O-Side and stopped in at a dive bar, talked, and had a beer before heading home to V.
