Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The Low Times at Ridgemont High


I am a high school teacher. I must say most of the time, I love it! I try to make an impact on the kids, be personable, get to know them and tailor assignments to their liking. Sometimes, my tailor made assignments crash and burn.

Take last week, for instance. The assignment was to create a research paper using Word. I taught them how to create a Research Paper, you must have an introductory paragraph, include three paragraphs about the topics you introduced, and a conclusion to wrap up your paper. I admit, we only touched on these topics, because, hey! I’m a computer teacher, not an English teacher.
I think everything I covered went in one ear and out the other. Here are some of the gems that were turned in:

In October they have to important events, Columbus Day and Halloween.
Everyone celebrated the day Christopher Columbus came to America, which accrued October 12, 1492…

The American Dietetic Association (ADA) in March was the national nutrition month.  The ADA is United States' largest organization of food and nutrition professionals with nearly sixty seven thousands members. Approximately 75 % of ADA's members are registered dietitians and about 4 % are dietetic technicians, registered…

In this month of October there is this holiday named Halloween...

Today, we started a newsletter. I thought it would be a fun assignment to create a newsletter for the neighborhood they live in. The lesson didn’t go so well. We walked through the steps of creating a newsletter. Adding columns, section breaks, clip art, everything. At the end, I asked if they understood everyone had tons of questions. Turns out, no students even knew what a Newsletter was. Opps. Lesson failure #2…

I found out the students don’t learn five paragraph essays anymore. Instead, they are required to write very personal, descriptive paragraphs that don’t need to follow the normal conventions of a research paper. Now that I know this, I can plan accordingly. I don’t have to agree with it, though. All the teachers are aware that this is doing our students a huge disservice when they get to college, but who are we to change it? Just a few small voices who vent on a blog….

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