IDK

I often see “IDK” written as an answer to a question on a worksheet, homework paper or test. 

For those out of the texting world, “IDK” means “I don’t know.”

For me, it’s like nails on a chalkboard. It irritates and annoys me. 

IDK tells me this student is not interested or engaged. It tells me the student is putting forth little-to-no effort in their work. 

Think about it, the student who writes this didn’t even make the effort to write out the actual, complete words. Heaven forbid they turn on that magnificent living computer in their skull long enough to really think about the question and compose a meaningful answer.

If you’re being asked the question, there must be a reason. It’s not like we pull questions out of thin air in order to stump you. Perhaps we went over it in class. Maybe it’s in the reading you didn’t actually read, but instead skimmed for answers? 

If you have been in class, you must have some tiny scrap of information to start with…then, in light of that bit of data, maybe give it some concentrated thought, and come up with something…anything but IDK.

IDK tells me this student gave the question about a tenth of a second of thought and if the answer didn’t leap to the forefront of their thinking in that time, they gave up and moved on.

This level of effort is disappointing at best. It shows no perseverance, no mental toughness, no willingness to fight through challenges. And those attributes, more than anything else - more than knowledge, intelligence or education -  are the leading indicators for success. Success in school, at work, and in life, is all about overcoming challenges.

Today, the challenge may be a difficult question on your science homework but this is easy stuff compared to the problems that lie in wait down the road for you. Develop and grow your mental toughness and perseverance and you’ll be better equipped to meet and overcome those problems in the future.

The recipe for success is not IDK.

Mannequin Challenge

Just a little fun in Advisory this week...

When I Was In Middle School

When I was in middle school, things were different - a lot different.

First of all, we didn’t call it middle school - it was called junior high. Most junior highs housed grades 6, 7 and 8 but some did 7, 8 and 9. Mine was the former.

Technology wasn’t a word that we used. 

We didn’t have cell phones - not even flip phones; they hadn’t been invented yet. All our phones had wires and most hung on the wall.

We didn’t have computers - personal computers hadn’t been invented yet and the computers that did exist were so expensive only a large city or business could afford one - yes, just one. Oh, and they were about the size of a car.

We didn’t have iPads, tablets, Youtube, Facebook, Snapchat, or Pokemon Go.

We didn’t have video games - no Xbox, PlayStation, or Nintendo. 

We didn’t have iPods, MP3s, or CDs.

Here’s what we did have - we had Legos and Erector Sets and Hot Wheels and board games, and our imaginations.

We had wood and tools and jack knives.  We whittled. (Do you even know what that word means?)

We had yo-yos, jax, squirt guns, bikes, sling shots, frisbees, slinkys, silly putty, jump ropes and balls of all sorts.

We played outside: hide ’n seek, red rover, mother may I, hop scotch, four square, marco polo, tag, football, baseball, basketball, kickball, badminton, volleyball, tetherball, croquet, keep away, pickle, kick the can, and stick ball.

In school, we had film strips, records and movies - real movies that came on big, heavy reels of film. And we had books. We had books for every class and books to read for fun.

We had comic books, chapter books, coffee-table books and reference books.

We had a huge set of books called encyclopedias in every classroom. Encyclopedias contained all the world’s most important knowledge. It was like someone printed out the internet (which had not been invented yet either).

Think about how much the world has changed since I was in junior high and think about the world you are growing up in now.  

How much is it going to change by the time your children are in middle school? Probably a lot and it probably won’t even be called middle school then.

Do You Do Homework?

Most students do, but some simply don’t. It’s like some students have made it a personal policy not to do homework.

It’s about achievement.

I was recently updating my grade book and noticed several students who were in the very high B range but are missing homework assignments.  In my class, homework counts as 10% of the total grade. I have some students who are settling for a B when, if they just did the homework, they’d have a solid A. Why would you settle for a lower grade when a higher grade is so close?

It’s about respect.

You are expected to do your homework. Your parents, teachers and school leaders expect you to do your homework. Show them the respect they deserve by doing your part. I don’t even give much homework. In the whole of the first quarter, I have assigned exactly six pieces of homework that I collected for a grade. Six. That’s about one piece of homework per week. Is that too heavy a burden?  

It’s about ownership.

So many kids talk about how they want really good grades. They seem to be motivated by grades, and yet, some of them don’t do homework. I don’t assign work outside of school just because I want to torture you. There’s too much to teach in five 50-minute classes per week. You need to do some at home. Take ownership of your education. Take charge and give it one-hundred-percent.

It’s about responsibility.

We talk about our ROARs  - Respect, Ownership, Achievement, and Responsibility. Yet, I feel like a lot of students just say the things they know they are supposed to say. They are not taking the idea of Ownership or Achievement to heart. Take responsibility for your life - do what you’re expected to do. Part of growing up is making yourself do things you don’t want to do - like homework. Push yourself to achieve at your highest level. Be the best version of you, you can be. 

Trust me, if you can incorporate these ideas into your daily actions you will go far and be far happier going there.

Milkweed Bug Redemption

It would be fair to say my wife was not really happy when I brought home a plastic bag with some bugs in it, but now things have gotten out of hand. 

When I did my training on how to teach the 7th grade science curriculum one of the things we did was to make a sample habitat for milkweed bugs. Nothing like a hands-on activity to help you learn how to do something. 

My milkweed bug habitat is about two weeks ahead of the ones we have in the classroom. Let me tell you, my bugs have been quite busy and my plastic bag is full of milkweed bugs of all sizes. 

I probably have a hundred nymphs in various stages of development in my habitat. 

On Sunday, I walked into my office and lo and behold - a tiny milkweed bug was standing on my keyboard. 

He (or she) had escaped.

How’d he (or she) get out?

I carefully looked over the habitat and could find no openings beside the tiny airholes at the top - and he (or she) was too big to fit through one of those. 

I took my tiny escapee - I named him (or her) Andy (or Andi) after a character in a famous movie - and plopped him (or her) back into the habitat. 

But, that’s it for my milkweed bug experiment at home. I’ll be bringing it into school before the Andy (or Andi) tells all the other milkweed bugs how to get out of the joint. 

Mechanical Pencils - Ugh

Mechanical pencils are used to provide lines of constant width without sharpening in technical drawing. They were first developed in the 18th century. A professional-grade mechanical pencil is a beautiful and elegant writing instrument. 

The mechanical pencils kids bring into my room are of the disposable variety. They are so cheap and flimsy, I’m amazed they work at all, and they don’t seem to work for very long.

My dislike of mechanical pencils knows no bounds. I do not understand the attraction kids have with them.

From my perspective, all I see are problems. It seems like whenever I see a kid taking notes with their trusty mechanical pencil, they are breaking the lead, running out of lead, looking for lead, spilling the lead on the desk, watching the lead roll onto the floor, asking their friends if they can borrow some lead or asking me if I have extra lead.

For the record; No, I do not have lead for your mechanical pencil.

I have pencils - real, number 2, wooden pencils from the Ticonderoga Pencil Company. You may borrow a real pencil, but I do not have lead for you and never will.

Here’s a little inside teaching insight for you: If you leave a pencil behind in my room, I will sharpen it and add it to my loaner bin near the door. 

If you leave a mechanical pencil behind….I will throw it away. 

Physics for Bottle Flippers 101

“There have been school-wide loudspeaker announcements banning bottle flipping from our school,” posted one of my teacher friends on Facebook recently.

She was writing about the fad that is sweeping the nation. Forget high-tech, smartphone-addicting Pokemon Go, low-tech water bottle flipping is the new rage.

Apparently, it all started with Michael Senatore, a high school senior in Charlotte, North Carolina, who flipped a water bottle during a talent show. The video has gone viral and now, seemingly, every middle-schooler wants to do it. 

If you’re going to spend your time trying to land this stunt, you ought to understand the physics involved. Yes, I said physics.

Here are some of the terms you’re going to need to know:

• Angular momentum
• Mass
• Fluid dynamics
• Air resistance
• Inertia
• Gravity

Angular momentum is a lot like linear momentum, with which we’re all familiar. Picture this: Tom Brady throws a fast, tight spiral just over your head. As you reach up and grasp the ball, its momentum pulls your hands and arms in the direction the ball was traveling until it slows enough for you pull it in for a catch. That’s linear momentum. 

Angular momentum is the same thing but in a circle. When you flip the bottle you impart spin - that’s angular momentum. 

The spin causes the water to slosh around inside the bottle - this is where fluid dynamics comes into play. The bottle tries to transfer its angular momentum to the water but the water has a lot more mass then the plastic bottle and, because of inertia, the liquid doesn’t want to spin. Instead, because it's a fluid, it sloshes around, slowing the rotation. 

The trick is to get the angular momentum to zero when the bottle is vertical so gravity can do its thing and the bottle lands upright on a flat surface.

There’s a complex balance between angular momentum, fluid dynamics, air resistance, inertia and gravity.

There’s no reason you have to stop with a single rotation either. If you impart enough angular momentum, you should be able to do 720 degrees of rotation before landing your bottle. Of course, that makes the whole trick much more difficult.

Wouldn’t it make a great science project to build a machine that can flip a bottle perfectly every time? Hmmmmm, maybe we can tackle that challenge in the STEM Club…

Sources: The Boston Globe, Vox

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Ever wonder why your teachers repeat themselves so often?

Have you ever thought about all the different ways we have to say the same thing?

Have you ever noticed you often get the same information delivered by several methods?

It’s not an accident. It’s what teachers do to help every student succeed. Some people need to see things written down, others need to hear something to really understand it. Some need to hear or see it more than once. Everyone is different and everyone learns differently. Teachers make sure they communicate information in ways all students can understand. 

I find the process of giving instructions to students to be very interesting. I work hard to find the simplest, most direct way of giving instructions. I break down tasks into smaller bits and present them one by one. 

Let’s say a teacher wanted you to accomplish four tasks. Just saying the words will get about 80% of students to do each task correctly and in order. 

Here are that teacher’s make-believe instructions to a class of 30:

One, two, buckle my shoe;

Three, four, open the door;

Five, six, pick up sticks;

Seven, eight, lay them straight.

The teacher’s expectation is that 30 students will buckle their shoes, open the door, pick up some sticks and place them in a straight pattern.

When the teacher looks out over his/her imaginary classroom, here’s what they are most likely to see:

24 kids looked at their shoes and said some version of, “I don’t have buckles on my shoes,” “I only have laces,” “I’m not doin’ nothin’ to these bad kicks” or “Huh?” 18 of them closed a door, but six more reopened it, 14 picked up some sticks, 10 scholars asked to leave the building to look for sticks, 11 kids have them all lined up nice and straight, and three are building a fort out of the sticks. Four students took off their shoes, three opened a window, two kids put the sticks in their shoes, someone asked to go to the restroom, and one ambitious child is chopping up a chair to make more sticks. 

It’s hard. It was a lot of confusing instructions delivered in a way that they were not accustomed to. 

And that is why we say it, put it on your paper, project it on the screen, write it on the board and then start all over again. That is why we repeat instructions multiple times. 

That is why we have so many ways to communicate the same information.

Khakis

Just to set the record straight. I do own more than one pair of pants. I overheard a couple of students speculating that I wear the same pair of pants to school every day. 

I do not.

I wear the same kind of pants every day….Khakis. The tan-colored, cotton pants that you see each day. 

I have about 12 pairs of khakis. 

Fashion is not a really important thing for me. I don’t really understand what colors go with what other colors. The whole stripes and patterns thing confuses me. 

I keep it simple. I wear only tan khakis to school. They’re comfortable and they go with everything. It doesn’t matter what I choose to wear for a shirt, it’s gonna go - no matter what. 

For me that means less time thinking about things I don’t find important and more time to think about things I do find important.

Like….what would happen if you could drill a hole right through the Earth and come out the other side. 

I like thinking about things like that…and not so much about what shirt goes with what pants.

Current Events in Science

One of the favorite days of the week for me is Current events day. I like the opportunity to see what my students bring in, what they’re interested in, and what they like about science. 

This year, current events day will be Fridays. Ten minutes at the end of the week where we can poke our collective heads up, look around at all the cool things that are going on in the world of science and talk about them.

Everyone can participate in current events. 

It’s simple: Find an article, read it, bring it into class. Last week students brought in articles about a new Earth-like planet orbiting a nearby star, the Philae lander that was found on a comet, and a rocket test gone wrong. 

I encourage everyone to participate. Think about what you enjoy learning about in science, find out what’s happening in that field and read an interesting article. If you love geology, bring in an article about something that happened in that field. If you enjoy biology, find an article about a new development in biology, etc.

Current events in science should be fun and interesting. Participate, join the fun. 

Hello Bartlett...

A new school year begins. 

For me, it’s not just a new year, it’s a whole new school. A maze of a building with nooks and crannies and loopy hallways, ramps and a garden smack-dab in the middle of the whole thing.

It’s a wonder I can find my way in and out of the building most days. A school without students is a pretty empty place. There’s no one to ask for directions. It doesn’t help that Ray and his custodial crew keep sweeping up my trail of breadcrumbs, so I just wander around until something looks familiar.

Think about this: I come in the main entrance and go down the stairs to room 23 and I’m on the second floor. Is the front door on the third floor? That can’t be. Seriously, who puts the main entrance on the third floor? Is there some warp in the space/time continuum between the front door and my room? I don’t know.

I’m sure I’ll figure it out. I’ve got a good sense of direction, a GPS app on my phone, and I’ve got students to show me around. 

Now, if someone can help me find the copy machine…

Thank You

It was Friday when it really hit me that I was leaving. Dan said such nice things about me in closing circle that I could not choke out a reply. But I had a weekend to wrestle with the emotions of leaving a community I love. 

Today, I wanted to say something and I did…it wasn’t the exact words that had been rolling around my head all day, but it was close enough. 

Thank you all for helping me, supporting me and valuing my contributions. I can not tell you how much this has meant to me. 

I wish each and every one of you all the best. 

I will take the spirit of McAuliffe with me to my new school. We are crew, not passengers.

The Natural World

The ten design principals underpinning all we do at McAuliffe reflect the educational values and beliefs of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound. These principles include an appreciation of The Natural World.

In June, we will plunge headlong into The Natural World with a three-day, two-night camping trip.

This trip will be “Challenge by Choice”- there will be a challenge of some sort for everyone, but each individual will choose their level of individual challenge. 

There will be some Crew-based activities including preparing and cooking a meal all together.

Cat Videos On The Internet

“And, please don’t waste time watching cat videos on the internet.”

That’s how I ended the instructions to my crew a few days ago. It’s actually something I say a lot. It’s what I hope will be a funny way to follow up on my instructions that they make use of this time for something academic, i.e. homework, classwork, reading etc. We only had about 20 minutes and they had no interest in playing a game or doing a check-in.

My instructions did lead to a telling interaction:

Student: “What did you do for fun when you were in 8th grade, Mr. McKellar?”

Me: “I watched cats.”

Student: “I don’t understand.”

Me: “I watched cats.”

Student: “I don’t understand.”

Me: “I watched cats, actual cats”

Student: “I don’t understand.”

Me: “The internet hadn’t been invented yet.”

Student: “Okay, but I still don’t understand.”

Me: “I watched cats, real cats”

Student: “I don’t understand. How did you do that?”

Me. “We had cats and used to watch them play….in real life….not on a screen…in my backyard - real cats!”

Student: “Ohhhhhhhhh, I understand.”

Find The Things That Excite You

“I can get excited by learning something new.”

That was the HOWL (Habits of Work and Learning) target I wrote on my front board Friday.

I think sometimes kids think it’s cool not to be excited or impressed by the things they learn. They act as if they’ve seen it all already, that they can not be surprised by something. They can be really blasé about really exciting things.

I think sometimes they don’t allow themselves to be excited - it wouldn’t be cool.

Trust me, there are way more important things than coolness. There is the excitement of exploration.

I learn new things every day. I get excited when I’m surprised by something I didn’t know.

I’m still thinking about all that I learned about the Colosseum in Rome a few weeks ago. I was blown away by all the amazing things I learned during a short tour (a retractable roof - really???). My imagination has been on fire thinking about how this structure was built and used all those centuries ago.

If you are studying the criminal justice system, plant cells or quadratics, seek out new ideas. Find the things that light a fire in your imagination. That “thing” will be different for everyone. 

Find what excites you - things that you want to learn more about. Actively seek out new ideas and new information. The lessons we teach are not the end of the topic...they are the beginning.