This year I’ve decided to be a faculty representative on the Student Faculty Judiciary Committee (SFJC).

I’m sure I must have talked about SFJC before, because I went a lot last year. I was called in to answer questions about some cheating incidents that happened in my class, and I went in as an advocate to my advisees for a few different issues.

This committee, in my opinion, is one of the best things about my school. It is comprised of 8 students (two students from each grade, elected by their peers), 2 faculty representatives, and 1 faculty adviser. When students violate the community standards laid out in the student handbook — be it anything from chronic lateness to cheating to theft — students are referred to the SFJC. It’s scary for students: they see it as a judging by their peers.

However, from what I’ve seen when I was called before the SFJC to answer questions or when I was advocating for one of my advisees, I didn’t see anyone judging. Instead I saw a place where students are asked, by other students, to reflect on their actions.

Standard questions seemed to be: “Why do you think the rule was in place?”, “What went through your mind as you were breaking the rule?”, “Who was hurt by this violation?”, and “What actions have you taken, or do you intend to take, to prevent a repetition of the same action in the future?”

Discipline becomes a learning process.

After the hearing, the committee deliberates and makes a recommendation for consequences which goes to the administration, who then decides to accept it or send it back to the committee with potential changes outlined. Standard consequences are being put on warning, in-school suspensions, and out-of-school suspensions.

Students (and faculty!) have to arrive at school at 7:30am when there are cases. This adds up to a not unsubstantial amount of given up by the members. I was so impressed with the committee’s work last year that I nominated the committee for an award (for a person or club which promotes school values) — that it ended up winning. In the nomination form, I said that the SFJC members are the unsung heroes who conscientiously and selflessly provided the backbone to our community by enforcing its values.

Even though I dread the idea of waking up 15 minutes earlier, and I cringe at the idea that I won’t be able to make photocopies before school on the day with cases, I felt like it would be crazy not to be a representative on the committee this year. The work they do is so integral to the school, it is work with meaning, that it’s a sacrifice I think I’m happy to make. (We’ll see once I take my seat on the committee.)

The four hour training session for this year’s committee members happens tomorrow (Sunday), and cases I’m sure will be heard next week. Here’s to hoping that my idealism isn’t shattered when I see the process from the inside.

I woke up feeling under the weather today. As the day went on, I felt worse. I’m going to bed sick. Of course I would get sick for the first time this school year… the night before parents night.

We have “parent night” on Thursday and there are five things I have to remind myself to do:

1. Plan to speak for 15 minutes, even though I only have 10 minutes with them. That way you can go “oops, I guess I’m out of time” and send everyone along.
2. Integrate humor into the presentation.
3. Talk about the content of the class, the expectations I put on students, the expectations I put on myself, and anticipating any parent questions and addressing them in the presentation (e.g. do I ever allow extra credit? no.)
4. Do NOT let any parent ask me questions about their individual child. Politely say “I don’t think tonight is the best night to have conversations about individual children. However, I’d be happy to set up a conversation! Here’s my contact info.”
5. Don’t freak out!

I’m being asked to write college recommendations. I have a hard time with this, because I view it as such an important responsibility. The colleges my students are applying to are often prettycompetitive and every part of the application is important.

My strategy for dealing with this is to send students desiring a recommendation the following paragraph:

When you have all your colleges picked and the forms gathered, will you give me the forms paperclipped to stamped and addressed envelopes? It would be good to have them at least two weeks in advance of when you want them sent out. That way I can do them all in one fell swoop. Also, when I write recommendations, I usually ask students for two things: (1) things you want me to highlight in your recommendation [math or non-math related], and (2) for you to write a sample recommendation for yourself. Why? Well simply put, it is this: recommendations become strong recommendations if there are lots of specific details/specific instances/stories. And you know things I wouldn’t know — like if you formed a study group or something. Don’t feel like you need to be humble. Just write it honestly and with confidence.

I’ve talked to some teachers who have a form they give to students, questions students need to answer about their experience in the class(es) they had with the teacher.

Do any of you do something that makes writing these recommendations easier? Do you have any suggestions about how to write a strong and honest recommendation?

One weekend ago, I had the fourth cycle of the CD club I organize. It rocked. (You can read about a previous cycle here.) The general idea: a group of 10-15 people meet up at a local watering hole and bring a mix cd they’ve created around a theme. In fact, everyone brings 10-15 copies of their mix, and when we’re all gathered, we exchange them.

The end result: you get 10-15 cds filled with really good music.

The last four themes were:

1. No Theme
2. The Academic Colon: A CD About Some Aspect Of Education
3. Time Travel
4. Stages Of A Relationship

(You can see the tracklistings for each of my four CDs here.)

There is something really awesome about this set up: the work you put into creating and reproducing one thing comes back to you ten fold. And you get to — and want to — engage with everyone else’s work.

Is there any way to harness this model of intellectual exchange in the classroom? To reverse engineer it?

The two key points:

The object needs to be coveted by all participants (e.g. carefully crafted CDs)
The object needs to be easily reproducible (e.g. copy CDs)

Ummm. The best example just popped in my head: VALENTINES DAY CARDS IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL!

Or a slight variation:

Can we come up with an single large entity that students individually contribute to? So students have ownership in it?

So in the mix CD example: if every person chose a song on a theme — and we made a CD — we’d have a single CD with input from all. Or if we were making a bulletin board, we could have each student bring in one picture to contribute to it.

Before signing off, I thought I’d share one idea that might be useful. Before a big assessment, I could ask students to each make a one-page set of study questions they created, along with their solutions. I could scan them in for students to use to study from. For students, by students. And for the assessment itself, Icould  chose some of the good problems from the study guides to be on it.

Other ideas? Is there a good math project out there that fits this CD club model?

Today was a tough day. The toughest so far this year.

Fielding parent calls, communicating with administrators, getting questioned by administrators, having issues with my computer, not having a lunch. Yargh. My classes were awesome, though, but even that wasn’t enough today, when I felt boxed in from all sides.

All I wanted was a giant hug, and someone to tell me that I’m good at what I do, and they respect and support me as a teacher.

Teaching seniors is a mixed bag.

With college admissions, you often get students suffering from a Dr. Jekyll-and-Mr. Hyde complex. The first semester has seniors constantly stressed out, with SATs and SAT IIs, writing college admissions essays, with soliciting recommendations, and deciding where to apply. Many seniors also — at least in my school — tend to fill their plates to the edge. Some have crud oozing off the edges of their plates.

They’re overextended and stressed. And I feel for them.

And then, once college admission decisions have been made, you get seniors falling victim of the most ugly and heinous of all diseases: senioritis. Grades, the traditional motivator, have little curative effects. Their corporeal bodies might be in chairs, but their spirits have flown yonder. The stressed out blobs of nervous energy have become sedate lumps.

Right now I’m dealing with the blobs of nervous energy.

And quite a few of them are even more nervous.

A good number of seniors who sign up for regular (non-AP) calculus specifically for colleges. And this then becomes the rub. Because it’s about at this time of the year when students start to realize that they actually are getting graded in calculus. That it’s more than just the name of a course for college admissions. It’s — you won’t believe this — actually a course.

All I can say to them is that I’m here for them. And that it’s never Me Vs. Them, but always Us Vs. Calculus. But I suspect that this distinction will get blurred in their minds as the admission season gets underway.