Recharged for the stretch run

It was so nice to have to have 10 days off in a row. Yes I know I missed just about 4 weeks, but my strength and stamina have been slow to return since my surgery in March! Though I am feeling much better, I've had some pain and discomfort from scar tissue and have been really quite fatigued. So having this time (with no student work accumulating) was nice. The weather was good and that helped too. After the vacation we are looking at 37 school days left with only Memorial Day as any type of break.

Spring, and May in particular, is my favorite time of the school year. You are starting to see the students you have worked with all year grow and mature and achieve a degree of success. The days are longer and warmer and flowers bloom and the grass turns green. You are seeing AP courses wind down as students take AP exams. You also have the Model United Nations Conference  to look forward to. As a teacher of Juniors and Seniors, they get distracted for a few days leading up the prom. Once every four years, it also become a distraction for me as a Junior Advisor who must put on the prom!

We held this years prom at the Governor Hill Mansion in Augusta just as we did four years ago. This beautiful building is a great place for the prom. It needs very little decoration or sprucing up and is located nearby. It doesn't feel like school at all and I think that lends itself to what the prom represents in some ways as a move toward adulthood. It's always a long night and usually we have to say no to plans with friends in order to attend the 4 hour dance and dinner before. This year was no exception as we missed out on a dinner Birthday party for a friend of ours for the prom. My wife and I received text messages from our friends who were having fun while we chaperoned the prom. But considering its only once every four years and I have a great group of co-workers to do this with, it's not really a big deal. This year's theme was Star Wars, and so we definitely had some fun with it! (Prom photos below)

There was some academic stuff going on this week, it wasn't all just prom and games! In my Ethics class, I had a guest speaker who discussed nursing and medical ethics. My friend Sara Casey has visited my class for a couple of years now and she always does a nice job of portraying ethics in the medical field and providing interesting stories for my students. The students asked great questions and we all learned a lot!

In my Psychology class we have been discussing consciousness and played the game "The Exquisite Corpse" to illustrate the potential of the unconscious and different ways people have tried to tap into it.

My AP classes have been wrapping up content in an attempt to prepare for the AP exams about to unfold. In my Honors US History class we started planning a Memorial Day Assembly to honor the sacrifice of two local soldiers killed in World War Two. My students learned about PFC Harvey Madore of Augusta and Captain Joseph Berry of Wayne. Now they will plan a brief but impactful assembly for the school to tell their story and honor their sacrifice. This is connected to my participation in the Understanding Sacrifice program and my summer trip to Europe to visit the graves of these Fallen Heroes. I look forward to this great experience!

The next big event will be the Model UN Conference in Boston. This will happen on May 13. This year we are taking 22 students to Northeastern University to participate. We are representing Russia, Qatar, and Togo. We travel farther than any other school, most are pretty local to Boston. Unfortunately they are now only running the Conference one day to better accommodate those schools even though it now becomes a bit less of a good investment for us as a result. We will be thinking about how well this goes and maybe looking at alternate plans in the future or rethinking how to do this conference. Either way, our students should do well, have fun, and hopefully learn a lot!

I find myself with mixed feelings as I definitely enjoy the warm and sunny weather, but also dread the malaise that inevitably comes from my students as a result. 32 days left!

7 Weeks to the finish line!

As I type this we are on break. April break tends to be the best break of the year. In the Fall, when the weather is decent, we have no more than a 3 day weekend to enjoy it. The other breaks during the year have a lot of snow and cold weather associated with them. Even though we do sometimes get snow in April, the break that includes the Patriots' Day Holiday is usually late enough in the month that you get some really warm days and sun! Spring is a great time of year anyway, so when you mix in the optimism of Spring, April really is the best break!

This year break is well timed for me personally. After having surgery on March 7, I returned for one day on April 1st, then 3 days the next week, and 4 days the week before break. This sets me up for what should be a full time return next week and being back to "normal" in general! Other than some issues with scar tissue and my body's "plumbing" adjusting, recovery has gone very well. I 'm optimistic that by summer it will be as if I never had diverticulitis or the surgery.

When I return, half of my students will be preparing for AP exams. Students in AP Psychology and AP US History will be finishing with the content of what is needed and reviewing for these exams. My students already get Dual Enrollment College Credit from Thomas College for these classes, but they could also get credit for doing well on the exam. Once that's over, they have a final project to work on to finish up the year.

(Generic test takers)

Just before break I had a guest speaker in my Ethics class. One of my former students, Ethan Buuck, is a Game Warden and lives in the District. Ethan has come each semester to talk Law Enforcement and ethics around hunting and fishing. Ethan has been featured on the Animal Planet TV Show "North Woods Law". The students really enjoy hearing his stories and his perspective! After break, my friend Sara Casey will be speaking about medical ethics from her perspective as a nurse.

Also before break, my US History class had a guest speaker. Bob Madore is the son of PFC Harvey Madore who was killed in Germany in World War Two. Over the last 6 months I have been researching PFC Madore to tell his story. Bob has worked with me and provided me with pictures and letters. Both of us learned more about what happened to his Dad than either one of us knew before. The students were thrilled to learn about Harvey who grew up nearby in Augusta and gave his life at such a young age. As a result of my research, we discovered that Harvey qualified for the Bronze Star. I gave Bob the information and he applied for this award for his Dad. We were pleased to find the US Government issued the award along with a Purple Heart (which he had already received back in 1945) and two other medals. Bob brought these along to share with the students. Harvey is buried at Epinal American Cemetery in France and I will be visiting his grave this summer. My students will be planning a Memorial Day Assembly to honor PFC Madore and also another local solider buried in Italy, Captain Joseph Berry of Wayne, ME. This Assembly will be the focus of much of our work after break.

(Purple Heart)

(Bronze Star)

(Bob speaking to my students about his Dad)

(Bob Madore)

I am a Junior Advisor this year, so that means the Prom is right around the corner. One of my least favorite activities has actually become more tolerable as change has occurred over the years. Gone are the days of hours of decorating and preparation. Not only was that unreasonable, in my opinion, but it ended up being such a waste as things were thrown out after. Starting with our last Prom four years ago and continuing this year, we have held the Prom at the Governor Hill Mansion in Augusta. Very little decorating is necessary or desired. Having said that, the theme this year is "Star Wars" so I know there will be some decorations related to that.

After the Prom I will be thinking about Model UN. We will take 22 students in grades 9-12 to the Model United Nations Conference at Northeastern University in Boston, MA as we have done each year for the least 12 years. The United Nations Association of Greater Boston sponsors the event. Students are excitedly composing position papers and preparing to represent either Russia, Qatar, or Togo on a variety of topics. It should be a lot of fun, plus Boston in May is always wonderful!

I was finally able to meet with the Maine Council for Social Studies Board for the first time in 3 months in April. I have been participating through email, but nothing can replicate the face-to-face meeting. We are planning the Fall Conference to be held in Augusta at the Civic Center on November 10th. I hope to give a presentation based on the lesson I'm creating related to my research on PFC Madore and Understanding Sacrifice. We also have a top-notch guest speaker who will be familiar to any History teacher and maybe to others? For now, I will keep it a secret!

I am looking forward to the last 7 weeks of the school year and finally feeling good!

Back in the Groove!

Well after being out for a month, I returned to school! About 4 weeks ago I had surgery to remove a 10 inch portion of my colon to try and resolve recurring diverticulitis infections. The surgery went well, and my recovery did as well. I have no pain or discomfort although i still need to avoid lifting very much or bending over too far for another month. But all things considered, I'm pleased and basically healed up!

It was fun to return and have my colleagues and students so happy to see me. My sub was terrific, and everything I heard from students and colleagues confirmed this! It was definitely less stressful for me to have a very sub managing things for me while I was out. I did nothing the first week, but I spent several hours the last 3 weeks grading student work and addressing questions and changes in the plans, and my District credited me some time for this. I was also lucky enough to have two snow days while I was out and so I didn't lose those two sick days.

(Beautiful "get well" plant from my co-workers!)

(Part of a car from my co-workers)

(Part of a car from my co-workers)

(Part of a car from my co-workers)

Also while I was out I continued to work on the "Understanding Sacrifice" program. I made progress in my research on Fallen Hero Harvey Madore and in the development of my lesson plan. May will be a big month for us in this program as we need to have things in place to make the best use of our trip in July. We have received our itinerary for July and I included it below. There is still a long time to go before our trip, but I am already looking forward to it!

Our Itinerary July 9-22 Rome to Brussels...

This project will be introduced to my students this week. Not only will they learn about Harvey Madore, but his son Bob will visit to talk about his father. My students will then plan an Assembly to be timed for Memorial Day in which Madore and another local Fallen Hero, Captain Joseph F. Berry, will be remembered. We will use these stories to learn about World War Two.

Before I went out I had spent some time as part of the Social Studies Community Teacher-Leader Group. This group has come together to promote Social Studies in Maine schools. Unfortunately Social Studies has been pushed to the back-burner amid the STEMification of the curriculum in schools around the state and across the country (Many articles of late have been written on this subject). In an effort to reinvigorate Social Studies education we are putting together workshops around teaching Social Studies. Eighteen teachers from around the state will put on these sessions at a State Social Studies Symposium to be held on June 29th at my school. This week I piloted my session before 12 Elementary School teachers from my district. My wife, who teaches 2nd grade, helped me plan it and even tried it out with her students so we had video of her students learning about the difference between Primary and Secondary sources. It was really interesting to work with my wife for the first time, and I also found it interesting to try and think in the Elementary School world for a while. I appreciated the teachers who were basically my "guinea pigs" and I really look forward to doing it again at the Symposium in June. Due to my family commitments and surgery I have missed the last few meetings of the Maine Council for the Social Studies, but I know this group is one of the sponsors of the Symposium as well. I am anxious for our next meeting and to continue my work with this great group dedicated to Social Studies education!

I teach two different AP classes and those exams are in early May. This means that much attention needs to be paid between now and then to help them prepare for the exams. Luckily they get dual enrollment credit from Thomas College for achieving a "C" in the class, but the exam gives them a chance to earn more college credit. It's a stressful few weeks for them, but it's also a sign that the year is nearing the end!

Two of my Social Studies colleagues were very helpful to me while I was out! Typically I run a Model UN simulation to help students prepare for the annual Conference at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. However, due to the surgery I was unable to do this so my colleagues ran it for me! This gave the students a chance to practice the process and I really appreciate my colleagues helping out! The actual conference is May 13th in Boston.

Two weeks until April vacation and I hope I will be caught up from my absence by the time its over!

On the mend!

I had my surgery and all went well! I'm still pretty sore, but I'm optimistic my troubles are fixed for the future.

I am resting and doing some work from home for the next two weeks. The weeks leading up to surgery were crazy busy getting a month's worth of sub plans ready for my absence.

When I return to school I look forward to several interesting things.

I have been working with the Maine Department of Education as part of the Social Studies Community Teacher-Leader Group. Our focus is to provide meaningful Professional Development and support in social Studies for teachers in Maine. I have designed a workshop for elementary teachers to give a brief glimpse into the framework for Social Studies (the C3) and a model lesson aligned with those frameworks. My wife, who teaches Elementary School, is helping me with this. We are planning to deliver this workshop at the end of the month.

(From a Webinar we participated in preparation for the Workshop we are creating)

I also partnered with Maine Historical Society to get my students using their online resource, the Maine Memory Network, and create a project learn about Maine and World War One. Students created slide shows about our community during the War and learned about a local pilot who was killed during the War and is buried in France. His name was Benjamin Bradford from Wayne, ME. The Osie-Aisne American Cemetery in France provided support so my students could see his grave and learn about the Cemetery. Eventually this lesson plan will be available on the Maine Historical Society website for teachers to modify and use in their classrooms.

 

I have also been working on the Understanding Sacrifice project that is ongoing. I was happy to learn that the Fallen Hero I am researching, Harvey J. Madore, has been awarded the Bronze Star. Through my research I was able to put him in touch with someone who had documentation and knew the process. So this man helped his son apply for the Bronze Star and his son just informed me he received a certificate in the mail for the award for his Father. He was so excited about it, and it made me excited that I almost forgot about the pain from surgery for a few minutes! I still have more work to do to tell Harvey Madore's story and develop the lesson plan, but its great to know he is receiving the Bronze Star.

I may be sore now, but its nice to know I should be in great health for my trip this summer to Italy, France, and Belgium to visit those World War Two cemeteries as part of the Understanding Sacrifice project. I am very much looking forward to this trip and bringing back the work to my students next Fall. I was pleased to learn there are enough signups to bring back my Understanding Sacrifice class for next year.

So now its time to rest and soon I'll be grading student work. But things are looking up for my health and I will be anxious to get back to school soon!

Health break

It was almost exactly two years ago when I reported a diverticulitis infection in this blog. Since then, I have had many infections and it has gotten to the point where my PCP has recommended I consult with a surgeon. So I met with a specialist in Portland and will be having a portion of my intestines removed on March 7. This should cure my infection problem, but I will be out of school for 3-6 weeks. The school is going to hire a long-term substitute, but I plan to stay connected with the students even during my recovery. So over the next few weeks I have much to do to prepare for being out. In my next post I should be just starting my recovery.

Over the last two weeks we have started our new semester and things are going well in the classroom! I have been super busy in general, and as usual for February, we are asked to do more things then we are given time for. Whether its registering students for classes, preparing credit recovery work, or signing kids up for Winter Carnival there is a lot going on! In some ways I look forward to time after my surgery to rest and be away from some of the hectic nature of things at school right now. I am quickly typing this in a hurry to get it done in an effort to stick to my personal schedule of blogging every two weeks. The truth is, I'm so busy there's not much I can say here. I have to prepare postings and readings for the Understanding Sacrifice program and update the lesson plan rough draft. I also had a couple of National Honors society recommendations to write, student work to grade, and plans to update. I still need to plan for while I'm out with surgery, finish the plans for the Social Studies PD I'm doing on 3/31 and update the World War One project I'm doing with Maine Historical Society. I also have Model UN plans to organize, and related logistics. Things will slow down by June (I hope). At least Spring is coming soon! See you with a few inches less of my intestines in a few weeks!

BUSY

The end of the semester... grading, new classes, my course work around Sacrifice for Freedom, Webinars, family. ugh! I'm just too busy and frustrated by so much going on right now to write too much here of use to me!

The new semester has started and it is nice to have a bit of a change and have two new classes of students. But its so hard to cope with the things that are due that I have no time right now for much of anything! I hope to be in a better place in two weeks- February break is on the horizon!

New Year, Old Stuff

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind of activity as students realize the semester is coming to an end and their margin for error is dwindling!

Students in U.S. History have been learning about the Civil War- one of my favorite topics! This includes preparation for war, the role of the 20th Maine regiment, the impact on culture, and some great fun with Lincoln. We analyzed the Gettysburg Address, analyzed Lincoln, and analyzed tensions between North and South and connected them to modern tensions in our culture. Awesome stuff!

In AP Psychology, students worked on a learning project. They had to demonstrate an understanding of Conditioning by choosing a subject to Condition. They had to document their experiment with a short video and come up with a report to explain what happened and the results.

In History v. Hollywood we watched the film JFK and students worked on their Final project. Students must pick a topic in history and analyze how two different films portrayed the topic. While in Ethics students chose a current controversial Ethical dilemma faced by society and explained how it could be resolved using the dilemma protocols we learned in class. Next week is the final week of the semester and students will be taking tests and presenting projects. Next semester I will have a new section of Ethics and will be teaching a section of Psychology. I am ready for a little change!

As part of my evaluation, I have to give a class of students some sort of pre-assessment, chart the results, then re-assess them after teaching and hopefully see improvement. These "Student Learning Objectives" (abbreviated as SLO), must be reflected by the standards. This is all part of our evaluation system as developed by that guru Dr. Marzano. After getting my paperwork approved, I gave my pre-assessment in December. Just this week they completed the post-assessment and I am happy to report that my students met their goals! It seems like a lot of unnecessary hoops to jump through and paperwork to complete, but I did it and will get the points for that on my evaluation. I strive for positivity, so I won't complain about the new evaluation process here. Having said that, I find it an unnecessary distraction that reflects little about my effectiveness as a teacher. However, I am happy to have done what I am asked to do successfully.

I am still actively involved in the Understanding Sacrifice program with the ABMC. We have recently been reading the book Catch 22 by Joseph Heller. This classic book gives some insight to the war from the perspective of the soldier. In addiiton to reading this and participating in a webinar, I met with Bob Madore and conducted an oral history interview with him (video from my interview with Bob). He told as much as he knew about his father so that I may tell his story as part of my Fallen Hero project. Much work remains on this project, but I am starting to think about our trip to Italy and France this summer!

Model United Nations has begun! We are just starting, but the applications are out for students. This is an exciting learning opportunity for students that we have been doing for more than 10 years now. We take students to Northeastern University in Boston, MA for two days to simulate a session of the United Nations. Its always great fun and we enjoy the experience. I'm sure this year will be no different.

I'm a Junior advisor and we have started thinking about and planning for the Prom. The Prom will be held in Augusta a the Governor Hill Mansion on April 30. I'm happy to report that our theme is Star Wars!!! More to come on this topic!

I was unable to attend the Maine Council for the Social Studies Board meeting this month, but I'm anxious to hear about the work we are doing and plan to continue my involvement next month. We are co-sponsoring a workshop to be held in Portland in March related to the Constitution. More on this work to come!

January can be a tough month with the weather, but keeping busy certainly helps me!