Teaching Grammar

I was wasting time the other day, reading an article that my browser labeled "5 Administrative Tasks that Waste Teachers' Time" even though the actual title at the top of the article itself was "5 Things Teachers Do Every Day That Are a Complete Waste of Time."

Irony? I think that qualifies as irony. But, I digress.

The article listed the following:

1. Write the standard on the board. 
2. Teach grammar. 
3. Grade daily work. 
4. Collect data. 
5. Enforce the dress code. 

Wait, what?  One item at a time, shall we?

Enforce the dress code - that's a tough one. Dress codes are usually so one-sidedly sexist that I want to reject them outright and as a man (he/him/Mr.), I will always be over-cautious when it comes to enforcing dress code violations. Yeah, this can an administrator's job. I've got better things to worry about.

Collect data - data is good, as long as it is collected without extra effort on anyone's part. I see no reason to fill out paper forms, hand out paper exit tickets, or collect paper that only services data collection. If you tell me I have time to transcribe data, then I would have far more time if you understood that I can distill that raw data into more meaningful information.

I can ask for a show of hands. Clicker cards. Exit tickets and homework checks with Google Forms. That raw data is useless to anyone but me and instantly obsolete. My interpretation of that data is useful - we call that interpretation "Grades". That's what you pay me for. If you demand the detail, then I'll send you a blizzard of it and then pester you often for your interpretation of it, until you admit that it's not working for you.

I read further; that isn't what they meant:

It seems there’s always some kid who desperately needs an IEP but doesn’t have one, which means we have to go through the process to get the kid services. Yes, it’s incredibly important to provide kids with the accommodations they need. But spending 20 minutes twice a week using some “intervention” one-on-one just to prove that it doesn’t work, then giving a “probe” that’s completely unrelated to my curriculum or the skills the kid needs? That’s meaningless paperwork, and it takes away from my students’ learning.

The author is an ass.

The IEP has the power of a legal contract. It says what the school agrees to do, and by extension, me. They're important. If it says "20 minutes, twice a week" then it has to happen. To be fair, the author (Captain Awesome, apparently) teaches in the UK, so maybe things are different. In my school, the teacher is part of the team that decides what the school can guarantee to do, and we are expected to object if an intervention is truly impossible to fulfill; a school resource professional takes up the slack.

Grade Daily Work - no argument there. If we're using a normal 100-pt scale, tests are 100-150pts.  That means homework or classwork is 0pts or 5pts, depending on "an honest attempt". In the current SBG, this stuff is "formative" and carries no value to the grade. Either way, I'll tell you how you are doing, but I won't grade it.

Write the Standard on the Board. Yep, waste of time. Especially for us. Our administration has declared that each course has one "Power Standard" each term (8 terms). The same words are posted for a month; it's not particularly useful. If you mean "Daily Learning Target" should be posted, then that's different. I doubt that posting it has much purpose or improves the teaching in any way, but I'll do it if my paycheck depends on it.

Teach Grammar. WTF? Grammar is vital. (I'm assuming that Captain Awesome is an English teacher). Grammar to an English teacher is analogous to arithmetic and mental mathematics to a math teacher - it's basic, vital, and perilous if overlooked.

Take the line: y = (3/7)x + 2

What numbers would you substitute for x to get three points that you can graph? Why? If they aren't saying "-7, 0, and 7 because fractions", then you have a problem. You really shouldn't be moving on without this conversation because they can save so much pointless mental anguish trying to graph (3, 12/7) or (3,1&5/7) -- this takes up all their abilities and they miss this new idea of a linear function.  A slope of 100/250 can be reduced to 2/5 or 0.2, but can also be thought of as 100 up and 250 over, or 100 hits in 250 at-bats.

Grammar is similar. If it's understood, then your students can use it and communicate clearly and easily. If they don't "get" it, then you need to stop what you're doing and dive in.

I teach SAT prep. Most of the math I do is review. Let's look at this again, now that you basically know what to do but perhaps have forgotten "why?". Show me you can write the equations that model "$500 pays for 14 bags and 200 pounds overweight, or "kilometers are roughly five-eighths of a mile, so 55mph is equal to how many kph?".

Funny enough, I also have to review for the Verbal Test.

"The students' knowledge of grammar (is/are) laughable."
They can't identify the subject, so how are they supposed to know subject-verb agreement? "Clause" only has meaning at Christmas and adverbs are much the same as proverbs, apparently. "Past tense" is an easy concept as long as you know the meaning of "tense" in this context, and most students don't.

In fact, the only kids who understand English grammar are the ones who are in at least their second year of a foreign language.

Bah, Humbug.

I've got to get back to work.