I knew early in my teaching career that life was more than academics. I have always believed that a person's social skills are equally important to academics, if not more so. That led me to teaching character, ethics, morales, values, and principles - basically human behavior. I believe for every behavior there is a positive or a negative version of that behavior. It's as simple as the difference between being dishonest or being honest. I explicitly teach these concepts - one behavior a week. I give examples of the behaviors and include some stories with my own personal experiences involving these behaviors. I then ask my students to reflect on their own behaviors in comparison to what we have discussed.
I'm not a perfect person and don't claim to be, but I have always reflected on my behaviors and have tried to live a virtuous life. I believe in doing so, I have found a great deal of personal success and happiness. I don't ask my students to do anymore than reflect on these things.
I suggest that a student protects their reputation and attempts to be a good student, person, family member, and friend. I have seen that students who practice these positive behaviors find a great deal of success both socially and academically.
Part of my teaching career will always involve the teaching of social skills. Because of that I do call myself a "Middle School life-coach."
Homework
I have always had mixed feelings about homework, so I will share my philosophy on this site for both students and parents. First, I am a firm believer in a life outside of work and school. I have always had many interests that I've participated in outside of school/work that I believe are a large part of my happiness quotient and have made me the person that I am today. I can't imagine missing out on those experiences. I also was a coach and have coached for 25 seasons and strongly support after school athletics. As a kid, I practiced the piano for an hour everyday after school, and as an adult, I really appreciate that I did that. I started surfing at 12, and at 52, I still need to surf after school, especially when the waves are good. It's part of my mental and physical health that I can't imagine cutting out.
All of these experiences make me a little anti-homework, but the bottom line is homework is something that is not going to go away, and it is a policy at our school to assign homework for Humanities and Math classes. Additionally, studying is an important part of homework, and the routine of studying needs to be developed as a consistent behavior for success in school. Sadly, many students do not use their time as productively as they could at school, so the only way for them to keep up is to do this work at home.
Therefore, there WILL BE HOMEWORK! I will do my best to make it reasonable and relevant to what we are learning. My homework will be a weekly project for LA and a weekly project for history. The LA homework and history homework will both be due on Friday. I will accept late work, but it will suffer a 30% loss of points for being late(unless there is an excuse). I will NOT accept work that is more than one week late unless there is a special circumstance. I do not appreciate students who don't turn in work all quarter and try to rescue their grade the last week of the grading period. Don't forget that AR reading is also considered part of their homework!
My homework is part of my program, so if it doesn't get done consistently with quality and purpose, I am disappointed. I believe that homework should be a habit and not a choice. The sooner parents win this battle, the better it is for all involved. I will let parents know if their student isn't doing their homework because I know that valuable learning and time will be lost if it doesn't happen.
LA weekly project - This is designed to be a routine to make it as easy as possible for them and for me. Each week I will give the students a list of 15 words. I expect them to figure out the meaning and usage of each word. I suggest using dictionary.com to assist them with this task. I will also introduce a grammar rule each week to be practiced in the sentences. I expect definitions, parts of speech, and sentences for each word. Test on spelling, usage, and the grammar rule will be on every Friday.
WH weekly project - Students will usually be given choices of people, places, or events to research that are relevant to our current unit of study. They can either write a one page report or do a mini-poster. The mini-poster will have an image and 5 important, interesting facts about the subject of the poster. This gives students an opportunity to dig deeper into what we're learning, reinforce important concepts, and take a closer look at the stories I love so much that are often left out of our textbooks.
One last thought - I do not give homework on testing weeks or over vacation breaks. Homework can make or break a grade, so get used to developing a routine of doing homework and accept that it has to be done!
My homepage has links to both the Weekly assignments and spelling lists!