Back to School

Posted by Bob Greenberger on May 10, 2012

No one likes to admit they are flawed or to admit to failure. Yet, one has led to the other and I find myself in need of repeating my student teaching before being certified. This is a crushing decision since it delays my ability to find paying work as an educator until 2013 and requires, in some ways, starting fresh.

My advisor, in association with my cooperating teachers, have concluded that the identified areas of weakness were not improved enough to give them the confidence I am ready for the classroom. The problems with my unit design and ability to pose three levels of questioning and differentiate highlighted a list of areas that require improvement.

How’d this happen? In discussion with my cooperating teachers, it was suspected that I needed a more rigorous program than the University of Bridgeport offers. The gaps in things not taught from orientation through graduation is staggering and yet they have a reputation for producing good teachers.

It didn’t help that my advisor and I butted heads and it took me a while to find the nuggets of helpful advice buried in the written observations. We never really established a dialogue or rapport and when I made suggestions about doing things different from the handbook I was told absolutely not, “case closed”. On more than one occasion I was told to just play the game and get through this – advice I never understand if the game/system is flawed.

In reviewing the list of weaknesses, some were brand new to me and others I vehemently object to but the process does not allow for detailed debriefing and discussion so the list stands in the record. The write-up also questions my passion for teaching English and commitment to teaching to all students, not just those college-bound and I am not certain where that came from.  But with that in mind, some interesting suggestions for alternatives to repeated student teaching were raised.

Still, I am committed to going forward with this and see it through, to obtain the certification that will bring me the widest variety of options. I now await word from UB regarding where I will spend 60 days come the fall.

In the meantime, I am on the rolls to sub in both Darien and Fairfield. This week, I have had a taste of the middle school life with one day with 7^th graders at Roger Ludlowe Middle School. The rest of the week I am filling in for an old acquaintance at Fairfield Woods Middle School, teaching poetry and Ancient Roman history to 6^th graders. Let me tell you, there are some vast differences between middle and high school and it’s a great exposure to that. The kids overall are sweet and willing to work, but find every excuse to start chattering at great volume.

It’s heartbreaking and dispiriting, but it is what it is and I just need to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again.

My Ruminations on The Avengers

Posted by Bob Greenberger on May 7, 2012

Yes, The Avengers is an incredibly enjoyable movie that has crossed over from making the diehard Marvel zombies giddy to include the far more casual fan who may know the characters only from the previous films. The press today is filled with news that the official domestic weekend gross of $200.7 million is a record, one of many the feature has justifiably earned over the last few weeks. There’s no reason to think the movie will not continue to set records as it hurtles towards the $1 billion mark.

The major success not being discussed is that for the first time, four franchises have been strategically designed and executed to culminate in the launch of a fourth franchise. There have been numerous all-star films where actors arrive and perform thinly veiled versions of their famous screen personas (and we had a trailer for the latest such examples, The Expendables 2) but this move is unprecedented. While there have been previous winks and nods to a larger universe in other films and television series based on comic books, this team film was carefully planned, laid out, and executed.

Starting four years ago with Iron Man, the Marvel Movie Universe has been carefully structured, taking the very core elements from the 1960s comics, filtered through the 2000 Ultimate Universe and distilled in an easily adaptable essence. Each film was not without its flaws and they didn’t all work with Hulk going 0 for 2 but still considered a key piece of the puzzle. But, when we first saw Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) waiting for Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) after the first film’s credits and heard about “The Avengers Initiative” we knew what was coming. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

The Waiting has Begun

Posted by Bob Greenberger on May 3, 2012

I am waiting for my final grade from my advisor, which is not due until next Thursday. I am waiting for schools that have openings to begin scheduling interviews. I am waiting to see what my next step will be.

Meantime, the final three days were a rush of wrapping things up.

I finally got to observe a handful of conferences between my cooperating teacher and the World Lit students. I was somewhat surprised to see how many were barely 1/3 of the way through their 600 page reading requirement. It’s definitely going to be a struggle for some to do a good job while playing beat the clock. On my final days with the two classes, I got some nods, some comments and two hugs, but most greeted the need of the tenure with a shrug.

Monday, the 10^th graders worked in the classroom, using the mobile computer lab, to complete their group projects. Then, Tuesday and Wednesday were the presentations. I wasn’t sure what to expect so was happy to have the wisdom of my other cooperating teacher on hand. Overall, they were pretty good and even though I emphasized I wanted to see creativity, most did PowerPoint or Prezi pieces. One group, though, did a nice filmed piece, using clips from Fahrenheit 451, a soundtrack and each member took a turn before the camera discussing their aspect of the book.

My final class was the final period of the day and it was a weird feeling. The final presentation left a few minutes left and I tried to lead them through a useful conversation but my mind wasn’t sharp. At the bell, the guys jumped up, rushing over to shake my hand. I got waves from the girls. All want me to come back and visit, which was sweet.

Tuesday at lunch, I was surprised with a cake at lunch and yesterday, as the final class ended, I returned to my desk to find an envelope marked “Our Friend Bob” on my laptop. Everyone in the department signed it with many nice notes.

I have been coming to Darien High School just about every day since January 2011 and have grown fond of the building, the staff, and the kids. It’s been a fabulous experience that will spoil me for whatever school follows. I have been made to feel a part of the learning community and couldn’t have asked for a better experience.

The deficiencies found during my student teaching have been addressed and I’m told improvement has been seen. But until I get my grade next week, I have no idea what will happen. Either I get certified and look for work or find a school to repeat student teaching.

One of my teachers pointed out how hard the job is and how much harder it has gotten since she began eight years ago. It’s a misunderstood and underappreciated profession but still a noble calling and I look forward to spending the remainder of my working life being a part of this world.

The Last Full Week of Teaching

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 29, 2012

My last full week as a student teacher has certainly been a mixed assortment of activities. The seniors have been diligently reading their books in World Lit Seminar and every 50 pages or so are obligated to write a journal essay. Every day this week I have been taking a handful of kids to the Learning Connections room or the library to work at a terminal and I would be charged with watching over them, but also getting a chance to do some more reading.

With three weeks to go before their rough drafts are due, the kids are grumbling about the amount of formal journal writing and reading required, wondering if they will ever make it. Of course, last year’s seniors probably said the same thing and somehow it all manages to get done.

During the week break, the 10^th graders were to complete reading their dystopian fiction and share their thoughts with one another on Goodreads. Some were terrific, others hadn’t even registered. In some ways, by getting them to post regularly, it got them thinking about the book more than if we just met a few times to discuss it. Overall, it was a mixed bag but I think for the most part it was a useful tool and one I would try again.

Meantime, the week opened with them meeting as groups and having a final formal discussion about their books. On Tuesday, as part of the process, I taught them about how to outline a compare/contrast essay. Partly, this was a tool they could use for the remainder of the unit and partly it allowed me to teach a writing lesson per my advisor’s request.

Tuesday meant once more my period 7 kids shared the classroom with three observers while I worked. I would say the lesson went pretty well, above average, and there was a lot I thought worked.

On Wednesday and Thursday the kids researched the real world to find connections to the issues raised in their dystopian novels to prepare a creative presentation for next week. It was interesting watching even some of the best and brightest struggle while others looked totally lost, unable to articulate the issues let alone research them.  The librarian and I made the rounds, giving them guidance, pushing in some places, hand holding in others. In many ways, this was revelatory since I was seeing the students in a very different light.

Another complication was that many forgot what the assignment was asking for so I had to restate it or have them reread the handout.

Friday we reframed the assignment to ensure comprehension of what was expected of them before putting them back to research work and they seemed to  grasp it.

I also got my formal evaluation from Tuesday’s class and agreed with some of the points, violently disagreeing with others and it took a while to cool off.

Three days to go and I have no clue if he will pass me or not. An odd feeling.

I Heard Them on the Radio

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 27, 2012

I grew up listening to voices.

According to my mother and my own dim memories, growing up in Fresh Meadows, I would be done at the playground around 4 p.m. and be taken back to our apartment in time for me to watch Ðìçk Clark and American Bandstand. Back then, the show was aired daily and I was apparently fascinated by the music and the dancing.

After moving to Long Island, I went to sleep with a transistor radio playing (much as my mother used) and the station was set to WNBC, which then was a talk radio format and every night I listened to host Brad Crandall. One night, I distinctly recall going downstairs to call in about some long-forgotten topic but as I sat on hold, I noticed my father watching television, seeing for the first time, a bunch of people in red, blue and gold shirts stand on a platform and vanish.  But I digress.

Whenever we drove, the radio was on and I was captivated by Bob Murphy and the crew calling games for the New York Mets. His voice became a constant for me for the next forty years until his passing in 2004.

Harkening back to pop music, the other voice that became a companion belonged to Cousin Brucie. Bruce Morrow was the most popular disc jockey on WABC, the top 40 behemoth that dominated New York radio in the 1960s. For many, many years, it was his upbeat tone that introduced me to one group after another, playing my favorites without my having to ask.

As I entered adolescence, FM radio had become the bastion of progressive rock music and new stations sprouted up. WPLJ was FM’s Top 40 wasteland while New York’s WNEW and Long Island WLIR had the more interesting music and better disc jockeys. I got to know them all, from Dave Herman to Dennis Elsas, from Scott Muni to the Nightbird herself, Alison Steele. Steele, keeping us company from 10 p.m. into the early morning hours, tried to find new ways to differentiate the rise of heavy metal music and coined the term “Thunder Rock”, exemplified by Blue Oyster Cult’s “Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll”. While the phrase never caught on, I give her credit for getting us to think about what we were hearing. Her opening poetry and commentary was never less than captivating. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

West and Welaxation

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 21, 2012

I like working at my desk. And this week at home reminded me how much I enjoy working at the desk, listening to WUMB stream over the Internet, and occasionally enjoying Ginger’s warmth on my lap. Of course, this has been a nice break from the routine so it could be a case of the grass being greener.

I caught up, which added to my feeling of general wellbeing. I had the time to focus on the requisite aspects of my student teaching. I reworked the binder containing all the elements of my Macbeth unit plan thanks to the input from my advisor. I then invested portions of three days completing my ePortfolio, once again incorporating notes from my advisor.

The rest of the time was catching up on e-mails, assorted paperwork and oh yeah, writing. I managed some work on After Earth and completed a short story begun two years ago. Longtime readers may recall that Aaron Rosenberg, Steven Savile and I tried to raise money through Kickstarter to fund the creation of a website for a property we created called ReDeus. We were among the 54% to fail to raise the goal. Every now and then, we three circle back to it and try to get it up and running. We think we may have a home for it and it now needs stories. Aaron’s written one and I am delighted to have finally completed this. It’s about 8000 words and introduces one of the world’s key players and I await my partners’ feedback.

And returning favors, I also did some beta reading for people plus some consulting on a forthcoming entry in the Latchkeys series over at Crazy 8 Press. I even caught up on my reviewing for ComicMix. Best of all, I got to see the graphics and write the captions for Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History  book. I then got to gaze at the first 65 pages or so of initial designs and was quite pleased.

So yeah, it’s been a good, productive week allowing me to feel a little more on top of things.

I return Monday for my final eight days of student teaching and that will include my fourth and final observation from my cooperating teacher and advisor (coming the same day, no pressure). After that, if I pass the program then I apply for certification and seek employment. I’ve applied for a handful of jobs and await calls for interviews. I continued to network and hope for the best.

A Work in Progress

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 17, 2012

Eight days. I realized over the weekend I am down to my final eight days of student teaching after the break.

It’s been crazy and hectic as I try to do more teacher observations to work on the areas that have been identified as weak spots. And there remains a ton of paperwork I still need to complete for the Student Teaching program but mainly it’s been all about the kids.

This past week was a short one thanks to my day off for a visit to the film set. But it remained a busy week. Monday was a professional development day and the morning was spent attending four different mini-sessions as teachers explained to us things they had been focusing on throughout the year. It was interesting being taught by the faculty and I did learn quite a few things which was helpful. I spent the afternoon meeting with my advisor, going over some of the differentiation struggles I’ve been having.

On Tuesday, the sophomores came in to review grammar. We spent the period working on relative pronouns, playing a game where everyone stood working with review sheets. For every correct answer they remained standing, sitting when they got one wrong. Last one(s) standing earned extra credit on the quiz.

Wednesday, they met in their book clubs for the first time and spent most of the period talking about the books with one another, although I did have them provide a summary to the others about their book, the world, and significant details found so far. Many worked from their Goodreams.com groups, which has been a mixed activity to date.

I was asked to do a final review with the kids on Thursday and was somewhat stumped as how to approach it since they’ve been filling in the blanks for a while now. I asked for suggestions in the faculty room and was told to have the kids break into groups, writing a quiz for another group, forcing them to study the worksheets. Brilliant and it seemed to go well enough.

Meantime, the seniors spent the week reading and journaling now that they have begun the big fourth quarter paper. I sat there, reading Brave New World and was on hand should there be questions or the need to help them find other works in the library. All in all quiet.

Plenty to do before the experience draws to a close and I can just hope it ends well enough for me to be certified especially now that districts have begun posting openings.

Visiting After Earth

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 15, 2012

As many recall, Peter David, Mike Friedman and I have been writing bible material for 2013’s After Earth film starring Will and Jaden Smith. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan, its set in the future and we’ve had a ball filling in gaps and expanding on concepts found in the script.

Early last week, Peter said we three were invited to the set in Philadelphia to watch one of the final days of shooting before production wrapped and headed out for location filming. How could we say no? I arranged a day off from student teaching and on Friday, we took a road trip south.

The Budd Studio has been home to other productions, including Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender. A huge structure, it was home to various sets and departments. Upon arrival, we were given a tour of the sets, looking at where key scenes had been shot just days before. We saw other sets still under construction for the final days of filming and were taken into the art department to see scale models and set designs. We were shown props and costumes, finally bringing words on the page to life. The overall design is quite cool and not at all what I expected.

I got to meet Caleeb Pinkett for the first time. Caleeb has been our main contact for the AE work so it was great to put a face to the voice. He couldn’t have been nicer to us and clearly delighted to have us on hand to see the ideas made manifest.

One set was being dressed for a shot and we stuck around to watch Jaden film a scene. And film it and film it. About five takes for what seemed relatively the same performance.  When that wrapped, they moved on to ready a different shot so we repaired to the Overbrook executive tent. Within were couches, desks, chairs, snacks, and two ping pong tables where a tournament has been ongoing. Mike wound up playing the head of the hair department, who came equipped with his own paddle, which says something about how seriously they take this. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Course Correcting

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 6, 2012

A short but packed week.

After having a good class to end the previous week, I got my written evaluation which indicated my advisor felt I still had significant areas of weakness so I spent a lot of time this week meeting with my two cooperating teachers to figure out what I can do with my time remaining to work on these areas.

As one put it to me, I can “walk the walk” but am struggling to “talk the talk” and in that, she’s right. I can write fiction and nonfiction with relative ease, educationese is stumping me so my Lesson Objectives come out flat. Sure, I could steal from stuff online but I need to have this stuff come tripping off my tongue as I prepare for the hoped-for job interviews.

Similarly, I still need to vary how I teach classes and come up with more innovative approaches. On Monday I was told I‘d be teaching about Relative Pronouns on Wednesday. I looked at the packet we were handing out and began thinking. I then started building a PowerPoint presentation to do some review and move them forward. I also decided to get things interactive and created sheets with the words Who, Which, That, Whom, and Whose printed on one side each. Then, after explaining the lesson, we had samples on the screen with blanks and they had to hold up the word they thought fit best. It was a little corny but it worked and if they put up the wrong word, we talked about it. Then I had them use prompts to write their own sentences in pairs using the pronouns.

I thought it went okay but my CT thought it went really when although when I repeated it yesterday, it was the last period before the long weekend so it was more of a zoo but we managed. I kept getting course correction notes from my teacher so that helped a lot.

Around the department, there was tremendous pressure to complete all the grading since grades had to be posted on the computer before Thursday morning when report cards were to be printed and mailed. I spent Monday through Wednesday reading four classes’ worth of essays and got my grades comfortably done. One of my CTs showed me how to drop the lowest quiz grades, which she promised the kids and then we looked at the final averages, nudging one or two up so they got the next highest rank. Other teachers, veterans no less, were up until 2 a.m. getting their grading done. As a result, the faculty was pretty beat so once the bell rang Thursday afternoon, many of celebrated by going out for a drink. It was nice just hanging out, chatting about school and beyond.

One student actually came to me to talk about his A- and I just looked at him and asked, “Did you learn anything this quarter?” He allowed that he had. I let him know that was the real goal not the grade so he wins and we left it at that.

How am I spending my day off? Rereading material to brush up on concepts and rewriting a Group Project assignment.

So, now I have a few weeks left and plenty of miles to go before I complete this journey.

Receiving an Award While Having Fun

Posted by Bob Greenberger on April 3, 2012

There’s something fun about I-Con, the people, the sprawling campus, being able to hang in the Green Room and just chat with friends – new and old. As a result, I wind up doing whatever I can to help them get guests or promote the show or whatever.

Two weeks ago, Carl Fink, the vice-chair and comics track leader, told me I should have some notes prepared because I was to receive an award. Normally, I skip the banquet since I usually go out with friends. This time, they went out and I attended the banquet and received a nice plaque.

The John Pilkington Award is given in memory of one of their most dedicated and reliable staff members. If you needed something completed on-time, and in the best interests of the convention, John was the best choice. His enthusiastic energy and overall love for the convention has been, and always will be sorely missed.

The award is given annually to a guest of I-Con who has over the years been a significant part of our convention. The recipient is someone the senior staff feel has been long dedicated to the growth, and reputation of the convention.

Following in the steps of people like Peter David and Harlan Ellison was me. Pretty cool.

The rest of the con was fun. My first panel was Stump the Experts and the few people who attended drifted in to watch, not prepared to stump me and Glenn Hauman. So, Glenn, Peter, and I spent an hour chatting about everything under the sun and those in attendance had a nice time. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »