The Hoggatteer Experience - THE HOGGATTEER REVOLUTION

Regarding Leadership

8/31/2021

In the beginning days of class, I like to do several things:

Introduce myself.
Get to know my new students.
Make everybody comfortable.
Establish respect.
Make our class feel different.
Teach manners.
Foster new, positive roles for the members of our class.
Practice procedures.
Raise expectations.

There are probably other things to add to this list, but that at least gets us started.

On the fifth day of class, we used the windbags (pictured) to illustrate the difference between a good leader and an ineffective leader. Students huffed and puffed to try to blow up these long tubes, but failed miserably. Of course, that was the point. First, I had not given them any specific instructions for easily inflating the tubes, and second, there is a scientific principle of which each of them was unaware (It's all about Bernoulli, but that's for another time.). All of the blowing and light-headedness in the world is only minimally successful at this point.

And yet, the teacher can inflate the tube in a single breath.

Obviously, the tube is larger than the capacity of my own lungs, so how is this possible?

Just like an effective leader, I had to step back from the situation and not just dive right in. With the windbags, that means I need to stay six or eight inches back, away from the opening. In this way, my single breath attracts the air around it which then follows my breath into the bag. Again, this is akin to good leadership; instead of jumping right in and doing all of the work myself, I need to develop the skills to bring people, willingly, along with me. For a positive leader, this means less work and a more effective team.

The windbags help us establish a working relationship in which all work toward a single goal. I'll gladly take some time out at the beginning of the year to get that ball rolling in the right direction!

More Digging In

8/30/2021

Here are some more pictures of the biggest activity of our first week. On Friday, students finally dug the final layer of our archaeology sites to find the earliest artifacts in the series.

We had a fantastic discussion late in the week about how artifacts could be so similar in completely different regions of the continent. I'll never get tired of seeing the thinking process as students work together in a whole group discussion ti figure out solutions and draw conclusions.

Exeter, Missouri

8/29/2021

There is a popular corn maze with all the accoutrements in Exeter, Missouri. While it's not quite the season for corn mazing or pumpkin patching, the family there also offers a sunflower field for photographs. We trekked our way in the countryside to enjoy some sunshiny sights. It's the first time I'd seen a sunflower field, and the insects and intricate parts of the flowers were a beautiful way to end the last week of summer break.

Reading Professional Development

8/28/2021

Every year, teachers go through several hours of "professional development" before school officially begins for students. There is usually a lot of housekeeping to be done at that time with conversations centered around attendance, procedures, and curriculum. Most of it is repetitive through the years, and the things that are new are often, to be honest, stressful.

This year, we heard some great information about teaching reading. The presenter had some interesting information.

Read-aloud needs to happen every single day in the classroom.

Vocabulary is the gateway to comprehension.

Thinking takes coginitive desk space.

Don't be afraid to use higher-structured language and vocabulary.

The only way to save something in memory is repetition.

The main reason for deficiencies in word recognition is ABT - "ain't been taught".

I enjoyed some of these ideas and agree wholeheartedly, and they agree with many of the methods that I use daily in our classroom. It's always nice to receive validation, but it's also important to remember to implement these things.

Missouri HTOY: Messages from the University

8/27/2021

I didn't spend very much time working on my Master's degree at Pittsburg State University (PSU), but when all the hours were completed, I walked across a stage to receive my diploma for education. I have to admit, the classes for my Master's were (for the most part) enjoyable.

When I was informed that I had been selected to be the Missouri History Teacher of the Year, the news hit the local paper. PSU posted a quip about it on their alumni page for Facebook, and I received a couple of cards in the mail from people there. The message on the left is from my Master's-level psychology professor. The words on the right are from the Director of Development for the College of Education.

"I just wanted to congratulate you on your honor of being recognized the "MO History Teacher of the Year. That's an amazing accomplishment to be recognized for this distinction!...I appreciate professionals in education who go the extra mile for the students! "Thanks for your commitment and dedication to our profession after 32 years in the field!! All the best! Blessings to you..."

"Congratulations on being named the 2021 Missouri History Teacher of the Year. What an amazing honor! You are being recognized for going above and beyond for your students. "Thank you for all you do to educate future generations. Have a wonderful school year! Wishing you all the best..."

How I Spent My Summer

8/26/2021

Preaching

I prepared sermons and preached at five congregations: Columbus and Fort Scott, Kansas, and Carthage and Washburn, Missouri, and Grove, Oklahoma. I've done this kind of work, filling the pulpits of churches when the regular preachers take a vacation or when the churches do not presently employ a full-time preacher. It is a very satisfying, almost-weekly, work that I take very seriously, and it provides me with an added income to supplement my teaching salary. I always try to prepare extra Bible class lessons and sermons to keep the work going through the school year, as well, so I've spent many hours in study and writing.

Traveling

Originally, I was supposed to spend some days at the Colonial Williamsburg Teacher Institute for a few days. As a lover of United States colonial and revolutionary history, I was supposed to take this trip in 2020, but it was postponed. I was disappointed to receive word that it was being cancelled altogether in 2021 because of the COVID. I will certainly reapply for the institute when it comes available (and hopefully go to the front of the line).

That said, the family and I did enjoy our St. Louis and Mississippi River trip the week after school let out in May. We visited the recently-renovated Gateway Arch, the protected Cahokia Mounds, the St. Louis Zoo, and St. Louis Science Center. We rode a riverboat cruise on the river. We took a ferry across the river and discovered Piasa. We also took short trips to St. Joseph and Ste. Genevieve, as well as Chester, Illinois (home of Popeye) and the 1720 century fortress at Fort de Chartres. It's always good to get away and see new things. Even though we have been to many of these places before, we always see and learn new things.

TV Viewing

If I have a bad habit, it must be sitting on my backside and binge watching classic TV shows. I don't want to admit how many episodes I've watched over the past few months, from M*A*S*H to The Bob Newhart Show, from Abbott and Costello to The Red Skelton Show, from the original Stargate: SG-1 to Stargate: Atlantis to Stargate: SGU, and all of this was supplemented by visits to new series on Disney+ (research to keep up with the kids). The number of hours wasted watching television is disgraceful, though to be fair, I also worked on the computer most of the time the programs were playing (That makes it OK, right?).

Kid Carting

In June, daughter (17) took part in a Missouri Leadership Conference online after it was cancelled in person. Our 11-year-old son attended Green Valley Bible Camp near Rogers, Arkansas, where he introduced himself to more than a few ticks. He also had a few chances to work the concession stand at some of the Joplin Outlaws games. Pretty soon, the girl was off again, this time to Missouri Girls State, where she had a week of studying law, listening to speakers from the state and city levels and singing the national anthem for Missouri Governor Parsons. She also launched a campaign for governor of Girls State, winning her party's nomination and falling just short of the top spot. A couple of weeks later, we delivered her to General Tommy Franks' Four Star Leadership where she joined 67 other students selected from around the world. The boy, meanwhile, was able to spend some time with Grammy on my side of the family and some time with PawPaw on my wife's side. I won't complain that my two kids have been busy with positive endeavors this summer. All of this kept us busy as we had to deliver them to each destination.

"Websiting"

As always, I curated lesson materials, constructed a couple of lesson sets, wrote commentary articles, and kept this website updated. For years, I have maintained the site with a new entry every day, even during the summer. I am always amazed that I can keep ahead of the game with the website as I try to make it relevant as well as useful for my teaching, my classroom, my students, and for other teachers who might be interested in using the material.

Dreaming

Whether I'm on vacation, watching a television show, driving on the interstate, or surfing the interweb, I'm always trying to think of ways to make my class different and better. Sometimes, I dream of ways that we can do the impossible. I want every minute to be alive for my students, and trying to get to that point consumes a great deal of my time and energy.

I suppose I have been a dreamer for a long time. I come across it naturally - something that came from my dad. It even predates my time as an educator. Through many years, I have wanted to create my own stories - books, movies, TV shows. I've dreamed of new theme parks and new theme park rides. All of these got me ready for my stint as a unique teacher.

House Improvement

Many of the above items have referred to my home life - my family is my home - but the house also needed some work this summer. Unfortunately, I'm not the kind of guy who does engine and appliance repairs, but when push comes to shove, I'll try to do some of the minor activities. I had the privilege of replacing the hinge on the washer, repairing a tire on the riding mower, replacing the battery in said mower, trading a couple of door knobs, and installing a new ceiling fan in the place of one with a broken blade. These things, in addition to mowing and trimming bushes and unwanted plants got me sweating on more than one occasion.

How About You?

Many teachers give the assignment, at the beginning of the school year, to write down or verbally present a report entitled What I Did during Summer Vacation. Some students have more summer opportunities than others, but we still like to hear about your adventures. While I do not make such an assignment, I still welcome your informal reports if you are willing to share. our American history coverage

Digging in on the First Days of School

8/25/2021

There we were - young archaeologists - not too sure of this new place, this new foreman, and this new assignment. Normally, there would be more instruction - more rules, more procedures, and more introductions - before we would travel to a "work site", especially one of scientific and historic importance. The Hoggatt site might yield some interesting results, and we were there from the beginning.

The supervisor had prepared the sites ahead of time, making note of three layers of time, marked by three different soils and storied artifacts embedded into each layer. On the bottom layer of each "site" was a layer of mixed soils. The middle level sand. The top layer revealed darker, aromatic soil.

All were contained in a marked grid on a square table, and each team of archaeologists would excavate a single portion of the grid. For ease of excavation, each block of soil was contained in a clear, plastic shoebox, sitting on a plastic blue tray to aid in minor spills during the operation.

Our tools for the activity included the following:

Tongue depressors, our alternative to flat trowels (our main digging implement)
Toothpicks (to assist in cleaning artifacts of soil debris)
A paint brush for gently dusting artifacts
A magnifying lens for taking a closer look
A yellow ruler to take measurements
Three plastic bags (to save artifacts separately for each level)
Recording sheeets on a clipboard (to preserve the results of our dig)
Pencils for recording findings

With this, the scene was set for our first day of lively learning in the Hoggatteer classroom. Students were ready to dig into something besides rules and procedures.

Students were ready to dig in. That's not a bad thing, but it does bring up a problem: students are ready to really dig in, without the patience of an archaeologist. They needed to go slow and uncover a single layer at a time and not plow through like bulldozers. Any teacher attempting this activity must be ready to stop and restart the class many times with added instruction along the way.

This first lesson of the year takes a lot of energy and attention to detail. It is intended to cause students to notice all of the artifacts, recording which was found in each layer to they can "interpret" the progression of those layers in order to tell a story. For us, all of the interpretation had to take place later in the week.

Back to School: May We Teach

8/24/2021

For the new school year
For the smells of new pencils and new shoes
For the laughter of children
For crisp smiles and laughter

For peers who want the best for our future
For parents and grandparents
For administrators, teachers
For support from many sources

For art and science
For history and numbers
For a love of reading and writing
For music and movement

For peace, perseverance, and passion
For nurture
For patience and cooperation
For responsibility and respect

For challenge
For tears
For empathy
For compassion
For unity
For vision
For legacy
For a universe of dreams and untethered possibilities
For these and more, we are thankful

May we fill the hungry
May we heal the injured
May we comfort the cold
May we regard the neglected
May we inspire the complacent
May we calm the distressed
May we energize the tired
May we love the unloved
May we teach

Back to School: First Day

8/23/2021

Faster than a speed reader;
More powerful than a persuasive paragraph;
Able to learn difficult mathematical concepts in a single bound!

Look!
On the calendar!
It's Monday!
It's the 23rd!
It's super, man!

And it'll be here before we know it!

The first day of fourth grade
begins today at 7:45,
with breakfast in the classroom.

Hoggatteers:

JULIETTE
LILY
EVELYN
KAYLEE

JACOB
LOGAN
ANNA

LEAH
MAX
NAHLA

HAYDEN
ANDREW
TATE
BRYCEN

JAYLEE
RACHEL
EMMA

CHLARISA
PAYTON
EMILY

TY
TAEVYN
DAMAR
CALI

Back to School: Daily Schedule

8/22/2021

It looks like we have a pretty agreeable daily schedule for the upcoming school year. Since I like to cross the streams (a Ghostbusters reference) of curricula, teach outside the box, and engage my students, my schedule looks a bit different than normal. You won't find defined lines of reading (stop), writing (stop), and arithmetic (stop) here. Instead, I have built in times to allow for flexibility. Keep in mind that students often are working on multiple subjects simultaneously. Ours is a one-of-a-kind experience, tweaked a little bit (sometimes a lot) every year.

7:15   Ennui

7:30   Magical Mayhem

7:45   Conversations to Inspire Superior Thinking and Exemplary Citizenship

8:25   Music, Fitness, Art, and Media on a Four-Day Rotating Schedule

9:15   M05+LY M4+HEM4+1C5

10:15 Deeper Eclectic Learning Activities

11:10 Chuckwagon

11:30 Recess!

11:45 Effective Communication Skills for the Citizens of Tomorrow

1:10   Recess!

1:25   Deeper Eclectic Learning Activities

2:45   Countdown to Launch

2:55   Dismissal

Back to School: To Mask or not to Mask

8/21/2021

Joplin's school board has chosen to continue the recommendation for students and staff to wear masks for the 2021/2 school year. Understandably, some people will agree with the decision and others will disagree. Other students and their parents may not want to wear the mask all day but still want to feel safer. Here is the graphic I will use to help students better understand when they should opt to wear one and when they might choose to remove it.

Incidentally, FLAME stands for Fitness, Library, Art, and Music Education.

Back to School: There's a Revolution Coming

8/20/2021

If things go as planned, this year will be unlike any other in your educational life. While there are things we have to do to fulfill the demands of the federal and state governments (and the district's approach to such), I will always strive to have a unique approach to the classroom.

After saying all of that, we will begin with something that sounds much like every other class in the public school world - introductions, rules, and procedures. Hopefully, you will see right away, that even if the things look similar in the lesson plans, the Hoggatteer Revolution is like no other.

For example, one of the first priorities for your new teacher is to establish some protocol for approaching and speaking to one another, to other teachers, and to adults in general. We will work on, believe it or not, properly shaking hands and looking people in the eye. We will practice active listening skills - including something called tracking.

I know you will want to get right to the learnin', but we absolutely must get it through our heads that we are a family. We will support each other through our actions and speech. We will cheer for effort and for success. We will accept each other's idiosyncrasies and differences. We will find ways to celebrate our differences.

In fact, we want to identify our own mistakes, but in a safe and civil atmosphere. We will correct ourselves and help others when they have needs. We will work through problems painstakingly, not minding the investment of time when it will be beneficial to spend it. And then - again - we will celebrate the great effort to grow and learn.

There is a difference in the teacher handing out corrections and answers willy-nilly, and the manner in which our classroom operates. Students will be allowed - even encouraged - to struggle through issues and problems, and they will be rewarded intrinsically when they do. When learning and growing require struggle, learning and growing are appreciated so much more.

Not only is there a teacher in Room 404; there are students who look for ways to assist others. In the last few years, Room 404 has earned a reputation of being very close: a family indeed! We install a foundation of passion, compassion, and good manners, we build memories, and we cap it all with academic rigor.

Back to School: 31 Yearbooks

8/19/2021

This puts things into perspective. It is my annual display of annuals, my yearly display of yearbooks. From my first year (1990/1) to last year (2020/1), I now have a complete collection of 31 of these precious mementos.

Really! Thirty-one years.

This is more than a pile of pages, a plethora of pictures, a menagerie of moments. These are the last 31 years of my life - a big chuck of them anyway, 31 years of connections with other human beings, 31 years of entertaining and teaching, laughing and crying, 31 years of living.

This, the 32nd year of this great experiment, and I continue to tweak and tighten my teaching. Those in the know have long realized that a teacher never "arrives", that we never experience mastery in this profession. I suppose that's because there is certainly a human factor to our job. We don't assemble our products on the conveyor in a standardized line. Here are some observations:

Our products have names.
Our products have souls.
Our products have flaws.
Our products come packed with history.
Our products come to us with appetite.
Our products are not lessons forged from ore discovered in data mines.
Our products are more than graphite on paper.
Our products have tremendous potential energy.
Our products require occasional troubleshooting.
Our products move on their own, think on their own, and make decisions on their own.

Our products cannot be bought on the open market.
Our products are both consumers and producers.
Our products have tremendous potential to succeed, but only after they fail.
Our products are precious and fragile.
Our products affect other products.
Our products do not come to us under warranty.
Our products grow and adapt.
Our products are sentient beings.

On and on we could go, filling the pages of a book with thoughts concerning our students. At this time of the year, I tend to have double vision: I look back at over three decades of elementary students, and I look forward to tomorrow.

We're all a little apprehensive.

Nervous.

Anxious.

Are you ready?

Back to School: Our Playlist

8/18/2021

We use music in our classroom. It plays in the background during much of our independent and group work, and it plays in the foreground during certain lessons and celebrations. Music keeps us on task, and there are times when it purposefully attempts to distract us (which I won't go into right now).

Perhaps I think about things too much, but it is fun, and my mind is being used for little else, these days, so why not? For years, I have built a Back- to-School playlist (right) to play for Open House and the first few days or weeks of class. I doubt anyone else has realized this, but I like to think there is a subliminal effect to my madness.

Some songs are included because they are messages of comfort to students who may stressing from facing a new teacher (quite the ominous event considering the Beware of Attack Teacher sign outside the classroom door). Other songs are included because they describe me or remind me of a defining moment in my life. They are about my roots and my philosophies of life and teaching. I proudly take a different road, speak with an unconventional voice, and teach with an unfamiliar spirit. Finally, some songs are included because they are inspirational for anyone starting something new. I have attempted to put the songs in an order that makes them blend well and sound right when following one another when we play them during the first few days of class.

Back to School: Your Classroom Awaits

8/17/2021

Teachers know very well what it takes to prepare a classroom for the year; mostly it requires any self-respecting, dedicated teacher to work hours - off the clock and outside of the district's contract. As the custodians wax the entryway, workers examine the roof for leaks, secretaries set up things on the network, principals do whatever principals do, and teachers lug classroom furniture, climb ladders, and cut out cute little pictures for bulletin boards.

Additionally, I have literally set the stage for the school year. Our own classroom stage, sits in front of the SMART Board. Spotlights will bathe the stage when necessary.

One of the hardest parts of organizing the room, just like everywhere else in life, is putting things in places and remember where you put them. Teacher supplies collected for a period of over three decades can pile up, so finding places to put the piles can be a challenge. Only the most inventive of all public school teachers can attack such a task with panache and utilitarianism.

BE PREPARED, HOGGATTEERS; YOUR LIVES MAY NEVER BE THE SAME.

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