To Whom It May Concern:

​It is our tendency to paint things in a positive light.  In fact, that seems to be what most of us do with our (anti)social media accounts.  Other than politics, we like post the good news about our families.  Even with politics, however, we tend to portray our own beliefs with positive messages before trashing the other guy.  Perhaps it comes from years of Madison Avenue telling us about their wonderful products through print and broadcast advertising.

The same must be true of teachers with websites or means of electronic communication with parents.  We want people to see our classrooms, our students, and our teaching as flawless and compelling, always engaging, challenging and unique.  Who has two thumbs and represents those tendencies?  This guy.

Earlier in the week I sent this message to the parents of students in my class:

Contrary to popular belief, our classroom, my students, and believe it or not, even the teacher is not perfect.  We constantly have to adjust our idiosyncrasies, our thoughts, and our habits to fit the classroom culture and the society in which we live.  We find ourselves making mistakes that hurt others emotionally (and, at times, physically) when we didn't mean to.  Sometimes we even hurt them on purpose and then regret it.  We say things that pop into our heads without thinking about their ramifications.  We go for the laugh without considering the feelings of our listeners.  And we don't have any idea what peers and passersby might be going through internally.

One child lives in poverty, his family scrounging for meals and sleeping on the floor.  Another has a house infested with fleas that keep her up at night.  Still another has to wear the same clothes day after day.  Yet another wonders if her electricity will ever be turned back on.  Too many come to us from broken families, abuse, or other unknown backgrounds, not to mention diagnoses of dyslexia, ADHD, autism, mental health issues, and the like.  Things occur every day that affect our attitudes and outlooks on life.  Our dog dies, someone in the family has an accident, or someone loses a job, just to mention a few.

The same happens with the teacher.  This year has brought a variety of challenges to our family.  Even before a killer virus was on our horizon, crippling our economy, we were met with the challenge of dealing with my daughter's anxiety and conversion disorder.  Just a few months ago, she was unable to walk without some firm assistance, and she often fell completely over even when sitting still in a chair.  In the spring of this year, we thought we might lose her altogether.  And now, my dad, who has virtually no experience with health maladies, is experiencing kidney problems that are knocking him for a loop.  He entered the hospital to address that issue on Monday, and doctors quickly discovered he also has pneumonia.  This, for a 78-year-old man, can be concerning, and I know he and my mom are in the back of my thoughts as I teach.

This year's crop of Hoggatteers is a good one.  My students offer little in the way of behavioral challenges.  Most have a drive that presses them to stick with a problem until they conquer it.  They love to write, paying attention to details.  They know when to be serious and when to be serious about having fun.  But occasionally, we all have "one of those days".  I know it's just as much the teacher as it is the students, but on Monday, things just weren't clicking.  Things weren't in sync.  Everything just seemed off-kilter.  Some tattled.  Some called other kids names and threatened to hurt them.  Some teased relentlessly.  Things finally came to a head.  I needed to remain calm for them. After all, I love my Hoggatteers.  These kids have so much potential.

I want my families to understand that I'm not trying to put lipstick on a pig when I report what is happening at school.  We genuinely do enjoy our time here.  I love presenting lessons differently.  I spend many hours outside of the school day, attempting to get it right and make it memorable.  That is not to say, however, that every minute is perfect and that we don't make mistakes.  My hope is that when I send a message like the one above, that parents will realize that I am being genuine and truthful.  Honesty is the best policy, and I don't ever want it to seem like I'm trying to gloss over something that is not all that glossy.  Yes, I like to stay positive and on top of things, but there are times when I get behind and overextended.  As much as I don't want to admit it, I am only human, and my class is not always bathed in perfection.

Your humble servant,
​Mr. Hoggatt

I finally got my hands on the last book on the 2021 Mark Twain award nominees, but I can't say it was worth the wait.  I'm not sure why this one made the list.  As much as the premise works, the execution of the story simply doesn't work.

If you're waiting for a raccoon to eat a donut, or doughnut (as the cover implies), you can just keep waiting.  The raccoon doesn't even show up until the end, and then is only written off as something that matter-of-factly occurs as Tristan gets his products to market.  In fact, there are multiple things that have nothing to do with the story and are never resolved. While the story is not a bad one, surely this one does not merit a state award.

After studying the plantations at Jamestown, Virginia, in the early 1600s, we discovered that the main, money-making crop was tobacco.  We know this to be a hazardous substance when smoked in the forms of cigarettes, cigars, and pipes (and also when taken in other forms).  However, to make the lesson bleed into another area of our curriculum, we decided to utilize the large leaf for a pre-pre-writing exercise.

I cut the "leaves" from large sheets of brown construction paper and drew simple "veins" onto one side.  For a finishing touch - and to push it over the edge - I sprayed each leaf with a pumpkin-scented air freshener.  We had watched a video about tobacco farming - including a good deal of conversation about the dangers of tobacco use - so students seemed to instinctively pick up their leaves to smell them.  The subtle scent brought them to life and added a little extra interest to do well in the upcoming assignment.

The assignment?  It was pretty open-ended actually.  Students were to choose a topic - an object with multiple parts.  On one side of the leaf, each was to write his topic.  On the side with veins, they were to write the parts of their chosen topics, one for each vein.

The next day, we discussed writing an organized paragraph.  Students eagerly took to writing their own sentences, and finally rewriting them in paragraph form.

This is a report from our "fall" NWEA assessments.  It shows which students achieved high scores on the tests, as well as how well they did or did not improve since the battery of tests they took a year ago.  Not all students had previous scores to justify their placement on this chart, so they are not on this report.

The green plusses indicate math scores, while the purple squares represent reading, and the gray pentagons are language scores.  Ideally, we want as many students in the green quadrant, showing that they have achieved high scores and increased by a significant amount.  Those students in the pink zone are the ones with the most concern.  The ones in yellow have decent scores, but did not make much progress in the last year, and the orange section is for students who improved, but still did not score high enough.

Everything here is based on the 50th percentile, meaning the yellow and green quadrants are for individuals who scored higher than the half of the students who took the test nationwide, and the green and orange quadrants display students who improved more than half of the students who were tested.

Here are some observations:
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• High achievement:  Math - 7 students; Reading - 12 students; Language - 11 students
• High improvement:  Math - 5 students; Reading - 10 students (two overlap);  Language - 8 students
• Low achievement:  Math - 8 students; Reading - 3 students; Language - 4 students
• Low improvement:  Math - 10 students; Reading - 6 students; Language - 8 students
• Close to the high achievement line (Raising scores could move them to the right side of the chart.):  Math - 5 students; Language - 3 students
• Close to the high improvement line (Significant improvement could move them to the top half of the chart.):  Math - 1 student; Reading - 4 students; Language - 2 students
• Close to high achievement and high improvement lines (A higher score and decent improvement could move them from the pink to the green.):  Language - 1 student

On Wednesday, our class hooked up with Michaela and Ben at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC.  The emphasis was on storytelling and the storytellers of historical events, and students were able to contribute through an online program called Pear Deck.

Though our audio connection wavered for us, students still surmised the main points of the presentation:
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• that the storyteller or the historian could have bias
• that people see events from varying perspectives (that could color their account)
• that the winners get to write the history
• that the heroes tend to embellish their own stories
• that minorities often get left out of history
• that history could be revised with new findings

I was pleased with my students when they were patient with the sound issues, when they responded appropriately to the presenters, and when they asked better questions at the end.  Some of them thought it was pretty cool that they were interacting with people in Washington, DC. 

Pay attention to the details.

Three burials were surrounded by coffin nails and discolored soil.  Students were led by the details to infer that one was a soldier, sporting a blue sash and injured by a musket ball.  Another was a respected and loved citizen who had a debilitating disease.  The third was an important religious leader.

The last three burials included a Native American, buried with wheat and sea shells and sporting some animal bite marks.  Another was the victim of survival cannibalism, and the last was an example of human sacrifice.

We only spent about 15 minutes making their original observations before we shared a classroom discussion about their findings.  We talked about the soil and the nails, and students helped their teammates interpret the evidence they had already gathered.  Then, they each recorded a correctly formed paragraph, complete with a main idea and three supporting details.

I did discover that the class is deficient in simple paragraph writing.  Some even told me they did not know what a paragraph was, and they hadn't heard of indenting.