The Origin of the YAG

I have told this story a few times, but I wanted to expand on this a bit more. 

My Journey into Education: The "Expectation"

I began my teaching journey when I was very young. And, I'm talking pre-Y2K. But Linda, you might say, you're only 30... Pre-Y2K has you in single digits. Good math skills, reader. It does. See, I knew I wanted to be a teacher by the time I was in kindergarten. And, I started taking action in the 2nd grade. I went to elementary school at Archer Community School (recently renamed to Archer Elementary School). This lovely place had all exterior doors on the classrooms. There were no "hallways" to monitor. No places to sit in the morning. And, my mother would drop us off at school before the teachers would even get there most days. So, while we waited for any other humans to show up, my sister and I sat on the concrete sidewalks, rain or shine. Luckily, it's Florida, so it doesn't get dangerously cold, but it still rains pretty much every day of the year and it does get uncomfortably cold for a little kid who's never seen snow. After doing this for kindergarten and 1st grade, I was kinda fed up. It was too dark for me to read (lo and behold, my vision was crappy anyways, but the lighting didn't help) and we didn't have smart phones or "tablets" back then. SOOOO.... I told my 2nd-grade teacher that in the mornings, I was going to read to the Head Start kiddos. Every morning when I got to school, I would head to the Head Start classes (which opened much earlier than the rest of the school) and I would grab one of those large teacher books (the gigantic story books) and a gaggle of even tinier children, and I would read to them. I would help with getting kids from the bus, clean the classroom, handle breakfast... pretty much whatever was needed. It kept me busy in the morning (so, not bored) and it got me a lot of praise from the Head Start staff. And, I really loved the kids and how happy it made them to hear stories read to them. When I got stronger, I even started teaching some of them how to read and that felt even better. So, I stuck with it for the year.

In 3rd grade, I started to repeat the process, but the school got new policies about students in classes throughout the day (this is post-April 1999...) and I was again expected to sit outside my classroom, "guarded" by a Safety Patrol member, waiting for my teacher. Luckily, my 3rd-grade teacher - Linda Woodcock - got to school before the sun did. So, I had a place to go every morning. Again, I would read and I would help others with homework and whatever. But, she saw that "teacher spark" in my eyes. She was the first person to tell me that I should go into teaching. And, she made it her mission to make me a good teacher. Here I am in 3rd grade:

• learning about lessons

• learning about the philosophy of grading

• learning about how people actually learn

• getting pointers on tutoring techniques

• learning differentiation skills (but, it wasn't called differentiation back then)

• learning how to grade, maintain a gradebook, use an EZ Grader (mine's teal)

I helped with everything. I got to see the teacher's editions and see how those were written and what was included. (Spoiler Alert: They were, and still are, typically terrible.) I got to see new technologies as they released (the next year, Gradebook, the "digital gradebook solution", was released and I still remember it!). But, I also got to see the support she gave me as a "new teacher" in her eyes. I saw the support that the other teachers gave me and each other. I saw a healthy school - from my point of view. 

I went on to experience a middle school and high school that also - again, from an outsider looking in - appeared to support their teachers. I was an aide every year from sixth thru junior year, so I feel like it anyone was gonna see how they were treated, it was me. 

Sophomore year, I met Dr. Cynthia Holland, my chemistry teacher. My high school science experience thus far had been something like microwaved McDonald's leftovers: if you thought the fresh batch was disappointing, wait until you try to heat it up a week later. So, I wasn't really holding out for my love of science to stay whole. At the time, I was banking on a True Mathematics degree with a computer science and English minor. But, I started to really like chemistry. Chemistry was that perfect match of science and writing and math that I already enjoyed, all in one subject. 

However, Dr. Holland was a pretty busy woman. Around October, I remember asking for the scores to the Unit 1 test from September. The tests were still on her desk, in a stack, ungraded. We worked out a deal that I could help grade tests and other stuff before and after school, so long as I got to hang out in her room and not in the crowded and noisy gym. I also got out of "non-essential prep rallies," which I was pretty thrilled with. (Medical issues kept me from playing sports, and I had made the varsity basketball team that summer. I was salty.) Not only did I get another mentor who saw that spark, but I also got to see the high school side of teaching. I saw lesson planning for secondary, which is night and day from elementary. We talked about classroom management, organization of lab supplies, how to keep a chemical storage, and much more. I had two years of mentorship with an awesome instructor.  

Again, I saw teachers who were given resources, budgets for PD, told to take time off: back then, teaching looked healthy and supportive. I continued to work in education throughout college and saw the same thing. So, I thought: everything is gonna be fine. I'm going to get curriculum resources, supplement as I wish, and worst case scenario: you have Exam View. How bad could it be?

Welcome to the Real World: The Reality

I walked into teaching bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after college. By this point, I had 4 years of TA/Grad Assistant under my belt. Two research studies worked on: one in the affects of hybrid learning and one in the efficacy of post-college subject transitions for chemistry teachers. I had designed courses from scratch, made labs, graded more than I cared to admit to myself, handled lab safety, and more. I knew that classroom management would be a struggle because I was "young," but I was ready for that. So long as I had a basic starting point, I would be fine. And, my single science education class with it's five students had told me that as a science teacher, I would get a ton of support because schools NEED science teachers. So, I set off into the world.

I got hired to teach chemistry and a physical science course for "recaptured learners" (read: fifth + year seniors) at a school in Marion Co., FL. Coming into the classroom, I had NOTHING. And - I mean - nothing. Every cabinet was empty. Every book, gone. There wasn't even a chair in my room; I had to snag one from a student desk until I could get one later. I had a textbook, but no teacher's edition. I had Infinite Campus and that was about it. I asked for lessons and was told "I'm sure a colleague will give you some." That was laughable. My 'mentor' teacher rather preferred the hands-off method where he would walk into my class, look at my lessons, and make a "tsk" sound every day. We would chat about the kids; he could hear them eating me alive. He would offer the great advise of "you should work on classroom management." Thanks, Chief. I had no idea...

But, I was drowning. I didn't have the management skills, the support from staff or administration, or the physical supplies to teach. Add on to it the class sizes and sheer poverty I was up against: I ended up being asked to leave mid-year after a screaming match with my principal. Did I do right? Hell no. Did they? Hell no. Two wrongs don't make it right and I was a definite party in this matter. It took me a year and a half to go back to teaching. I subbed for a while, ran some card shops, traveled, and lived the life of a stay-at-home-wife. But, I missed teaching. What I didn't miss was the lack of support. 

So, after a bit of growing up (that happens when you have a kid), I started a new job in Jacksonville Beach, FL teaching 6th grade science. I came in pretty salty and with a lot of doubt. Again, I was on a huge team. I figured I would be good. And, this time - I HAD A TEACHER'S EDITION!!! Was it a complete curriculum? Hell no. Was it better than last time? Hell yes! Not only was classroom management suprisingly easier for me, but I had support (for the most part) when there was an issue. Parents were tricky, but it was more of a "Karen doesn't like that her princess got a 94% on the test; they only accept 100% in their house" kinda issue. I figured I wouldn't mind sticking it out in 6th grade science. So, I started to build a system. All of my resources were in folders and in those folders were day folders and in those day folders were the materials I used. If I wanted the "Inside Out Analysis" for the last day of my Brain sub-unit within the Human Body unit within Quarter 4, the folders were:

Quarter 4 -> Human Body -> Brain -> Day (whatever number that was) -> Inside Out Analysis

This was... okay. And honestly, I could have lived like this. But, I was on a team and I wanted to share my stuff. And, to be honest, folders aren't the easiest thing to share, especially before the Cloud. So, I needed something a little cleaner.

I thought I would ride out my teaching career at this middle school. As much as 6th graders shared the beejeebees out of me, the school was really good. I had an AMAZING team; like, to this day, I have not worked with a team with that much synergy (shoutout to Susan and Aadae). But, then I learned that they were both leaving. And, my husband's job was moving us to Kentucky. So, I started again. New school - new state - new slate.

Walking into Kentucky, I was more jaded. I knew damn well that I would have nothing. Add to that the fact that I was warned that we would move in about a year, so don't get attached... And, lo-and-behold, this district tried to prove me wrong. They gave me a textbook. The previous teacher retired, so I had everything that ever existed in her classroom (we'll talk about hoarding and education in a later blog, but I'm coming back to that). And, I had "bundles".... kinda. They were lesson plans from last year and they referenced the book or the lab or the worksheet, but they didn't always HAVE the lab or the book or the worksheet to go with them, and often I couldn't find it. I started to use them as much as I could until I realized that they didn't match the needs of my students. See, these bundles (for intro chemistry) covered the atom, matter, chemical reactions, and stoichiometry. That was it. In perspective, in my chem YAG, these four topics take up approx. 3 months of content. Maybe a quarter and a half. Not a whole freakin' year. So, in order to meet the standards AND to give my students a well-rounded education, I was in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" phase.

• Reduce: Find the fluff activities that just reteach something they already know. Set those aside.

• Reuse: Find the decent activities that you like. Keep them.

• Recycle: Find the activities that are okay. Modify what you can. 

Anything that didn't fit this was "new," or the stuff I pulled offline. And, this worked. Really well. I managed a single chem prep pretty well, though I had "Honors" and "Standard" chemistry. (Again, issue for another blog.) I still had my folders like I had for middle school, but I started playing around with Google. I had been using the Google tools for YEARS and I liked them a fair bit. When I saw another school's daily lessons, I was sold. That school had a slide deck:

• The first slide was a list of all of the months in that school year

• The next slide was a calendar of the month (for the example, let's use August). On August, you saw 1-3 word descriptions of what was being taught, but that was it. School holidays and events were blocked out and color coded to show that no class or partial class was happening. 

• Each day was a hyperlink. Clicking on it would take you to a slide for the day. The slide had three sections:

  • The Unit-Lesson title (Unit 1: Atoms - Parts of the Atom)

  • The plan for the day (start with this bellwork, then do this activity)

  • The standards

  • Any materials needed

  • What was gonna be graded?

I like this look, but I didn't like the slides idea. That was a LOT of slides. (About 200.) Would it was just overwhelmed by the amount of time I thought it would take it make it. So, I decided to mock everything up on a single google doc, that I called my Year at a Glance, or YAG.

Building the First YAG: Reduce - Reuse - Recycle

Wanna see one of my old YAGs?

So, I started on my Year at a Glance journey that summer. I started by identifying my units, which needed to be the units for NGSS, but I loosely based it on NGSS. I focused on making the units we already had better. To do this, I actually defined each of the units. Then, I wrote 8-10 standards that would go with the unit: what would I teach in this unit?