Teachers take a little we time

School starts in less than a month, but kindergarten teachers at Parks Elementary in Ceres will be ready.

Sharon Crain and Lisa Maldonado are among 20 teachers spending a week at California State University, Stanislaus planning math lessons for the year ahead with math professor Viji Sundar.

“We wanted to take advantage of the time, in an environment where we can talk to other educators,” Crain said. What are they getting out of it? “Ideas. Validation – more questions!” she said.

“The goal is to give teachers time to have enough lessons planned for the first four weeks. You know, a lot of times teachers can be stumbling one week to another,” Sundar said. The week cost $150 if booked by mid-June, including free stuff for the classroom. In four weeks, the teachers are invited back to plan the next month, enticed by more free stuff.

With a couple of Common Core years under their belts, Maldonado and Crain focused on finishing up the last of next year’s lessons, talking over how to use geometric blocks, letting youngsters tap into their inner engineers.

In kindergarten, kids need to grasp number basics like how many each of those squiggles on paper represents. Which number is the biggest? Does adding make a pile larger or smaller? Sounds easy, but it takes some forethought to get something so simple across.

At the other end of the age spectrum, first-year high school teacher Gustavo Hernandez said he came to gather tools and tips. A physics major as an undergrad, the math is less daunting than the range of abilities he will have teaching new immigrants in the Language Institute program at Davis High in Modesto. Some arrive knowing only basic addition while others are tackling algebra.

“I’m going to have my hands full,” he said. One of the first things he worked on was planning the workflow of assignments. “In order to have a class moving smoothly, it’s all about procedures,” Hernandez said.

Math I teachers Mark Gonzales, at Beyer High in Modesto, and Enrique Lopez, at Orestimba High in Newman, were looking for fresh ways to get algebra across using Common Core methods.

“By the end (of last year) I was getting kind of bored and tired. The kids were too,” Lopez said. “My thing is habits. I want to get them into good habits. They’ve got to get the mindset that can do it.”

Talking to other teachers was the biggest benefit, Gonzales said, especially the junior high and elementary teachers he never sees at Beyer.

Veronica Chaidez, a math teacher at Johansen High in Modesto, volunteered to help at the session but said working through the material with others gave her new inspiration. “I’m actually learning a lot,” she said.

Fractions took center stage at the middle school table. “Most adults just do the rule and (finger snap). But we want the kids to know why,” said Danielle Silveira, sitting with colleague Arturo Garcia. Both teach sixth grade at Walnut Elementary in Turlock.

“We wanted to be on the same page. There’s some equity there for all our students,” Garcia said.

Planning goes better with the full-day focus, Silveira said. Plus, it gives her time to think through better ways to approach a lesson.

“Stretching your own brain as a teacher doesn’t always happen,” she said.

This story was originally published July 14, 2016 at 5:55 PM with the headline "Teachers take a little we time."