Mr. O's Classroom Edit display name

Current requests

Past projects 46

• Let Me Buy Your Friendly Help Thus Far

  Funded Dec 4, 2024

  Thank you for your support! It's been a while, but we've taken in two of the three guitars for set ups. The second should be ready soon, and then I'll take in the third one. It's good for us in Rock Band Club to do most of the maintenance ourselves, as part of our club activities, but most players have a pro set up their instruments from time to time.

  We have a couple electric basses that need some tlc, too, so they will be our next focus. This semester is already half passed, and we're beginning to plan for next year. Another instructor joined the effort this semester, and he's been taking lessons, too.

  Thanks again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

  This classroom project was brought to life by The DonorsChoose Community and 5 other donors.

• Creating Physical Journals in the Digital Age

  Funded Aug 12, 2024

  It's great to have support from the community for our efforts to provide interesting lessons for our students! We instructors spend so much of our time, effort, and money on our students, and we don't resent doing so, it can be difficult to manage, especially for high school instructors with over 100 students. My wife is an elementary school teacher, and she sometimes spends five or more dollars each on about 20-25 students, about $100 total, but for this project, we were able to provide nearly 100 students with about $10 of sketchbooks and colored pens each, over $1000 total! Being able to do that for students is great.

  Thanks again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

  This classroom project was brought to life by Google.org Teen Mental Health Initiative.

• Commemorate Division 1 CIF Playoffs!

  Funded May 7, 2024

  Thank you donors for donating to this project! Your donation has done a lot for us tennis players. Currently, we are using the new resources to wear around school and represent the VHS Girl's Tennis Team in hopes to get more support from our fellow peers and school staff. The moment we received the merch, we put them on, took pictures while wearing them, and walked around school with them on. It was definitely a happy moment for the team, the players were very excited and thankful.

  Our next steps for our students on a current team lesson or project is preparing for the

  upcoming new tennis season. With these new merchandise, which they'll be able to wear before practice and matches, and even during warmups, to boost the team spirit, deepen our passion to play tennis with our best efforts. Thank you again donors! Words cannot describe how grateful we are you chose to support the Venice High School Girls Varsity Tennis Team.

  From,

  VHS Girls Varsity Tennis Team”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

• Recent Titles in Theoretical and Experimental Social Science

  Funded Feb 28, 2024

  Thank you again, donors and DonorsChoose! It's really great to feel support from the community. This time, I can not only thank everyone who contributed, but I can also recommend the titles for anyone interested in education, motivation, happiness, creativity, etc. Zorn and Marz' Golden, Cain's Quiet, and Nuremberg' Divergent Mind might offer insights not only into getting along with and understanding others but also ourselves, our strengths, and our challenges. Lieberman's Molecule, Christian's Alignment, and Sapolsky's Determined go beyond the individual, the interpersonal, beyond the species, into human, animal, and machine learning more broadly, connecting social and natural science. Each of these texts has been useful and interesting on its own, but together they've made for a very good set of lessons over the last few years. Classroom instructors often whine about administrators who don't teach, haven't taught in years or decades or ever, but the world of classroom instruction is very different now after COVID. One of the things I now say is that people who haven't taught since before COVID aren't only a few years out of practice, they're a whole generation out of date. We instructors are rarely if ever given the chance to pursue our own interests with primary sources in this way. Thank you!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

• Music and Sweet Fire…Celestial as Thou Art

  Funded Nov 29, 2022

  Thanks again! It's so nice to have support from people in the community. The pictures show how we had things set up for full band format practice: complete drumset with low volume cymbals/heads, several electric guitars, basses, and amps. As far as I know, the rooms I've set up similarly at three different schools were the only that way out of hundreds, if not thousands of classrooms. Few high schools have any support for students to create their own music with friends and stage performances. Thanks again to DonorsChoose and all the community supporters!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

  This classroom project was brought to life by an Anonymous Classroom Supporter and one other donor.

• 'Tis a Playing Day, I See

  Funded Nov 28, 2022

  Thank you so much for your contributions! The students were very excited to see all the strings. If you'd like to imagine the sound effects that go along with the pictures of the happy hands reaching into the box, there were lots of oohs and aahs. The other images show what the room's like pretty much everyday these days, during such and the morning break. They're getting a little more coordinated, and they're beginning to vocalize a little. It's hard for many of us to get used to singing while playing, and they're all working on shouting, "Search and Destroy!" at the appropriate point. Yay! Thanks again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

• 2022 Girls Tennis Team Gear

  Funded Jan 4, 2023

  From the team:

  Thank you so much for your generous donation! It's donors like you who unify our team. Your contribution is enabling us to grant our team with uniforms, as well as make progress toward getting more support for our team around the school. We're so grateful that you've chosen to help us along our journey and instilled hope in each of our members for the continued seasons. As captains, we are thankful that our goal was so quickly attained with your assistance. After 4 years of off campus practice and numerous playoff games each season, it truly means the world for us to be able to commemorate the fantastic time we had on the team, even after we graduate. Thanks again!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

• Dost Thou Hear Me Old Friend; Canst Thou Play…?

  Funded Aug 22, 2022

  Thank you very much for your contributions!

  The students were happy to see the speakers arrive, even if they were also a little bit intimidated. For some of the rockers, vocals are one of the most challenging aspects of playing music.

  One of the songs that guitar players like to learn is Paranoid, by Black Sabbath. It's a great rock song, and even though the lyrics are weird, without them, it doesn't even really sound like a song anymore, but almost just one line.

  Thanks again, everyone! It's amazing how many of you support so many projects at our school! May the screaming (and singing) begin!”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

  This classroom project was brought to life by Spotify and one other donor.

• One more, most welcome, makes my number more

  Funded May 5, 2022

  It's so nice to be able to have in person Rock Band Club again! Metallica riffs in the classroom are what I've been hearing this week. Yesterday, a couple guys were playing in harmony. I told them I used to dislike that sound and make fun of bands like iron maiden that had so many Guitar Players on stage, but now I like the sound, and it's impressive to see beginners who don't know the whole song yet working together to be able to play like that at the same time.

  Someone who's never played drums before has been pounding away on beginning format. It's really tough at first for most of us to coordinate our hands and feet in different directions at the same time. It's part of the reason why I do rock band club with students. Tone person has probably spent 10 to 20 hours in the last couple weeks 20-30 minutes at a time, and it's been very difficult for him , as it is for most of us at first. But he keeps doing it because he has the internal motivation to learn, and the struggle and the difficulty are just not as important as reaching the goal and being able to play.

  James Hetfield in an interview talked about how many of us grow up watching people play guitar, and wishing we could, and wanting to be able to, but knowing that nobody just picks one up and, as he said "ta-da," starts playing. It's a long and difficult many hours. Many of them lonely, some of them painful, some of them embarrassing, but I'm laughing as I write this, and it sure is nice to hear it going on again in the classroom thanks everybody.”

  With gratitude,

  Mr. O

  This classroom project was brought to life by SONIC Drive-In and 6 other donors.