A Bird’s Eye View

Last spring I mentioned that the students at Highlands were incredibly focused on their academics and that their parents put a lot of pressure on them to exceed the average expectations.  Beth is known for being a teacher that insists on challenging her students - parents love it, and some kids fear it.  We have spent this week talking about how we expect only their personal best, not perfection.  We’ve talked about how everyone has different strengths and that even on different days we are going to be at different achievement levels.   We have been pre-testing out students in reading, spelling, and math and are constantly telling them not to stress out about it.  All of this discussion about personal best has made me realize that in order to give my personal best, I need to make sure that I don’t let my life completely out of balance this year.  So, considering that I am at school no later than 8am and leave sometime around 4pm, I really should be spending my evenings enjoying my personal life, relaxing, taking care of planning and grading, and getting a good amount of physical exercise and sleep.  This leaves very little time for tutoring even a couple of students.  So I am seriously considering not-working for the next year.  This is a really strange thought for me - I’ve always worked. Seriously - I worked through high school and college and haven’t really taken a break.  So this would be weird for me.  

My students said some really funny things today - but I totally forgot what it was.  I will have to start making notes in my agenda, because really - the things that kids say are absolutely hilarious.  Also, I taught a little bit in math today.  I’m not really sure how I did, I’m going to have to ask Beth her opinion tomorrow.  But I was excited - I love teaching math.  

I spent two hours in the copy room today making not-so legal copies of a particular curriculum so that the entire class could have a set.  During those two hours (I promise that I’m not over exaggerating) I had some reflection time.  I know that the financial support provided to schools is a joke, but seriously - if I hadn’t made the copies, Beth would have had to spend two of her hours making class booklets because it’s not in the budget to buy the real deal from the company. BOGUS.  I have noticed that, in general, everything takes longer than I originally think it will.  This is frustrating because I usually have great time management skills, but I swear, it’s like I sit down in the morning to go over plans and drink a cup of tea (still no coffee for me, I think I might actually survive life without coffee) and then I do just a couple of really short things and the day is gone.  

Final thought for the day: I am already starting a collection of teaching resources.  One of the great things about Highlands is that there really isn’t a lack of copying supplies and there are plenty of opportunities for collaboration. I need to get some sort of filing cabinet to start organizing all of the goodies that I already know I am going to collect this year.

Hope the Caldwell interns had a great first day, can’t wait to see you guys on the 8th! (although I probably could wait for more classes)

Well, the last two days have been a little less exciting than I had anticipated.  I guess I don’t even know what I expected.  We have gone over the policies and procedures.  We have labeled every possible thing with students’ names.  We have gone over the policies and procedures.  We have done introductions.  And we have gone over policies and procedures.  I understand the reasoning behind the last two days.  The truth is that in order to walk into a classroom like I did last spring, and see a very well-behaved, engaged classroom like Beth’s is, you have to get the routine down during the first few days and weeks of school.  Had I not experienced all of the work that went into getting to this point, I would definitely not be prepared to have a good first few days of school next year on my own.

We have a great group of students this year, I am convinced.  Maybe it is new day nervousness, and the fact that the consensus is that Beth is a “hard” teacher.  But, I really think we got lucky and were assigned a studious and cooperative group.  We have eleven 6th graders and thirteen 5th graders (that might be switched) and there are 16 girls and 8 boys.  I was a little nervous about the boy to girl ratio, especially at this age because girls can sometimes get catty and clique-ish (or at least that’s what I remember as a girl), but I think that it is going to be all right.  

I am really excited to get into our math instruction, because it is an advanced textbook and math is probably my favorite subject, or maybe a close second to reading.  There is a LOT of planning that goes into putting together what a “regular day” is going to look like for us in a couple of weeks. Grouping for math and reading takes a lot of analyzing assessments and outside-of-school-hour meetings.  I have a huge appreciation for all of my “good” teachers who put this kind of effort into my education.

It’s definitely my bedtime - I get up really early because I am so SLOW in the morning, as you all remember from this summer.  

Hope that all is well in your classrooms, I am excited to catch up when classes start again!