I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve updated! Over 2 weeks, which just goes to show you how busy I’ve been. :)
Today is my planning day for next week. I was “off” yesterday, so I have to work today. That seems to be how my weekends have been going, and I’ve given up fighting it. I don’t have a choice in the one day off. I’ve tried working all seven days, and my brain and body just won’t cooperate. I’ll sit down at my computer and just stare. My legs will keep getting twitchy and I’ll end up taking a nap for the rest of the day. It obvious I need the rest, and to stay healthy, I really can’t ignore it.
I really didn’t have much of a choice in my day off this week. The Kiddo had marching band competition yesterday and my old band director, Uncle Jack, was one of the judges! I was hoping that I would get a chance to talk to him, but I should’ve known better. Those judges stay sequestered up in the press box and anything they need is brought to them. They probably even have lunch catered up there for them! But I did catch a glance of good ‘ol Uncle Jack and it was nice to know that he was up there doing what he does best.
The Kiddo’s school made a I at competition and will be one of two schools advancing to Area competition next Saturday. So, I get to repeat this weekend next weekend! Yay! At least next weekend I’ll know what to expect. 1) Go to bed ridiculously early on Friday (which means I’ll need to leave school before 8pm). 2) Get up at least an hour before we need to leave so that I can take a proper shower and get dressed in something besides t-shirt weight capris and a short sleeved shirt. 3) Bring a heavier jacket.
We had a cool front come in Friday, dropping the temperature from high 80s/low 90s to the mid-70s with a brisk, cold wind. Sitting in the backyard is awesome. Sitting high up in stadium seating with the sun in your eyes wearing t-shirt weight clothing, not so much.
Anyway, the kids performed beautifully and I was SO proud of them. Their marching was fantastic, precise, sharp, but their playing…well, it wasn’t bad, but it had no umph. No power. You can tell that a lot of the kids were marching, but not playing, and that’s not good when you’re only putting 150-odd people on the field. And it’s even worse when you’re one of only two military-style marching bands left in your region and you don’t play to the audience. The new, corps-style marching keeps the players facing the press box at all times. Old, military-style marching has the players facing the direction they’re marching at all times. Sometimes, they’re facing the end zones and sometimes they’re facing the other side line. When that happens, you almost can’t hear them. Military-style marching takes a lot of volume to make up for the fact that your back is to your audience more than half the time, and the Kiddo’s band isn’t quite doing it yet. They sound good, they’re just too quiet.
But they look awesome!
Last weekend was a 3-day weekend for me (we had Monday off for Columbus Day), and I took great advantage of it. I rested on Saturday and then got to work in a big way on Sunday. Last week was a really screwed up week, teaching-wise. We had a lesson on Tuesday and Friday, but Wednesday and Thursday were lost to a district assessment. It actually ended up working out beautifully for me because that meant I really only had two days I had to lesson plan for. On Saturday, I got my worksheet keys done, and put together the PowerPoint presentation I’ve been using for my warm-ups and notes. About 4 hours later, I was done with the week’s planning and was able to start on THIS week’s lessons. I actually got big chunks of this coming week done, plus started working on the rest of the grading period. I still have a little I need to do for this week (working out my keys and uploading them into the PowerPoint is one thing), and then I can start doing big chunks of NEXT week’s. And that, really, was my goal last weekend. Since I had an extra day to work, AND I had only two days last week I needed to write plans for, I was able to get myself about a full week ahead. This gives me more time to plan for using manipulatives, games, and projects to teach with. Before, all I could do was lecture, give notes, and do worksheets. I don’t feel this is sufficient for my students to truly learn the material. They need time for discovery, which guided use of manipulatives and games can give them. I also had last week to go through some of the ancillary materials I’ve been given lately, and pull out some of the manipulative activities so that I can prep the materials.
I’ve been a little starved for feedback at work, but I didn’t realize it until Friday when I was meeting with my mentor. (I say “meeting” but it’s not nearly as formal as that. I usually just walk into her classroom after school, sit down and we chat for however long. It feels more like a “visit” than a “meeting”.) I was talking to her about my fifth period class and how rowdy they usually are. I talk to her about them a LOT because they are my hardest group to manage. It’s by far my biggest class, and they come to me right after lunch, so I have some really difficult days with them sometimes. But Friday, I think I finally got over the “classroom management” issues with them and have moved into “instructional issues”. So, I was talking to my mentor about the fact that with a class this size and this rowdy, I’m struggling with connecting with individuals. I don’t have time to work with individual students, and instead I’m teaching the whole group all the time. Whereas, in my other classes, I have plenty of time to talk to individual students, to work with the ones who are struggling apart from the group, and to form relationships and connections with each one so that they, as a group, are beginning to really settle into a comfort zone in my class. I’m getting more response from my other classes, more discussion, more risk-taking. I have kids there who aren’t afraid to speak up if they have a different idea or if they got a different answer. They’re asking questions if they don’t understand or if they got an answer wrong. And folks, it’s a BEAUTIFUL thing to witness! But fifth period…they’re starting to get there, but it’s slow-going, and frustrating. For some kids in that class, they will NEVER get to the point that they are comfortable with being wrong or making a mistake in front of the group or with taking a risk in how they approach a problem. I hate it. So, my mentor and I were brainstorming potential solutions, one of which might actually work (shifting schedules of students), when she stops mid-sentence and just looks at me for a long moment. Then she says that a couple of the language arts teachers have come to her to talk about me. I was sure that I was about to hear complaints. Teachers are notorious for trying to tear each other down and for nit-picking someone else to take the spotlight off their own shortcomings. But then she blew my mind. Turns out, my students have started talking about me to their other teachers. ”Mrs. A is my favorite teacher!” ”I love my math class.” ”I still hate math, but I like the class I’m in this year.” ”I like the way Mrs. A puts stuff so that I can understand it better.” ”She stopped the whole class so that she could explain something to me. Nobody’s ever done that before.” ”She’s always joking around with us. I like it because it keeps me from stressing out over my homework.”
Seriously. The language arts teachers were so overwhelmed with what their students were saying about me that they had some of the kids write down what they thought of my class. Not a single one of these comments came with a name attached, but I’m starting to recognize the handwriting of my kids. Two or three of them I can identify, but the rest are a mystery to me. My mentor says that whatever I’m doing, I just need to keep doing it. I AM getting through to them, I AM teaching, I AM making a difference.
Thank God.
