Sunday Reflection: April 17th

-
Each Sunday I find myself holed up in a coffee shop, I will write a reflection on the 
previous week and what is coming up ahead. 

 LOOK BACK

 This past week was all over the place, very much like a rollercoaster.  There were some high moments of joy, followed by some serious lows, and then a fair amount of evening out.  Some things that come to mind are all the laughs I had this week with coworkers about silly things.  One fun moment is when we discovered the old middle school mascot hat in the spare classroom; we had some fun claiming there were "birds" loose in the building.  Another joyful moment was the progress all of my classes made this week.  I feel like I am in solid position leading up to the state tests, and more importantly, I feel as though my students are really grasping the concepts they are being presented.  It has been a good flow.

 I hesitate calling the meeting with the student negative, because a lot of great things have come from it.  For me personally I have grown in the sense of watching how my peer interacted so gracefully with the student while I went about it like my old high-school football coach (i.e. not in a good way). The student is doing much better and I feel like that relationship between them and I will be strong for the rest of the year; I have high hopes.

 It is easy to get so wrapped up in what you are doing in your world that sometimes you have blinders on to everything else around you.  Looking back there were a lot of moments where people needed my attention for something, and I brushed it off.  I cannot be so dismissive when others are seeking me for an opinion, attention, or just conversation.  My hope is that I put those blinders aside this week and make a stronger effort to listen to my surroundings, and more importantly, the people I interact with daily.

 LOOK FORWARD

 One of my classes will be completely done with the curriculum this week!  This will give me a boat-load of time to get them ready for their exams and to help them pass with high marks.  One of my classes is on point and should have at least two weeks to get ready; my other geometry class will definitely finish the curriculum but review time will be limited.  Review is so crucial for these exams, but I do not want to sacrifice the learning of concepts for it.  I am nowhere near worried about it, and do not think I should be, so I feel comfortable moving the boat forward even with some of the little ice caps I see in the ocean....

 This week is the SOL Academy.  This means that on top of my normal day of teaching, I also have to go to a different high school and teach an additional two hours, helping remediate students for their Algebra I exams.  It truly is an eight-hour crash course on Algebra and some students come out of it with major success, but it is really taxing on everyone involved.  One thing I am looking forward to though is a major tweak that was made for attendance purposes; without going into too much detail, it has all the potential to make a huge impact on teaching time at the academy and at the same time reduce behavioral issues.  I remain steadfast optimistic and excited in using it

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Organization

-
Image
Organization is not my strong trait.  Well, let me rephrase that.....organization in a physical sense is not my strong trait.  Digital organization, however, is my jam.  I love keeping files neat and orderly throughout my devices and clouds.  Sometimes I even, gasp, delete emails from long ago!  One thing that always scares me though is seeing the state of someone else's organization.  It can be utterly terrifying, and more importantly, a time-suck to find something. Most people do not have some sort of system they use to keep things organized, which leads to loss in productivity in finding their files.  I know a lot of people that their desktop looks like a minefield, similar to the picture below this scares the teacher.... Too much going on is not only disorganized, but it can be a sign of too many applications on your computer , thus slowing it down.  Please note: just having a lot of documents and icons on your desktop does not ...
Read more

#TBT: The Disaster Lesson

-
Image
In honor of #tbt (throwback thursday), every Thursday will be a reflection on an event in my teaching career that has gotten me to this point.  Some will be amazing stories of success, others will hopefully leave you laughing, and some might be a bit dark.  It will also involve some old photo of me....that part should be fun. Two of the posters hanging in my dorm room freshman year at JMU,  and the beginning of what would eventually be known as my "picture face" The first lesson I ever taught had to do with proportions.  I remember that my partner and I were given a 7th grade classroom as part of our first practicum in college.  We met a couple of times leading up to our assigned teaching day, and prepared a pretty cool lesson.  We were going to have the students count the number of times they were able to shoot a ball into a basket for one minute, then use that to find how many shots they should expect to make after two minutes, five minutes, and ...
Read more

The Art of Listening

-
Image
After school I was reading an article from Yahoo! and it redirected me to Forbes.com.  Before taking me to my page, I was left with the above quote and a little time to ponder (before telling me to turn cookies on).  That quote hit home for something that came up today. As teachers the oldest method of instruction known to us is Direct.  The teacher stands at the front of the classroom or at their desk with their document camera, and goes through the notes as their students copy down everything they say.  It is embedded within us and a safe method, rather, a comforting method of education.  I am not here to argue the pros and cons of it, but to illustrate a point; us teachers do love some talking! I found myself in a rather tough situation with a student today.  The student is struggling in my class, but never asks for help and when I approach them they have the same rhetoric of "I'm good".  This is not just the case for one of my students, but...
Read more