I'm not sure what to write about today; I just wanted to let you know I'm still here. Just finished the first week of school and it's kind of nice to get back into the swing of things, although my daily schedule has me running all over the third floor from place to place to the point that I think that, to go along with my prior post, I will pull out the lovely Earth shoes (got 'em crazy on sale) and my Dansko clogs a lot more than I did last year.
The students' first assignment had them telling me what they considered as "good" teacher qualities and writing about their favorite teacher and why they liked that person. I found it quite eye-opening that so many of them appreciated a teacher who struck the balance between work and play: They wanted a teacher who could make the class interesting and fun, but they also appreciated a teacher who made them work hard and made it clear when they had to buckle down. Now, of course I had kids who wanted no homework and more movies, but the majority seemed to value a teacher who really made them learn...in an entertaining way. Many also like group work, which is kind of how they grew up learning in grade school. Why not? Don't you often have to work with others in your job? Collaborate and all that? It makes sense to me. So now I have more of a direction to go in, plus practically all of them got 100% simply by doing the assignment, so they start off feeling good. Will I fulfill all of their expectations? Probably not all of them, but I agreed with a lot of what they said, so I think we'll be ok.
Most of this week will involve intense scheduling: T and I both have very full autumn schedules, he with work and coaching, I with teaching, my book group, and choir, so we plan to sit down every Sunday, sketch out a few meals, exercise time, and "us" time. His birthday's this weekend, so that will be fun, but it also means I don't have a lot of the weekend to lesson plan. Sister M., if you want to help with the calendar, please do. (M. is great at this, so I gave her access to my Google calendar. So far she's added her wedding date. Seriously, she's been so helpful!) This whole organization thingie all seems terribly adult to me, really. Is this how it works when you actually know what's happening ahead of time but keep the flexibility to know that life throws in a curve ball whenever it feels the need?
So on that note I'm off to input grades and figure out lesson plans for Brit Lit, because my kids are waaaay too bright for the lesson plans the previous teacher used, so I have to make new ones. Thank God for the Internet. Have a good week and don't trust the media. That's my two cents on politics; commenting on the presidential race would merit a separate post.
Happy...third week of September and happy birthday, M.!
1 comment:
Their comment about the group work is interesting. In grad school, we all HATED group projects. We had them constantly and always resented them. Maybe in high school you haven't figured out yet that group work never works out fairly and that there's always one person who does nothing and one person who tries to take over the whole thing. As a program full of Type As, we always just wanted to do it ourselves.
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