So... the time until Thanksgiving is counting down, very slowly. I'm sitting here compulsively avoiding my prep for tomorrow (because I really just don't feel like doing it). Really, 75% of the work I have to do just involves cleaning up my own stuff around school, and I can't do that until tomorrow morning. Of course, when I'm at school, I just compulsively delay doing that too. I really need this Thanksgiving vacation... now.
We're going to start reading a book as a class tomorrow; I've borrowed a set of books from another fourth-grade teacher. I think it will only take a week, because this is a pretty easy book. Our grade is loosely starting a "Middle Ages unit".
I have one dilemma that I'm facing. One of my students still isn't showing a lot of improvement in spelling. When I say "not a lot of improvement," really I mean that she still spells everything phonetically in English (as well as in Spanish when there is some question, e.g. with silent "h", c/z/s mix-ups, etc). The question here, then, is whether this is some sort of disability. She doesn't recognize sometimes that she's spelled some words wrong until it's pointed out, and she clearly is making an effort to distinguish spellings (on tests I see her sometimes writing out multiple possibilities as a backup). She's repeating the fourth grade already, but last year was her first and only year chiefly in English. I'm not sure what the best thing to do is in this situation--there's got to be at least a better way of having her practice spelling, but I don't know the process for obtaining the information, which means that I've got to do some research.
I got about two-thirds of a weekend, because I spent Saturday morning at school filling out some useless paperwork. So I'm going to leave this entry rather disorganized as it is. Don't tell my kids that the paragraphs are of grossly differing lengths--they'd lose their respect for me as a writer.
Sunday, October 08, 2006
Monday, October 02, 2006
Backwards-planning my future
Well... guess I probably owe everyone a post. Thanks to those who have asked when my next post is coming. It's been a busy time, as always.
This weekend was a three-day weekend and I'm not returning to school tomorrow--I'm going to go ahead and barge in on a training that I'm on the wait list for. Bet a bunch of other people do the same. (To be fair, I believe I'm #1 on the waiting list).
Anyway, true to myself, this weekend prepping for the next week has been priority #2, after priority #1: keeping up with all the elections news. In particular, the Liberal "Super Weekend" in Canada, the presidential elections in Zambia and Brazil, and parliamentary polls in Austria and Bosnia. There will be no commentary, since this isn't where that goes, so moving on...
It's interesting to see how many people by this point are talking about their post-two year plans. Everywhere I go it's a topic of conversation. I think it comes up so much because of the frustrations that people feel about not being instantly good teachers; I'm certainly not saying I don't think about it, it's on my mind a lot to be honest (though my intentions still belong to me alone, and let it just be said that I'm open minded). But you can tell who really loves it so far and who's natural, and who's just pretty good (I'm in that group, I think), and who's struggling--there have been a couple who have left already.
Of those who are leaving, well, perhaps they were just misplaced. After all, I went into this wanting to teach high school social studies, not fourth graders. While I love my fourth graders, and I certainly don't deal with the same sorts of discipline and home issues that high school teachers have to, I certainly couldn't have taught pre-K; I would have quit. I just don't do 3-year-olds. (And luckily, I'm certified 4-8, so they can't move me down there).
So, how is teaching going, you ask? Fairly well, I think. I went in with all the ambitions to do everything that they tell us to in TFA, then got entirely off track because it's so freaking difficult. And now I'm coming back to where I should be: I'm developing a tracking system to make sure that students are meeting objectives, I'm backwards planning the rest of the time before Christmas (this is a TFA term for long-term planning and I'm not sure what the "backwards" part is), I'm getting my LPs done at home so there's no laptop at school, and, very gradually, my classroom is getting more organized and procedures are taking shape.
The one thing I'm a little worried about is parent contact, though I'm trying to pick that up a bit. I have trouble with a couple kids and I need to be talking to their parents more than I am (as well as everyone else's parents, in theory). I'm hoping that's not what's getting some kids to say "no" to the San Antonio/Austin trip is that their parents don't know me. So far exactly half of my class is going and a few aren't. I feel bad for those that aren't, but I also have the most socioeconomically disadvantaged class in the fourth grade (being the kids whose parents don't speak English, and who aren't GT--i.e. are from the immediate neighborhood), so perhaps it's just too much to overcome in any event.
So those are some quick reflections on life to date. Just prepping for the big dip in energy that's supposedly coming...
One last note: over the weekend I got set loose in Borders (my mistake) and bought a copy of the biography of Khrushchev, by William Taubman. I'm very excited.
This weekend was a three-day weekend and I'm not returning to school tomorrow--I'm going to go ahead and barge in on a training that I'm on the wait list for. Bet a bunch of other people do the same. (To be fair, I believe I'm #1 on the waiting list).
Anyway, true to myself, this weekend prepping for the next week has been priority #2, after priority #1: keeping up with all the elections news. In particular, the Liberal "Super Weekend" in Canada, the presidential elections in Zambia and Brazil, and parliamentary polls in Austria and Bosnia. There will be no commentary, since this isn't where that goes, so moving on...
It's interesting to see how many people by this point are talking about their post-two year plans. Everywhere I go it's a topic of conversation. I think it comes up so much because of the frustrations that people feel about not being instantly good teachers; I'm certainly not saying I don't think about it, it's on my mind a lot to be honest (though my intentions still belong to me alone, and let it just be said that I'm open minded). But you can tell who really loves it so far and who's natural, and who's just pretty good (I'm in that group, I think), and who's struggling--there have been a couple who have left already.
Of those who are leaving, well, perhaps they were just misplaced. After all, I went into this wanting to teach high school social studies, not fourth graders. While I love my fourth graders, and I certainly don't deal with the same sorts of discipline and home issues that high school teachers have to, I certainly couldn't have taught pre-K; I would have quit. I just don't do 3-year-olds. (And luckily, I'm certified 4-8, so they can't move me down there).
So, how is teaching going, you ask? Fairly well, I think. I went in with all the ambitions to do everything that they tell us to in TFA, then got entirely off track because it's so freaking difficult. And now I'm coming back to where I should be: I'm developing a tracking system to make sure that students are meeting objectives, I'm backwards planning the rest of the time before Christmas (this is a TFA term for long-term planning and I'm not sure what the "backwards" part is), I'm getting my LPs done at home so there's no laptop at school, and, very gradually, my classroom is getting more organized and procedures are taking shape.
The one thing I'm a little worried about is parent contact, though I'm trying to pick that up a bit. I have trouble with a couple kids and I need to be talking to their parents more than I am (as well as everyone else's parents, in theory). I'm hoping that's not what's getting some kids to say "no" to the San Antonio/Austin trip is that their parents don't know me. So far exactly half of my class is going and a few aren't. I feel bad for those that aren't, but I also have the most socioeconomically disadvantaged class in the fourth grade (being the kids whose parents don't speak English, and who aren't GT--i.e. are from the immediate neighborhood), so perhaps it's just too much to overcome in any event.
So those are some quick reflections on life to date. Just prepping for the big dip in energy that's supposedly coming...
One last note: over the weekend I got set loose in Borders (my mistake) and bought a copy of the biography of Khrushchev, by William Taubman. I'm very excited.
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