Next year...

Is it bad to already be thinking forward to next year? I think it's a good thing. I am actually full of anticipation. I've already made the list of school supplies for parents and I'm planning out my class goals. The biggest difference: I actually know what I'm doing.

They tell you that "the first week is all procedures." I was like "what? I can't even think of two days' worth of procedures to teach." Now I get it--you might teach something, but you spend forever doing it and make sure the kids do it the right way. You set the disciplinary tone early too, something I couldn't do this year because I didn't have time! All the time was spent trying to plan for the class, which in retrospect was OK, but it would have been better if I had the kids following procedures, no matter how inane, than what I was doing academically (which wasn't very good anyway).

I'm also planning out units. My first three weeks, reading will be all in Spanish to get students accustomed to what we are doing. I don't think I had the Spanish skill to do that this year--but now I do. I know what to do for math and I have a better idea of what they will and won't know already. I know what texts I'm going to use, what they can handle and what they can't.

The disorganization of my kids will get a lot better. I already mentioned the school supplies; I know how they're going to be organized too--three binders, everything goes in a binder. As for my stuff, I'm going to spend the summer (taking classes and) putting it all into my own binders for organizational purposes.

Finally, I want to get parents more involved with occasional parent meetings. I'm hoping to plan a field trip for my class, and possibly others who are interested, to a college/university (Rice would be my first choice).

I guess I should add that this year is going fine! 15 of my 22 kids are on track to pass writing now, according to the benchmark, which is up from 6/21 in October. I think most of them can pass reading and math, too, as long as we get through the material in math. They're doing a better job at reading independently, too. I'm excited about what we can do together for the next couple of months.

Anyway, though, I'm ridiculously busy what with Mon/Tues/Wed tutorials, Sat morning tutorials, Wed night class, the occasional TFA or HISD professional development requirement, planning, and working for field trip fundraiser. Hence the lack of posting here or at the other show recently. I'm going to try to talk some more this weekend. Honest.

TFA's Lone Star

...is a good thing. Went to San Antonio for the weekend and saw some useful things at workshops, and a couple friends from RGV who I hadn't seen in a long while. As a result I have an Amazon.com order in for Marzano's Learning Strategies, a book called Understanding by Design that hopefully is a great way to organize units, and Stephen Covey's 7 Habits (and I thought I'd never actually read that stuff...).

Also, got to see Jaime Escalante speak (he was the keynote), of the movie Stand and Deliver fame (he started a very successful AP Calculus program at a HS in East LA). He was a very nice man and he found every story amusing, which in itself was amusing and endearing. He did go on a bit long, and he tended to monotone a bit, but it was still awesome to see the guy, and apparently he did this just for TFA, so good on him.

For those of you who are already in the TFA cult, Aurora Lora (!!!) was the opening speaker. She was all right. She's reopening a closing, failing middle school in Portland, Oregon next year into an all-girls charter school. Should be interesting.

Explaining the lack of posting

I was working on a post, I swear.

Things are ramping up here... writing TAKS is in about exactly a month and the kids need to learn grammar, fast!! I am going to start teaching weekday after school tutorials (they had a different teacher before) plus we are starting Saturdays this week (yay!).

Which doesn't explain the fact that there hasn't been much on here and lots on the other site. Regarding that... well, I think it is helping me to stay sane to blog more on political issues. I think enough about my teaching to myself right now and I'm kind of back in that phase where blogging lots about it is just overkill for me given the pressure.

But I will try to keep it updated. Really.