Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Why I teach
The other day we pulled out the globe. The kid in the yellow sweatshirt was the sun and we rotated and orbited around him. We talked about the Reason for the Seasons. Realization dawned and half a dozen voices piped up. Really? No, wait, really that's why?
I love my job because every day I get to watch people doing things that they didn't know how to do yesterday. They learn because of me, and that's really, very cool.
Friday, September 4, 2009
Two weeks in...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
An exercise in thinking positive
1. My writing lesson kicked butt. I've taken over the writing instruction in my classroom for this last quarter of the year (long story there) and it is rockin' so far. The kids are engaged. They want to write every spare minute of the day. It is the most positive time of my day because even the kids who struggle at so many other things are finding success in writing this week. I love it.
2. One of my struggling reading groups is just taking off this week. These are the kids who normally read for five minutes and then mentally wander around the room for the other 25 minutes of independent reading. They are so jazzed about the two books we are working on (Maniac Magee for the whole class and Bunnicula for their small group) that I think they forgot that they don't like reading. This is excellent news!
3. I practically fell into a piece-of-cake club for this last quarter. After waiting until the last minute to declare my club (I decided to do Paper Airplane Statistics Club) I was notified that someone was already doing a Club That Has Something to Do with Flying Things. This was like the last straw after a mostly very bad day (which I'm choosing not to write about, of course). So, five minutes before I had to leave I was scrambling for a club idea when my VP suggested I do the Reading Club. Now this is such a cushy club (think kids sacked out on pillows reading) that I just assumed that someone had already snatched it up. But she said that no one had picked it yet, so viola! I ended up with the best club of all, somehow.
4.
I'm sure there must have been something else that went right at work, but I have forgotten it. In any case, this exercise seems to have worked. I feel like going back tomorrow, which is a vast improvement on my mood thirty minutes ago!
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
I also like this time of year because my class pretty much feels like family now. Even the stinkers have a little place in my heart. Every year at this time it's weird to think that next year they'll be someone else's kids and that I'll feel this way about a whole new class. Not that I won't be just a tiny bit happy to see them go. Okay, after the year that I've had, I'll be more than a tiny bit happy, to be honest.
Next month, I'll likely start my "Next Year Notebook" where I will spend whole
Probably the best, best part of March is that the countdown for summer is now on. Third quarter report cards go out this week, which means the weeks remaining are in the single digits. Warm weather and longer days cement into my subconscious the knowledge that summer is right around the corner.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Sick Day
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Harvest
I made it out to the garden this morning and found that the garden doesn't care whether I visit regularly or not. Stuff just keeps growing and growing without me. I cut one of the smaller giant zukes up into strips, dipped the strips in tempura batter and deep fried them. I haven't deep fried anything since I started weight watchers five years ago. Man, they were yummy! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all those cucumbers, though. I'll put them in the teacher's lounge tomorrow. Every teacher knows that the lounge is like the black hole for food. I once put a nine-by-thirteen pan of Mom's pistachio dessert out before school started and that sucker was gone by first recess. It looked like they had licked the pan. I bet the cucumbers don't go that fast, though.
Anyone have a recipe that calls for humongous zucchini? I can't let them go to waste since it was my beginning-of-the-school-year neglect that made them like this. I'm personally responsible. When I first saw them out there this morning I felt actual guilt. Like some mad scientist experimenting in zucchini deformity. My conscience won't allow me to make fried zucchini every night this week and we've had more than enough zucchini bread this summer. I don't think they'll be good sauteed, but I guess I could try it. I could send zucchini sticks in Munchkin's backpack for snack (but he'd probably disown me). I thought about entering them for a giant zucchini prize in the county fair, but we don't have a fair, here. Can you use them to carve jack 'o lanterns? I promise to garden responsibly from now on.