I am sitting in my lab during my prep time with a teacher that spends every waking moment in the lab. If there is no class scheduled, she’s here with her class. All they do is type. Some day maybe she will realize that every piece of writing does not need to be published. Actually, I’m pretty sure she knows that, it’s just easier to sit in the lab than teach her class. She is conferencing with one student while I help the rest of the class. She has no problem taking a kid and going back to her classroom while I am left alone with the others. At least she could ask. This is the same teacher who tells the technology teacher what she wants him to do with her class every week. She doesn’t seem to care that we have a curriculum to follow and tasks that we need finished by June. Lucky for me I don’t teach her class this year so she doesn’t tell me what she needs done.
The longer I am a ‘specialist,’ the more disrespected I feel!
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Spring Fever
Why does it seem like every class has gone haywire? Today is the first day that it has been sunny and over 70 degrees this year. Has Spring fever hit? There are classes in my school that are difficult every week, unfortunately they have not changed. It's the classes that normally come in, sit quietly, listen to directions and then work quietly that just aren't making me happy. One of the best classes in the school just left my room. This class is full of well behaved, high achieving students. For some reason they were off the wall. They were my third class of the day and the first two were no better. This has been going on for the last few weeks. Each day the students' behavior is worse than the day before. What's the answer? How do I control the constant outbursts? ONLY 44 MORE DAYS OF SCHOOL!!!
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Crazy Busy
This is the time of year where my life goes nuts! We are starting the home stretch in school, and baseball season has officially started.
Right now it's time to wrap up all of the projects that have been going on as well as start and finish a few 'must do' projects that have been put off. Today I started some surveys with a first grade class. Originally the plan was to have the kids walk around with a survey and ask their friends what their favorite ice cream was(or pizza, vacation spot, etc.). Right before the activity began, I thought, "I'll be smart. I will leave all the kids in their seats and just ask about their favorite things and have the kids raise their hands when they hear their choice." What a mistake! With five different surveys around the room, some kids thought they had to write the # of responses for every survey. Others thought they could only respond if they had that survey in front of them. It ended up taking 30 minutes to complete the surveys. Then I compounded my mistake by trying to have the students graph the results in the last 10 minutes of class. Yes, I did say first grade! The only positive I can take out of all of this is that I teach four first grade classes and now I know what not to do for the other three. It's crazy right now! I think I have three different projects going on with fifth grade and one of the classroom teachers just asked me to start something new next week! Add all this to the four after school meetings over a seven day period and I guess you could say - School is a little overwhelming right now!!!
Baseball season is always the busiest time of the year in my house. We have a sign in our baseball-themed basement that says, "We Interupt this Family for Baseball Season." A statement could never be more true. I am an assistant coach on my two older sons' team and the head coach of my youngest son's team. Because of the level of play, being the assistant is much more time consuming and much more stressful since winning is expected at that level. My younger son's team is still all about learning the game and having fun. I'll take that any time. While coaching these two teams, I am trying to get my middle son's 11 year old travel team organized for our tournament season which begins in June. We need to practice on whatever days off the kids may have from intramurals. I am the head coach of that team as well. My oldest son is also playing in the Suburban Travel Baseball league. This means he will have intramural games one day during the week and one on Saturday while playing travel games on Friday nights and Sundays. Oh, did I mention that he is running track for the school team as well?! Even when I'm not coaching, I feel very guilty if I miss any of my kids' sporting events.
When thinking about teaching and coaching/parenting, I can only say one thing as I wrap up - I wouldn't trade either job for the world!!!
Right now it's time to wrap up all of the projects that have been going on as well as start and finish a few 'must do' projects that have been put off. Today I started some surveys with a first grade class. Originally the plan was to have the kids walk around with a survey and ask their friends what their favorite ice cream was(or pizza, vacation spot, etc.). Right before the activity began, I thought, "I'll be smart. I will leave all the kids in their seats and just ask about their favorite things and have the kids raise their hands when they hear their choice." What a mistake! With five different surveys around the room, some kids thought they had to write the # of responses for every survey. Others thought they could only respond if they had that survey in front of them. It ended up taking 30 minutes to complete the surveys. Then I compounded my mistake by trying to have the students graph the results in the last 10 minutes of class. Yes, I did say first grade! The only positive I can take out of all of this is that I teach four first grade classes and now I know what not to do for the other three. It's crazy right now! I think I have three different projects going on with fifth grade and one of the classroom teachers just asked me to start something new next week! Add all this to the four after school meetings over a seven day period and I guess you could say - School is a little overwhelming right now!!!
Baseball season is always the busiest time of the year in my house. We have a sign in our baseball-themed basement that says, "We Interupt this Family for Baseball Season." A statement could never be more true. I am an assistant coach on my two older sons' team and the head coach of my youngest son's team. Because of the level of play, being the assistant is much more time consuming and much more stressful since winning is expected at that level. My younger son's team is still all about learning the game and having fun. I'll take that any time. While coaching these two teams, I am trying to get my middle son's 11 year old travel team organized for our tournament season which begins in June. We need to practice on whatever days off the kids may have from intramurals. I am the head coach of that team as well. My oldest son is also playing in the Suburban Travel Baseball league. This means he will have intramural games one day during the week and one on Saturday while playing travel games on Friday nights and Sundays. Oh, did I mention that he is running track for the school team as well?! Even when I'm not coaching, I feel very guilty if I miss any of my kids' sporting events.
When thinking about teaching and coaching/parenting, I can only say one thing as I wrap up - I wouldn't trade either job for the world!!!
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