I held off on telling my students that I was leaving at the end of my corps member experience. My kids don’t know what Teach For America is, but they do know that all of the white teachers in this town have a weird habit of staying for only a two-year period. And I knew…
read more »Day 154: Teaching is often an exercise in delayed gratification. You might struggle with a child for months, only to have him or her come around in June and say, “Thank you.” Given that, when the wins are big and obvious and staring you in the face, you embrace them. IEP meetings are not typically tons…
read more »Administrators at my placement school routinely prescribed “engaging lessons” as a remedy for nearly every classroom problem. Yet so many teachers, who were well-liked and regarded as effective, leaned toward accountability or control as the panacea for off-task behavior, disrespect, or low achievement. Sadly, the children I taught were not accustomed to joy in learning,…
read more »Time has been weird over the past few weeks. Stretched out til it’s raw, then hurriedly knit back together again, except now there are knots and broken parts. Loose threads everywhere. those damn loose threads. My last ten days of college were a mixture of senior events, sentimental goodbyes, rushed thank-you notes, rushed packing, &…
read more »Day 153: Does compliance lead to buy-in, or is compliance the best it gets? Tuesday, we did a homeroom reset. Silent entrance, silent to desks, silent to the morning meeting circle. First warning = three minutes of recess. Second = ten minutes, plus sit in a fourth grade room. We got to the circle quickly and…
read more »I was just looking through an old notebook of mine, and I came across this schedule I wrote out for myself: Daily Schedule 4:30 am get up/quiet time 5:30 breakfast 5:45 board bus 5:30 pm get back/gym/shower 6:30 dinner 7ish plan! BED BY 10:30 12:30
read more »Day 152: My homeroom has been, on the whole, trending downward for months. They enter classrooms like they’re entering a party. They fail, consistently, to quiet down when asked. They throw balls around the room like it’s recess. For a while now, I’ve been letting a lot slide. Science class is going well, and giving certain…
read more »Day 150: Often, when I finally remember on Sunday that I haven’t written about Friday yet, I can only remember a blur of exhaustion and frustration and please let me finish this day and get to the bar as fast as I can. As usual, I don’t remember many details. However, the ones I do remember…
read more »I only have 19 days left in China and then I head back to the states. Soon after I set my feet on U.S. soil I am going to drive to the Delta. I know it is going to be a whirlwind. I cannot leave sooner because of my current job at an international school.…
read more »Day 150: First of all, Happy Day #150 to me! Today wasn’t ideal. Thursdays always suck, thanks to the lack of a prep period to decompress. This one felt particularly arduous because I had to teach a mediocre lesson three times. I knew it wasn’t great when I taught it yesterday; it had too many notes,…
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