Beginning of year reflection

I feel like I'm doing a lot of things right so far; I feel better prepared, vis a vis classroom management and curriculum layout, than I ever have before.  My CHAMPS program is working out nicely, and my classroom token economy system has been shockingly successful.  Our school is making a lot of structural reforms which, if we take them seriously, will make vast improvements in our student achievement.  Most of my students seem pretty excited to be in class, and if I'm not quite up to 100% Spanish yet, I feel like I'm pushing in the right direction.  In all, a good strong start to the school year. 

Next on the self-improvement list: 1.)  Improve the turnaround time on my homework.  I always say I'm going to, and then I get a little better, but never quite enough.  2.) Get my Spanish III online class up and running for realz.  I'm almost there; the ISD contact person who has been helping me has been doing a tremendous job.  3.)  Integrate our iPads.  The iPads are in and waiting, so I just have to figure out how best to use them.  I have some ideas: speaking quizzes, etc. 

And now we return to your regularly scheduled reflections

I took the month of July off from school things.  I've been doing no concrete work, and whenever I've thought about my classes, I've tried to think about something else.  The idea behind that is this:  For many summers in the past, I've woken up most days, all summer long, thinking, "Okay, I'm going to do school work today."  And then I don't, and I'm disappointed with myself.  Well, this year, for a variety of reasons, I did school work through the entirety of June.  When July came, I told myself that I could use some down time. 

So I guess it's not really taking time off, so much as it is recognizing reality: I'm not doing any school work.  It's been great for me, anyway.  I've done a lot of things I've been trying to do for a long time.  I grew basil and made pesto.  I painted something without adult supervision.  I used a binder clip to hook a battery to an LED and make a sort of flashlight out of PVC pipe fittings.  I've been exercising, and I've gone to the dojo once a week for two months.  I finished taking Stanford's iTunes U course on computer program design principles, and have started re-taking the iPod/iPad programming course, now that I know a little something about writing programs.  (It's still well below what the professor on the videos expects from his real students, but he'll never know.) 

But August starts on Wednesday, and I'm going to be kicking it in to gear.  I've still been learning about how to learn and how to teach, I've just been avoiding thinking about practical applications.  As a result, I have a back log of really exciting possibilities that I want to get to work on; I think I'm going to come out of my corner swinging with both fists.  Stay tuned for a goal list and some plans of action.  In the meantime, here's something that my friend Jamie sent me to chew on:

http://www.ryanlouiscooper.com/2011/10/how-to-learn-stuff.html

What are you most looking forward to doing when you get back to school?  What changes do you hope to see, and what changes do you hope to make?  What do you hope hasn't changed at all?

The wisdom of Ray

Ray left this in the comments of the last blog.  I put it here so that everybody who stops by can see it.  And if it's just Ray and me who see it...well, at least I won't have to go into the comments in order to re-read it.

Have a great year and don't be afraid to take a risk and don't be afraid to fail because you took a risk. It is truly the way we all become better.

 You can't expect your students to take risks if you're not willing to do it yourself.  Let's have a great school year.

Lots to read

Right.  I've started re-reading I read it, but I don't get it by Tovani.  My summary of the first couple of chapters will be up...erm, as soon as I finish reading the first  couple of chapters.  Chapter 1 is in deceptively simple storytelling form, so I'm not sure I caught the lessons from it.

Also, my textbooks came in.  I'll be taking a course in elementary Spanish methodology from a private college, starting in a few weeks.  As it happens, the two textbooks for the class are books I've written about here before--Languages and children, 4th ed., by Curtain and Dahlberg, and Teacher's handbook, 4th ed., by Shrum and Glisan.  So hopefully I'll have a chance to at least start reading those before the school year starts.

I'm writing syllabi for my new classes, although I'm still not certain which levels of English (or, for that matter, Spanish) I'll be teaching.  The grading policy should be about the same for each class, unless the district has a grading policy I don't know about.  And I'm VERY excited--I think I finally have a workable portfolio outline, something that my students can start working on from Day One.

And every teachers' website on the Internet is firing up with "Good first day of school" posts, and I've been trying to catch as many of them as possible.  Below are a few, so I can close the blessed tabs, along with a few words of take-away for each.

Using literature the first weeks of school.  From Elena Aguilar at Edutopia, a few books that a middle school teacher can use to set the tone for reading and community-building from Day 1.  She suggests Seedfolks, by Fleischman, The house on Mango Street by Cisneros, and The library card by Spinelli.  I can definitely use Mango Street; Aguilar even suggests a few ways to do it.


Start of the year routine and handouts.  Some typically excellent suggestions from the always-excellent Heather Wolpert-Gawron.  Random seating chart; beginning-of-the-year handouts; Find-a-Fib activities (X true things, 1 false things, you guess the false things); creating Works in Progress and Portfolio folders; a sample of content; and introductions to class-specific elements, like websites and positions.  I do a lot of these things already, so it's good to see them confirmed by somebody I have a great deal of respect for.


The best kind of teacher evaluation--Larry Ferlazzo writes about how to evaluate teachers the right way.  Regular observations by people who know the teachers, the students, the school, and what good teaching looks like; multiple sources of data; regular feedback from students and parents; and self-reflection.  This enforces the idea of collaborating to improve student achievement, and helps teacher leaders to know what areas need improving.  It sure beats blaming teachers for rotten test scores.  Ferlazzo also has his own blog: larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/