alarm clock. cardigan. peanut butter toast. sunrise. copies. zen teacher. numb teacher. seating chart. filing. whiteboard. one-step equations. plotting points. sticky notes. behavior narration. Edline. pencils. SLANT. repeat. SLANT. repeat. SLANT. repeat. behavior narration. explain. music video. worksheet. “Math, Math, Baby”. directions. 60% compliance. 70 % compliance. 80 % compliance. 90 % compliance. 96 %…
read more »“Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake.” -Victor Hugo
read more »I should really spread out my blog posting instead of just waiting and waiting and then writing 3 posts in one night. Teaching so far hasn’t been easy, but it’s not the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I feel incredible support from my family and friends, and from my new friends here. I’m tired of…
read more »This week was pretty intense. I’m not sure what to say. I’m not sure if things are getting better or worse, but I’m slowly starting to get used to teaching. It’s easy for me to say what I need to change, and to make lists of things to tweak, but difficult to recognize what I’m…
read more »Better day today. I only have time for quotes, though. Abraham Lincoln today, because I love him. “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” -Abraham Lincoln also: “Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I have a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.” -Abraham…
read more »Maybe some of the Kool-Aid is seeping in. TFA definitely promotes going BEYOND above & beyond as a teacher in terms of the time you dedicate to your job. That’s probably why so many CMs (and first-year teachers in general, probably) get so burned-out. You hear these hero-worship stories about teachers who spend almost every…
read more »1. leave school by 5:30 pm every day 2. don’t get to school before 7 am every day. I’m not very productive before school anyway. 3. go to the gym 3 times 4. avoid negative people and hang out with positive people 5. circulate when I teach 6. be stricter and more consistent with consequences…
read more »Two weeks under my belt. Woohoo! This week was, for the most part, better than last week. I didn’t have any emotional breakdowns this week, and the positives outweighed the negatives every day, I think. The theme of this week was “My Kids Love Me And I Love Them, But Can I Teach Them Anything?”.…
read more »Another pretty good day today. I’m trying to be more consistent/fair in enforcing consequences. Standing outside for bus duty from 3:15 to 4:00 isn’t very fun, but it’s fun talking to the kids. I just LOVE my babies. Even the ones that drive me nuts. I have a few that I need to build a…
read more »Second week is chugging along. I’m incredibly busy, but I like it, I think. I’m not nearly as efficient as I need to be. It’s almost as if I expect to stay at school till 6:30 every night, and I fill those hours with what I need to do instead of getting the one hour’s…
read more »More positive than negative. That’s the new way I’m going to frame my days now: I’m going to add up all of the positive things about the day and stack them against the negative. + I’m so busy during the week that I have less time to be lonely and homesick + 2 1/2 of…
read more »Woooooweee. Wow. It was pretty good, I think. I’m wary of any success I think I’ve had, because I know this is apparently the “honeymoon period” with my kids. Monday through Wednesday you’ve all heard about, so I’ll start with Thursday. Even days are my “harder” classes, so it was a more draining day anyway.…
read more »Gnarly. Sometimes that’s the best word for something. I’ll write more later, but now I have a quote: “Faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting—they must rise and follow him. The disciples had to burn their boats and plunge into absolute insecurity in order to learn the demand and gift of Christ.” –…
read more »Today was just as long as yesterday, and definitely more challenging. I had a class of 27, a class of 16, and a class of 2. Still not as strenuous as 6 classes of 35, but 90 minutes is a long time with 7th graders. I didn’t have any kids that were outwardly defiant, but…
read more »I’ll start at the beginning. I didn’t go to bed early enough, so I woke up in a fog and stumbled around the kitchen thinking “Wait — Why do I want to be a teacher again?”. You know I’m tired when I’m questioning wanting to be a teacher. I got to school around 6:30, and…
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