Institute is, as of Friday night, over. There are so many things to say — I don’t even know where to start. First of all, what’s next? I have Orientation from 12-7 today then 10-6 tomorrow. It looks like it’ll be pretty pointless, but I keep telling myself that I’m getting grad school credit for…
read more »Before I buckle down and catch up on lesson-planning, I thought I should blog. So. Week 4 of Institute was awesome — I definitely had some rocky days, but my teaching is really improving. As usual, the week just flew by, and by the time Friday night came, I felt like I had been hit…
read more »In an effort to post more during the week, I’ll post some of my students’ responses to the “classroom culture survey” that the powers that be had us give our kids this week. What has your teacher done to help you know how to behave? take me outside so I can calm down by giving…
read more »We received a copy of this poem today. It was written by Elizabeth Ficken, who’s a 2011 CM at the ∆ Institute this summer! You will not tell me That my beautiful black beaming children Will not read You will not tell me That my beautiful black beaming children Will not write You will not…
read more »As promised, here are some of the many TFA acronyms that have become a part of our insane lexicon here at Institute: TFA: Teach For America CM: Corps Member (me!) CMA: Corps Member Advisor PD: Program Director TAL: Teaching as Leadership (TFA’s book) TALON: Teaching as Leadership Online Network ODC: Observation Debrief Cycle (once a…
read more »We all re-charge in different ways, I guess, and that’s never been as evident to me as it has been at Institute. I’m always shocked at just how useless I’ve been on the weekends here, at least for the first 24 hours. I guess the weeks are so intense that the best I can do…
read more »Holy smokes what a week! It just FLEW by, and before I knew it, it was Friday again. Let me just say, it was incredible. I love being a teacher. I’ve learned so much this week. I adore my kids. They’re “spirited”, to put it lightly, but I love them. They’re just so funny, and…
read more »“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who…
read more »While I acknowledge that I have been drinking a lot of Kool Aid recently, and will say that this Institute experience has been preparing me for teaching, I can’t help but think that TFA is not preparing me as well as it could be to be a teacher in the fall. 1. we get unlimited…
read more »Well, not really that long-awaited. But an update nonetheless. So I just finished my second week of Institute and my first week of teaching! It was quite the week. I don’t even know where to start. Let’s talk about sleep deprivation. I used to think that people who were sleep-deprived at Institute either procrastinated on…
read more »Today marks the beginning of Week 2 of Institute. In other words, we’re 20% done with Institute, and if you include Induction, 1/3 of the way with our summer TFA training! That’s great! This week was really long. But it was good, at the same time. I learned SO much about lesson planning, classroom management,…
read more »I’m telling myself right now that this’ll be a short post, but, knowing me, it probably won’t. In the tradition of TFA, today was an incredibly long day — probably the heaviest one we’ve had so far, too. We had multiple intense, 2-hour-plus sessions on lesson planning, classroom management, and investing students. Just when we…
read more »TFA is good at scheduling looooong days. But, all things considered, I think I held up pretty well. Want to hear about my day? Sure you do. I always enjoy reading about “a day in the life” – I think it’s the most telling. So here’s mine, for today. It’ll be different every day, and…
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