Evolution

I know the week's not over, and it was a short week, but (before I lose all these thoughts) I want to write a little bit on how I feel I've evolved as a teacher over the last week.  My kids seem to be turning into 7th graders lately.  Ever since Christmas break, they've been much more moody and some have given me some attitude.  Not serious problems, but its really disrupted the great flow we had going the whole year.  Some of my best students are turning into some of my most difficult now, so it's been frustrating and testing.

I had a great discussion with an awesome mentor of mine, Michele.  Whenever I need advice, she's always there with something amazing.  I don't know why she's not still in the classroom, because she seems to have the perfect answer for any problem I have.  She gave me some great advice on how to handle certain situations with my hormonal students (I asked her about situation after situation...what would you do if...) and also some things about being a teacher in general.  I've tried my best to put it into practice this week, keep a positive attitude, laugh, lighten up problematic situations with students with a little bit of joking around, and trying to never show that old-school strictness that makes school no fun at times.  I've tried that already, and it just doesn't work.  I hate to see other teachers doing that because students don't respond positively to it.  If it's you against the students, you're never going to inspire them or teach them anything of real value - it's a waste of time.  Michele tells me it's all a big game, and you are the game master.  You always win.

Another huge success I've had this week was in my lesson planning.  I know this sounds ridiculous, but this week was the first time I've really truly planned ahead for the next week. I've been using a weekly planning document, which I've used to plan more than a week ahead in science.  It's really helping me to see the connections between things and the progress I've made, as well as what we need to get done with the time we have.  I was planning day by day before and it was just so hard to keep up with.  Now I'm really thinking ahead and it feels great.  Another huge reason for this success has been the collaboration I have been doing with a fellow science teacher.  One of the 6th grade science teachers left last year before Christmas and the new one started after the break.  It has been amazing working with her - I've been interested in collaboration since I started here but just never had the right people to do it with.  They simply weren't interested and didn't see the benefit of it.  We shared videos and such, but we never really planned together.  That's what I'm getting to do now - we're sharing ideas every day and planning ahead weeks in advance.  We're looking at our standards first - what we need to teach - and making our plans based on that.  It's so much easier to teach when you know exactly why you're teaching it.  It was more vague before - we didn't really focus on the standards.  I hope we can continue to make progress through this year and into the next.

I taught some really great lessons this week.  I feel like we learned more in the last two days of science then we ever have since I started teaching.  The kids have been great when we do science and they are up for anything.  I've enjoyed teaching the lessons (we even did a convection lab!) and I'm excited for what's coming up.  How can it get any better than that?

The Year So Far...

It's been a while since I last posted.  I guess there hasn't been a whole lot to post about.  The year's been good so far.  I'm in my second year, and I feel pretty good about where I'm at as a teacher.  I think I'm doing the things I'm supposed to be doing and teaching at the level I'm supposed to be teaching at.  It's been a pretty easy year so far.  Maybe that's because I'm just more experienced but I think most of it is due to my kids.  I can't say enough about how great my kids are.  There's a lot more parent support this year than last year and I think that shows in the quality of the kids.  They are very motivated and I don't have any big troublemakers, which is a real blessing and a change from last year.  I think that has made it so much easier.  I can concentrate more on getting the space cadets (ADHD), who everyone has, to focus and worry less about who is going to steal supplies out of my desk next.  However, there were some kids last year that we didn't have problems with until the second half of the year, when they got to be really rough.  I don't see that happening here, but it's always a possibility.  The 6th grade teachers say the kids turn from 6th to 7th graders over Christmas Break - I didn't notice much of a change last year so I'm hoping to continue the great progress we've made when I get back.

First Day

Tomorrow will be my first first day ever.  Last year was a bit of a mess with me coming in 5 days late and having to catch up to everyone else in a new school as a new teacher.  It's still hard to believe I did that: taught 2 subjects, new school, new state, started late, moved the week before, etc.  Those were and probably will remain the two hardest weeks of my life.

This year, I get to start new with the same subjects and the same setup.  I had the whole summer to think about what I wanted to change and spent the last week planning those changes.  I've had some long nights this week, but it doesn't worry me like it did last year.  I knew this week would be busy and that I wouldn't have more than a couple hours between school and sleep.  I didn't expect it to be quite as chaotic as it was, but I've accepted that's just the way it is and probably will be for the beginning of the year.  I think I'm ready to start implementing my changes tomorrow and I'm hoping for more success than last year.  At least I know I won't be worse, and I thought I did alright last year, so we'll see.

Last night we had our Meet The Teachers night and I got to meet many of our kids and parents.  From what I could tell, they seemed like great kids and I'm looking forward to starting the year with them.  I felt prepared for the night until the first student came in.  It was then that I realized how personal teaching is and how different every student is each year.  The more students I met though, the better I felt.  I loved greeting them and their parents, asking them how their summers were and if they felt ready to start again.  It was good to talk to 6th graders again - they're still kids, but they have a little bit of maturity coming through that doesn't show in their younger brothers and sisters.  I think they'll be a fun group.

Right now, I feel good.  I feel like I'm prepared for tomorrow and for next week when I start teaching actual content.  We'll see how things go tomorrow.

Do Something Great Now

Tuesday was my last teacher workday.  Yesterday was my first real day of summer and it was very enjoyable.  Over the last week or so, however, I've come to the realization that it's going to be a boring summer if I don't find something worthwhile to do soon.  I'd like to do some traveling, probably to DC to visit a friend, maybe a few trips to the mountains to do some fly fishing, going down towards Raleigh to hang out with some friends I've made over the past school year.  I'll eventually head home to Alpena, Michigan at some point to see the family and participate in some of the usual summer activities.  We'll be traveling to Nebraska to see my mom's side of the family, then possibly driving way out to the Grand Canyon to go on another two day hike to the bottom and back.  One of my best friends from school will be getting married in mid-August and I'll be a groomsman for that wedding, so I'm also looking forward to that.

There's a big gap between now and all of those planned festivities though, and I don't really know what I'm going to do with my time.  This made me think about what retirement will be like, when I'm old and not as active, probably suffering from knee and back pain, trying to find things to occupy my time.  I'm pretty sure I'll be married and will be spending time with my wife, kids, and possibly their kids, but I feel like most people either spend all of their time and money on themselves when they retire or they find something worthwhile to do that isn't always self-centered.  Some volunteer, some help in churches, some even get a job to keep them busy.

The reason I'm getting to all of this is because if I ever stoop to that level when I'm counting down the days to when I can retire, I'm going to be sorely disappointed to see that I've wasted my life doing just that when I could have been doing something great instead.  What I'm saying is that we all need to do something great now because retirement isn't going to be all that great, really, when you think about it.  Sure, you don't have the stresses of a job, but right now I have the ability to do world-changing things and it would be a shame to waste that time of my life by doing nothing and not giving everything.  Now is the time I can make the biggest difference.

Maybe I am just rambling or I lost my train of thought halfway through that, but I have a different outlook on what my job means with this summer vacation ahead of me.  I think I need to do everything I can now so I can look back when I retire and be satisfied and proud of what I accomplished.

One more day and I'm feeling...pretty good, actually.

Not exhausted, not burnt out, not on the verge of finding a new profession.  Today wasn't too bad for a second-to-last day.  The kids were actually pretty well behaved.  My most difficult student all year was my most helpful student today.  He really surprised me when he and a few of his friends approached a tiny, shy, nerdy kid who was sitting in the bleachers crying because he didn't have enough stamps (our "currency" for the year) to participate in any of the fun activities we had planned for the day.  They all politely asked him if he wanted to walk around with them since he didn't have any stamps.  He declined, and they proceeded to offer him to use some of their stamps to play the games.  I think it made his day.  He ran off the bleachers with lots of stamps ready to be used on those simple, mindless games that middle schoolers just love for some reason.  Life was good back then.

It's hard to believe tomorrow is the last day of my first year of teaching.  At times, the year went by so slowly, but now it seems it all went by too fast.  Sitting here on my apartment deck smoking my pipe, I'm thinking of how I'm going to spend the summer once it finally comes.  I've just realized that I'm going to get bored really quickly.  I got home at four today, which is very early, and I was bored by eight.  What's going to happen when I have all day every day open and have to find something to do (with relatively little money)?  I really am going to miss my kids.  I'm going to miss the great relationships I formed with my students, the nightly search for interesting math and science activities for the next day, the kid who talks to me about the bluegrass gigs he plays at, and the time I get to spend making kids actually like to learn.  I'm also going to miss all of the senseless little arguments, the kids who annoy me every day, the dead tired mornings where I really don't want to go to school.

This kind of talk makes me realize that I did a pretty good job choosing a profession.  I might not be in the perfect profession (and don't know if that exists for me), but if I'm going to miss the work I do during my time off, that's not bad at all.  Bring on another year.

I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me

This Year by the Mountain Goats.  My theme song at the beginning of the school year.  It was a tough start but I made it through and I'm not dead.  Mentally, maybe, but I'm still here.  I'm sure people want to know my favorite parts of the school year - what went well, what I enjoyed most, and maybe what just sucked.

I have to say I got the most pleasure out of getting to know my students on a personal level.  I loved the "hanging out" times when I could just talk to them one on one without having to teach them anything.  I enjoyed staying after school so that I could provide personal help on math problems, or just to walk down to the gym to shoot a few hoops (and dunk on cocky 6th grade males).  The most satisfaction came when I explained things clearly enough that students just got excited about them and wanted to shout out what they knew.  I loved when I was able to teach well enough to where the classroom ran like a well-oiled machine.  Students knew what to do and were excited to do it.

The most frustrating part of the year was by far the classroom management.  I hated disciplining students, or having to do so.  It seemed like it was a constant battle that raged on every day (with some students in particular).  I never figured out how to handle a few of my kids and there are still situations where I have no idea what to say or do.  It's not as bad now as it was at the beginning of the year, but this is the part of teaching where I still feel like I haven't grown much at all.  I'm not really a good natural leader and I don't like to have to boss people around.  That's not fun or satisfying to me, but it was to some of my students, and I had trouble with them.  I almost want to have some real challenging students next year so that I am forced to figure out some solutions.

I wish our school didn't have a place to send unruly students.  It was like a crutch anyone could use if they didn't want to handle a student's bad behavior.   Rather than figure out a solution to the problem or treat the student with dignity, we could simply send them out to be another teacher's problem. I used it too much and many other teachers used it too much.  It seemed like it made classroom management easy (using it as a threat), but threatening students isn't the way to go and other measures must be used if you want to have a successful, positive classroom environment.  I need to figure out some of those strategies for next year.  There's a lot of polishing to do and I think I just need to dive in and do it, figuring things out on my own.

The End is the Beginning?

There are only three days of school left.  I'm starting a blog at the conclusion of the school year.  Who does that?  Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with it next year.  I'm sure there will be lots of polishing to do then as well.

It's time to be done.  However, I feel much better than I did at the beginning of the year.  To be honest, I wasn't sure if I was meant to be a teacher at the beginning of the year, or even when I decided to go into education...or even now.  But I can now say I enjoyed this year much more than I expected and it went much smoother than I ever imagined.

My kids were very good - they made my first year pretty easy and I am going to miss them (well, maybe not ALL of them...).  I just hope I can teach 6th grade again next year.  I was very nervous about teaching math and science at the start, especially after getting the job 3 days before school started.  But I'm very happy and feel very fortunate to have been able to do so, particularly because I think I like teaching math better (never thought I'd say that!).

The year flew by.  First I was trying to figure out how to find the time to make a math and science lesson in the same day and have a little bit of free time, and now EOG's (End of Grade tests) are already finished.  There are only three days of school left (have I said that already?).  Crazy.  I was quite pleased with my students' testing scores; 23 of 36 students passed the math EOG, which was more than I expected.  I found (with one exception) that the students who worked hard this year, regardless of their abilities, were the ones who passed the test.  Those who slacked off or fooled around this year didn't pass the test.  It was that simple.

My teaching teammate and I also had 16 students pass the reading EOG this year, which was phenomenal because all of our students failed their math EOGs in previous years.  Normally, 3 or 4 pass it, put this year was much different.  Even though I'm not that reading teacher, I feel proud and feel like I had a part in that.  I think the way we interacted with our students and had strong relationships with them really impacted how well they did.  It seemed that for some, it just gave them much more motivation to do work for a teacher they actually enjoyed being in the room with and who took an actual interest in them as people.

Overall I think the year was a success.  I'm sure I learned more than I think I did (I still feel like a total beginner) and I notice some differences.  There are, however, many areas I want to work on and just need a fresh start and fresh set of kids to work on with.  I'm not sure where I'll be next year, but I really hope I can be back in this classroom again teaching a new batch of young elementary minds.  I know one thing's for sure: my next group of students won't have to do near the shining job that was done this year.  They'll have it much easier, but they'll find there's a lot of polishing to go.