Back Again

Actually, I've been home for a few days... let me just say that embarking on a home improvement project while simultaneously getting ready for the upcoming school year probably isn't a good idea. Especially if you are the coach of a team that will be performing on the first day of school. I'm a little stressed out.

Luckily, for the first time, I seem to be taking the opening of school in stride. I haven't even looked at my rosters since July. It was then that I noticed that my first period class had 46 students in it. I didn't even blink. I believe the current number is now 30 - large for an AP class, but par for the course in my district. Sometimes, it can be like teaching in Central Africa.

When I have a moment I'll post some photos of my new tables (no desks!) and some of the fun games I learned at leadership camp. Possibly photos of a fully insulated attic. Still working on that one.

Back and tagged!

Back from one trip - off to another tomorrow morning.

Teaching Meme - tagged by hipteacher

1. I am a good teacher because... I really like most of my students and want them to go on to happy lives filled with cozy homes, babies and jobs they enjoy. I also truly believe that literature and poetry are part of what makes life worth living. Plus, I think grammar jokes are hysterical.

2. If I weren't a teacher, I would be... a corporate flunkie? a professional nanny? a writer?

3. My teaching style is... nagging? I'm sure that's what my student would say. I think I'd have to say variable. With some classes, it's almost collaborative. With others it's almost authoritarian... hey, I'll admit it... I don't know if I really have a specific style yet. I'm still in the process of developing it.

4. My classroom is... a trapezoid. One wall is full of windows. Sadly it looks into the courtyard. The teacher across the hall has windows that display a forest full of critters. Last year, they all got a "sex in nature" show when a buck jumped a doe who happened by. We did however, see a bird build it's nest. I also have one wall that exposed wood - like paneling, but made of real wood. This is the only wall that I can hang anything on. I'm hoping to get an author mural painted on a wall this fall.

5. My lesson plans... are well thought out in the early part of the semester. They tend to go missing during the middle and I write them cryptically afterwards.

6. One of my teaching goals is…to be a really effective teacher. And maybe one day have a book dedicated to me, thanking me for forcing him/her to read the Christmas Carol in Dickensian English.

7. The toughest part of teaching is... having my heart broken by kids who just don't make it and decide to leave.

8. The thing I love most about teaching is... I almost never dread going to school. I might dread something I have to do, but never actually going to work. Also, I get to shop for new "school clothes" and school supplies every year.

9. A common misconception about teaching is... teachers don't know anything about the "real world." Just because I believe that the world can be a much better place doesn't mean that I'm unaware of how much it isn't.

10. The most important thing I've learned since I started teaching... only life and death are life and death. Everything else is gravy.

Wife Swap

Did anyone catch Wife Swap last night? While at the OSPI conference last week, I read all about the environmental couple featured in this week's episode... and how they were slightly concerned that they may be made out to look like freaks. P.S. they've never seen the show.

Well, they didn't have to worry. I realize that show's producers edit the footage to portray the victims participants in certain manners, but holy crap! The "mainstream mom" (and I use that term loosely) was a complete nut. Obviously she is in need of professional help... it wasn't just the fact that she devotes her life to her dogs to the expense of her family - I nearly choked when she said the other family needed to eat something with nutritional value, like fast food - but she was so mean and rude to everyone. Did she think that she might come out looking good? I'm pretty sure that anyone who "knows what's going on" is aware that use of foul language and throwing temper tantrums will be shown to the television audience. By the end, I'll bet even loggers and miners were rooting for the neo-hippies.

OSPI Conference

I went and I survived. Ok, it wasn't really that bad. Terry Bergeson personally served us ice cream when a meeting went late... which was a nice gesture, since I all I got out of the "keynote speeches" was an increase in my tetris skills. At least I didn't snore.

One session I attended was given my someone from the Virtual School in Spokane. Somewhat good - although I wish it had been longer - and a link for all sorts of online goodies! I'm still working on setting up a stable classroom website that is easy to find, easy to use and doesn't require a lot membership levels for students. I'm currently using freewebs, but it's slow to load and blocked by most school computers. It has a lot of the functionality that I want, but not the freedom. I've been trying googlepages, but they don't have the functionality that I really want. For example, I cannot figure out how to get all three assignment calendars to show up on the same calendar page and I cannot find a "forum" capability that doesn't act like an email group and doesn't require an entirely new membership to post.

I also attended a session run by a guy from East Valley (Spokane Valley). The interesting thing about his chat session was the way he figured out to predict the number of students who will receive passing scores based on DIBELS scores. Which ones are more likely to benefit from additional help, etc. So far he's been shockingly accurate - depending upon the size of the group he's working with (the larger the group, the more accurate). Although there isn't a DIBELS test for high school, our school made one up. We've tested 8th, 9th and 10th graders every year for the past three years. If someone can aggregate the data, it would be interesting to see if this works at the high school level and if fluency even has a significant effect on WASL scores at this age.

There were also several sessions on tracking (none of which I attended, so this is all heresay). It seems like this trend is back in a very big way.