Skip to main content

While We're Beginning Anew

Last year was a tough year for me. I had a lot going on in my personal life, working on Take One! and the new RtI stuff (which took me out of the classroom more than I liked). I also had a class with a horrible mix of students. All of these things combined in a way to that made me really not want to be teaching or spend any time outside of school thinking about/working school. We all know that teaching isn't a job that can be done during school hours. I wasn't being a good teacher... at least in my mind.

This year, my goal is to change that. I've really reworked several things in my sophomore curriculum and added a lot of preparation work into the early months of the year. I'm not sure how well it will go over, as our class configurations changed. Our school no longer has separate "honors" and "regular" english courses for the sophomores. There will be a much greater mix of skill level in the room.

My AP courses will continue on, but the summer assignment is gone. For this year, those who completed the summer assignment, they will not have to take the final for the fall semester. I'm disappointed that the classes loose out on it, but if a majority of students are not going to take it seriously, what is the point? I'm tired of fighting for it. Moving on to reworking the first week, since we won't be talking about the summer reading.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“They Don’t Get It”

I hear that a lot these days. It used to be mostly from various teens trying to negotiate the drama unfolding in their lives as they wandered into that no-man’s land between adult and child. These days it’s from adults trying to navigate the education scene these days. So many people talking and no one listening. The other day I was reading a post by a blogger I’ve been following for several years. Before there was such a thing as “blogging.” We all know spring is IEP review season. This blogger wrote about his daughter’s. Among the various elements, there was the discussion about the state assessment tests. She did not pass. There was discussion about what this means… and why said student needed to pass this test. Would she be taking a modified test? While reading, all I could think about was what would happen to that child as she entered middle school and high school. A history of not passing the assessment test vs. teachers who will now be evaluated on how many students pass t...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Cruelest Month

I know T.S. Eliot favored April as the most cruel, but we teachers know that May is… even more so these days. Most importantly, it is the final testing month. National ‘assessments, state ‘assessments’, district ‘assessments’, school ‘assessments’… on and on. It’s impossible to actually get anything done. Toss in graduation activities, planning for the upcoming year and the 2011 bonus, lay-offs and transfers, and you have to wonder if it wouldn’t be better to save money by simply shutting down school entirely except for a few test proctors. Meanwhile, there seems an air of hopelessness permeating the education world. Plans to lay-off thousands are coming to fruition. Schools are being closed, despite protests. Charters are increasing where they can whether they should not. Unions have lost a lot ground and teachers are trying to decide if it’s even worth it any more to continue talking about education . ( not that I blame anyone for that, we all have lives to live ) For myself, I...
Post a Comment
Read more

Campaign Promises

While purusing the Sunday paper, I came across an article describing some local candidate forum held over the weekend. Apprently they either weren't able to say a lot or what they said was pretty boring because the article was skimpy on specifics. What caught my eye was a position of Randy Dutton. He wants "higher standards for teachers." My interest was piqued... what kind of standards? In looking at his website, apparently those standards will be raised by carrying a gun to school, finally; "full days of school"-whatever that means - personally I'd love to put in business hours. No more 5 am wake ups; increasing the number of k-8 schools - because those kindergartners don't swear enough; sending disruptive students to placed like Habit for Humanity - babysitting is what people volunteer for; and teaching more American History- too bad that with all the testing, no one ever gets past the Civil War... I'm not sure how any of these apply to teachers, ...
Post a Comment
Read more