Skip to main content

2009 Goals

For teachers, New Year's Day isn't our "begin anew" date. For us, it's the first day of school. That means that Jan. 1st is sort of a mid-point, a time for reflection. So where am I on my goals for this year?

I'm still constantly falling behind in grading... I really need to figure out something to do about it. Of course, the first thing I should work on is procrastinating and screwing around instead of grading. Yup, that should be my first step.

To be honest, most of the time I feel like I'm running to catch up. Part of the reason is my procrastination but it's also part disorganization, part poor planning. Both are things I also need to reevaluate in the coming months... am I letting too many seemingly inconsequential things slide? It's so true that the devil is in the details. Plus, I'm one of those people who when confronted with a wide open schedule get nothing done.

Finally, my energy level has been lagging. I'm convinced that this due to my piss-poor diet. Not enough vegis, lunches that consist of coffee and mini-Hershey bars and too frequent "I'm-to-tired-to-cook-tonight-so-I'll-just-stop-at-Maccas" nights. Since, Lala left I've cooked approximately five times. Three within the last two weeks. Yikes.

On the plus side, my AP students' writing is improving greatly. Only a third of my sophomores are currently failing (usually, by this time of the semester over one-half are) and I was able to organize and get all the students who needed to be tested for RtI done within a week. While I now see that my school is not exactly doing RtI up to standards, I can now understand where we need to be... and that's a good thing.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Notes

Books to Read: New Kelly Gallagher   Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions  by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana  Notes for Art: Group Project for the First Day Expectations from group project exit question

“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...