Hedgetoad Teaching

Still trying to get everything done before the week of meetings start. Studiously avoiding the school building and taking another peak at my class roster. Yesterday students could pick up their schedules and make changes before the year starts. About a third of them do it, and the counselors start working on evening out sections. I'm sure that my 5th period class now has more than 7 students. Or I could not have a 5th period class any more. It's all up in the air now. But I won't take a peak until next week. Why ruin the surprise. I'm still worried about the AP classes. I ran into a student a week ago who told me "everyone wanted to drop the class, but were afraid to tell you"... Is this true? Am I an AP bully? Have I driven the entire program into the ground by demanding too much? The first thing I had to learn after moving here was that very few people expected any sort of rigor from students and that those who had that were usually looked down upon. If they...

This is my last week before having to follow someone else's schedule. One week to complete all the household tasks I planned last June, but still haven't completed. Tomorrow will have to be the start of the mad dash to get it all done... and I swore I wasn't going to procrastinate any more. First task is cleaning out the "storage room"... I have no idea where I'm going to put everything, but I desperatly need a play room, so I have to find a new home for all the crap. Second task is painting, painting. I hope I'll be able to get to that by Wednesday. Before and after photos posted tomorrow.

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 assig...

school supplies purchased - check new lunch box - check new laptop computer - check plan for the first month for sophomores - check no plans for AP yet, as I'm not sure if there will be any AP classes. Due to budget constraints and lack of teachers, I will not be allowed to have a class of less than 20. Less than 20 students have completed the summer assignment for each section... the math is not working in our favor. Also, have no spent more than 30 minutes in classroom since June. Really, all I have to do in there is hang up a few posters and run copies. Everything else can be done on my handy-dandy new laptop. Did I mention that I got a new laptop? It's shiny. I did, however, take the time to look at my class rosters - joke that they are at this moment. I have two classes of 35+, one with 7 and one normal one. Is there a point in even paying attention to it at this point? I'm really hoping that the class with 7 will actually be moved to another time. I loath having class...

Summer went by very, very quickly... even though I had almost no conferences or classes to attend, it still seems to have flown by. This morning I woke up at 5am and it was pitch dark. Nothing like the turn of the planet to make you feel the passing of the seasons and realize that all those projects you've been saying you'll do "tomorrow" have to be done today.

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