Survived the first week of school. Though it was only three days with the students. :=)
Just a few notes:
*The Transitional program is going to be a lot of work. These students are tough! Very needy. Don't listen. Never been taught any proper behavior and life skills (reminder: I teach 9th grade). I have two sections of this program and at the end of the day, I'm so mentally, emotionally, and physically drained! Most of these kids were in self-contained classrooms at the middle school (no - they are not all SPED kids). The main goal of this program is to make sure these kids don't drop out of high school. On the second day of school, there was a BAD fight in the math class between two boys: one kid had his nose broken and three bones in his face broken. Both boys are suspended out for ten days. So, as you can see, we have our work cut out for us!
*Enjoying my local history class. A lot of the students had me their freshman year and they like my crazy teaching style so much they wanted to take me again. They are a fun, smart, and just nice group of kids.
*Volleyball has been a challenge for me. I now have 20 girls on my JV team and I'm expected to play all of them during games. Over half the team has never played the sport before so I have a lot of work cut out for me this season. Most of the girls are nice. Got a few that live in the drama and create plenty of it. I find it very difficult to work with all the girls and get their skill level to where it needs to be so they can play the sport better. I tried dividing them up into groups but it's still to much. One of the varsity players said I need an assistant! I agree! It's just too many girls on one team. We should have had cuts but the varsity coach didn't want to discourage anyone. He only has 12 girls so his job is much easier than mine. And, varsity doesn't have to play everyone in a game like JV. At our first game on Friday night, I had so many substitutions that the girls had a tough time figuring out the rotation and we got into trouble with the ref. We lost our game but at least all the girls played and tried hard. We are playing schools that have had a volleyball program for a long time. This is only our third year.
On a fun note:
*I'm going to the U2 concert on Sunday, September 20th! My sister is flying out for the weekend too. I'm sooo pumped! I LOVE U2!
Stay positive and have a wonderful week! :=)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Officially back to school on Tuesday!
Enjoying my last weekend of freedom before I head back to school on Tuesday for a professional day. We get the students on Wednesday.
Actually, I've been back in school since August 27th. I coach JV volleyball so I've been in the building since that day. For the first three days, we had double practices so in between practices, I would go up to my classroom to unpack and get it ready. We then switched to afternoon practices so I would go into school in the morning to do work.
Even though I'm a high school teacher, I work very hard to create a very comfortable classroom environment for my students. Most of my colleagues don't decorate their classrooms and make their rooms feel "homey." Every school year, the kids tell how warm and welcoming my classroom feels to them. I hate bare white walls so I will hang up student work. I don't care how old you are but kids still love to see their work hanging up on a bulletin board or wall. Currently, I hung up posters and projects from last years' students. Once I get going, I will hang up work from the kids this year. I always keep student work as samples to show students what I expect for a final project.
So, my classroom is all ready and waiting for the students to arrive on Wednesday.
My teaching schedule will pretty much be the same. Still in the freshman house. Still have four classes of World History (3 college preps and 1 honors) and the local history class elective for upperclassmen. The only difference will be that two of my college prep World History classes will be part of the new transitional team (one of the college prep transition classes will be co-taught with a special ed teacher in the room). The administration has already "red flagged" 30 freshman students at risk for dropping out of high school due to emotional and behavioral issues (some related to horrific home lives). Those 30 students will be in smaller classes (15 students per class) and share the same major content teachers (History, English, Science, and Math) in the freshman house. English and History classes will be taught in the middle of the day and back to back. Math and Science will be the same (we teach on a 4 x4 block). For example, this will allow English and History to do more interdisciplinary units - when I'm teaching about Ancient Greece in History, the English teacher has the kids reading The Odyssey. The transitional team came up with themes per quarter: 1st quarter -The Ideal Individual, 2nd quarter - Tolerance, 3rd quarter - Freedom, and 4th quarter - Service. All of our curriculum will be taught around these themes. I will not be teaching World History chronologically but thematically with these kids - this is a first for me. I thought I would try it and see what happens. My school has a 60% graduation rate so we are trying to increase the number of students graduating. Since the implementation of the freshman house, our numbers have gone up 10% (five years ago, our graduation rate was 50%). So, we have our work cut out!
We have a professional day on Tuesday. The day will be filled with meetings and small presentations from faculty and administration. I've been asked to do a short presentation to the faculty on explaining the use of the library and web site. The librarian and I will be running double sessions and she thought of me to help her since I take my students down to the library all the time and teach my students how to properly use the library. My principal told me that I will receiving a small stipend and PDP's for the presentations. Cool! :=)
We are starting school late compared to other schools in this area and even the country. Since I read a lot of teacher blogs from all over the country, I know some schools have already been in school for at least six weeks! Sometimes I wish that we would start earlier and then get out earlier but our buildings here are not equipped to handle the warmer weather (aka no A/C). Since I have an inside classroom (no windows), my classroom is VERY WARM right now - temps in my classroom during the past week have been around the high 80's. I have two fans running but all the fans do is circulate the warm air around the room. Thankfully, the weather here in New England has cooled off somewhat so hopefully the classrooms will eventually cool off as well.
The summer is coming to a close. It was a real nice and relaxing summer for M-Dawg! A very much needed mental health summer. :-)
So, here we go and wishing everyone a productive and invigorating school year! :=)
Actually, I've been back in school since August 27th. I coach JV volleyball so I've been in the building since that day. For the first three days, we had double practices so in between practices, I would go up to my classroom to unpack and get it ready. We then switched to afternoon practices so I would go into school in the morning to do work.
Even though I'm a high school teacher, I work very hard to create a very comfortable classroom environment for my students. Most of my colleagues don't decorate their classrooms and make their rooms feel "homey." Every school year, the kids tell how warm and welcoming my classroom feels to them. I hate bare white walls so I will hang up student work. I don't care how old you are but kids still love to see their work hanging up on a bulletin board or wall. Currently, I hung up posters and projects from last years' students. Once I get going, I will hang up work from the kids this year. I always keep student work as samples to show students what I expect for a final project.
So, my classroom is all ready and waiting for the students to arrive on Wednesday.
My teaching schedule will pretty much be the same. Still in the freshman house. Still have four classes of World History (3 college preps and 1 honors) and the local history class elective for upperclassmen. The only difference will be that two of my college prep World History classes will be part of the new transitional team (one of the college prep transition classes will be co-taught with a special ed teacher in the room). The administration has already "red flagged" 30 freshman students at risk for dropping out of high school due to emotional and behavioral issues (some related to horrific home lives). Those 30 students will be in smaller classes (15 students per class) and share the same major content teachers (History, English, Science, and Math) in the freshman house. English and History classes will be taught in the middle of the day and back to back. Math and Science will be the same (we teach on a 4 x4 block). For example, this will allow English and History to do more interdisciplinary units - when I'm teaching about Ancient Greece in History, the English teacher has the kids reading The Odyssey. The transitional team came up with themes per quarter: 1st quarter -The Ideal Individual, 2nd quarter - Tolerance, 3rd quarter - Freedom, and 4th quarter - Service. All of our curriculum will be taught around these themes. I will not be teaching World History chronologically but thematically with these kids - this is a first for me. I thought I would try it and see what happens. My school has a 60% graduation rate so we are trying to increase the number of students graduating. Since the implementation of the freshman house, our numbers have gone up 10% (five years ago, our graduation rate was 50%). So, we have our work cut out!
We have a professional day on Tuesday. The day will be filled with meetings and small presentations from faculty and administration. I've been asked to do a short presentation to the faculty on explaining the use of the library and web site. The librarian and I will be running double sessions and she thought of me to help her since I take my students down to the library all the time and teach my students how to properly use the library. My principal told me that I will receiving a small stipend and PDP's for the presentations. Cool! :=)
We are starting school late compared to other schools in this area and even the country. Since I read a lot of teacher blogs from all over the country, I know some schools have already been in school for at least six weeks! Sometimes I wish that we would start earlier and then get out earlier but our buildings here are not equipped to handle the warmer weather (aka no A/C). Since I have an inside classroom (no windows), my classroom is VERY WARM right now - temps in my classroom during the past week have been around the high 80's. I have two fans running but all the fans do is circulate the warm air around the room. Thankfully, the weather here in New England has cooled off somewhat so hopefully the classrooms will eventually cool off as well.
The summer is coming to a close. It was a real nice and relaxing summer for M-Dawg! A very much needed mental health summer. :-)
So, here we go and wishing everyone a productive and invigorating school year! :=)
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