Teacher's new years

Teachers essentially have three "restart" days a year. The traditional new year's day, birthdays and then first day of school in the fall. My professional restart day is August 15th! Quite honestly I have super plans for each academic year, do great for a few weeks, then settle back into my blah ways. Then I usually finish out strong but it bothers me not to have a cohesive semester as much as both the subjects I teach and the students deserve. Stuff that is rolling around my head today 1) I am not going to officially start on the fall semester until beginning of August. 2) I am excited to incorporate more of what I learned last fall in a class I took. 3) I am concerned about my new mixed learning class I am teaching 4) Ahhhh just talking about this stuff simultaneously gets me excited and mournful of the pending end of my summer vacation! The biggest problem I have in running a classroom definitely is organization. Papers, people, curriculum, tests, buying groceries (I am a fcs teacher) fccla, all of that truly is my downfall. I don't beat myself up too much I do have many students and many preps. but still I think if I get the organization better- the classes will be much smoother. So here is to my academic new year! My next entry will have the specifics of my new year resolutions.

First quarter down, Parent teacher conferences loom.....

Well with the schedule I have this year, something had to give.... in this case keeping a blog had to go.... I do have some time now - so here I go!!!

Had a program review by my state advisor. FCS is a vocational program, so added funding means added accountability. She had some great suggestions to make my program work better, but it means extra work for me. This is what we decided:
1. Get rid of the entrepreneurship class - each semester I only have 3-10 students enrolled, therefore having to keep combining the class with another- recipe for YIKES.
2. Start a Food Productions and Management class- this is an advanced class for students who have taken nutrition and foods, and want to take an advanced class
3. Start an educational assistant program - I actually suggested this, we all ready have a administrator who places, and monitors the students going into the elementary classrooms- I thought I could be in charge of an on line class portion

so the things I have to do besides lesson plans for these classes:
- write 10n forms for each program
-acquire tech prep agreements for each program
-renew my servesafe certificate
-renew my vigor for fccla ---- that will be another entry :)

One thing that has been bothering me just a little is last year I agreed to allow central district health to help me do the reduce the risk program in our high school. I did it in earnest last year, and agreed CONDITIONALLY to participate in a limited basis this year. Specifically I was not going to subject my students to the million page survey (or take extra class time) and I wasn't going to do all of the lessons= I do not have enough time. After all it isn't my grant..... The contact I work with in my town is incredible to work with, but her boss wants to meet with me. So it will be interesting what she says. Really, it won't change anything, short of if she has some funding to by things to bribe students to do those surveys outside of class time.....

This has been an incredible year so far, REALLY BUSY. Also it is natural to have cycles of professional confidence. However this year it seems like in the teaching arena my confidence levels have been volatile. One week up, one week down, it sometimes varies from day to day! I feel pretty good this week LOL. I am excited that parent teacher conferences are in our rooms this year = meaning I will get lots of grading, planning and other work done. I don't usually get too many parents- hey I am only "lllll" FAMILY and CONSUMER SCIENCES LOL

Fluffy bunnies and lofty clouds!

Juniper

Who do we work for?

After getting Mark to go to his clinical at 4:30, nodding off for a bit-I watched the morning news. They were talking about Obama's plan to put some money into fixing schools and rehiring teachers. Then they said "The republicans say it is nothing but a teacher union bail-out" Ummmmm we don't WORK for the teacher union. We work for the GOVERNMENT, so if implemented essentially we are bailing ourselves out? Any ways...

Today was really good! Kids- good. I have to say my teaching wasn't bad... I feel energetic after the day - which has been rare this year.


good times..... now I have to work so tomorrow will be good :)

Oh my goodness......

I am not sure that I have ever felt this tired, and deflated this early in the school year.... Yes, sometimes it is the norm in February.... I just am not feeling accomplished at the time.

My student's grades are slowly coming up. We have a mandatory study hall for students with d's and f's. I can't say for sure if all the kids who need to go- but having the extra student awareness of their grades by several teachers every week has had an impact.

I do have one concern that is weighing heavily on me this week. The communication between the special education staff and the rest of us. It seems to me that we have a bigger staff than ever. One administrator in the building mostly dedicated to students with special needs, 4 certified teachers, one dude that does the scheduling, several para professionals who help. (even though I don't think there are enough para pros. The system right now relies on us clicking on a student on our powerschool to see what the modifications are supposed to be. That is all fine and good - but I don't know what the student's level of skills are, I don't know what we are supposed to be looking out for behavior-wise. This level of communication is fine for the students who are higher functioning, but the students who are lower functioning - can not verbalize. They might not even be aware. It is just frustrating to say the least. Really the kiddos lose out.

Blech. Classes otherwise are going really well. Nutrition classes are coming upon their dreaded nutrition test. Teen living - we are starting to talk about "healthy" relationships. Parenting we are in the pregnancy/readiness chapter. Entrepreneurship will be learning about book keeping.
so that has been good.

happiness to all!

Three day weekends give rise to apathy

Which is just not right. I should be refreshed and peppy after a three day break. Tell you the truth the LAST thing I wanted to do was go to school. First hour was particularly harsh. I was scattered and rather inarticulate...... we got through somehow.The rest of the day went progressively better.

I have to admit it was totally my fault I did not prepare enough. The rest of the week is going a lot better as well.

One complaint that I do have is how fellow teachers minimize what I teach. Today a fellow colleague told me she couldn't believe how a student flunked my test. Looking her in the eye I told her maybe the test was hard for her. Then I gave her the test. I have been teaching for a long time, I certainly do not have the "easy a" classes. some classes are easier than others, but nutrition is difficult for some students. I guess I get mad because it implies that I don't teach anything. rude. That is kind of a pride thing that doesn't have anything to do with anything...

Went to a training this morning on a program for students to turn in their papers on line. It looked pretty cool. I shall try it this semester.

Pretty nice week

Very few things went wrong last week. Had some hiccups in planning. Most of the classes went well, one foods class in particular I sort of got behind. Ironically they are the ones that wanted to take their test on friday. Don't know how they did yet - I will know tomorrow. My intention was to bring the tests home to grade - right after school a student needed assistance and I looked up and needed to go get to my carpool.....so --- but I will get caught up. I am getting kinda paranoid though - the administrators are trying to observe every so often and every time they get to my classroom - I am getting ready to give a test, or they come the first or last few minutes- nothing is going on during those times. not cool :)

I do need to balance my life though - I am not going to worry too much it is the first whole week - but all I did was school and sleep I think last week. so diet, sleeping went out the window. I can't do that next week.

good times!

Adaptive Qualities

The first week was really a fun, positive good time. I love the new schedule so far. It is nice seeing the kids most every day. Lot easier and I am thinking more efficient use of class time to have them 50 minutes most days with a 90 minute block once a week. The assignments are a bit smaller and so far the kids seem to be more willing to get their work done.

The only negative is I have a student with some massive behavior issues. Well, this along with some cognitive things going on. I do think I need an aide with him in my class. Perhaps if the class were smaller then I could help him better. We will see how things shake up. I did come up with a plan for the student though just in case I can't get assistance for whatever reason. I probably need to be more forceful if I don't though.

As always I am in awe of my friend who has been going through chemo. This is her second year of fighting. She just gets done what needs to get done at school matter-the- fact like. Just knowing her has got me going on things I need to get done. Losing weight, getting my house in order, being a better teacher. Just getting stuff done. Basically cutting the crap. Who has time to deal with things that don't matter? Who has time to make excuses? None of us. I am a better person - or at least working on it :)

Other delights this week - my stepson turned 11 yesterday and we are having a birthday party for him this evening. His grandparents got him a kinect and he and his dad have been playing it all morning - pretty cool piece of hardware! Also it has been so cute seeing the little bugger smile and be sooooo excited for his birthday, and also I think he is excited for school here soon.

Back to teaching - well like I said the first three days were good. I am realizing that grading is going to be a bigger issue. I have been car pooling most days, but I think I am going to drive in on Mondays and Tuesdays to get all the planning and copying done for the week(without having to leave early), then I will grade on my prep period. We will see if that will be a good strategy. Also I would like to get my fccla up and running. Or an after school group of some sort. Yeah!!!

This sounds dorky but lots of love and fluffy clouds to everyone -