Story to tell

So, here I am, ironically almost exactly 3 years after my last blog post. I contemplated starting fresh but ultimately decided to tweak the name and write here. Do people even read blogs anymore? Not that it matters, the first 4 posts here had 0 views. I spent a few minutes looking over some previous posts(here and my first blog)...It's amazing how much I've grown. As a teacher, and as a human being since the days where I seemed to have time to write about pretty much anything. 

This year, I'm team lead. This is my second year as a mentor teacher for first year teachers at my school. This year I have my first Student intern. Since my last posts, my father died, I bought a house and moved my mom in with me. I've faced a lot of my demons. I've found a confidence the old me wouldn't have thought possible.  I know I'm still, at 34, figuring out who I am, and I've realized I always will be. 

So why am I here. I honestly don't know. Over the last year or so I've spent a lot of time figuring out how to Sharpen the Saw. We became a Leader in me school last year and the self reflection piece, while it's completely out of my comfort zone, certainly has helped me find more peace in my life. Which says something since we are in the middle of a global pandemic. Mostly, I've picked up painting, tried to find a little more time for reading and photography, and spent a lot more time snuggling my fur babies. But for some reason tonight...this was calling to me. I feel the need to share as I look for blessings in my day to day life. So, If you've stumbled across this and read through my ramblings, welcome. I hope you find what you're looking for.

Irony in the classroom

Do you all see irony all around you in the classroom? I find myself singing Alanis Morissette's Ironic on at least a weekly basis. This past week the ultimate irony happened as I was walking my class down the main staircase on our way to reading buddies. A student picked up speed and was trying to pass a classmate in line. Me: "If we're using walking feet we won't be passing each other on the stairs, there should only be one person on a stair at one time" Not ten seconds later I missed a step, rolled my ankle and fell the rest of the way down the stairs. I was only about 3 steps from the bottom. I have a pretty high pain tolerance and expected to be able to bounce right back up, but no such luck. Y'all my kids were amazing and were so worried about me. They went to get help and in no time at all someone had taken them to their reading buddies and I was on my way to the nurses office. I finished out the day before heading to the doctor. It's sprained but after a weekend of rest it's feeling much better.

A friend of mine insists I should write a book, that this stuff truly only happens to me. What do you think? Isn't it ironic?

Observations

Observations...something most of us dread. I have anxiety and I'm very much a people pleaser so observations definitely make me anxious. Unfortunately, being nervous typically makes me speed up what I'm doing. Maybe subconsciously I think if I finish the lesson sooner they will leave sooner, or I think that they are going to think I spent too much time on my lesson and not enough on the student activity. What ever the reasoning of my subconscious, my speediness comes back to bite me because inevitably skip some portion of my lesson.

This year I've had to take a whole new look at observations because I was chosen as the  teacher representative from my school to be an OBSERVER during our district snapshots. Let me tell you, it is hard to score an observation of a peer! Every time I click a number less than 4 I feel the stab that I know I would feel seeing that score on my observation. Ultimately, I know an honest score is best, but I know how it feels and I'm right there in the trenches with them. Every part of me wants to just announce to them that I know how hard they are trying!

It's impossible to hit every thing in every lesson. It's even more impossible to hit everything in the 20 minutes that an observer is in your room for a snapshot. One thing that this year has helped me see is that it's OK to not get all 4's! It's OK to score 1's! The important thing is that you reflect on your observation. If you scored a 1 and you know it's something you hit on a lot, know that and move on. Sometimes collaboration/technology/whatever you missed isn't appropriate. If you know that it's something you NEVER do, know that and take an opportunity to grow. I have colleagues that HATE technology. If they use it in their classrooms it's simply an activity to "entertain" their students. But when introduced to new activities with technology I'm seen them grow to love them. Still, they are apprehensive to take them to the next level. If we want our students to push themselves and grow, we have to push ourselves and grow.

If you score a 1 (or 2 or 3) and you feel like it should have been higher, really take the time to think about what you were doing and the indicator. If you can't figure out how you missed it and you have the opportunity please meet with your observer! Talk to them about the indicator and what you were doing that you thought should have scored higher. Maybe they weren't looking at it the same way you did. Knowing their viewpoint and helping them see yours will help with future observations.

Also, and I can't say this enough, DON'T try something just because you know you are being observed. If you are trying something new (trying new things is a GOOD thing after all), be transparent!! Be explicit with your instructions to your students, don't act like you expect them to already know how to do it.

Good luck on any upcoming observations, and know, I KNOW HOW HARD YOU'RE TRYING, KEEP IT UP, I'M RIGHT THERE WITH YOU!

Career Day

Yesterday was career fair for grades 2-5. Second grade is housed downstairs and had a separate career fair in the cafeteria. While grades 3-5 were on a rotation schedule upstairs. We are a very large Elementary school. The lower grades had already had their own vehicle career day in the fall.

Mid week we weren't sure if we would have someone for each homeroom. I tried reaching out to my family but the ones who work weren't available to come. I wanted to do something to help our wonderful guidance counselor who had taken on the task of planning this event for us. I found a great website www.drkit.org that has over 300 videos about careers. Each video is about 10 minutes long so it fit perfectly with our rotation schedule.

Fortunately we were able to secure most of the speakers that we needed although the website was a great backup plan. Third grade was truly blessed with some amazing speakers. Each speaker visits a homeroom and the students move from room to room to hear them speak. My homeroom started with...

Richland County Sheriff's Department's own Deputy Lawrence, who you may recognize from Live PD! (It was district wide Collage and Career Readiness Day so the teachers were all sporting our College clothes). Deputy Lawrence spoke about the importance of communication on his job and treating all people with respect. My student's were completely in awe (and a little disappointed that they weren't going to be on TV).  

From our room we moved on to see a ranger from our State Parks who brought his friend Pete the snake. My kids were amazed and a little terrified when I did this...

I wanted to look scared in the picture but I couldn't keep a straight face because a few of my kiddos seemed convinced they were about to watch the life get squeezed from my body. I told them he only wanted to give me a hug 😀I'm pretty sure I reached a whole new level of respect. Oh and my colleagues are now convinced that I'm insane.

The other guest speakers were amazing too and included a veteran, a local football coach, a florist, a UPS truck driver and a librarian who deals with very old books (several that we saw pictures of were over 800 years old). I LOVED that the selection included jobs that required a variety of educational backgrounds. As much as I would like to think that everyone of my students will have the opportunity to go to collage I know that just isn't realistic. It's also not necessary for everyone to receive a 4 year degree to have a job they enjoy. 

What does your career day look like? What's the craziest thing you've done with your students? While my co-workers may think this is crazy I thought it was FUN! I hope you all can have as much fun in your classroom as I do in mine!

JoAnne

Welcome!

Hi! Thanks for dropping by my blog. I had a blog years ago after I graduated from USC with my degree in education. I hadn't posted for several years and couldn't decided if I wanted to pick the same blog back up or start a new one. I finally decided to start fresh, My life and classroom are just too different than they were then. So here we are...

I'm currently a 3rd grade teacher at a brand new school. This is my 3rd year teaching 3rd grade. I wanted to get back into blogging so that I had a place to get all of the ideas the float around in my head down in writing. I feel like there are a lot of opportunities coming my way lately and I want to have a way to document them and the other adventures (or misadventures) I encounter along the way.

Most of my posts will be about my classroom, but I'm sure I'll also share about my family and my Girl Scout Troop.

Hopefully among all of my rambling, you might find some useful tips, classroom ideas or someone who shares your opinions.