Two days down and my classroom looks a little bit like a Staples exploded inside of it.
Orientation has been going well--in some ways, an overwhelming amount of info is coming my way. But my brain is, naturally, filing away and prioritizing everything.
I put up my first bulletin board today! And I only stapled my finger once. Don't ask me how.
On the agenda tomorrow: putting the myriad dates for meetings, conferences, interims, report cards, etc. into my calendar(s). Doesn't that sound fascinating?
I will also be creating a While You Were Out board with Mon.-Fri. pockets so students will be responsible for collecting materials they missed while absent. I'm all about measures that place greater responsibility on the student--a major paradigm shift for them, but an important one, especially as they move into 9th grade when they leave me.
I can't wait to meet my students next Thursday!
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"If the angel deigns to come, it will be because you have convinced her, not by your tears, but by your humble resolve to be always beginning." Rainer Maria Rilke
tutto di me
- teach people not books
- Second year educator; social justice minded; sworn enemy of teacher shoes everywhere; figuring out how to do what I do as best as I possibly can, without losing myself in the process.
sagacity
"Our lives begin to end the day that we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Choice is illusory to the degree it represents the expectations of others. While all transition involves change, not all change results in transition."
Paulo Freire, Education for Critical Consciousness
"'Curiosity never killed this cat.' That's what I'd like as my epitaph."
Studs Terkel
"Whenever I am asked to do a good thing, I say yes right away."
Maya Angelou
"A well-instructed people alone can be permanently a free people."
James Madison
"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing / than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance."
e.e. cummings
"As the least drop of wine tinges the whole goblet, so the least particle of truth colors our whole lives. It is never isolated, or simply added as treasure to our stock. When any real progress is made, we unlearn and learn anew what we thought we knew before."
Henry David Thoreau, "Winter"
"As long as we continue to mindlessly defer to institutions that have themselves begun to cynically drop any pretence of being moral, just, or respectable - why should the government listen? it's doing just fine."
Arundhati Roy
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crises, maintain their neutrality."
Dante Alighieri
" But don't worry, I am not the bread and the knife. / You are still the bread and the knife. / You will always be the bread and the knife, / not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow-- the wine."
Billy Collins
"If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what, then, is an empty desk a sign?"
Albert Einstein
"The broadest and most prevalent error requires the most disinterested virtue to sustain it. . . Those who, while they disapprove of the character and measure of a government, yield to it their allegiance and support are undoubtedly its most conscientious supporters, and so frequently the most serious obstacles to reform."
Henry David Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"'Well, how can you talk without a brain?'
'I don't know, but some people without brains do an awful lot of talking, don't they?'"
Dorothy & Scarecrow,
The Wizard of Oz
"Poetry (and now my voice is rising) / is not all love, love, love, / and I'm sorry the dog died. / Poetry (here I hear myself the loudest) / is the human voice, / and are we not of interest to each other?"
Elizabeth Alexander
"But plans are one thing and fate another. When they coincide, success results. Yet success mustn't be considered the absolute. It is questionable, for that matter, whether success is an adequate response to life. Success can eliminate as many options as failure. "
Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
"Seed hope. Flower peace."
Daniel Berrigan
provocation
stimuli
labels
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- d-r-e-a-m-y (1)
- for art's sake (19)
- g.w. is a d.b. (4)
- grown-up books (8)
- methods resources (2)
- not teacher chic (1)
- poetry (25)
- ramblings of a first year teacher (47)
- recognition (4)
- science (1)
- teacher chic (12)
- travelogue (1)
- unapologetic consumerism (2)
- writing workshop talk (3)
- y.a. books (10)
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7 comments:
Organization is key. You'll need all those dates in your calendar; much better to put them in now, so you can plan ahead, vs. scrambling later on.
I love the idea of the "while you were out" board. I wish my teachers had done that.
I hope you're planning on blogging as the school year rolls on. I know you'll be pressed for time, but I'm hoping I'll get lucky, because I really like reading about the teacher's perspective.
http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/nihil-obstat?wbx.location=http%3A%2F%2Fjustice4claire.blogspot.com%2F
Hey K
this device works on blogger strikes me as cool. see what u think.
I hadn't realized before that you are a first year teacher. Good luck with your first year. My cooperative teacher told me while student teaching to not do any extras my first year, even though they would try to rope me in to a lot. Nonetheless, I also agreed to be an advisor for a student club, MEChA. My pay was also excellent *cough*...haha, but it did end up to be a great experience, and I was able to get to know more of the student body.
I like your idea of having "While You Were Out" pockets. When I was in student teaching I decided on a "While You Were Out" binder, but I am still trying to figure out what would be most effective for my 6th graders. You have high schoolers, right? What are you teaching again? I am going to think over your pocket idea this weekend.
i have 8th graders, and i'm teaching language arts. the while you were out folder pockets works for me for two important reasons:
1. it takes up a bulletin board that i now only have to worry about changing the border of (what a lovely preposition-ending sentence for a l.a. teacher). extras, to me, also means not worry about the interior decorating part to the point of exhaustion. the other bulletin board will be lovely, so this one stays like this all year.
2. i can ask a student to put so-and-so's name on a handout (or 3) and put it in the "monday" folder pocket--no hole punching, no messing with the binder--to the pocket and back to what they were doing, and to what i was doing with them.
all i did was buy the longer manilla envelopes, write the days of the week (actually print signs b/c my school handwriting is awful), and staple the bottoms & sides of the envelopes up when i put them on the bulletin board.
:]
ps:
enc-organization is SO key. my mom came in (a 30+ yr. teacher) and whipped that room right in to shape yesterday. it's not that i can't do it, it's that so many things are intuitive to her, whereas i would have had to think about them for a little while. therefore the initial organization went much quicker than it would have had i been alone in the endeavor. i am ETERNALLY grateful to my awesome mom for that.
justice-i have to say, i'm not sure i get it exactly... i'm not super tech-oriented. explain to me whats the deal with the widget?
mrs. v-thank you for the well wishes. i'm so excited! nothing like a little supplementary income, right?
I really do like your pocket idea. That sounds so easy, especially since you write the name of the absent students right on there. I was just picturing you putting extra copies of all the handouts for anyone who needed it. I love the idea of just putting in copies of those who are absent because then it won't be very cluttered.
yeah, and then it becomes the student's responsibility to retrieve any papers and/or assignments when they return. super easy. this measure of accountability is especially crucial for 8th graders moving into h.s., but important at every grade level. go for it! try it out and let me know how it works for you.
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