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| We take our silliness very seriously |
Greetings!
HOW IS IT THE END OF SEPTEMBER?! These first 8 weeks of school have been amazing and very visceral for me. In so many ways, I know I'm a better teacher than last year. And in so many ways I can see my growth points really showing through. I think often the really cool things you do as a teacher serve to highlight the not-so-good things (for lack of a better word!), and sometimes that's a heavy burden to bear.
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| Just being worm scientists, NBD. |
I'd like to start this blog off with the low points of this month. I'll be honest--this has been a really tough month for me, professionally. I'm struggling with new ideas educationally and balancing a totally new class with a very different vibe than my past year.
- Data/Assessment collection is the bane of my existence. I've faced the fact that I'm just totally unmotivated to collect data daily from my 23 students. I feel like I don't have the time, or the will to do it.
- Time management is a real struggle. There are times when I see my students working on something and I think--let's just keep doing this and we'll skip whatever was supposed to come next in our schedule. The more we do this, the more we miss out on things that we really should be working on. Or as Dr. Lynch would say, "things students should have the opportunity to do"
There's always time to complain, I guess. So, LET'S CELEBRATE!
These kids are AMAZING. They are so zen. So relaxing. They looooooooove breathing techniques from Dr. Becky Bailey and Conscious Discipline. The pretzel is our favorite! We do some interesting yoga everyday as a warm up to our morning meeting. My biggest celebrations as a teacher and as a community are:
- Compassion Kit: Our compassion kit is something we came up with in the first few weeks of school. It's a good companion to the solution kit. We did a large group on "what can we do to help a hurting friend" and this piece of brilliance is what THEY came up with.
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Of course, I can't make them do anything, but when they see a hurt friend (or if they hurt a friend), I always ask them if they thought they made a mistake, and if they say yes, I ask them how they can learn from this mistake. And then I ask them if they can ask their hurting friend how they can help them feel better? These language frames have EXPLODED in the classroom. I've seen a lot of kids in the beginning of the year go from saying sorry 30 times to a kid while the other kid tells on them to them asking what they can do to help them feel better before even running to me. More than anything, I like to watch these kinds of interactions unfold. It just does the heart good to see little people learning compassion.
- Classroom Mantra: Over the summer, I wrote a poem that I wanted to be what our classroom culture was going to be about. But more than that, it became this poem that has deeply affected me as a teacher, a friend, a daughter, and even as a stranger. We say this poem everyday. Its the first thing we do each and everyday. We also use it in different social interactions and as reminders throughout the day.
I am in charge, and I can become the person I want to be, My power comes from inside, I am responsible for my feelings and my actions My choices affect other people, I must teach others how to treat me Conflict is a part of life; I can and will learn from my mistakes Love IS power This poem has affected our classroom--although I can't show you the evidence on a piece of paper. I've had parents tell me their kids have calmed them down by saying parts of this poem to them. I've had parents say they're rethinking how they discipline their children based on hearing their kids repeat this poem. I'm blown away. Sometimes you feel like a terrible teacher, because you didn't do small groups or a phonological awareness lesson didn't go according to plan, but then--you have kids that amaze you just because they can and it really puts things in perspective.  |
