A month since my last update
Honestly, I've been a mix of a depressed funk over the national elections; not so much because of who is our president-elect, but by the sheer number of assholes that are now proud of their behavior and glad to rub it in our faces.
And I'm super busy with work. I have unofficially been tasked with developing a new curriculum, a new senior science elective course that is to be possibly co-taught with a social science teacher, that will be tentatively titled "Marine science and society". The goal is to do a trans-disciplinary, operationally-based, student-centered, project-focused, class for students whose strengths may not lie in traditional lab- or lecture-based science course. The objective is to merge environmental science, sustainability science, economics, political science, and sociology. It is exciting and daunting and scary all rolled into one. It is eating up a lot of my energy already. I am still in the early stages, and if you have any ideas for projects, or competitions (I'm thinking video or art competitions), or field trips/experiences, please let me know.
And I hate the winter weather, which makes me just shut down mentally and physically. Every body part feels cold. My body is particularly sensitive to non-cotton materials, and to being constricted (I sometimes break out in welts from the elastic bands on clothing, or anything that is too tight), so winter clothing, especially the multiple layers that is needed to keep me warm, is just an uncomfortable hindrance. Combine that with my frugal nature, whereby we don't keep the house any warmer than 72 degrees during the day and 65 degrees at night, and I'm fairly uncomfortable and just grumpy. I'm counting down the days until the Spring.
We had a parent-teacher conference for Erika.
- Reading: She was assessed above grade level for first grade; she entered at reading level C and is currently reading at level F. Her teacher feels she is on track to complete or surpass grade expections by the end of the year.
- Mathematics: She has received a 95% and a 98% on her two math assessments. The main issue is she continues to fail to show her work. For example, a test question said "Tony has 13 pets, some are cats and some are dogs. How many combinations can you make? Draw every combination you can think of". And so Erika wrote 12+1 = 13 and below that drew 12 hollow circles and indicated them as cats and 1 darkened circle and labeled that dog, and then she started writing 11+2 = 13, and 10+3 = 13. And then she ran out of space and didn't keep going. She only scored a 2/4 on that question because she "provided 3 equations, and only showed work for one". Sigh.
- Class Dynamics: She waits for the teacher to call on her before responding. Her teacher would like her to voluntarily raise her hand and contribute to class discussions. The teacher also feels that on a few occassions, she had to speak to Erika about her attitude towards her peers. Erika has a know-it-all tendency to have a "I got this" confidence, and she overpowers some of her peers who are not as confident in school.
And then her teacher left on maternity leave to her second kid. And Erika is feeling lost and stranded and feeling like she has to start over with a new teacher, 3 months into the school year. Her teacher wont be back until May.
And I'm super busy with work. I have unofficially been tasked with developing a new curriculum, a new senior science elective course that is to be possibly co-taught with a social science teacher, that will be tentatively titled "Marine science and society". The goal is to do a trans-disciplinary, operationally-based, student-centered, project-focused, class for students whose strengths may not lie in traditional lab- or lecture-based science course. The objective is to merge environmental science, sustainability science, economics, political science, and sociology. It is exciting and daunting and scary all rolled into one. It is eating up a lot of my energy already. I am still in the early stages, and if you have any ideas for projects, or competitions (I'm thinking video or art competitions), or field trips/experiences, please let me know.
And I hate the winter weather, which makes me just shut down mentally and physically. Every body part feels cold. My body is particularly sensitive to non-cotton materials, and to being constricted (I sometimes break out in welts from the elastic bands on clothing, or anything that is too tight), so winter clothing, especially the multiple layers that is needed to keep me warm, is just an uncomfortable hindrance. Combine that with my frugal nature, whereby we don't keep the house any warmer than 72 degrees during the day and 65 degrees at night, and I'm fairly uncomfortable and just grumpy. I'm counting down the days until the Spring.
We had a parent-teacher conference for Erika.
- Reading: She was assessed above grade level for first grade; she entered at reading level C and is currently reading at level F. Her teacher feels she is on track to complete or surpass grade expections by the end of the year.
- Mathematics: She has received a 95% and a 98% on her two math assessments. The main issue is she continues to fail to show her work. For example, a test question said "Tony has 13 pets, some are cats and some are dogs. How many combinations can you make? Draw every combination you can think of". And so Erika wrote 12+1 = 13 and below that drew 12 hollow circles and indicated them as cats and 1 darkened circle and labeled that dog, and then she started writing 11+2 = 13, and 10+3 = 13. And then she ran out of space and didn't keep going. She only scored a 2/4 on that question because she "provided 3 equations, and only showed work for one". Sigh.
- Class Dynamics: She waits for the teacher to call on her before responding. Her teacher would like her to voluntarily raise her hand and contribute to class discussions. The teacher also feels that on a few occassions, she had to speak to Erika about her attitude towards her peers. Erika has a know-it-all tendency to have a "I got this" confidence, and she overpowers some of her peers who are not as confident in school.
And then her teacher left on maternity leave to her second kid. And Erika is feeling lost and stranded and feeling like she has to start over with a new teacher, 3 months into the school year. Her teacher wont be back until May.