Teacher's Journal
NYT says kids actually are pretty good judges of teachers' work.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/education/11education.html?src=me&ref=general
This is both solace and surprise to me...I've always been really popular with the kids, but I've also always felt they didn't really understand a lot of what makes a good teacher. One "rate your teacher" website had some comments where I got truly slammed for being disorganized, and I guess I can see where that's coming from, but it's also clearly not the most important thing to a lot of kids (and very important to others). And I'm definitely better at that than I used to be.
At my next job I will yet again try to do an even better job of not just BEING organized but APPEARING organized. I still maintain that managing a roomful of bright tweens is best done with a high tolerance for chaos, especially at the exceptionally chaotic school where I've been working, but to appear disorderly regardless of how well everything's running does create problems.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/11/education/11education.html?src=me&ref=general
This is both solace and surprise to me...I've always been really popular with the kids, but I've also always felt they didn't really understand a lot of what makes a good teacher. One "rate your teacher" website had some comments where I got truly slammed for being disorganized, and I guess I can see where that's coming from, but it's also clearly not the most important thing to a lot of kids (and very important to others). And I'm definitely better at that than I used to be.
At my next job I will yet again try to do an even better job of not just BEING organized but APPEARING organized. I still maintain that managing a roomful of bright tweens is best done with a high tolerance for chaos, especially at the exceptionally chaotic school where I've been working, but to appear disorderly regardless of how well everything's running does create problems.