I need a long weekend...
It's Saturday and the official end of my first week back to school. I've got to tell you that I'm exhausted! I don't remember being this tired last year. Of course, a year ago today, Hurricane Charley was making landfall, so I probably didn't have time to be tired. Thank goodness we didn't start this year with a hurricane.
Let me tell you about my week. Overall, things went pretty well. I'm slowly adjusting to having different kids each class period. My beginning of class routine is helpful for me as well as the students. I discovered that if I make sure to get everything planned the way I want it ahead of time and stick to the routine, I actually have a few minutes at the end of each class to just breathe and talk with the kids. They like it as well. Plus, I implemented this rule that the bell does not dismiss them, I do. They have to wait until I'm at the door and tell them, "You're dismissed, have a wonderful day." before I let them leave. That way I'm not trampled, and I can control how they leave. It makes it nice for transitions.
My biggest challenge will be dealing with the varied levels in each class. I graded diagnostic tests last night and discovered that I have a wide range of abilities in almost every class. In one class, I have a student who cannot even add two digit numbers. I think I'm still going to attempt the learning community idea, but I'll have to modify as I go along. My plan to speed through the basic operations might not work given so many of my students have difficulty with multiplication and division. It's insane!
I am grateful that my classes are balanced number wise. In all but one of my classes, I have 11 or 12 students. In my last class of the day, I have 4. I'm not complaining because they are all 4 very weak and will benefit from the one-on-one instruction. I was afraid I was going to have 15 or 16 in a class, which would be difficult with all the levels. I've got a couple of kids that I'm going to talk to the regular education teachers about to see if they might be better off in regular 7th grade math or Intensive math rather than my class. While they scored under 50% on the test, they have the basics down and need more of a challenge rather than 6 weeks of review. We'll see what happens.
Because I spent so much time before school started planning ahead, I am much more confortable with teaching next week. I have taught most of my procedures, and the students are responding well. My classes for the most part will have minimal behavior problems. I can see a few in 3rd and 5th periods because they're a little more social and more needy academically, but two out of six classes is not bad at all. I will say that as I gain a year of experience, I also gain more wisdom and ability to control behavior in the classroom. I see things every year that I can improve upon. It's so important as a teacher to continue to work on different areas of teaching.
Well, that's all for now. You'll hear a lot about work for the next few weeks. It practically runs my life for the first month until I get into my "groove". Then I have more of a social life. Hopefully, we will remain hurricane free so that school continues to run smoothly. Happy Reading!