This has been the longest weekend ever, as we had Thursday and Friday off due to a blizzard. And, I just found out I also have Monday off due to another blizzard coming in. Good grief! I guess a 5 day weekend never hurt anyone, right?
The snow certainly helped me to do nothing. I did my weekly grocery shopping early and then snuggled up on the couch with my dogs and tried to clean out my DVR with my husband. We knocked off 10% of it, so I would say mission accomplished.
I did do a tiny bit of work today, but I lost motivation after a few minutes. I started to work on my syllabi for the two courses I'm teaching this summer. I made a few changes to the agenda for each class, but then when I looked outside and saw I was in the thick of a blizzard, I lost motivation to think about summer.
Finished the night watching the Grammys and reading People magazine. Totally immersed in pop culture, fabulous!
Reflection Questions:
1) Teachers make a lot of decisions throughout the day. Sometimes we make so many it feels overwhelming. When you think about today, what is a decision/teacher move you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried wasn’t ideal?
These reflection questions are so hard on days when I literally did nothing. So I don't have any thoughts about decisions I made. I guess I could've worked on school stuff a bit more, but I have really tried to separate myself from work on the weekends so I can be present with my husband and dogs. Looking back, would I change anything? Nope, not a thing. Today was a perfect Sunday.
2) Every person’s life is full of highs and lows. Share with us some of what that is like for a teacher. What are you looking forward to? What has been a challenge for you lately?
I'm really looking forward to taking my Google for Educators certification test. I just completed a workshop which helped prepare me for the exam, and I'm planning to take the test next week when we are on school vacation. These snow days have been the biggest challenge for me. I've got so much to do with teachers at my school, but I need to be face to face to get anything done. So I'm hopeful mother nature cooperates and lets me go back to work soon! ha!
3) We are reminded constantly of how relational teaching is. As teachers we work to build relationships with our coworkers and students. Describe a relational moment you had with someone recently.
I recently started a Math League with some 5th grade students. We met over lunch on Wednesday and we had a blast! I was so worried that they would hate having to do math while they ate lunch, but it turns out they loved it. We had some challenging problems that we all solved together. It was really fun and at the end, they all thanked me. I can't wait to meet with them again this week!
4) Teachers are always working on improving, and often have specific goals for things to work on throughout a year. What have you been doing to work toward your goal? How do you feel you are doing?
My goals have been a very slow work in progress. I wanted to complete a coaching cycle with a few teachers this year. So far I've only done part of one with one teacher. As I mentioned before, I'm anxious to get back in the building to finish the observation and feedback part of the cycle with that teacher. I'm hopeful that I can start doing more coaching work like this with more teachers in the coming months, but I also know that we have our standardized testing coming up soon which will put a halt to everything.
5) What else happened this month that you would like to share?
Nothing for me except I'm really looking forward to February vacation and going on a road trip to Pennsylvania with my husband!
