Shaddup Already!
2006-09-10
Crazy Teaching Kinda World
It's been kind of crazy 'round these here parts. Mostly because I inadvertantly signed up for three reading endorsement classes at the same time. These classes aren't particularly difficult, but can be time consuming.One, however, is kicking my butt. All this talk about phonemes, morphemes, phonics and phonology is quite confusing. Then I had to take a concept that I was having trouble keeping straight and plan an assignment to meet those needs in a student. Oy.
Now the really scary thing is that I'm considering signing up for two more reading endorsement classes. I have to have 6 classes to get my endorsement. If I have a reading endorsement schools from all over the county will be knocking on my door, begging me to work for them. This is ideal because:
A. I want to teach at one of the two schools that is within a mile of my house.
B. My new principal scares me.
By December I will have finished three of the 6 classes. They are offering two more now, which would mean I would have 5 out of 6 classes before 2007. The thing is that they don't start the classes until they have a minimum enrollment. That means that I don't know when these classes will start. I also don't know if they run concurrently or if they are part of a series. Class 5 is corequisite for class 4. My classes now are in two parts, example being 1 A and 1 B. They run in a series and it seems to be 4 and 5 would be the same way. But who knows. All this not knowing is the reason I now have three reading classes at the same time.
The good news is that I think I have finished one of those three classes. The other one I should be able to finish up pretty quickly. So, if my assignments for the first class are approved, I will sign up for those next two classes. Who needs a life, right?
I also have a junior intern. This has been great because she has graded almost all my papers for me. I didn't expect her to do this, but I also knew she would be bored out of her head. The junior internship program is basically an observation thing. She's there two days a week and mostly just watches me teach. Fun.
She wants to be involved, so I put her in charge of the seatwork on Thursday. That worked out well because I kind of faded into the background and didn't answer questions or interact with the kids. It was all on her and she did pretty well.
Now I'm gonna try and get my knitting club up and going. I'm calling it the Knit Wits (not very original, but it makes me smile to say it). It's for the kids on my team and we will knit squares for quilts that will be donated to the homeless or preemie babies in the hospital. I'm excited about it and just hoping that the kids will buy into it. I already have a boy who knows how to crochet, so I asked if he would teach the other kids. He went home and told his mom, so at least I know he's interested in it. I'd love to get some of the boys interested in the knitting. I think D would be effective at that because he is a pretty popular kid.
