Time and a Half?

In the last 48 hours I have produced, voiced, animated and added music to a video overview of my course for parents who might be too inconvenienced by our lack of parking (tell me about it!) to attend back to school night (but don't worry! I'll be there until 9:30 tomorrow night), attended four meetings and facilitated one of them, analyzed data, wrote a description of my first five week intervention period, updated both my team and personal web pages, viewed slideshows about several more new initiatives and was encouraged, in lieu of training, to "play around with" them to familiarize myself their features, and assisted colleagues both new and experienced in troubleshooting their own work in all of these areas.

Wait. What?

You want me to plan lessons and teach students, too?

Back to Basics

I'll be the first to admit that there is

a
lot
of
edujargon

out there.

Just this afternoon I sat in a meeting where a group of colleagues "fishbowled" a "data analysis" "protocol". But not before we reviewed the "norms" of our "PLC" and discussed how best to represent that our "systems" are "aligned" to our "management plan". We were reminded to make sure our "unit planners" with their "statements of inquiry" (an oxymoron if I ever heard one!), "key concepts", related concepts" and "global contexts" were posted along with the "learning targets".

I think you get the picture. There is so much blah, blah, blah out there that at times we lose sight of the real stuff. For example, the word "engagement" has definitely been overused by us educators in the last decade or so, and yet?

Guys! Engagement really is key to learning. If the student doesn't care and/or can't make a meaningful, personal connection, the lesson just doesn't stick. Just today I was showing a coworker the video from my former intern's audition on The Voice. "I never watch the show," I told her, "but knowing the guy? I'm totally in!"

She hadn't met him in the time he was working with me last year, but she was happy enough to watch the clip. "Look!" I said. "That's his wife-- she went here!"

"Oh my gosh!" she said. "I taught her! I can't believe it!" She gave me a high five. "I'm totally in, too!"

White Cat Red Mountain

I got a bumper crop of tomatoes from my garden yesterday. They filled my huge fourteen inch bowl in a beautiful mini-mountain of tomato goodness. I guess Tibby thought so, too, because she actually climbed to the top of the pile before being firmly shooed away.

September Song

Officially, autumn began at 4:01 pm on Friday, but you'd be hard pressed to know it around here. 

Maybe it was the warm summery weather, but boy! Did we pack a lot into the last two days. They were filled with a fun and satisfying combo of hiking, cooking out, farmers marketing, escape rooming, and the like. All in all a perfect weekend, except for one thing.

We have to go back to work tomorrow.

Holla if you feel me!

Shared Sorrow

"All the children in your family lost a cat this year," Annabelle noted when she heard of the early morning passing of my brother's family cat, Trixie.

"That's right," my sister and I agreed.

Poor us.

All in the Family

What does my cousin want for her birthday dinner?

Why, chicken with white gravy and biscuits of course!

And she shall have it.

Happy Birthday, Elaine!

Fan Club

We're teaching personal narrative to begin the year, and so some of my fellow teachers asked to use a little memoir I wrote a few years ago as a mentor text. It's the humorous tale of a baby-sitting job gone wrong, and my students usually enjoy it when I read it to them. Still, I was not prepared for the reaction I received when yesterday afternoon I was introduced to a group of sixth graders in Heidi's special education social skills class who I do not teach.

"I know you!" one of them said. "You're Ms. B's friend, and I read your story!"

"That's right," I laughed. "What did you think?"

"Those kids were bad!" she said, "And you were funny!"

Her friend was listening to the conversation. "Hey, Tracey!" she said, and the assistant who works with her whipped his head around in shock at hearing her use my first name.

"It's okay," I said, "that's my name in the story."

"Did you ever babysit them again?" she asked me.

"Nope," I told her. "I sure did not."

Just then another of their classmates pulled a wrinkled set of pages from his book bag. Sure enough, it was my story. "I'll read it to you!" he said. "It's really funny!"

Aw, shucks.