Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Goals for Christmas break

Christmas has come and gone AND I am definitely trying to enjoy this time off work.  I am spending it with my family and that’s fine.  However, I do have an agenda of things to get done with this time off.  My school goals are to
  • Lesson Plan for the entire for 4th term at least for World Hist

  • Complete all of evaluation requirements

  • Outline the demerit system for the cheerleaders

  • Study for the GRE

Now I have plans to get all of this stuff done, but I don’t know how likely it is.  The last couple of days, I feel like I’ve been laying around twiddling my thumbs and sleeping.  One of my teacher friends told me that when you sleep that much on vacation, it is because you need it.  I think its just because I don’t have anything else to do.  

If I could summarize my first semester, I would say that teaching this year has been so much easier than it was last year.  The classroom has definitely made a difference.  However, under this new principal, we’ve had a few changes. . . they may not just come from him, they may be district level.  
At any rate, we have, these walk through standards we must meet.  For example, I’ve now got to put up a word wall.  To me this is such an elementary thing and its not necessary in high school, however it must be done.  We’ve got to make sure that standards and objectives are posted in the room at all times.  So last 6 weeks, I had one of my cheerleaders write all of my objectives for term on butcher paper and taped them on a window.  I got the job done, but I don’t really feel it was attractive and it made my room look junky, but I’m doing as they have asked. In my opinion, these things are a waste of time and take away from the learning.  I understand putting up quality work. . . I do that, I post “A” students and “100” work.  Enough of my griping about something that won’t change!!!!  So, I’ll post my progress on my objectives in the next couple of days.