Gearing Up For Year 3: Goal/Objective Setting

Today I started actively planning and thinking about my Third Year teaching high school. This time last year, I procrastinated, but I was constantly thinking about what I would do differently. For Year Two, I was focused on classroom management. This gives you an idea of what my first year was like. Year One: I “wrote up” at least 3 students EVERY WEEK. It was terrible. The kids were terrible and they knew it. I was awful, too. Therefore, last summer I concentrated on classroom management and discipline. Classroom management & discipline was great for Year Two.

This year (Y3) my focus is on content and teaching strategies. Following the pattern of Frumteacher, I started with setting my goals. As I talked with TeamTeacher this morning, I outlined some of my major goals for this year (World History, mainly):

• Including literacy component to my World History. This means that we are going to try and read several books this year. She set a limit of 3. I would love to do four, so that I can include something from Black History. Right off, I know we will read Escape From Slavery by Francis Bok. We are looking at reading an account of the Holocaust—I picked The Hiding Place. I’m looking for a 3rd Book, I think I would like a fiction book that deals with Islam, possibly Islam and women. . . Any suggestions, all you readers out there?

• Increasing the writing skills of my students. If our district’s motto is to prepare our students for college, as I explained to Team Teacher, we MUST start working with their writing skills before the tenth grade. I want them to be able to write at least a 2 page essay by the end of the year. The problem is our 9th grade English teachers DO NOT focus on this. They do in the honors classes, but not in regular. So, our dilemma/debate/issue is that we have to teach them how to write this type of paper. As we discussed this, we honestly DO NOT know how to this. Again, I am coming to all of my faithful readers, writers & ENGLISH TEACHERS: Is there as website or resource we could use so that we give our children basic instruction on essay writing for our classes? These should be brief lessons. Like 5 or 10 minute lessons, which we could build on weekly AND by the end of the year they should be able to write their own essays.

• I am also looking for strategies/lesson ideas in which the kids get to use their hands more often. My games are always successful in reiterating what we have taught. The kids get to move, chat with each other and usually end up moving their hands. It is rowdy, but it works. I’d like to find more activities (independent or pairs) that cause the children to use their hands or bodies that would help them with retention and comprehension. I want to decrease the amount of time that I spend lecturing. I won’t eliminate it b/c in history it’s just necessary, especially with a mixture of reading levels and abilities in the classroom.

• Finally, I would focus on connecting the present with the past. I want my students to see the relevance of the major events we talk about. I would like them to see how it affects them now. Honestly, I really don’t think that I will get to this in Year 3. But it is a goal.

For African American history the goals are different.

• I will also include a literacy component. We are going to read Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs and Native Son by Richard Wright


• They, too, will do A LOT of writing. I won't teach it b/c the class is for 10-12 grade students.

Because its only a semester long class, I can't go beyond this in my planning. But we are definitely looking at race, ethnicity and identity. It will be a challenging year.

Gettting Reading for Year 3: Moving

Pictures of the process. Yes we moved all of it! With the stuff on the tables.

Have you ever done something for someone and then they seemed ungrateful? Moving my co-worker’s stuff feels like that. I called her to let her know that the students and I had completed the job. It was a quick “thank you” and that was it. It was like I was inconveniencing her. I wasn’t expecting her to bestow honor after honor for doing this, but I expected sincere gratitude. What I got was not sincere gratitude. So, now that makes me grumpy. Let examine the facts on my side:

• She left me with NOTHING in the room except student desks.



• She didn’t even have all of her things packed for easy moving



• She’s been in that room more than 10 years, so she had accumulated a lot of HEAVY stuff.



• Her file cabinets were packed to the brim with papers and we moved those, too



• My back has been aching since the time I got up this morning AND I still went and moved her stuff



• Her desk wasn’t even cleaned out!!!!



• Because she is not leaving me file cabinet, I have to spend $50 of my supply money to order a file cabinet for my room. Although, Mrs. Finance has said she would help by looking at the cheer account for extra money, so I wouldn’t have to spend the supply money

Long story, short: I’m really grumpy right now.

And I’ve learned a lesson: Nice things won’t always be appreciated. Sometimes, you learn to appreciate other people’s help when you have to do it yourself. In the future, there will be no pitty from me—do it yourself. It seems that people are only looking out for themselves anyway.

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In response to Betsy's comments: There are only 5 custodians working this summer. The District refuses to pay their part time workers for full time hours during the summer, so most took the summer off. In addition, 3 of the people working are women--they asked us when school let out to try and move as much of our own stuff as possible as it was only 4 of them really working. Each week, 1 of the 5 takes their summer vacation. One of the men who is working with them, says he's got back problems and refuses to move anything. (Although, I caught him sleeping in the lounge one day) Their primary job in the summertime is to wax the floor. Apparently, all other stuff is secondary to that. So that is the deal with the custodians. If you want it done, you do it yourself. If want to be ready on Day 1, I've got to start now, otherwise, it will be like last fall. Where I stayed at school until 10 every night.

Getting Reading for Year 3

With the help of two guys from summer school, I spent over an hour moving my classroom things this morning. It really wasn’t that bad b/c I’m a new teacher w/o a lot of stuff—most of its cheer stuff. The problem is that the classroom I’m moving into has not been cleared out. And to boot, she is taking EVERYTHING in the classroom except the student desks. When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING: the teachers desk, all the file cabinets, even the computers. I will be left with nothing. But here is the kicker: Tomorrow, the boys and I will tackle moving all of the rest of her stuff down to her new room. We don’t mind moving her stuff b/c she has a disability, but I am NOT looking forward to it. Her file cabinets still have stuff in them—so it’s going to be heavy and hard to move all of this stuff. I’ll show pictures of the move tomorrow.

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Update In response to comments: We got a new principal and he is making almost everyone move. He felt like there was no structure to the layout of classrooms. Therefore, he is placing all the subject areas in the same area for collaboration, etc. We have to go where we were assigned. I've been using a flat bed and dolly, but its still hard work getting stuff from one floor to another.