Promise Teacher

When I got a call earlier in the week from Vickie in Winfield last week, I really thought she either needed money for something or I need to turn something in for graduation.  Turns out it was neither.

I emailed Mr. B. for more info.  Here’s what he told me:

“The Teachers of Promise is a KSDE [Kansas Department of Education] event, held each semester and is co-sponsored by various individuals/corporate entities which are supportive of education, the Walter & Lucy Roush Charitable Trust doing so this time.  Each semester, the CTE [College of Teacher Education] faculty is asked to select two students for this honor.  We take this very seriously, and do so with great care.  Teachers of Promise are provided with faculty development workshops (top quality programs, from what previous students have reported) as well as being honored with distinction in the presence of some of the great models of our profession (Kansas Teacher of the Year, and candidate for the National Teacher of the Year, Ron Poplau this time.) “

So, on Saturday, November 11th I’ll be heading to a workshop and then Ken will be joining me for the reception banquet and awards ceremony.  I’m still in shock, but thrilled nonetheless!

Conferences

Wow, and I thought last week was busy.  This week was conferences at my own school (Washington) and we have had two late nights of working until 7:45 pm last night and about 7 pm tonight. That’s on top of teaching until 1:30 pm (dismissal time for conference days).  The good thing was that all we (my cooperating teacher and I) did 14 conferences yesterday and 7 today so we had a 100% attendance.  Tomorrow is another conference day but it will consist of working in our room since we are all done

What’s amusing is hearing what some of the parents have to say about their children.  For example, this evening we were finishing up our conference and said that we had no specific concerns about this student.  The mother said she was having some problems at home and then she said that “he hit my a**”.  She then goes on to tell us that he runs around the house naked after a shower after his brothers take his towel away from him.  Too much information!!!  This mother is a single mother of 4 boys with my student being the oldest.  They seem to be more friends than parent/child relationship and if they don’t get that in order, wow, will there be trouble in middle school!  Another time I had to ask my teacher how she doesn’t cry when the students start.  The parents are trying to understand how to help their child and then they break down.  It’s a vicious cycle!  It was really interesting doing conferences with Spanish interpretors.  You really have to slow down and wait for them to translate and then go on.  Quite fascinating, really.

Well, at least I’ve had some practice on the other end of conferences.  Having the knowledge that I do going into my own children’s conferences can be quite beneficial, but that’s another story. . .

TGIF

This seemed to be the longest week ever.  Although it was only 4 days with the students at school, between Taylor and Jocelyn’s parent/teacher conferences and 1/2 days (thanks, Grandma, for taking care of T & J while we worked!), grading papers and getting report cards ready, and actually teaching, I’m shot.  We don’t have much planned for the weekend so I’m hoping I can sleep in tomorrow (maybe until 7:30 or 8 would be good!).  Of course there’s the usual laundry, housecleaning, etc. that needs to be done but tonight I think Ken and I are going to watch TiVo’d episodes of Survivor and Jericho.  Whatever would we do without TiVo??  Bye for now!

Math Troubles

I begin teaching the Investigations portion of math Tuesday and I’m really, really worried.  Here’s the reason why.  Investigations is a brand-new curriculum to our school and a requirement for all schools in the district.   The teacher’s manual is difficult to follow and strays from the standard algorithms that I was taught in school.  It focuses on different ways of thinking and encourage students to think in different ways.  Here’s the problem.  It doesn’t tell you any of the strategies that the students should be coming up with.  So if all they can do is repeated addition and the standard algorithm to figure out a problem, there’s not much I can do.  My cooperating teacher is stuck.  Our other 5th grade teachers are stuck.  Our math instructional coach is stuck.  I even asked my college professor this morning at class and he can’t even explain it.  How the heck can I teach it if nobody can figure it out?????????  Anyone have any ideas?????

Inservices

Today is the end of the first nine weeks so tomorrow the kids don’t have school.  That does not, however, mean that I get the day off.  Oh, no.  Now the crunch time for getting grade cards out starts.  We got ours in our box today and the specials teachers have them first so they can fill out their portion.  I get to attend a meeting tomorrow morning to learn how to fill some of them out for our ESL students.  Monday is another inservice day with another meeting.

Taylor and Jocelyn are thrilled that they get a 4 day weekend.  They get to spend the day with Grandma tomorrow but Monday they’ll be going to New Song Academy with Wesley.

Pumpkin Patch

One thing that we haven’t done in quite some time was to visit a pumpkin patch.  The past couple of years the children have had field trips to do this, but we’ve never done it as a family.  In fact, I pulled out the albums to check the date and the earliest one I could find was October of 1999 — before Jocelyn was born!  So when Jerry and Shirley said they were coming to visit this weekend, we thought this was a perfect time to go.

We drove out to Pumpkin Junction and the kids couldn’t wait to climb up on the tractor-pulled wagon to take us out to the field.  We spent quite some time looking for the  “perfect” pumpkin!  We had a great time, even though the temperature was in the upper 80’s and it was quite windy, not the cool, crisp, fall weather I prefer for pumpkin patches!

5th grader. . . Part II

Update:  This student got suspended for one day. Turns out that he stole something else from a classmate in his room that he admitted to.  He doesn’t get a desk at all in my reading group now, per my cooperating teacher’s instructions!

Can a 5th grader go to jail???

During one of my reading classes today a student stole a pencil out of another student’s desk.  Yesterday it was a monkey head eraser.  And then he lied about it, not only to another teacher but also to the counselor.  Apparently this wasn’t the first time.  Tomorrow I’ll learn of his consequences.  I’m just glad that it wasn’t one of my students but a student in a class next door (we split up for our second reading block).  Regardless, we’re making sure our door stays locked now!!!