Work Hard! Get Smart!

The first week of institute is almost at a close and I can't even begin to express everything I have learned about teaching, the achievement gap and classroom management. The first few days focused on how to create our visions for lessons and then backwards plan to ensure our key points for the lesson were taught, practiced and assessed by every student in the class. With this we had to turn in our first two lessons today. Now, it is impossible to begin to explain the complexity of understanding not only the process for creating a plan but also in teaching myself how to TEACH math. So much of this I just know. Of course 1/2 is 0.5 which is 50%. But what about 8th graders? So the last few days I spent perfecting my first two lesson visions and then yesterday spent all day/night completing five-step lesson plans that I turned in at 8am this morning after a mere 3 hours sleep.

The best part? I found out this afternoon that I would actually be switching to teach 7th grade math so those two lessons were useless to me.....awesome! Really it wasn't all bad since the reason I was changed was because my 8th grade lesson was very strong. Also, since its just the first week I won't really be behind.

This week we also focused on literacy and I was met with some of the most disturbing statistics. Really? States use third grade literacy scores to predict prison sizes! My kids are not going to be some prison statistic and regardless of subject matter there is a grave need for every teacher to focus on our kids' literacy.

Tonight, I get to focus on classroom management. This includes everything from how to walk into the class silently and begin working to rules and consequences to rewards and incentives. One person pointed out today that "We live in a state where corporal punishment is okay but its not okay to give a student candy." Ridiculous.

Anyway after an exhausting week I am looking forward to a little Houston fun this weekend in between planning next week's lessons and objectives.

until next time....