The Calm Before The Storm

      Today I spent most of my day pouring over my state standards and county pacing guides to plan my teaching for the year.  Outside my classroom a violent lighting storm raged, but in my classroom it was quiet and peaceful.  I couldn’t help but imagine that on Monday twenty-two excited students would storm my classroom filling it with activity, noise, and excited children ready to learn.   The peaceful days of preschool are almost over.

     On the first day of school, hundreds of sugared-up children will be dropped off by their thankful parents and will manage to find their way to our classrooms.  In the ensuing chaos we’ll begin our first day of school by meeting our new students and beginning to establish our routines.  The morning will fly by with lots of instructions on everything from how to walk, how to speak, and hopefully something close to educational.  The students will eat lunch, we’ll head back for a few more activities and the day will come to an end.  The school will quickly drain of kids and the teachers will be left to put the room back in order and plan for the next day. 

     As I sat alone in my quiet classroom today, I was tempted to wish that it would stay empty and quiet forever.   Yet, one of the great parts of elementary teaching is that as you stand in front of a class of children, you’re always a breath away from unpredictable chaos.  A teacher is like a lion tamer who accomplishes amazing feats when others would be torn apart in minutes. 

      Although I love my quiet time, I look forward to the excitement and energy that the kids will bring.   My worst day of teaching has to be better than my boring lesson planning.  Bring on the kids.     

(In the comments below, pleasetell me what you love about the first day of school.)

Strong Teams Equal Strong Teachers

      After finishing our back to school training today, I finally got to focus on getting my room ready to start teaching.  As I walked down the hall my teammate asked me to come into his room to help him get his email account fixed.  This took about 20 minutes.  After finishing this, I helped another teammate hook up her printer.  Another ten minutes slipped away.  As I left her room she handed me a box of science materials she gathered for me during a summer training.  As I got back to my room my last teammate entered with our first months reading lesson/materials already copied. Even though I had lost time helping others, I got back a great deal in return.   My team is involved in a three-way switch leaving me as the only fifth grade teacher teaching alone, but I know that they would do anything to help me.  I hope they know that I would do the same for them. 
     It is unfortunate that not everyone is on a collegial team that helps each other.  I know a teacher that tries to pawn off her students during school so she can run off campus to smoke.  Another time I saw a team who was called into the principal's office and chewed out like reprobates for their catty fighting.  Still other teachers I know of spend their wholes day gripping about everything under the sun. These negative behaviors are counterproductive and make our jobs as teacher even more difficult. 
    We've all heard the phrase "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."  The pinions of a great teams come from people who are looking out for the needs of their neighbors.  We all have our own individual strengths and we need to use these to help those who we work with. If you are on a team with slackers who don't help you at all, still give them what you can.  As teachers we have so many political, business, and parental enemies that we need to support our own.  As we strive to become helpful teammates that provide collegial sharing, we will find an awesome outcome.  Our lives will become richer and our students will benefit from better teaching.

(In the comments below, please tell me some shout outs about your teammates.  What have they done for  you?  Why are they so awesome?)

Technology-Can't Live With It, Can't Live Without It

     Today was our first day back and I was asked to help with our teacher training.  I had all of my documents uploaded to our district email system and fortunately made a back up on a flash drive as well.  As I woke up early and made final touches to my presentation I found out that our district email was down on the first day and I would have to go to a backup plan to display my presentation content.

     Later in the day our superintendant wanted to show how technologically advanced our district was by talking to our 8,000 teachers at the same time via internet streaming.  At every school throughout the district schools were scrambling to get the necessary computers set up, programs installed, internet connections correct, sound systems hooked up, projectors working all before the anticipated moment that our superintendant would speak to us.  At the last second her image was projected through our computer to the screen in a small box.  We then watched as a pixilated black and white image moved like an old kung fu movie disjointed from the sound that came shortly after.  This presentation then got even more useless when our superintendant tried to show a video.  The video began playing and no sound came at all.  A joker in our group began lip reading and the staff chuckled under their breath at his farcical interpretation of the silent film.  If our superintendant was attempting to show our district that technology was the way of the future, then I’ll gladly wait until the future to depend on this technology. 

     I am not opposed to technology.  I spend way too much time on my computer each day and have my students use it each day as well.  Yet, I’ve learned that it is tough to rely on technology.  For every presentation that I do I have a backup paper and flash copy just in case.  For anything on the web, I try and download it ahead of time so that I can play it of my computer instead of the web.  In the classroom I have learned to jump to word wall games, while I figure out, which plug is not quite in when my projector won’t light up.  No matter how cool the tech companies make their product look, it will always require a savvy human to make it function effectively. 

     So the next time you hear someone preaching about how their gizmo will revolutionize teaching, consider that for the price of one computer you could pay an average teacher for 56 hours of teaching.  I bet that a teacher could accomplish more in 56 hours than that piece of technology can.     

(In the comments below, please let me know of some of the good and bad experiences you have had using technology in the classroom.)

The Legacy We Leave Behind

     This weekend I was able to go to my wife’s 20^th high school reunion.  It was a great time of eating, talking, and reminiscing.  As the conversation bounced from topic to topic I was able to hear story after story of teachers that the classmates remembered. 

    The classmates spoke of one gentleman who would always fall asleep during filmstrips and would be awoken only when the film began to slap against the wheel.  Other teachers had regular phrases such as, “You’re sinking fast and need someone to throw you a life line.  Jerry, help her out with the answer.”  Still other stories described a few teachers that gave out huge worthless assignments or acted in spooky ways that seemed to have scared the classmates for years. 

    Throughout these stories, I heard the classmates describe their favorite teachers as well.  They talked about the lessons that they had learned and the impact these teachers had made on the classmates lives.  At one point someone started reciting a certain lesson and the rest of the classmates joined in a chorus repeating the phrases they had memorized many years before.  Another student recalled how a teacher had motivated him to choose his professional career with a single conversation.  It was powerful to hear that each one of the classmates had been forever changed by the teachers that they had. 

     As I start back to school tomorrow, I am going to keep in mind the stories that I have heard.  I’ll have 180 days with my class this year.  My words and actions will be seen and heard by my students and will become woven into their very lives.  Years from now my students will be sitting around talking to someone, maybe even me, and they will remember a moment we shared in time.  My hope is that this memory will be a good one, and that the lives of my students will become better, because of the time they spend with me this year. 

(In the comments below, please let me know of a teacher, who for better or worse, impacted your life. )

Shopping, Shopping, Shopping

      I’m not much of a shopper, but I can appreciate getting a good deal.  School supply companies all over my county have found ways to get me to spend six dollars in gas to go buy two cent folders and quarter packs of paper.  At the cheep promotion prices we find ourselves buying school supplies whether we need them or not. 

     It’s time to update my wardrobe.  Out with the old and in with the new.  In spite of my limited budget I feel that students respect a well dressed teacher better than the worn out clothes I would probably continue to use.  Thankfully, my wife is adept at navigating the local sales to accomplish the task without draining our bank account.  I also have two teenage daughters who have followed in their mother’s example and saved us hundreds of dollars using coupons they find on the internet.  I am amazed at what a good shopper can accomplish.

    Since we don’t have a local teacher store I’ll have to visit the teacher section in our dollar stores and look through some catalogs to garner the odds and ends that I use each year.  If I can’t find anything, I’ll have to go “old school” and create the items I need on my own.  The document projectors of today work much better than overheads did eight years ago. 

   With all of this shopping I’ll need to head to work on Monday to start putting some money into my bank account for a change.  I look at all we have and realize how blessed we are.  I work 190+ days a year and through hard work were able to have a good life even on a teacher’s salary.  I don’t have everything I could want, but I have a sense of pride that we have everything we need.  So, good luck with your last minute shopping.  I hope you get everything you need as well.    

(In the comments below please tell me what your best purchase was in preparation for school this year.  If you have tips or coupons you can share those here too.)