It’s a gloriously cool first Saturday in October. My favorite month of the entire year! The intense heat has cooled, it’s rained and the air is definitely cooler, more moist, but not cold. There is not yet, that frosty bite in the air that signals the onset of winter here.
School has been underway for a month. It’s been an intense start-up to the school year. My school went through a remodeling project this summer and I was unable to get into the school ahead of time to do the required unpacking and set up of furniture and materials. So, I had to add that to my list of things to do in addition to the usual meetings, planning and tasks associated with the first week back to school for teachers. The pace hasn’t slowed much till just now.
In addition to teaching, I’ve been asked to teach a professional development course on Technology In The Classroom. This has absorbed a great deal of my time and energy since the first session was yesterday, only a month into the school year. Teaching technology to children is tough enough, teaching it to adults is worse and teaching it to educators is the worst of all. I am seriously wondering about my sanity in agreeing to do this. In the end, it was a fabulous experience for me. The teachers, most of them, appeared to benefit from the content. I have some areas I can improve and that’s what it is about. Getting better. Helping others get better at what we do for kids. Putting whatever available technologies there are into the hands of kids is just so important, but so many teachers are hesitant to do so, for a variety of reasons. It’s my hope that through this class they will be able to be more skilled and more confident in helping students use technology. After all, if we consider technology a tool, just like a pencil or pen is a tool, is the teacher the only one with the tool? I think not.
In addition to changing grade levels from first to fourth grade and teaching a professional development course, I have also agreed to do a series of presentations to parents at the school. This will mean three additional presentations along with the three professional development presentations. This is great for me, though it will mean some extra effort up front. My parent presentations focus on assisting parents to effectively and positively implement the strategies and philosophies of Positive Behavior Support at home. I’ve been applying these principles in my own home with my own four children with excellent results. As a single mother of four, with a demanding career and after a pretty bumpy divorce, the consistency and positive impact of applying these strategies has really helped my children and I heal and grow much closer together. I hope to share these successes, as well as the successes I seen others experience with parents. The stress reduction alone for families, kids and parents, is tremendous.
With all that going on, it has been tough to make time to write regularly. I am ready to change that trend. My classroom is a fantastic environment. I’ll soon be posting pictures of what I’ve done. Hopefully, other teachers will respond with ideas and suggestions about what they’ve done as well. I’d really like to see this become a sort of online professional learning community where we can exchange ideas, get encouragement, and inspire each other to keep at it, even when maybe our energy and motivation are flagging. I was talking to a friend yesterday, who is not an educator, but who is very savvy and perceptive in life. He said, “I think it is exceptionally tough to be an educator these days.” I had to agree with him. I hope this little blog will help make it easier for all of us.
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