Work in Progress

            When the question was posed to us about what skills we want to work on this year at summer school my first reaction was every skill.  I actually feel like I’ve had a reasonably successful first year (we’ll see once test scores come out)  and many procedures and consequences will remain in my classroom next year but they just need to be sharper and even more precise.  

            For the purpose of this blog though I’ll narrow it down to a few specific skills that I will be working on this summer:

• ·       Starting Out Strong = I knew it, was warned about it and did go out too soft.  I did not want to me something I wasn’t and basically be a jerk to all the students.  I love kids.  I feel as though I atoned for those sins for the entire school year.  In retrospect I honestly would do the same thing but next year I would love to have a silent classroom with a minimal number of office referrals.  About two months into the school year I decided to be extremely strict and wrote about 4 referrals a day for students disrupting class.  Within 2 days my principal told me to cut it out and so since then it’s been a consistent dose of writing assignments, phone calls home, detentions and the occasional office referral.  Right now my classroom is well functioning but I am excited to have a solid consequence system in place and starting off strong from the first period.

• ·       The Customary System and Pythagorean Theorem = As a member of MTC it seems as though the overwhelming majority of what constitutes a successful experience is how disciplined their students are.  While this has plenty of truth (you can’t teach until your classroom is controlled) there is not the same amount of emphasis on actual teaching.  This past year I spent several days throughout the year trying to teach both the Pythagorean Theorem and Customary System (Converting between ft, in, yds…) and don’t feel as though my students really comprehended those topics as well as I would’ve liked to.  I’ll certainly be picking other math teachers brains for best practices for the summer.

            I’m looking forward to the summer and a new group of kids.  There is certainly a decent amount of anxiety but I think this summer should be a great amount learning for both the students and teachers.