My wishes for the new year...tighter, stronger, better for our students

The art of teaching is complicated.  As I dig into my National Boards, I'm realizing how my students needs are even more diverse than I realized.  In one class I have students who range from a 5-college reading level, 5 home languages, 6 ethnicities, and almost 10 very different IEPs.  Wow.  Am I doing everything to help everyone?  My literacy colleagues and I are painfully aware of our shortcomings and constantly working at making things tighter, stronger, and better for our students.  What I love about my department is that we don't make excuses. When we're in the thick of it we just tackle as many things as possible.  We take calculated risks, not fearing new ideas and taking the best from each past decision.  After writing about my classroom over winter break, I'm thankful for the kind of collaboration and collegiality we share; I'm not sure I could be half the teacher I am without my team.  

So, for myself, as I look at the bigger picture of unacceptable shortcomings of our most struggling students and incredible achievements of our academic rock stars, I hope to strengthen my mindsets around a few things.  It feels so good to be at a place in my profession where I can genuinely look at each kid and see potential and not get lost in the minutia of behavior and grades.  Maybe that'll change next semester, but it happens less and less.  Here's what I want to tackle now:

• Finish my portfolio without the fear of failure and only the goal of improving my craft, even if that means not passing the first go around
• Continue to improve my time management so I can enjoy my own life
• Be brave enough to speak out when things could be improved upon and brave enough to get out of the way; sometimes I do this well, sometimes I'm lopsided
• Sit with ideas longer before responding; it's a quick-witted job but sometimes that's the problem

Read, Write, Reflect: Classroom Management… or Should it be Mismanagemen...

"Thinking of it that way, I guess I do have a rule, that as the teacher, I am required to develop a relationship with each and every student in that classroom. That is a classroom management system I can get behind.

Today I read a blog post that said what I believe in a nutshell –“Not one rule you make this week will cause good behavior in May. But every strong relationship you make will.” Yep, that’s something I could post on our wall."

Read, Write, Reflect: Classroom Management… or Should it be Mismanagemen...: As I was reading our staff handbook the other day the following line jumped out at me: Start the year with specific w...

Anchor Charts

http://pinterest.com/pin/30680841184595444/

One thing I want to do more of this year is creating and referring to anchor charts.  One blogger has really done a great job of this.  I think I'm going to use her anchor chart with my 10th graders during the first week.  I'm liking the side-by-side comparison of the two.  I don't think I've used this obvious and simply way of explaining the difference to students.  I also think I make a lot of assumptions that they're following along with me when I'm trying to help them understand the differences.

I'm about to start reading this

Educators Study Online Dishonesty