After An Educator's Journey
Out of the classroom & into the universe
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Once upon a time, I taught 2nd, 3rd, and 4th graders. Now I’m retired and working on new ventures.
Category: classroom management
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In my school, we have been grappling with student behaviors, choices and what to do about them. Our Green Team – the staff guiding us to a cohesive K-4 plan – is incorporating and blending ideas from Ruth Payne’s outstanding book, A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Linda Albert’s book Cooperative Discipline, and Responsive Classroom. As…
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It doesn’t matter what I intend to do, once the school year starts, all my good intentions for moderation and actually having a life are very soon forgotten. Case in point: the last post was September 18th. That was 6 weeks ago for crying out loud. School start ups are always stressful, jam packed, and…
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Teachers generally roll with the punches; lots of mid-step changes and revisions to policy, curriculum, means flexibility is one of the most important traits of a teacher. Even the most compulsive of us — and I include myself in that category — manages to get through the continual stream. Teachers react and respond to split-second…
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I have a love-hate relationship with the first week of school. I love it because it is a time for a fresh start, a do-over; everything about the start of the year is new and exciting. And to be honest, after 10 weeks away from teaching, I miss it…. even the most annoying of personalities…
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Hours put in since the last post: 6+ Yesterday I met with our Team’s new Special Education Teacher, Melissa. I don’t know about Melissa, but I am definitely feeling the overwhelming panic that encompasses the start of a new year. The weird dreams have already begun. It will be good to get back to school…
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Time 4.5 hours After cleaning and arranging the large items in my classroom, it is time to start prepping for the students’ arrival. I purchased an additional 10 cardboard magazine files to be used as book boxes. That makes a total of 24. I am prepping for 24 because that, in theory, is the maximum…
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Time Spent: 4 hours This morning I loaded up the Jetta with our new shop vac — more power! — and began cleaning up the dust from the floor replacement. Here’s what was all over every surface, nook, and cranny of my classroom (even behind closed cupboards – this stuff goes everywhere). Cleanup meant first…
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It’s a good news/bad news thing….. At the end of the school year, there was a rumor that our ratty carpeting would be replaced by tile. Good news: the carpets are gone! Bad news: the replacement required some serious sanding before the new tiles could be laid. Everything in my classroom is covered with a…
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Yesterday, I made my annual pilgrimage to the Scholastic Warehouse Sale. Armed with a listing of my newly reorganized Leveled Library inventory, I forced myself away from the picture books and materials more suitable to second grade independent readers in order to focus on increasing nonfiction texts. 20 year old buying habits are not easy…
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Tonight, my colleague Colleen Turco and I shared our new and improved third grade mathematics curriculum with our peers as part of our course final. The more I work on curriculum — and I’ve been at it since 1987 — the more I realize that nothing is every really “finished”. Curriculum is a fluid as…
After An Educator's Journey 