Today we had parent teacher conferences. I think every night this week has been a 'get home and hope there is a spot left in the parking garage' kinda night. Tomorrow I won't get home 'til 9 but I'm really excited to go to the Memphis Conference- first annual MTR sponsored conference about education here in the bluff city. I also get to lead a small PD tomorrow- not because I'm awesome, but because I went to the training in the summer and now other English teachers need to know. It's on Common Core and I am SUPER stoked that Hayley and I will actually be teaching it all to our kids in the next two weeks!
I want to blog more this year. I just have to say that the fact that I am currently blogging and that I feel really well-rested and invigorated and happy on a Thursday night is proof of my title for this post. Every night I want to work more and every morning I am excited for what the day holds. There is a general peace and joy that have NEVER characterized me before. If for nothing else, I want to blog to record the daily blessings.
Here are a few:
Today we watched the movie The Outsiders because we finished reading the book. On time. It is the end of week 7 and we have read an entire novel (in class- all reading is done in our 90 minutes a day), taught the kids how to answer questions using textual evidence not their opinions, and how to write a narrative essay.
This is its own thing: OUR KIDS CAN USE AND EXPLAIN THE COMMON CORE RUBRIC FOR GRADING THEIR ESSAYS! They have written two essays and peer-edited mine and their own. One day this week, a student said "Mrs. Smith- it's only September- WHY are we already writing an essay?" And I had just been thinking, "It's ONLY September and we are already writing a timed essay!!!!" AND grading it.
Tonight we had parent-teacher conferences and I spoke more Spanish than I've ever spoken. IT WAS TERRIBLE AND JAGGEDY AND UGLY. The parents are very gracious with me. But I communicated in another language! Not since Prague have I felt this invigorated. I can do this!
My students have a 70% homework completion rate. This sounds awful. Last year, I think they averaged 30%. They are working really hard. and it is paying off.
Which brings me to this- my last one for the day. My 'attention getter' is that I yell "HARD WORK" and they yell "PAYS OFF!" and then look at me. The other day, their social studies teacher said he was telling them the values of the Puritans and one was "hard work" and they all automatically said "pays off!"
heeheheh I am in their heads....
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