Harry Wong was right!

When I was working on my teaching certification... No, before that. Back when I started subbing for my district they recommended Harry Wong's The First Days of School. Wong says that how you set the tone on the first few days of school affects the rest of the year. Do it right and your job will be a joy and your students will be happier. Do it wrong and well... he offers a few tips on how to recover, but the bottom line is to do it right!

Last year I began my teaching job four weeks into the school year at an alternative high school that was without a science teacher. Even now, when I mention my campus to someone elsewhere in the district, the response is something like "Oh yeah you walked into a 'situation' over there!" I had a group of students before I had anything to give them in the way of schoolwork... Not to mention it was right before TAKS retesting and I teach ten different classes. (Students work to earn the credits they need to graduate, and coursework is self-paced).

I didn't have the first days of school to set any kind of tone. Just a messy, disorganized classroom with piles of random junk, papers, and deteriorated lab equpment from the past 5-8 years.

This year (muahhhahahaha) I had the first day of school and fresh new faces to work with! Our campus set in place some new structures and new rules and as a school, we started this year off with a bang! Students from last year are trying to stay stuck in their ways, but the new kids are working hard and turning in better work at a faster pace than last years kids!

It's pretty awesome. We laid down the law and aren't budging! Our staff was cut, our enrollment was increased, and our work days are longer. But so far, kids are learning.

I just hope it stays this way! It has only been three days.

No more procrastinating...

Well I'm officially out of excuses. I have a laundry list of to-do's and an equally long laundry list of excuses to put them off...

First, I have wedding planning to do. I'm not doing it right now because it required more phone calls, and it's Saturday. I'll have to suffice with a list of places to call Monday (which is technically something I should work on now).

Then, I have housework to do... Ya know: laundry, dishes, clean the living room... But in an un-air conditioned house such things are difficult to work on so I should do them later.

I could also walk the dogs or do some yoga, but see excuse above.

I have books and sudoku puzzles to occupy me, but those aren't productive so I should really leave them be until I've accomplished something for the day.

I also have this test I need to sign up for to acquire certification to teach math grades 8-12. I am certified in science grades 4-12 and math 4-8, so I need to extend math into high school to prepare myself to survive cuts faced by my school district next year. I have other areas to get certified in, but I need to start with adding math 8-12. My excuse has been lack of materials to focus my studying. However, a coworker has now lent me a great study guide. OK so what's the next excuse?

Calculators. Mine quit working a while back, mainly because I wasn't too sure of the freshness of all the batteries I tried in it... I can borrow one from work I think, but it's been a busy week of preparation and forgetting things and now... Saturday!!! I need a calculator that is on the approved list and a back up calculator for the test. Well, I took the dogs outside to, well, be outside for a minute, and decided it wouldn't hurt to see if I could find my calculators in the shop.

I found them pretty quickly. My TI-86, Steve's old TI-86, and a scientific calculator I had from my pre-college standardized testing days. I pulled some fresh batteries out and guess what? All three are working! So now I have study guides, calculators, and even a bound journal to collect formulas and work problems in!

So I guess the procrastinating must end with this blog posting. On to math!

Am I ADD?

So last fall, I got my first job as a high school science teacher. The day I began work, my boss sat me down in his office and gave me a rather intimidating stack of books. Six to be exact... I like reading but some of them a bit difficult... So I would read two at once. I started the one of Marzano's titles that looked like a hard read, to get it out of the way. He was bacically quoting data and explaining all sorts of statistical analyses that had been performed on it and what that meant about how kids learn. Nice, but hard to focus for some of us. Not that Marzano doesn't have a lot to say, I mean he has done much to keep educators aware of what does and doesn't work, but he is hard to focus on for long.

Which leads me to two other books I thought were a great read! Mindset and The Influencer. Both were really great book that had many interesting case studies and talked about specific ways to influence people for the general good of mankind and so forth and so on. I recommend both.

Readicide was also a really good book, in which Kelly Gallagher explains how reading has been made painful and boring to most students over the last few decades. I agree with much of what he said, and find it tragic that some people have never enjoyed the pleasure of sitting down with a good book and losing track of time. Sigh.

Bored yet? I will suffice it to say that I got through them in time to read a seventh book as a summer reading assignment. And now I feel free!

On to choosing my own book for once! But the point I wanted to make was that I was always reading a chapter in one, then a chapter in the other. I don't really know why I do that.

Even now, as I have moved on to work my way into my C.S. Lewis collection, I and reading The Four Loves and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Maybe it's because one is a story and the other is not. I love both books! I've read The Chronicles of Narnia several times in my youth and never tire of them, but I also like the comtemplations of Lewis in his non-fiction books.

Next it may be Jane Austin, Chuck Swindoll, or some creation science books from the ICR...

What sounds good?

Intro

I am beginning this blog to serve as a collected source for my occasional rantings. Too often I find myself venting on facebook or other social media. I recently joined dallasnews.com so I could comment on articles, but I tend to try to write comments as long as the article itself...

Thus, this blog is born. Topics will range from science and education to Christianity, occasionally politics, and recent books I have read. Don't worry folks, I like to keep it entertaining.

To introduce myself: I am a science teacher and sychronized swimming coach who loves to read, work out and walk my dogs. I also like to cook, sew, crochet, and all that fun girly stuff when I get the chance.