Today I spent the day at a debate camp with 5 of my veteran debaters and 3 students who have agreed to join our team. Showing our true dedication to debate, we left the school at 5:45 this morning and did not arrive home until 7 tonight. This means not only has the school year/English class started successfully, our forensics program is now up and going. We will work for a couple weeks before attending another workshop sponsored by our state academic extracurricular program – University Interscholastic League (UIL). So after doing that, I’m trying to catch up with my online blogging, reward programs, surveys, etc tonight as I would really like to start working on the next few weeks of work (for me and the students) for English class and debate.
Category Archives: Education
1st Week of School – Accomplished
We have completed our first week of school. WHEW!! I was beginning to think it would never arrive. While I actually enjoyed the school year more before Texas passed a law mandating that we can’t start school until the 4th Monday of August, I do like having a long weekend after the first week of school each year as we always get off the Monday of Labor Day. This makes it nice on the students too. I remember not so many years ago that we always started to school on Thursdays and this week I got to thinking about that, and think that it might just be a good idea. When you start on a Thursday, you get a chance for students and teachers to familiarize themselves with schedules and each other. Teachers are able to tell and begin showing students what will be expected of them as far as classroom behavior/methods, and there’s time for the administrative stuff – textbook assignments, first day packets, etc. Then you take a weekend off and come back ready for full blown class. As many students (and probably teachers too) get accustomed to sleeping in during the summer, it would also help with not being so exhausted after going from sleeping in and then waking up 5 mornings in a row!
Should I Go Back to School?
Yes. It’s almost too late, but it’s not yet, and I need to make a decision – do I go back for my master’s? I really wish I had just continued right after I graduated with my bachelor’s and done it right then? It’s been so long since I’ve been in school that now even though I do desire the degree, I have no desire AT ALL to be a student again. But I do somewhat desire some of the job opportunities that would open up for me if I did in fact have a master’s. As I sit here killing time, I have done a school admin job search in our area and of course found a few things that look interesting. And then there’s the cost of going to school…college is so expensive. But then again, I have 2 years before Becka graduates, and if I got on the ball, I could be finished or close to finished before she was in college so that there would be two set of bills. Ugh! I hate making decisions. Advice?
Teacher Appreciation Day
Saturday, August 2 is Teacher Appreciate Day at Big Lots. Even if you aren’t a teacher, if there’s a Big Lots in your area send out an email or text message to all the teachers you know. There will be free coffee and donuts along with a 10% discount off their entire purchases all day. They just need a school ID. I’ve called our local Big Lots, and they’ve said I can just bring in a paystub since we don’t have school IDs at the small school where I teach. This is last minute notice so be sure to get the word out fast to all the teachers you know!!!
Sprucing Up My Classroom
So Becka has a student council meeting today. I decided to be smart and come and start working on my classroom. School will be here before you know it, and we’ve got a vacation between now and then too which really limits my time in preparing. So I’m sitting here (writing, not working), but deliberating on what I could do to make it a little different this year…make the kids want to come to class (ok..maybe just not totally dread coming to class…this is high school English after all).
As I sit and think, I decide to work on some traffic exchanges and such…just let my brain wonder, and I come across a really neat site selling trade show display booths. No, I don’t have a business that needs these, but they make me think…what if I set something like this up in my classroom..Do I have room? So I am now browsing the Godfrey groups booths and trying to come up with a theme or real purpose for such a neat product. Right now I’m considering these options:
What do you think?