I must be crazy, but I guess I'm making my New Year's resolutions (for teaching) public. Some people would like to believe that once we teachers earn tenure, we're convinced that we are all God's gift to the children of this world and we can read the paper and text message between 8:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. for the next twenty-seven years while waiting to collect our fat pensions and retire to Florida courtesy of our nasty ol' union. (Not that I am at at all bitter about some comments that were made about my last post at Joanne Jacobs. Pas du tout.) But anyway, no, I'm planning to make some changes for my entry in 2010--some of which will take effect now, some of which will have to wait for the new school year to start. Here are the big ones:1.) More positive parent contact. I know, I know--it takes a lot of time to reach out to parents just when you have to. But I'm going to make it my business to provide more positive updates about my struggling students. I'm going to pinpoint students who have been the subject of negative parent contact so far this year and pay extra attention to the good things they do, so that the next time their parents hear from me, it will be to report improvement, or at least renewed effort.
2.) More individual time with students. I did a little reading over the break of some PD materials (yeah, I know, I'm a nerd), mostly on lesson planning, to see how to structure my lessons to maximize one-on-one time. I have no idea if it will work, but I do want to try it. If it doesn't, well, I'll try again in September, when starting from square one might work better for me and the kids.
3.) At least two field trips. My field trip planning fell regrettably to the wayside in the autumn. Fortunately one site has me penciled in and another shouldn't be too hard to get to, so I should be able to get that taken care of fairly quickly. I used to dread field trips, but I like them now, and my darlings are clamoring for one. And I trust them to behave themselves, so there's no reason not to go.
So what are your New Year's resolutions? I bet it's adding that unlimited texting package to your mobile plan.
Happy New Year!
Love,
Miss Eyre
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