Before the day started, I just wasn't feeling the teaching mode. I wonder if I'm the only one that gets it. We have team meetings on Mondays and I hate them. It just turns into everyone complaining about things when I'd much rather be in my classroom planning or doing something to benefit my students. While I've felt so much more happier about the quality of teaching I am doing this year, I have noticed that I am a bit distant from other teachers. I began to think about why-is it because I'm really just there for the kids and I don't really want to waste time complaining? Is it that I don't really want to deal with the other teachers? Some of them I love, but a lot of the time we spend together is just complaining. Or is it that I feel like I'm putting my heart and sole into everything in my classroom I just want to be there? I feel like I've worked harder this year than any other year (aside from my first year) making sure that my teaching is top notch. I know it's that I completely changed how and what I teach and I am determined to prove it to myself but I'm more there for the kids this year than I have ever been.
Not to sound corny but the funk is always gone when I see my students at my door. There's no resenting anyone when they need me to be on. Today's lesson continued from last week because I wasn't quite sure they were getting it and I didn't give them much chance to practice inferring meaning of unkown words using context clues. They did great and actually were able to verbalize a lot of what I had taught them last week. It's also helped a bunch to have the Scholastic News subscription to have a constant source of nonfiction at my finger tips. They like that it's recent news and they can read most of it!
We went into our dailies and I decided to forgo working with my above and meets group and just work one on one with my nonreader (well not really nonreader anymore :)). Since he's pretty used to the routine I was able to do a 20 minute study of my class. One kid was on task the entire time. Another was on task for 18 minutes. Another was on task for the entire time but did take time to walk to the Kleenex box. One was on task for only about 14 minutes and spent a good amount of time looking around and the other was on task but distracted by the one that was walking around. This really has transformed my class. I really had a quite group sitting there really getting into text today. Even my lowest students were into their daily. It gives them the responsibility. I also think it helps that at the checkin I always ask for something rockstar and they all want to share. But if I notice they weren't doing the rockstar thing I will ask them about it. So they want to be held responsible for what they are doing. I love the independence! I hope they do too.
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