Under construction

No time for the Common Core this week. It's Vacation Bible School time! The one week out of the year when I can release my inner primary school teacher, and create (and compel my family to aid and assist me in creating) all sorts of fun things out of foam and spray paint and whatever else I can scrounge up.

Sometimes I wonder if my high school kids would be more attentive if I transformed my room into a haunted mansion while we study Gothic literature. It bears investigation.

I have to admit that my enthusiasm was late blooming this year. I have been obsessing over a situation over which I have absolutely no control. Angry. Depressed. Angry again. Depressed again. Vicious cycle that I couldn't seem to break. I decided to ignore it. I decided to respond. I decided not to respond. I whined. A LOT. I talked about it. A LOT.

And then this morning during worship we sang a children's song by Zach Jones.

"...When I don't get to have my own way
I will trust in You
For You know what is best
When tears begin to roll down my face
I will trust in You
For You are good, You are good.

Perfect in power, You control all things.
Perfect in wisdom, You know everything.
Perfect in goodness,
Jesus, You're so good to me,
So good to me.

Sovereign One
You work all things to Your plan.
Sovereign One,
You hold all things in Your hands."

I had apparently forgotten that God holds both the things I understand and the things I don't. He's with me when I feel as if I am being treated fairly and when I feel that I am not. His plan is to use every circumstance to show me His love for me and to transform me into a vessel He can use for my good and His glory.

El Roi. The God who sees.

It put things in perspective. It cleared my mind, just like that. And now I'm free to get down in the floor with those preschoolers and tell them stories about a God who sees them, too. And in a few weeks when I stand in front of those high school kids again, He'll still be watching and holding me and working all things to His plan, even when things in my life don't make a whole lot of sense.

The Marathon Begins

July 9, 2012

One and a half lessons down. I am finding that much of what I do meets one or more of the CCSS. Since the BOE took us off block schedule, we have begun the class with American Romanticism to reduce overlap between English III and American History and save precious time, but I find that I have been able to go back to some older files and modify or use lessons to add what the CCSS require.

 My biggest concern is that each lesson addresses to many of the CCSS. Do I need to only focus on one or two? That seems counterproductive if my goal is to help students recognize how the skills overlap and work together. Perhaps I will be better able to gauge that when I begin teaching the lessons.

And so it begins in earnest..

Posted on Schoology June 8, 2012

 I've been dancing with the Common Core Standards since April. It's been an exercise in frustration. In the beginning, I thought it would be a cake walk, no different than the other changes I've made in the nearly 20 years I have been teaching, but the more I read, the more I understand that this is a revolution, and I need resources that I don't have have.

 To be super honest, I've been a little more than irritated as I read all the wonderful things that are happening in other districts, districts where it appears that teachers and administrators and board members and parents have all joined hands under the banner of the CCS. I feel alone and afloat as my district has no real plan or at least none that has been shared with those of us who are to administer it. From what I can gather, we are about three years behind the pack and that is not a happy feeling.

 So today, after whining and pondering and whining and reading and whining some more, I begin. If the goal is to master the writing of a paper, I don't see how slapping a grade on it and calling it done will be helpful. It seems that it will have to be about process as much as product. So the grade then should be reflective of that, and so I have revamped my grading system to be more in keeping with the type of effort I believe my students will have to put forth to master these standards or at least move in that direction.

 Now on to the next hurdle.