Saturday, January 10, 2009

I Got the Power! (teaching, that is!)





















New year, new ideas. I took the plunge and tried some of the techniques touted in Power Teaching, and was most pleasantly surprised in my students' response to them. Truth be told, I kinda liked it myself! Every day this week I left school feeling like I'd been successful in accomplishing what I'd set out to do, AND I had a great time doing it!

We lost a little momentum on Thursday when I showed the movie "Paperclips" and didn't have a lot of student/teacher engagement. Nonetheless, my PowerTeaching is catching on. Several other teachers at WVMS have expressed interest in observing my class, and I have already scheduled another teacher's visit from Farragut in two weeks. Hopefully by then I will have trained the class well and learning will be full throttle!

We're preparing for a unit on "The Diary of Anne Frank." The kids are excited about learning more about the Holocaust. The group of kids I have this year are primed and ready to make an impact on the world. If I don't take full advantage of this opportunity, then I would do them (and myself) a disservice.
Enough about "the office," Chelcie moved back into the dorm at UT this week and her presence is already missed and noted around the house. Glad that she's able to fully experience college by living on campus. Drew's report card came in the mail today and I am proud and happy to report that he pulled down a 4.0 the first semester of his senior year, just don't look too closely at the course load he was taking! 'Atta boy, Drew! Hope Scholarship, here we come! Kinda nice to win $8,000/year without ever buying a ticket! Thank you, Dreamers. for funding my children's college education!
Tonight, Sam is out on the town at his first ever sleep-over b'day party. He's six years old! What are those parents thinking?! Tom, Drew, and I cashed in a Christmas gift card by having dinner at Outback. I opted for the talapia and fresh veggies and earned my membership into the "Clean Plate Club!"
Two young men stopped by the house today to hangout with the kids and me. Keenan and Matt enjoy just being with people, and they are quite pleasant to have around. Keenen is a junior at 18 years old. Bless his heart. I so wish I could help this polite young man. He always answers me with "Ma'am" no matter what I ask. Why do we feel the need to eliminate vocational school? There are people who excel in vocational areas. Why deny them the opportunity to succeed in school for the first time in their lives?! Decision makers, take note! We must not lose these kids! By forcing them into an academic curriculum that does not meet their needs and continues to label them failures amounts to educational malpractice! The end result is that they drop out of school at their earliest opportunity or sink into depression and forever doubt themselves and their ability to contribute anything meaningful to this world. God doesn't make junk! These kids are treasures! We must unbury them before they suffocate!
But I digress...must take a break and will post again when my heart rate returns to normal.

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