Don't Count On It

Of all the things that I have learned as a teacher -- a list that stretches well beyond pedagogy and content -- I feel the lesson most needed my my type A personality is this: Don't Count On It.

Don't Count... on the copier working, the network connecting, the wifi transmitting, the activity lasting.... in the end, what you have is you and whatever is in your head.

Often to make that offering be enough, a relationship must be in place with the students. You need them to want to listen to just you, to hope to impress you, and to please you. A common decency of personal interaction has to be at the heart of what you do, or else nothing else to bring to the table will work.

So, I guess I take it back, there is one thing you can count on: the importance of laying a foundation of common courtesy.

What Goes Here

Months ahead of my return to the classroom, I am preoccupied with conceptualizing how my class will run. So much has changed since 2007 when I left the classroom to join the district office as an Instructional Technology Specialist. In those five years, the amount of technology available to every classroom teacher has transformed the ways instruction occurs on a daily basis. Now that I am returning as a teacher, I will have the great fun of using daily all the many tools that I have been advocating.

In addition to the technology hardware that supports every classroom now, Georgia plans adoption of the Common Core Standards for next fall. This new approach to curriculum requires a fresh look at how and what we do with content in our classrooms.

As we adopt new ways of teaching, we must also look to change content: not drastically, but enough to make room for these differences. Some previously included materials will have to be omitted in order to make room for the new content we must include. For example, with the focus on Informational Reading, it will be necessary to drop some fictional titles to choose non-fiction works, particularly longer works. Currently I am considering Longitude by Dava Sobel as a great answer to several new standards.

Change is good, but needs to be thoughtful. I am grateful for months of contemplation before I begin my new adventure!

Welcome to A (class)Room with a View

This classroom blog will highlight work from the students in my class.