The ACE Effect

Once a month, all corps members are required to attend an All Corps Event, or ACE. They take place on a Saturday, and often last about five hours. To a first or second year teacher, the idea of giving up ANOTHER Saturday often seems unbearable and cruel, and we often plot ways to avoid the ACEs, but for the most part, we go. And you know what? I always leave feeling a mix of emotions.

I leave with a new sense of community. Sometimes I forget that I'm not in this alone, and that I am part of a BIG, national movement to do something momentous.

I leave with a sense of urgency. OK, so that is a BIG TFA-ism (one of the MANY). It's almost a cliche, but it's part of the push this year. What we are doing needs to feel urgent in our classroom, and they convey that feeling at the ACEs.

I leave feeling confident in knowing what I can do to improve. This is a big change over the ACEs last year. Every time I leave my sessions, I take away one concrete thing I can do in my classroom to help my students. Yesterday's concrete idea: scaffolded checks for understanding.

I leave feeling like a pretty crappy teacher. I know this isn't the point, but at the ACEs, I am always confronted with my own short-comings as a teacher.  The fact that I wasn't already doing scaffolded checks for understandings really shocks me. There is so much more I could be doing for my students.  I can't imagine being a second year teacher NOT in TFA, and not having the opportunities to to continually build my skills and reflect on my practices. I would stay a crappy teacher. KINDA SCARY.

I leave inspired. This didn't happen at yesterday's ACE, but normally there is some sort of uplifting story about how one current or previous corps member changed the life of a student, and those stories are so wonderful to hear. They give me hope and keep me going. The fact that this has been missing from the ACEs this year is really starting to wear on the corps members, and could explain the absence of MANY of them on Saturday.

And now I'm thinking that I need to get to planning and implementing all of the great changes I need to in my lesson plans. I do get to end on a VERY positive note, though.  I will be in Portland this weekend to watch Dominic test for his black belt. It's a very big, awesome occasion, and I couldn't be a prouder sister! I can't wait to see my family. :)

2:3 - Things could have gone better

We're getting close to the end of the first month of school. The kinks are getting worked out, and I'm beginning to see just what the class of 2014 will be like. But this past week, my mind wasn't always on school. I bought a new car at the end of July, and on Thursday I hit a rock with my new car. Oops. So I have 2 flat tires, two bent wheels, and I'm using a rental until they give me a quote. EFF. That's going to cost me. At least the tires are covered under the Super Gold Star Extended Warranty that I bought. The wheels? Well, I hope it won't cost much to hammer out the two small dings.

I finally cleaned my room, which looked like a disaster up until yesterday. And I have my grading done from this past week. I still need to input it into the computer before I have to submit my grades by tomorrow night, but I can do that after school tomorrow. Now I need to plan for this week, which is one of those really weird weeks schedule wise. We have Stanford testing on Thursday and Friday, which means I will only see periods 3,4,7, and 8. So I can't teach new material... I have to do something supplemental. I'm thinking REVIEW since they have a test the following week.

And I had a meeting with my PD (program director) on Monday. He shared his thoughts on my class, and suggested that I integrate some sort of portfolio work into my class. I agree, this would be helpful and wonderful for the students, but I just don't know how to go about that. I have to  make EVERYTHING up from scratch: the rubrics, the requirements, the organization system, how it will fit into my Long Term Plan, how it will be graded, what PERCENTAGE of their grade it will be... It's a lot. Maybe I'll send an email out to the social studies teachers in KIPP and ask for some guidance.  I can do that now that they've created a list serve for all of us around the country. I might get some interesting feedback. But I don't want to piggy-back off of a woman who just sent out an SOS about 5/6th grade. I might wait a week.

This long weekend was a blessing for sure. It was great to relax yesterday and then spend today grading and planning. I hope the next week flies by.

Break in Concentration

I'm in my third-to-last week of my first year. There are officially TWO Mondays left. And I can't keep showing movies, right? I need to keep teaching, and it's hard and I don't know what to do and all I want to do is start their research projects but we can't do that just yet. So here I am, stuck trying to figure out how to make learning about Australia and Antarctica and Oceania neat. I don't want to rely on the book, because that is boring as heck. But I don't want to put in the time to create awesome power points and find neat resources. What kind of resources could there be? And I've already shown an awesome video about Australia that was narrated by Russel Crowe. 

Man, I need to step up to the plate and stop bitching. I'm ALMOST DONE...

So here are some things I've been thinking about INSTEAD of work...

London

Rome

Good Coffee

Yummy food...

Home...

Oh you know, just the normal stuff...

Like a good Portland rain...

And a good rain jacket

Because, really, what could be better than a good rain jacket, with a good cup of coffee, while walking in the rain in Portland? I urge you to find something more soothing than that!

Oh, and it's sunny and beautiful in Houston, in case anyone was wondering.

:)