Year 3, Week 5

It has been a busy week. I'm on schedule for my task list, but it's taken every moment of my day. I've even been missing my usual staff room chatting.

I have had a few notable successes this week. Some of them, I must admit, are a result of my time at Relay. It's not that Relay is teaching me new techniques, but rather it is reminding me of things I should already be doing. For example, one of the most basic teaching techniques is Quiet Power, or speaking in a calm, quiet tone in order to command respect. This week, when one of my classes started acting up, I lowered my voice, upped my energy, and Quiet Powered them to mastery.

I took another piece of advice: I asked our Relay leader (and North Star founder) Mr. V for some advice regarding a particularly distracted student. He suggested I choose one challenging behavior (giggling) and create a visual individual behavior plan. Giggles gets a Post-It on his desk every day, and is allowed 3 giggles (or other weird noises). Each time he giggles, he gets a mark on the Post-It. Every mark over three is a dollar lost, every mark under 3 is a dollar gained. So far, he's hit 3 exactly for each of the last two days

I'm also doing volcanoes this week, which is the easiest thing for engagement. Like, I just have to think about volcanoes, and all students sit upright with hands in the air.

Wednesday was my week for Sunshine Breakfast. My group decided to do a "tastes of the world" theme. I held down Eastern Europe with some blueberry kugel and blintzes. We also had arepas from Columbia, spicy eggs from Nigeria, and sausage rolls from England. It was delicious.

Today I had my first observation from my Relay professor. I was pretty disappointed by her feedback, which was accurate, but definitely underwhelming. I guess I've gotten too used to being big fish in little-ish pond in my school, so getting new feedback from another onlooker, who hasn't seen the huge strides I've made in two years, was a little frustrating.

That's not to say it isn't valuable feedback. This year, it looks we'll be working on my teacher radar. That is, we're working on my ability to know what is going on in every corner of the room, and dealing with it as efficiently as possible. This will help with the late-in-the-day giggles, which are either a problem that first started in my classroom this year, or I just never noticed until recently.

I got to boost my ego back up again in the afternoon, when I actually helped facilitate a radar practice for new teachers. I kind of really enjoy giving feedback to teachers (and of course watching them furiously writing it down).

I had a cold for most of the week, which made school especially challenging, but still managed a few good runs. Saturday, I had an exceptional 5-miler, and did an easy 3 yesterday. Tonight I went to the gym. I need to get back into a routine.

Next week's goals:
Take a step back in the classroom, to get a wider view
5 days of workouts