Conferences

Yesterday's planning meeting was unlike any I'd had last year.

For the first half hour, I proposed my idea to redesign the 5-8 science curriculum. It will take a lot of work, but I have a plan. And if it goes according to plan, it will be totally worth it. It will take two years: one year of reorganizing, and one year of pushing it from NJ standards to national standards. The result will be considerably more rigor. The cost will be my designing of 16 interim assessments by next year.

And the principal's response? That sounds like a great idea! Write a proposal. So I will.

We spent the next 5 or so minutes talking about my professional development goals: building relationships, CFUing.

And then for the next 10 minutes, she asked me for advice on time management during IA week (next week), which was put into a one-pager for today's staff meeting. I'm kind of a time management celebrity around here.

I decided this would be a light training week for me. This was a result of some solid running the last couple of weeks, and some extra obligations this week. After Tuesday's awesome 3.3-miler, I've been resting. I'm hoping to do 2 longish runs this weekend, but nothing until then.

I've been busy with, among other things, last night's parent-teacher conferences. I had to meet with parents of 9 students who are currently failing my class, at the halfway point of the first marking period. Overall, they went well, and I was extremely more prepared than last year. This year, I took the advice to have a conference binder, which includes all student's grade reports, with missing/make-up work attached to the reports of those failings students. I was able to hand the parent a packet of work to make up, quizzes to correct, and topics to study for today's test.

And today was the big diagnostic exam, a week before the first IA. I've only completed about half the grading, but they look good. The average will be about 80, which is about the same as last year, but the test is significantly more difficult (especially the scientific method content, which is arguably the most important). The kids are experts on slope and volcano identification. I'm doing something right.

I came across a really inspiring video clip. One of the international figures that we've studied at length at circle is Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani women's rights activist who is so good at public speaking that she was shot by the Taliban. And she still speaks. She recently appeared on the Daily Show, and after watching only a 2-minute clip, I felt re-inspired to go to work every morning to educate children. This is where I'm supposed to be.