It's pretty satisfying to teach the same lesson for the third year. It helps when it is one of my favorites. Yesterday, I taught a lesson on writing procedures; it is the first introduction to lab practicals this year. It includes an opportunity for students to write a procedure for making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that I then carry out...badly. It teaches them that "put the peanut butter on the bread" might result in an experimenter taking the closed jar of peanut butter and laying it on the whole loaf of bread. Procedures should assume the experimenter is not familiar with the materials or experiment. Essentially, they had to write for 7th grade students. It is a fun lesson that is also useful for learning exactly how much detail is best.
I was worries about doing this lesson with my difficult class, but we keep being told to assume the best, and to give each student a new chance each day, so I have myself a pep talk and dove in. I used a lot of positive narration, such as "thank you for giggling just a little bit and then quickly regaining focus", and I gave a lot of dollars for simple things like responding professionally to surprises, but it worked! Not only did it work, but they have fun. I'm still amazed how differently a lesson can go when it starts on a positive note.
Each year, we have a "culture inspection" at our school. Principals from across the North Star network, as well as some higher-ups in the organization, walk through our school for a morning. They judge us on things like "positive tone" and "educational posters". We spend the previous weeks practicing staying positive, and laminating posters, and making sure breakfast is silent, and making sure our corrections are minimal, and making sure transitions are perfect. Today, I had a few inspectors in my classroom, while we did a practice lab practical.
I had an awesome moment, and an awkward moment. The awkward moment is one that has happened before. Kids get a little excited and nervous when there is a visitor in the room. I sent the kids into a turn-and-talk, when they discuss a concept in pairs, but I didn't "brighten the lines" (give them an obvious cue), so when I said GO, they sort of stared around, unsure if they were allowed to break the silence, and then one student started talking, and stopped, until I gave them a better cue. This is not the first time this has happened to me.
The awesome moment happened during cleanup from the lab. The students followed my directions perfectly, silently, and urgently. Within about 3 minutes, all materials were perfectly cleaned up and students were working on their conclusion. It was beautiful, and was likely 50% awesome instructions and 50% students trying to impress. I was proud.
Unfortunately, I passed the principal after she had gotten her feedback, and she was not in a good mood. I'm hoping it is unrelated, but I don't think so. I think our school is getting a little weaker on the details after adding on an 8th grade, especially on the 5th/6th grade floor. Transitions are a little funny. I hope that we are getting some specific feedback on how we can improve our school (especially transitions!).
I'm on a workout binge from now until Thanksgiving. After my awesome run this weekend, I gave in and failed at my not-scheduling. I planned out two weeks of 8 workouts per week, followed by a light week Thanksgiving. Each of the two weeks will have 3 bikes, 4 runs, and a swim. I've already gotten 3 workouts done (okay, more like 2-and-a-half, because my legs are starting to feel the fatigue, and my bike ride tonight wasn't as hard as I can do when my legs are fresh). I had a tough bike ride (on the trainer) on Monday and a really great, medium fast run in the WINDY COLD last night. The run wasn't as fast as I had hoped (probably due to the biking the previous day), but the weather made me feel pretty badass, and it was my longest-ever school day run (4.43 miles). Here's the rest of my week:
Thursday: easy run 3.5 miles
Friday: REST
Saturday: run like last week (5.5 miles including fast 1km repeats), 1 hour bike (outside, for real)
Sunday: easy run 3 miles, 2000-yd swim
Here's to the wedding exercise binge, part 1!
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