yes, another perk of being a teacher is that we get school pictures every year! LOL! I’m going to be honest! I actually enjoy school pictures! This year, mine isn’t too bad! My hair looks giant though! I suppose that’s a good thing to be remembered for in a yearbook!
Oh! And here is a picture I found on my phone today! Apparently one of my students got me when I didn’t know! I was hacked! Lol! They are lucky I love them!
After these last two days with my students, I am feeling incredibly exhausted! However, in spite of my exhaustion, I am feeling completed fulfilled and refreshed. I feel accomplished and completely satisfied after being able to spend time with my students. I realize that I have a deep passion for teaching and building positive relationships with my kids. So many of my students come from a home that doesn’t provide them with love and respect, so I try to demonstrate those qualities while they are in my classroom. I feel so blessed to be able to be in a profession that aligns with my passion!
While my students were incredible over the last few day, my anxiety was a little off kilter. Since this is my first year in several years being back in a classroom of my own (since I was previously a special Ed co-teacher) I felt anxious about my ability to be successful on my own. It was very intense, since I am not use to teaching without a co-teacher, but I made it through. My anxiety was very high this morning because of a mix up in scheduling, however, I was able to come back down. It is wonderful to be able to control my anxiety instead of being control by it!
I am looking forward to next week and getting to know my students even more! I hope that my anxiety will be eased as I get further into the year and get use to being on my own.
As I have mentioned in previous posts, this school year I have a new teaching position. For the last two years, of my 4 years teaching career, I have been co-teaching. I am certified special education, so the way my school has it set up, I had been mostly a glorified assistant for the last two years. I am grateful for the experience but I did not overly enjoy co-teaching. I did, however, make some new friends!
However, this year I am going to have my own classroom, with 50% special Ed and 50% general Ed. I took my certification tests and I am now qualified to teach general education as well.
I am feel nervous because I am now solely responsible for test scores and growth. Before I had some help but this year I am on my own. I am really looking forward to the challenge but I am also scared of falling short of expectations.
I love teaching for the pleasure of helping students grow, however, I also love teaching because I get the summers off! It’s a nice little bonus! 4 MORE DAYS!!
i am beyond excited right now because I found out that next year I will be teaching Language Arts and Social Studies in my OWN classroom for 7th and 8th grade! I am still teaching inclusion special education but I won’t be co-teaching anymore and I couldn’t be more thrilled! I fully support Co- teaching and I think it has the potential to be incredible, however, at my school it has not been working. I am so so so so excited that I get my own class and finally have full creative control over what goes on.
I have been very anxious about my job for next year but it has all turned out well! I need to learn to be have patience and wait for the right time. I kept trying to force things to happen and that only created more anxiety. I just need to let it all go and let God take control. YAY!
I don’t often talk about what I do exactly within the educational system, so I’m going to tell you! I teach special education for a middle school. I know, crazy right!? Middle schoolers are crazy and full of attitude. Well, that is kinda true, and they are full of attitude, but I actually LOVE middle school aged kiddos. Yes, they are at an awkward age, but they still are a lot of fun and for the most part I think they do want to learn. It is just important to make sure lessons are relevant to their lives. I don’t mind their attitudes (usually) because they don’t seem to mind if I sass them back a little bit to keep them on their toes! 🙂 We like to have a good time in my classroom.
I work mostly with learning disabilities and other health impairments. However, I also spend time in a class for kids with more cognitive disabilities, and I sure do love them! They are just so sweet and there is never a dull moment. 🙂
This is my fourth year teaching and I am looking forward to what the year will bring! Over the last 3 years, I have moved up with my current 8th grade kids, and I am so proud of all the growth they have made over the years.
The other day I was in a conference where my team and I sorted through our data to help us create an action plan to help more of our students meet the standards in reading. Our district as a whole, has very poor math scores, and we have been devoting all of our time to math instead of reading or writing. However, the data was showing that our reading scores were slipping because we were losing focus on it. OF COURSE! We are focusing a lot on our students with special education services and trying to find new ways to help close their achievement gap.
As we were digging through the data we found that in the spring of 2013 77% of our students in special education did not meet the standards in reading. WOW! We were obviously discouraged so we looked at last year’s scores (spring of 2014) and we found that only 37% of our students in special ed did not meet the standards! This was so exciting for me because I led the team and pushed for all the changes we made! I couldn’t believe it! 🙂 I was so proud of my kids and my team! I had no idea that the scores had changed that much!
I wanted to share my success with you guys 🙂 I was just so proud of my team! YAY!
The Persistent Platypus 