Monday, October 13, 2008

Weird Week

It's a strange 2-day week for us. Monday and Tuesday are normal, but Wednesday is the PSAT day, and Thursday and Friday are professional development days.

Once a year, the professional development days are consecutive, like this week. I'm really feeling a need for professional development in ways I've never quite felt before; the curriculum teams that I'm on need some face-to-face time, and I'm also wanting to get together with the vertical teams. It's been about eight weeks since the school year started, and meeting times are irregular and the meetings themselves don't feel productive. So, I'm looking forward to Thursday and Friday. Unfortunately, I think a lot of our time will be taken up with other things, but I'll try to remain positive before giving final judgement. In either case, it will be nice to just sort of step back from the day-to-day and just sort of reflect on how the year is going.

For some reason, Romeo and Juliet feels off so far. I think part of it has been the rush, and being out for jury duty, and the weirdness of the days... or maybe I've built it up too much in my mind - you know, THE FIRST TIME I'VE TAUGHT SHAKESPEARE SINCE THE TEACHING SHAKESPEARE INSTITUTE AT THE FOLGER!. I need to do some more thinking about it. And I need to let up on the control in the classroom a bit more. I can't believe I'm still in Act I, that's for sure.

In either case, I'm giving a quiz tomorrow, and then Wednesday is the PSAT day, so I'll have plenty of time to get back on track. We'll see...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I find it is weird teaching something I studied over the summer. I usually overdo it the first year, underdo it the next year, then even out.

A BCPSS Parent said...

So what's the deal with PSATs in highschools these days? Does everyone take them every year, or what? I'm not sure about your school, but at the high school I've got a kid in there was no messages sent home or anything.

Teach Baltimore said...

At our school, all 9th, 10th, and 11th graders take the test. I think that's the same for all schools.

It's a really weird day, because the rest of the day is officially in session, but most of the kids go home. And they get a lot of mixed messages about that.

A BCPSS Parent said...
This comment has been removed by the author.