Exploration and Discovery

Exploration and Discovery
The Outdoor Classroom

Thursday, July 14, 2011

Cleaning the classroom

Well, it looks by all accounts that I will teaching this fall. I have not signed any paperwork or been given any guarantees, and I am fully prepared to find out something has made it impossible for me to be the honest to goodness teacher, but in the meantime I had to dig in. I have spent the last four days cleaning: removing staples from the wall, pulling down old signs, scrubbing desks, vacuuming air vents, painting over scuff marks and coffee spills, and wiping  weeks and weeks of DLR transparencies clean and hanging them to dry (thanks Carol!). So, I feel that I am starting in a clean, new space- or I have just given some random senior teacher who will be bumping me the greatest gift in the world! Today, after moving the desks for the third time, I settled down to sorting through the library and figuring out how best to organize the books, screening and sifting out inappropriate titles and dog-eaten copies along the way.I, once again, am struck by how much ground there is to cover in a single school year. I know a lot of these kids, having subbed in their class on a number of occasions, but that is quite different from knowing their reading level and their comprehension level to know what will be a realistic starting point for everyone .
I started digging through all the files I found in the classroom and was pleased to find a number of compelling activities and summary sheets for all aspects of writing and reading. Tomorrow I will go through the social studies files and see what  is  there. I have set up the two working computers and the one shared printer and find myself feeling discouraged about how much I had hoped to integrate technology into the curriculum. The class will also have access to a portable computer lab, but I am not sure about the hours of availability and need to feel sure that it is equally accessible to both morning students and afternoon students.
I am glad I have been given this time to get ready for my first full time class, even if I end up getting switched at the last minute. It has given me an appreciation for how much time is needed to do a thorough job to prepare for the first few weeks of school and the year in general. I understand that many people would not be willing to put in this amount of time or do the grunt work that I am doing because we are not paid for it- that is the beauty of being older, having a number of careers under my belt, and perhaps, being a parent- you do it because you feel better for having done it- they couldn't pay you enough anyway, so do it for me, do it for the kids, do it because it just really needs to get done.

1 comment:

  1. Good for you on starting early! WHERE is this gig? Carol? Not our Carol?

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