Elbow, knees, dreams

Teaching on the Titanic

What a discouraging week. The lead master teacher at my school has decided to work elsewhere. She wants to work at a school with strong leadership and a staff dedicated to improving results for children. That witch!!! Seriously though, can you blame her? Read More...

Diary of a preschool teacher, pt. 2

It’s Friday night, I’ve got three days of teaching left, and I’m one glass of chardonnay down so far. In my role as mentor teacher, I did an observation cycle (pre-observation conference, observation, post-observation conference) with Read More...

My turn under scrutiny

I had a formal observation today. What I mean is, I was the one being observed. (Usually it’s the other way around. I do 2-4 observations a quarter.) Every one of us, even the master and mentor teachers, needs to be observed once each quarter, and Read More...

I don’t care how great you think you are

Yesterday a kindergarten teacher in my mentoring group turned to me at our weekly meeting and hissed, “you should just come and observe me and get it over with, I don’t care when. Actually, just skip it and give me all twos, because I don’t Read More...

Adequate Yearly Progress

I work at a school that is in trouble. We are not making AYP, and we haven’t been for a while now. I think we’re at the point where we really should be fresh-started, and everyone should be let go and have to interview for their own jobs. Read More...