Bleh.
There are only so many new initiatives I can handle in one year. Even if they're all worthwhile initiatives...come on, a little at a time, please!
Monday, August 13, 2012
Sunday, August 12, 2012
School tomorrow
School starts tomorrow! Well, my first official day of work is tomorrow; the first actual school day with kids is Wednesday. I always feel apprehensive at this time of year. I've been working the last two weeks to get as far ahead in planning and in life as I can to forestall the inevitable moment where I fall hopelessly behind for as long as possible. I know it will happen - it always happens - but I do get a little better at holding it off a little longer each year.
I will miss feeling like a person, though... I like teaching, but I hate how stressed out I feel on a constant basis during the school year. I really hope it fades at least a little at some point.
Well...wish me luck!
I will miss feeling like a person, though... I like teaching, but I hate how stressed out I feel on a constant basis during the school year. I really hope it fades at least a little at some point.
Well...wish me luck!
Friday, August 10, 2012
Misinformation
I have been getting very annoyed with the posts I've been reading on Facebook lately. The closer it gets to the election, the more and more political posts I see. And, honestly, that would be fine, if the posts had any basis in fact or genuine reasons as to why people should vote for one candidate over another. Instead, though, I constantly see outrage - outrage at horrible things that both candidates for the presidency have done or said. The problem with this outrage is, that... the candidates didn't actually say or do these things. Nobody fact checks. I've had quite a few times where someone has posted something that, yes, would be horrible if it were true...but all it took was a quick google search to discover multiple sources that contradict what people have posted. How hard is it to fact check your information? Or do people really, truly not care that they're spreading misinformation, as long as it gets others to take the side of their candidate? I know I have to teach my students what sources are reliable and what sources are not reliable, but I am perturbed that adults do not seem to understand that e-mails, facebook posts, blogs, or political ads are not reliable sources for their information. Even more perturbing are sources that claim to be reliable sources that spread misinformation. I'm not targeting any one side of the political spectrum - both sides are guilty. But how to respond? If I respond to something I know to be false, it seems like I'm taking the other side, and all the sudden I'm attacked as a strong conservative or strong liberal, depending on the candidate that's being wrongfully criticized. Honestly, I'm not sure who I want to vote for at this point in time, but what I DO know is that I want to base my vote in fact, not in manufactured outrage, and it scares me that people in both parties may be voting purely because of the "information" they get through chain e-mails or Facebook posts.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Two days in a row!
All right, so I'm off to a better start than I was the LAST couple of times I said I was going to start writing more. We'll see how that goes.
I met with other teachers who teach one of the same courses as I do today, and we started planning a little more about the school year. I'm really happy that we seemed to be making some progress - the last time that we met, we talked a lot about all these things we wanted to do and change this year, but we didn't really get down to anything specific. This meeting, we actually talked about some specifics and now we have a fairly clear picture of what the semester's going to look like, which is nice.
There's still a lot to go, though... we're going to have to change around a lot, and with everything we're talking about adding, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. I'm getting a little frustrated this year. I expected my first year of teaching to be hard. I expected the second year of teaching to be easier, but still hard. They both were. However, I also always thought that, once 'd been teaching for a few years, I would start to feel like I knew what I was doing. That has yet to happen, and with how much changes every year, I'm not sure if that's every going to happen. Granted, I feel a lot more confident and a lot more organized than I was when I first started teaching. However, I still feel like I'm starting over every year. This year especially...we're starting professional learning committees, we're switching the curriculum over to common core, and we're changing our evaluation system...I just feel like every time I even remotely start to know what I'm doing, something else new is thrown in. Between all that new stuff and grad school, I'm a little concerned about my ability to keep up this year. Hopefully it will work out, though.
I'm a little on information overload at the moment. Throughout the course of this summer, I spent about four weeks either at grad school or conferences. So I have so much new information and so many new ideas, but they amount to SO much that I'm having trouble organizing them and figuring out where to start.
Wish me luck!
I met with other teachers who teach one of the same courses as I do today, and we started planning a little more about the school year. I'm really happy that we seemed to be making some progress - the last time that we met, we talked a lot about all these things we wanted to do and change this year, but we didn't really get down to anything specific. This meeting, we actually talked about some specifics and now we have a fairly clear picture of what the semester's going to look like, which is nice.
There's still a lot to go, though... we're going to have to change around a lot, and with everything we're talking about adding, there's a lot of work that still needs to be done. I'm getting a little frustrated this year. I expected my first year of teaching to be hard. I expected the second year of teaching to be easier, but still hard. They both were. However, I also always thought that, once 'd been teaching for a few years, I would start to feel like I knew what I was doing. That has yet to happen, and with how much changes every year, I'm not sure if that's every going to happen. Granted, I feel a lot more confident and a lot more organized than I was when I first started teaching. However, I still feel like I'm starting over every year. This year especially...we're starting professional learning committees, we're switching the curriculum over to common core, and we're changing our evaluation system...I just feel like every time I even remotely start to know what I'm doing, something else new is thrown in. Between all that new stuff and grad school, I'm a little concerned about my ability to keep up this year. Hopefully it will work out, though.
I'm a little on information overload at the moment. Throughout the course of this summer, I spent about four weeks either at grad school or conferences. So I have so much new information and so many new ideas, but they amount to SO much that I'm having trouble organizing them and figuring out where to start.
Wish me luck!
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Need to write again
So, Facebook is finally forcing me to get timeline. While that's a little annoying, it did prompt me to scroll through my Facebook wall, all the way until 2004 when I originally got Facebook. This started sparking memories, so I started looking at my old blogs and xanga entries and feeling a lot of nostalgia.
I came to a few conclusions by looking through my old blog entries (not from this blog; I realize I haven't posted much on this one).
1. I really had a great time in college, and I have some truly amazing friends. I knew this already, but it's nice to remind myself every once in awhile.
2. I used to write a lot, and this writing helped me work through things. I also could be genuinely funny at times in my writing.
3. I changed and did a LOT my freshman year of college.
I'm trying to figure out why I don't write so much anymore. Part of it is a time issue, of course; it's hard to fit everything in. Part of it is that I don't feel inspired to write, but I wonder a little if this is because I am a little out of practice. I think another part of it is that I don't have quite so much running through my mind anymore, though. Skimming through my old entries, I find a lot of entries that have me complaining of too much whirling around in my head. I still have lots of things whirling through my head on a pretty constant basis, but I am no longer trying to figure myself out; I'm no longer worried about Wes going away; I'm no longer defining myself in such narrow terms that any deviation from my personal definition freaks me out. So maybe I just don't need to write as much anymore.
On the other hand, I remember coming up with things when writing that I would have never come up with if I had just been sitting and thinking. I'm trying to determine if my lack of recent writing comes from my lack of inspiration, or if my lack of inspiration comes from the fact that I just haven't been writing and I'm out of practice. Don't get me wrong, I have written things, but they've been things like essays for class, not things that come out of my own head.
Based on this idea, I'm going to try to promise myself that I will write at least once a week this year. This will probably not happen - I regularly do things like this - but I will try. Maybe as I start to practice writing a little more, I'll re-inspire myself and continue discovering new things in my head.
I came to a few conclusions by looking through my old blog entries (not from this blog; I realize I haven't posted much on this one).
1. I really had a great time in college, and I have some truly amazing friends. I knew this already, but it's nice to remind myself every once in awhile.
2. I used to write a lot, and this writing helped me work through things. I also could be genuinely funny at times in my writing.
3. I changed and did a LOT my freshman year of college.
I'm trying to figure out why I don't write so much anymore. Part of it is a time issue, of course; it's hard to fit everything in. Part of it is that I don't feel inspired to write, but I wonder a little if this is because I am a little out of practice. I think another part of it is that I don't have quite so much running through my mind anymore, though. Skimming through my old entries, I find a lot of entries that have me complaining of too much whirling around in my head. I still have lots of things whirling through my head on a pretty constant basis, but I am no longer trying to figure myself out; I'm no longer worried about Wes going away; I'm no longer defining myself in such narrow terms that any deviation from my personal definition freaks me out. So maybe I just don't need to write as much anymore.
On the other hand, I remember coming up with things when writing that I would have never come up with if I had just been sitting and thinking. I'm trying to determine if my lack of recent writing comes from my lack of inspiration, or if my lack of inspiration comes from the fact that I just haven't been writing and I'm out of practice. Don't get me wrong, I have written things, but they've been things like essays for class, not things that come out of my own head.
Based on this idea, I'm going to try to promise myself that I will write at least once a week this year. This will probably not happen - I regularly do things like this - but I will try. Maybe as I start to practice writing a little more, I'll re-inspire myself and continue discovering new things in my head.
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