Summer: Chill-Out

I'm really trying to get some relax-time in during these next couple of days. That's because next week I'll start going down to the Harold Washington Library each day to nail down my planning for the year.

Yesterday, I reread Of Mice and Men before getting out of bed, since we'll be reading it this year in my classes. Then, I got to hang out with some of my favorite girls: Ursula, Flicka, Addie, and Hannah. We lunched at Handlebar, where we ate fried pies filled with pb&j. YUM, but we were sure moving slow on the walk home.

Last night, I caught the cleaning bug! That's hasn't happened frequently this summer, especially since it's been so hot. It's a bit odd to me how much fun I have cleaning. I have to attribute this to our Saturday cleaning days at home in Dyersville, when Mom would give us a list of tasks to accomplish, then she'd turn the music up loud and we'd go to work! We'd always have a smorgasbord of leftovers for a break at lunchtime: spaghetti and fried chicken, coleslaw and chicken salad, lettuce salad with cottage cheese, pickled herring and rye bread, usually with sun tea. Typing that just made my mouth water. Anyway, now I can't help but have a blast when I clean. I'm lucky that Joel likes to spend Saturdays like this also, and I imagine it will be a little like those good ol' days when we have our own house someday.

Today, I read The First Part Last for the first time, before I got out of bed. We'll be reading that book this year in Basic and Intermediate English. Today I have a lot of errands I'd like to run since we'll have weekend guests, our friends Jeff and Alison and their little one, Finn. They're from the Twin Cities - major Twins fans - so we're taking them to a White Sox game.

Today is sunny, and my bike, the green machine, looks pretty inviting.

Oh, and we ate sweet corn last night! It's definitely close to prime time in CornLand.

Summer: Rev-Up

With the culmination of summer school this past Tuesday, I felt able to crawl out of a planning-by-the-day hole that has trapped me for the past year, since I first started the Strategies for Success class at H.T.

I've got a whole new plan of attack for the coming year deriving from the Loyola Office of Catholic Schools School Leadership Conference a couple weeks back. It was really inspiring to meet with teachers from all over the country who face similar challenges at their schools.

The biggest lessons that I will incorporate into my teaching are:

• that data should drive all, or most, decision-making in the classroom,
  
• that teachers must start with the vision, the goal, or the outcome (whatever you want to call it), and then move toward the small daily tasks.
  

A real fault in my thinking last year is evidenced by the phrase that I said to myself so many times: "What are we going to do tomorrow?"

What I should have been saying is, "What should my students learn by the end of this year, and what can we do tomorrow to help accomplish that?"

and last,

• that Professional Learning Communities, or teachers talking constructively and collaboratively, are essential to a school's effectiveness and collegial climate.

I should also add that this year I'd really like to keep up this running reflection via Blogger. Last year, I entertained the idea of having a teacher blog, but wrote about 2 entries. I think that pushing myself to write in a public forum about my experiences will not only help me to cope with some of the issues I can anticipate, having one year under my belt, but will also help my loved ones to know what is going on with me, why I'm busy, why I'm stressed, why I'm overjoyed at small victories, etc. All that without me having to yammer it in their ears.