Teach Like a Champion

As with so many things in my life, I planned on visiting this blog every day and posting my whimsical thoughts about teaching. It didn't happen.  I got sucked into that swirling vortex of first week of school madness and this is the first time I'm catching a breath.  Plus, I had a tooth out last Friday and for some reason I am the rare, odd person whose tooth didn't heal properly.

I have harbored all sorts of useful thoughts about my teaching that I could have recorded on this blog.  I had ideas about refining lesson plans and tweaking certain activities that I might have shared, but alas, they slipped away like sand hills in the tide, and now I'm left having to piece them back together.

The first day of students went off without a hitch.  They filed in and followed (all except one stray child) my bidding.  That stray child decided to whisper incessantly to a neighbor.  This is not unusual the first day of school, but it always surprises me and sets me on edge. Why don't they know to immediately respect my benevolent authority?  I should be an old pro at this.  Nothing should phase me.  I should be more like my husband, a man who can walk without flinching into an icy lake like a placid buddha.   This day, however, I think I had finally learned my lesson.  I have been reading, Teach Like a Champion, by Doug Lemov (featured above left-find out more at:  uncommonschools.org). It is a practical how to about teaching, a rare book that doesn't spend pages on dry philosophy.  It cuts to the chase and models concrete classroom methodology rather than pedagogy.  I know my kids and Doug Lemov reinforces this.  They cannot bear a public walk of shame.  I took the talker into my room as inconspicuously as possible.  I already had a heads up that he had some issues last year and seems to have started this year with a better attitude.

Why Teach Daily?

 I chose this name for my blog, because every other teaching name seemed to be taken.  That's the first reason, but also I have this theory that everyone is a teacher in some way, so teach daily applies to everyone.  It doesn't matter if you're a school administrator, parent, or military recruiter, you're probably involved in teaching and modeling if you have to interact with other humans, so feel free to join me (a classroom teacher) in my daily pondering and musing over what it means to be a teacher, and what happens in the classroom.  I plan on using this blog to evaluate my teaching.  I have always meant to keep a daily log of what worked and what didn't, but most importantly, I plan on keeping myself amused.  For this reason I won't divulge my school district or any student names, but you can probably dig all that up if you really needed to.

To start with, I am a middle school language arts teacher.  Middle school is a special breed of student, distinguished in recent years by numerous studies in educational practice.  We're told that their brains are still forming (really their gray matter goes through a growth spurt at this age), and that their spines are fusing (as evidenced by how many boys have fallen splat on their backs from tipping their chairs to stretch), and that their sleep habits are different from all other mammals on the planet.  They literally need a minimum of twelve hours of sleep per night.

The irony of how early districts force middle school kids to catch the bus has never escaped me.  The last district I worked in had 7th and 8th graders starting school at 7:15 a.m.  They put us through numerous training sessions on how students that age performed better with more sleep and then the superintendent insisted because of bus run policy that the junior high had to start earliest.  When my 5:00 a.m. alarm sounded, I was more often than not bitter.  My new school is better.  They get a bit of the middle school philosophy, and the pressures on the classroom teacher are somewhat minimized in lieu of the species of student we have to work with on a day to day basis.

Don't get me wrong.  I like thirteen and fourteen year olds.  I think that teachers choose to teach the age they most identify with.  I don't know if I should be embarrassed by this, but I probably emotionally arrested right around thirteen.  I mean some of my sensibilities made it to fifteen, but I like this age.   I think these kids are hilariously funny, intelligent, and creative.  I enjoy them very much.  They also love to push boundaries and they are often honing their skills at how to annoy me.  I will try not to sound off on any kids in particular, but you may get a composite picture of some antics in the classroom.  What classroom would be interesting without them?

Tomorrow is my first, official day back on the job.  Don't think I wasn't working all summer, because it's impossible to stop thinking about and working on this job.  I did watch some reality t.v. though from time to time and I have my shows I follow like True Blood (stupid and salacious I know), but I had to move rooms, learn how to use a Promethean Board (still struggling with this) and plan curriculum.  It never goes away. Anyway, tomorrow we get sit in a big auditorium together and learn for the 11th or 15th or 30th time about blood born pathogens.  This year the district isn't providing lunch (interesting), and I found that a book order mysteriously got cut.  Don't worry too much about the recession;  I'll try to keep the classroom interesting without all the supplies.  I plan to update daily.  That's a plan not a promise.  So stay tuned.