WHAT'S ONE DAY
Lately, I feel more and more people are using doctors as the analogy of the work we do. Our day to day work is being conveyed of how crucial it is with the comparison of the job of a doctor. The arguments are influential because of the extreme cases that are illustrated by the procedures of a doctor and his or her need to save a life. It raises the level of importance when a life is at stake. Choose one step and a person lives; disregard and the person will die. Our daily decisions have a major impact on the children who we are expected to be preparing for the next level of education and the real world. For instance, would you feel comfortable if you walked into a doctor’s office and it was a mess? Would you want a doctor that did not do the research to find out what best works when operating or would you rather them continue to use leeches because that worked at one point? Would you want a doctor to come into your operation without preparing how he or she was going to operate on you? Preparation for an operation is similar to lesson planning. As much as I think the lesson plan I prepare for the following day of class is an important one, it is important to explore how detrimental it is on our students.
Suppose I put a lesson together as quickly as possible for my class. I do not write a plan but I mentally organize what I will do with the 42 minutes. The lesson is executed but it does not convey the information clearly. I switch my plan midway to try to articulate what I want the students to concentrate on instead of trying to cover all of the content. It forces me to condense the amount of time I allocated for the students to apply it whether in groups or individually. I am unable to achieve my goal by covering everything I planned on getting to. This then means the amount of time I get to determine if my students understood has to be saved until the following day. I will also have to postpone what I was supposed to cover the following day because the content I missed needs to be covered instead. If my plan was more detailed and more considerate of my constituents, then I would have been able to execute what I wanted to do in the first place. Well, it’s only one day that the class is going to miss. Normally, one day is not really going to have an extensive impact on the students but in reality, its one less day we get to review and prepare our students for their state exam, its one less day to work with a set of students to move their own learning forward, and its one less day to go more in depth into a topic. “It’s only one day” is one way to look at it. In many ways I agree, one day can easily be caught up on. With whole school initiatives like testing and guest speakers, it is possible more days will be impacted. Granted, sometimes the best laid plans end in disarray because the students do not take to it as well as you thought they would or a management problem causes too long of an interruption and you are unable to finish a mini-lesson within the planned allocated time.
In reflection, one day is more valuable than first anticipated. When it’s on me and it could have been prevented, then it is a detrimental loss. Obstacles are going to be faced as the days go by and we must forge forward in the most efficient way possible. The only thing we can do to combat that is learn how to anticipate these lost minutes/hours. As usual, I will continue to encourage people to take risks within their classrooms. These days are susceptible for failed lessons. It is sometimes necessary to take two steps backward to take three steps forward. There are two kinds of risks out there, intelligent ones and dumb ones. Intelligent risks involve understanding your students as people to tap into their interests, knowing their academic levels to make sure they are being challenged, and to make the lesson relevant to the students by connecting it to previous lessons or to a bigger purpose. Trying to find out new ways to raise the achievement levels is greatly appreciated if the proper research is done. Intelligent risks require a thought out lesson plan.
In summary, days are going to be lost throughout the school year. This should be for reasons outside of your own control. Entering a class without a thought out plan can be compared to the preparation of a doctor into surgery without an idea of how the operation will take place. One day, on the account of lack of effort and management of time, does have a high impact on the students in our school. Days are going to be lost for reasons outside of our power. With curriculums requiring every day possible to get our students ready for their state exams, every second counts. These tests are not as important to our school as they are on the future of these students, especially the seventh grade. They determine where they will go for high school which will impact where they end up after high school if they are able to make it through. Life or death? We all know how much a good school and college make a difference in a person’s life. Every day we get to raise the achievement level of our students is another step closer to bringing great success in their life. To me, that is an opportunity for a wonderful life. The latter is death.
COMMUNITY CORNER
The parent resource center, located in room 323, is here to assist parents and families in numerous capacities. Ms. Word, our parent coordinator, will either provide information or avenues of support for all parent issues. Please take advantage of this resource. This includes staff as well.
We will be hosting a parent workshop on October 30th on understanding your child’s promotional criteria. Please come and join us to find out how important the 7th grade year is and what has changed from last year’s expectations to this years.
ATTENDANCE
In the last four weeks of school, we have only had three days of less than 90% attendance. Of those three days, only one of them was less than 89% while the other two were of equal or higher value. We are doing an excellent with maintaining a percentage but now it’s time to raise our expectations. We need to explore ways to tighten up and reduce the number of month-to-month absences. Our students have a tendency to have the highest number of absences on Mondays and Fridays. They also miss days in surrounding holidays. Finally, they fall into patterns of missing one day every couple of weeks. We need to encourage our students to make it to school on those days. If we can make an effort to look for patterns within our classes and try to talk to the students before these days, we can possibly turn around these choices in the future.
When it comes to attendance, it’s the small things that count. Just letting a student know you noticed he or she was absent and encouraging him or her to be in school is a moment of your time but it goes a long way.
BIRTHDAYS:
Vivian Doles October 7th
Ishrath Azad October 19th
Joanne Tu October 29th
Jerome Young October 31st
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” –Albert Einstein
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment