I'm so clever.
You know, we all joke so much about "first day of school" when referring to starting rehearsals, starting tech, meeting new coworkers, etc. - it's really kind of strange to be nervous about the actual first day of school, in a literal sense. I was here till midnight last night throwing lesson plans together, and I'm ready to throw any of 'em in the wastebasket the minute it seems like they aren't working. There's a lot of pressure to succeed here, and while the last teacher left me with tons and tons of notes, the details of exactly what's been taught, what's understood, and what needs remediation with a subject as detail-oriented as math leave me a little blind here. I lay awake last night till 4am teaching in my head, trying to balance the overwhelming amount of information I want to convey with the fact that high school students don't wanna listen to me yak for 60 minutes straight. Now here I am, 15 minutes till class starts, agonizing over whether I'm actually covering useful material today, whether I skipped a major step for any of the classes, whether I'm remediating too far back, or not far back enough...
Close eyes, hold breath, leap.
My heart goes out to you, man! Good luck! Your willingness to toss any lesson plan is 100% wise. And you're right: minimize (your) yakking, even if you have caribou instead. Active is the key; getting them to be active is the challenge. If you have not yet read Dan Meier here in the blogosphere, it's worth it -- start with the early stuff.
ReplyDeleteI've just started reading his stuff and LOVE it!
DeleteThe active part is something I'm still wrestling with a little - classroom management is a full time occupation here, and anytime I deviate from the "sit, listen, work, ask questions" model, I find myself balancing a classroom full of crazy. It's getting better, though!
You, sir, are officially a math nerd. But, I guess that's why you're probably teaching it in the first place. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteThanks, I need all the luck I can get right now...
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