Anchors in the Storm
Life is crazy right now. Since the school year started, I have had only one full day to actually sit at my desk and work. The rest of the time I am visiting teachers, meeting with principals, planning PDs (Professional Development) with teammates, presenting PDs to teachers, and somehow trying to fit in all my [...]
Why My Job Rules
Why my job sucks: For the past 3 weeks, I’ve had to travel to high schools and middle schools to administer a speaking test to EL students. The SAME test. Over and over. ALL day long. Why my job rules: I’ve gotten to meet a bunch of cool students. At one high school, I met [...]
A Semester in the Coaching Life
An instructional coach, that is. Specifically an English Learners coach. Over the past decade, the school district I work for has adopted a instructional coaching model as part of it’s professional development and push to raise test scores. I can’t speak for middle and high schools, but every elementary school has a Literacy Coach and [...]
I Am Parenting Myself
I had an uh-oh moment today. I realized how much my daughter is going to be just like me when I was a kid/teen. For the most part, I was happy, outgoing, and well adjusted. For the most part, Madeleine is all those things, too. But I was also very emotional (hey, I was a [...]
Coaching Tips I Can Learn From My Husband
Yep, I know it’s hard to believe that I’m taking advice from my husband (we have a pretty competitive relationship, mostly due to my need to be better than). And even harder to believe that I need coaching advice!!?? Well, we are both coaches, after all. He coaches volleyball and baseball and I coach – [...]
A Day of Firsts
Yesterday involved a couple of “firsts” in my new position as an ELL Consultant. Here’s the good, the bad, and the ugly: First Model Lesson – I taught my first model lesson for a new ELL teacher to observe. Now, I shouldn’t have been nervous given I’ve been teaching for 11 years, but I’ve got [...]
A Week in the Life . . .
Steven and I both had to go back to school this week. The first week of school can be the most stressful week of the year for a teacher. Though I was not setting up a classroom this year, by Friday my brain was exploding and my anxiety level was high. Here’s a run-down of [...]
The Silver Lining
Teaching can be a demanding, stressful job in many ways. One of the ways is having to discipline kids and maintain order in the classroom. Fortunately, most of my students are well-behaved and eager to learn. But every year, there is one or two that are determined to let me know that I cannot control [...]
