Different English Styles (by Mrs. Styles)

For the past three days I have been at school participating in a curriculum project.  What this will eventually lead our district (K-12) to is a vertically-aligned curriculum in which students get the same standards-driven instruction per grade level, and there are no gaps left between the grade levels.  They’ll learn what they need, when they need to.  This may seem like common sense to some of you, but let me tell you, it’s not.  It’s very difficult to align curriculum vertically, especially if there has been little to no administrative direction given to the teachers as to what material and when it will be covered.  Our assistant superintendent (ghsprincipal.edublogs.org) is giving us that direction.  This was her first year at this position in our district and she is making sweeping changes that will ultimately lead to a vastly improved district.  As difficult as it was to go back to school early on in our vacation, and as much as my colleagues and I grumbled about the tedious work, it was well worth it.  We analyzed data, looked at standards, discussed the importance of certain units, and looked at what we have previously been doing and tightened it up a bit.  It’s not longer teaching a book for the love of the book (like the kids love it anyway…seriously, half of them just pretend to be reading while they’rereally staring at the page thinking about things I’d rather not think about them thinking about), but rather teaching certain topics and skills and concepts using the book as a vehicle or mode to deliver that instruction.  Now for my non-teaching readers, this probably makes little sense, but trust me it’s a big breakthrough!  Today I was looking at my units and changed many of them around to better meet the needs of the English 9 standards.  I had to leave out some of my “oh, but they’ll love that lesson and it’s so fun” activities and add more rigorous assessments, but I believe in myself enough to put an entertaining twist onto it.  I realized at the end of the day (it took me one whole day to input just one unit and half of another), that this work will actually make my classroom a better learning environment for our students. 

I think I might actually even do some work tonight–in July!  Craziness. 

It’s the third day of summer vacation.  The third day.  If somebody on Monday would’ve come to my house and offered to take my children to an all summer camp until August, the suitcases would’ve been packed in an instant.  This is not because I don’t love my children.  I love them so much it kills me sometimes.  However, Monday was the day both boys decided to test the waters to see how much they could get away with.  Like I was going to fall for that one!  Don’t these kids know that their mother is a teacher??  All I do is watch kids try to test the waters and NOT get away with it.  Needless to say, when I was putting them to bed Monday night Nathaniel said to me, “Mommy, I’m going to be good the rest of the summer.  Today wasn’t fun.” 

Oh yeah.