Seven days and counting till I get to start setting up my new 5th Grade class, but that doesn't mean I am not already hard at work preparing to be the best 5th grade teacher I can be. Truth be told I am spending hours reading about styles of teaching that are totally new to me. I have watched countless YouTube videos and webinars taught by educators with decades of experience and I am learning so much! So, while my friends ask how my "vacation" is going I am truly enjoying this time I have to dig deep and soak up all this knowledge before my "break" comes to an end.
I am so enamored with this workshop based teaching style that I can't wait to see it in action. But I know that to achieve these high standards I need to plan. Not just lessons, but procedures. Like I blogged about last time, "if I fail to plan, then I am planning to fail." I have no intention of failing. It seems silly at first when you start to think about teaching procedures. You may find yourself thinking as I did, do I really need to teach kids how I want them to move about the class, how I expect they should sharpen their pencils, what do with their homework, how to raise their hands, how to date a page... the list of things I need to teach them seems to be ever growing and never ending. But according to every teacher I come across, taking the time to teach my class exactly what I expect in regards to pretty much every aspect of their day will save us all a lot of headaches and help us become the well functioning community I hope we will be.
You may have noticed the quote underlined and highlighted by the sun in the passage above. It comes from one of the great books I am reading, Lucy Calkins A Guide to the Writing Workshop. Having taught 2nd grade and with experience in working with kids of all ages I thought she hit the nail on the head when she posed the question,"Why is classroom management regarded as a low-level skill when corporate management is considered an executive skill?" This couldn't be more true. I always feel a sense of pride when someone sitting in on my class compliments my ability to manage my students, but I also always think to myself, they just happened to catch us at a good moment. Because, truth be told classroom management is a skill and just like any skill it can almost always be improved upon. I am fairly certain that on any day I have much room for improvement in my classroom, which is one reason it is so engaging to read, watch and learn from teachers who are much more skilled than me. They inspire me to not only try new methods but to set what seems to be impossible high standards for my kiddos to attain. At the same time giving me the tested tools and methods they know to work.
As someone who is learning this teaching profession by jumping in the deep end it is nice to have the pool filled with educators offering a variety of floaties!
(picture not mine)
It is such a blessing to have such a fun filled pool to play in!
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