First: thanks to my small collection of readers who are interested in life and learning at Atlanta Institute. It may take some days to come back and write each post, but they will come, and I'm grateful to share my thoughts.
At institute, it can be a little difficult to find the time and energy to communicate with the outside world. I usually do this through reading up on news and national events. It is unfortunate that my time spent talking to family and friends from back home has diminished so much. But, as evidenced here, it's hard: It's 230, my bus leaves for school in 4 hours, and I'm about to go to bed. I had a 2 hour pre-sleep/nap a few hours ago and woke up to finish a lesson plan for tomorrow. It turns out, that took a bit longer than I expected, and here I am. The weekend provides a great chance to relax my white-knuckled grip on getting things done and writing one lesson plan after another. I even went to see another Toy Story (3), which I have to admit, still made me cry. Oh, Pixar...
For those soon to be at other institutes, SPOILER alert. Today was TFA day, (Totally Free Afternoon). They sat us down at school for a strong hard talk and made us feel like slackers before taking off their masks, so to speak, and showering us with surprise gifts in the form of 3 hours off. A bit dramatic of a "jk," but I didn't really mind. Classic management trick...
Some of us commented on the hilarity/irony of seeing 3 hours as a huge gift. Considering that many of us cheer when we get more than 4 hours of sleep, 3 extra daylight hours begins to feel awesome. Really, it was the Sno Cones, mini-pools, and popcorn waiting for us back at the dorms that made the afternoon.
/SPOILER
Thinking of how we are halfway done is quite frightening in the sense that I don't feel we've done that much yet. But on the flipside, The fact that I have thought this much and grown this much in terms of Lesson Planning, coming from complete Novice experience, after having taught 3 times! is incredible. It's been a lot of learning, thinking, running back and forth, bold attempts and stressful failures, unexpected breakthroughs, and revelations. If I got to here from zero in 16 days, I can't quite fathom where I'll be after the second half.
That's it for the pep talk. It's game time. Let's get out there and show 'em what you're made of...
I am pretty stunned by the effort required for the TFA initiates. It sounds like 5 weeks of finals week in a row. I guess since you have not taught before this and you will be doing 180 days beginning in August you must prepare for it. Your students in Memphis will be lucky but they probably won't realize it.
ReplyDeleteDavid Nelson
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking, breathlessly."
ReplyDeletedon Juan
from The Teachings of don Juan: a Yaqui Way of Knowledge.