What I've Done With Myself

Well, I've been out of my classroom for four days now and I must say it's been kind of a long week.  I've been hanging out in the office (thankfully we have a big main office with room for me) since the conference room is being used for assessments.  It's quite an adventure down there!  I love our two secretaries and I used to teach with our principal, so it's been kinda fun to spend the days down there.  It's interesting being in an office environment (even though a school office is different than a real office)...  I worked in the director's office of the student union at K-State for a year and I actually really enjoyed working in an office setting.  It's definitely a different world than teaching, but I do like it temporarily.

Anyway, I was reflecting on what I've been up to the last few days and I feel like I've been pretty productive, even if all of the work I've done hasn't exactly been for myself.

Monday - Pinterest projects (poster making!)
Tuesday - Master schedule for next year
Wednesday - Massive printing of online finds, filing, sending things to the print shop
Thursday - More work on the master schedule, committees, and interview stuff

Making the master building schedule for next year was a huge task, but I think I have it all figured out finally.  Hopefully I don't get mobbed by people that want to make changes to things.  I actually consulted every classroom teacher in K-5 about what they would like for their schedule and tried to meet everyone's wants and needs.  We'll see how happy they are about it when they see it in a couple weeks or whenever.

Someone asked me today if I would host a student teacher again...  I said yes, but not for another few years probably.  My student teacher is totally great, but I was only confident having her with me for the whole semester because I met her last year and was able to see her teach beforehand.  I don't think I would be able to just blindly agree to have a stranger come into my classroom for a whole semester without knowing them and their teaching style.  My ST and I get along really well, which I think is one of the biggest make or break factors in the whole experience.  I had a great experience when I was in her shoes five years ago, so I think that helps as well with my own attitude toward the whole situation.  I will admit, it's been a little difficult being displaced from my own classroom and not being able to see my students that much, but I really feel like my ST will learn the most and grow the most when left completely on her own.

I feel like teaching is a lot like learning to drive...  You can learn a lot taking classes, but you learn the most and gain the most confidence when you're just thrown behind the wheel and have to get by.  I remember the first time I decided to drive on the highway by myself after I got my first car.  I just decided to go for it and get over my fears!  I felt the same way when I started taking over teaching on my own and I learned what it took to survive on my own in the classroom!

I'm off work tomorrow because it's a "non-contract day" which conveniently happens to be on Good Friday!  :)  It's funny how pretty much all of the public schools in my area made tomorrow a day off and somehow justified it in a non-religious way.  No complaints here!  I'm looking forward to sleeping in, doing my nails, and having a sushi date with friends.

On an unrelated closing note...  I've recently become addicted to Instagram!  I was disappointed that it wasn't available for Android when I finally got a real smartphone (with internet!) back in December.  They finally got it up on Google Play this week and it's been fun playing around with it.  I'm trying to figure out how to get stuff into blogs and whatnot, so it's a learning process.  I've had fun documenting parts of my day with fun, random photos!