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Week Four is now in the books, and as I sit on the ledge, preparing to dive into week five, these thoughts bubble up…
Thunder and Lightning
I have now seen two thunderstorms in Philadelphia (today being the second). For some reason, I remember them being fiercer in Milwaukee (or Wisconsin). Apparently we don’t get tornados over here, so we don’t have that underlying “maybe this one will knock down our house” thing going. Perhaps that’s why they aren’t as scary.
Test Madness
I had a rollercoaster of a Wednesday. In the morning, I had an amazing class period. My class averaged an 86% on our assessment. 5 of the 9 kids got a 100%. No one got below a 56%. I was on cloud 9 because my summer goal had been for my students to get an 80% average on an assessment with no one below 50% (to clarify, at the start of the summer my kids averaged a 35% with only 3 or 4 over 50%. So yes, it was smaller big goal, but a big goal none the less.)
And then the afternoon came. We had some testing that needed to be done at school, and we had been warned that it could possibly adjust our schedule, but I had no idea what was coming. It turned out that on the original test schedule, my kids had their “midterm” on Thursday and their “final” on Monday. Additionally, my teaching period would be taken up on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday for testing. Essentially I was left with two teaching days.
I had three of the days restored on Friday, but it was still a shock to go from 6 days to 2 in the drop of a hat. I’ve been told that teaching requires flexibility, but this makes me think I may be an acrobat by the time these two years are done.