Category Archives: 1
January Report and Looking Down the Second Semester Road
Januaury was a blizzard of special events in the classroom, beginning with a delayed start after the holidays and continuing through the MLK Jr. Holiday, the Inauguration, and the National Geography Bee. Looking ahead, February will be punctuated with an overnight camping excursion, Presidents’ Day, Parent-Teacher Conferences, Valentine’s Day and another “Late Start” day for Professional Development. March will be consumed by CSAP tests, Colorado’s mandated assessments) followed by Spring Break; April will find teachers and students fending off spring fever while trying to restore an ethic of teaching and learning after a 5-week break. May, we all know, is lost to special events, including another week-long assessment for the district. What will students learn from all of this? What will they learn about our priorities, about the value of their school time, about our values? Are we doing this on purpose or not? Continue reading
Time Keeper Collects and Analyzes First Semester Data
After 15 hours of careful time-tracking of how students’ time was actually spent during the school days of the first semester, I found that there had been an average of 4 hours a day for teaching/learning interactions. However, because these four hours were never continuous, it felt like much less time. As a teacher, I am frustrated that there is not more uninterrupted time, an essential condition for authentic learning by Vygotsky, Gatto, and Montessori. Continue reading
