26 September 2013

I'm excited

This year is going to represent one of my biggest challenges.  I'm going to be teaching over 140 students in six sections of chemistry.  Now I understand that there are English teachers, social studies teachers, gym teachers and I understand that grading an essay can take a long time.  But there's one thing a chemistry classroom has that other classrooms and that's labs, lab safety, and fire.  My sections are all over 20 kids several of them over 25 students in a classroom.  Again I know there are teachers have a fire worse, but I've never had it like this and to be honest I'm a little scared. I've never tried to run chemistry with so many studentsl; I'm scared of the number of assignments I am going to have to grade.  And, most of all, I'm scared that I won't be able to be as innovative or creative as I want to be. I've been dwelling on this for the past couple of weeks and I realized, once again, I need to take a different approach. I need to look at this from a different perspective and I don't mean flip the class.  I need to focus in on the things that get me excited every day so here's why I'm excited to start this school year:


  1. I am excited to start my 14th year in education.   I know there are a lot of teachers who have far longer careers, but there are a lot that never get that far.  But, I'm very proud of the fact that I have been an educator for 14 years and have had a successful career.  
  2. I'm excited to have more students than I ever before because it gives me a chance to have a positive impact on more people.
  3. I'm excited to get more students excited about chemistry and have them view the world through chemistry colored glasses.
  4. I'm excited to see kids learning with technology.  I have discovered some great tools this year and can't wait to expose them to some fantastic ideas.
  5. The more students I teach the more that I have a chance to connect with through social media.  That means building stronger relationships than I could when I first started teaching.  
  6. I'm excited for my TED Ed Club. I'm excited that we have the opportunity to be one of only 25 groups in the world that got a chance to pilot this club.   I'm excited to have them looking at videos they didn't know were out there and I'm excited to connect them with partners all over the world, from Colorado to Texas to Algeria to Queensland, Australia.
  7. I'm excited to be part of the Technology Committee which is going to rethink how the district is going to handle technology integration.  Basically, we are going to Google the crap out of everything. We are going to help students learn using mobile technology and how to make learning happen on their time, in their own way, using cell phones, iPads, Chromebooks, and GAFE.  
  8. I'm excited that my principal and my supervisor trust me so much that they let me run my classroom the way that I feel is best for my students. I'm excited that my principal trust me enough to let me be involved in the the planning of new teacher orientation and training across the district.
Note:  I wrote this several weeks ago and wanted to let it steep in my brain.  Well, I completely forgot to post it.  It is a little rough because I don't remember how I was going to conclude it.  But I still wanted to get it out there.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Moving Day

I want to thank everyone who has been reading this blog. It is time to get a more professional look to the site so this blog will be moving ...