Week One

With the first week under my belt, I'm feeling pretty good. There is still some acclimatization to occur no doubt, but overall the ball has been set in motion. I always feel better when the class is underway. I always compare the start of school to pushing a boulder over the precipice of a large hill. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and planning to get it moving in the direction you want it to go, but once you've got it going, you can almost let it roll.

There are times when the boulder gets stuck on a root or wedged between trees and you have to adjust and work to get it back on track again, but there's nothing like that moment when the boulder is rolling like you had hoped!

This week we focused on some procedural things but mostly on our "Cheese." I assigned our first "quiz" which is the About Me Project. I've heard from other teachers that a lot of the kids have gotten a good start on it already. I really can't wait to see what they come up with to show me who they are.

The "Cheese" we talked about comes from the book Who Moved My Cheese by Dr. Spencer Johnson. The book is about four characters stuck in a maze and they are in search of cheese. The Cheese with the capital C represents the things that make us happy and feel successful. It's a very popular book in the business sector and deals primarily with change and how we respond to that change.

We were able to talk about our personal Cheese and the local Cheese as well as national Cheeses. I was really excited about the fact that we've had a chance to talk and discuss some pretty big ideas. All four classes are doing a great job with it so far.

I hope to finish up our work with that book later this week, but before we do, we'll be getting online to set up our accounts and start our first blog on Imbee.com. My previous students really enjoyed using Imbee to blog and communicate with each other.

Friday was our Olympic games. We had Water Olympics in the morning and Metric Olympics and Cricket in the afternoon. I'm in the process of putting together a compilation video of our day.

I'm looking forward to another fun week at school, the Crawdads game on Monday, and maybe a trip to ASU on Thursday to hear Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle, speak. Looking like a good week from here!

PB Wiki

PBwiki has started their back to school challenge and just by using pbwiki for your class you can win a free upgrade. I recommend checking it out!

First Two Days!

Wow! What an awesome way to start. We had a great two days of getting to know each other and creating a good atmosphere for the work we have to do this year. It was great getting to meet all of my students.

Thursday, I showed my insane introduction video, in double time! Some of my classes weren't sure if they should laugh or not, which was fun. We talked about where they see themselves in the future and what their legacy would be. We talked about what super powers we wished we had and what was important to us.

Friday, we had conversations with a partner and used what we learned to introduce each other to the class. We found out what flavor of ice cream we would be and what our theme song should be. We didn't quite get finished, so we'll pick up there on Monday for Groups B and A and on Tuesday for Groups C and D.

After lunch, we hiked to Redwood Park. We had a shoe race and helped each other over the lava pit. After we finished, we hiked back and headed out for the weekend. It all seemed to happen in a blur! But left me with the best feeling.

After two days, one of the kids said I was like an adult version of ADD! I got a kick out of that. Another told me I was in the running for the best teacher ever. Within a sentence she changed her mind and decided that because I was funnier then the current "Best Teacher Ever" I just might have won.

My wife says I'm a happier person. I think I've become friendlier. I'm truly excited about teaching. And it's only been two days with students! It's like going somewhere new and realizing that you were home!

And So It Begins...

Day one and we're off and running! How exciting! We moved boxes and file cabinets and put desks and tables together. We actually spent the day in the new building! The rooms are amazing. They are so big and have so much built in storage in them. They truly are incredible.

There are some changes that will be weird. Right now I don't think we'll be able to put anything on the walls! My classroom is usually covered with posters and student work. And since we share our classrooms with the college, our rooms aren't really our rooms. We have our teacher desks in the workroom, which could prove to be really good. It'll just be weird for a while.

Like anything, it will take some getting used to. It's just amazing to see how not only our staff but also so many other people worked so hard to get things ready. I know next week will be long and taxing, but it will be so worth it! Little by little the pieces fall into place and things come together.

I get to work with an amazing group of colleagues, and for that, I am eternally grateful! You should have seen us tear through the science labs and put together tables in no time. Today I actually saw exactly what John Heywood meant when he said, "Many Hands Make Light Work." Whenever something needed done, everyone just jumped in and took care of it.

I can't wait for next week when I'll actually be moving in my classroom stuff! Time to Rock -N- Roll!

Okay so the google video uploader did nothing for the original video. Well, it did something. It lowered the quality for sure, which is disturbing! But you can still get the general idea of the landscaping I've been doing around the house.

And now for the pond....

Okay so I took a break from playing with my new toy, and went back to working on the yard. Over the last few days, I've put in two new sidewalks with paving stones, relandscaped around the front of the house, and set up the pond.

Now it's starting to come together, but it's not quite done yet. Tomorrow I hope to finish the pond off and hook up the fountain. I still need to clean up the stones around the side sidewalk, put in the overflow for the pond, and put a few finishing touches on the pond. I need to get some pictures.

Now that I'm nearing the end, I can't help but look at lighting. Now that it all looks so good, I sort of want to add some solar lighting. But I suppose that will have to wait.

Besides the few finishing touches I have to work on tomorrow, I still need to put the new deck belt on the mower and cut the grass...all of the grass! I might have failed to mention that while today was wickedly productive it had its low points.

For starters my wife and daughter left to go see family in Pennsylvania. It's not like this is my first few days alone. It has happened before, but it still gets lonely without Maggie, my daughter, running around behind me and "helping," or without Stacy to bounce ideas off of as I work.

Two other low points for the day included the reason I need to replace the belt on the mower and ants. I tried to mow some of the grass today; unfortunately, the belt for the cutting deck caught fire and snapped or melted. Regardless of whether it snapped or melted, I need to replace it. Never a fun job.

The final insult of the day came when I was getting a load of old bricks from behind our dilapidated barn to fill in around the pond. I started loading bricks and soon felt a familiar sting on my arms and legs. Yep, fire ants! Not too bad, but I have little bites on my arms and legs. Luckily I saw them before they really started to swarm, and I had gloves on.

Well, this post had nothing to do with school or my new toy, but I'm trying to get into the habit of writing more regularly. Here's hoping!

And we're off....

First of all I must admit that I have little faith in my future as a blogger. I've never been able to keep a journal on any regular basis. And while I love to write, it the easiest activity I have ever found to make excuses not to do. I am at heart a writer. Unfortunately, I don't always put that passion first.

My brain works in mysterious ways and leads me on adventures that seldom end anywhere near where I was heading. For example, I began this caper playing with my new Flip Mino. That led me online to look for royalty free music to use with movies. I did find a site that looks promising. I tried to tag the site with del.icio.us, a social bookmarking site. But I had forgotten my login and had to play that game for a minute. You know the whole what is your this and that game. What is your favorite color? Blue no green...AHHHHH! (Sorry Monte Python detours are bound to happen from time to time.) That led me back to my Gmail account which somehow led me to this blog.

Now if we back up like two days or so, we find that there is some formula here. A couple days ago I was working on a grant application to secure funding for a project I plan to undertake with my students this year. The last part of the grant application involves a line item type list of how the funds would be spent.

One of the items on that list are Flip Minos. The project...amateur film making. That's right! This year my classes are going to create short films a minimum of 30 mins in length that highlight a social or environmental issue that is important to them.

While looking for the perfect camera for this adventure, I found the Flip series of cameras, and well I bought one. It arrived in the mail today, and I started playing with it. It really is quite a nice little camera. Very inexpensive and take amazingly good video.

So I sat down and started playing with the camera after taking random video. Next thing I know, I'm writing my first blog. What I failed to mention is that somewhere between the grant application and my Flip Mino arriving in the mail, I had thought about starting a blog. Had the building been ready, today would have been my first day at Caldwell Early College High School. And even though my start date has been postponed by a week, I can't stop thinking about this upcoming school year.

I'm really excited and at the same time a little uncertain. While this will be my 5th year teaching, it will be like a first year in some ways. My schedule and day to day will not be what it has been. It's a whole new adventure. One I am very much looking forward to starting!

I will be teaching English I (freshmen), and I will have the pleasure of teaching the entire freshmen class. They will be divided into four sections. Unlike the past four years where I taught three sections a semester, I will have these four classes all year but see them on an alternating schedule.

This has caused me to rethink the way I deliver instruction in some cases. I will also be working with a team of teachers who also teach the freshmen class. This has offered opportunities to integrate across the curriculum. We'll be teaching units that compliment and correspond with each other. This too has caused me to rethink my delivery as I typically taught freshmen English by genre not theme. I think I'm going to like the movement to theme. I'm also going to like being challenged again to rethink the way I teach.

At any rate, I plan to use a wiki to help my students keep the world informed as to our progress this year, and I am going to try to post blogs to update from my point of view. All of which will be linked from my school website.

This was a really random rant! And knowing me, they all will be. Well, it's time to move on...here we go!