One of the folks I've come to know (and respect. and admire.) over my past couple of years in blogland is Leesepea at But Wait! There's more... She is a firecracker of a middle school teacher in California. I want to be her when I grow up. (If I grow up...IF!)
She threw down the gauntlet of the meme tag in her post yesterday. Never let it be said that I don't play along....
1. I am a good teacher because...I care about my kiddos, and let my heart have a say in my decision-making.
2. If I weren’t a teacher, I would be...lost. (I know this because I didn't teach for 6 years...and I felt like I was missing an appendage.)
3. My teaching style is...quirky, energetic, volatile, erratic, challenging, entertaining, neurotic (at times!), evolving...and fascinating (in that rubbernecking-at-a-car-accident-kind of way.)
4. My classroom is...my domain. The kids know when they walk through the door that it's a different world from the rest of the school. My expectations are different, my process is different, my heart is different...and they need to be different if they want to make it.
5. My lesson plans are...usually a work-in-progress. And rarely written down ahead of time. I'm determined to change that this year. Seriously. Quit laughing....
6. One of my teaching goals is... to do what I gotta do to make it happen. If I need to modify the way I teach something so a kid can get it...then I need to do that. Preserving the sanctity of "How We've Always Done It" is useless if the kid walks away without the concept.
7. The toughest part of teaching is... admitting I can't do it all. (I just sent an email to Uberprincipal stepping down from Junior Class sponsor for the coming year. It kills me to admit I'm human.)
8. The thing I love most about teaching is...it's never EVER boring. Wait. I just remembered I'm about to spend a week in Inservice Trainings and Faculty Meetings. Let me rephrase that. Teaching...as in "life once the kids arrive"...is never boring.
9. A common misconception about teaching is... that we gets evenings, weekends, and summers off. Even though we may not be on the clock...we're probably doing something school-related, be it school clubs, tutoring, grading, planning, etc. And on the off-chance we're NOT doing something school-related, we're probably sitting there thinking about the fact that we need to grading, planning, etc. !!!!!
10. The most important thing I’ve learned since I started teaching is...I will never truly know the impact I had on someone. I need to make every effort to ensure that it's a positive impact.
Okay....if you're a teacher....TAG! YOU'RE IT! Once you've posted this on your blog, leave me a comment with the link. And don't think you're off the hook if you're a non-blogger. (HELLION!!) You can write your "post" in MSWord, and then copy/paste the text into a comment.