Another week of procrastinating. This time it finally caught up with me. But before that, a quick update.

Tuesday, November 6th Election Day
Today was Election Day. The students were not in attendance, but the school was opened to the public as a polling station. For teachers, today was a professional development day. A fairly wasted day. Teachers were divided up into the groupings of the new reading program.

*First "training" session, was math. The math coach was in charge of training, but was not prepared. He showed up with nothing but the letter to the staff that he'd just typed up. The letter basically repeated what was written in a previous memo to the staff written a few days ago. The math coach is nice, but often he seems to like the sound of his voice. He likes to use big words, and he likes to talk. His "training" was basically chatting with the group about this and that. Finally, AP2 took over the training with a "what works and what doesn't T chart". I thought an honest response would be useful to the discussion. Unfortunately, Queen Bee walked in to observe.

My comment was that we have so many different assessments, that I end up not really looking at the results because as soon as one is given and graded, another one is around the corner. I'd mentioned that I recognized the need for a variety of assessments, but what good is an assessment if time is not set aside to analyze the results and formulate a plan of action....

I should have kept my big mouth shut!

Queen Bee and AP2 started having a heated (but nice and professional) discussion about "what he meant". After about 2 or 3 minutes, they turned to me. I just said that both were correct. Queen Bee asked how many math assessments we had this month (3), and how many questions in the last in-house assessment (10). The result, was the belief that 10 questions really isn't a lot to grade. I just nodded keeping my mouth shut. I wanted to say that that thinking implied that teaching is done in isolation. Forgetting about the other areas that take up the teacher's time:

The new reading program with all of the minute details, the math program, the hands-on science program, the test prep program, city-wide assessments (E-CLAS), checking homework, keeping bulletin boards updated monthly, conferencing with individual students, assessing students as individuals, differentiating instruction for the students.

To be honest, for me, I have only managed a few of the list above at any one time. Each time I have a plan to do one thing, something comes up, and I push one thing aside to tackle the next thing. Sorry, I am getting sidetrack. Basically flexibility is something that I need to work on.

Anyway, the "what's right/wrong" math training ended. The next training was a closer look at the new reading program. According to AP2, the training was suppose to be led by the literacy coach 2. But since she(LC2) was still working with her first session group, AP2 decided to show us the new materials for the new reading program. Strange. I was a bit lost. A little background.

The new reading program started about mid October. It took me a bit of time to get use to the anthology text and the materials that did not match the training materials. It turns out that the materials that we have been using were the old materials of the program. Since the new materials hadn't arrived, Admin made an executive decision to use the old program, but forgot to mention that to the lowly staff, or they did and I just was not paying attention. Anyway, the new materials will be arriving over the next few days. The old materials were based on an anthology text, but the new materials are based on paperback trade books. What will happen with the old materials when the new materials arrive. There was only a couple of shrugged shoulders. By the end of the "training", Lit. coach 2 arrived. There was some mistake, according to her, she wasn't supposed to do a training session. The training time was supposed to be teachers working independently in their classrooms with organizing and planning with the new program materials. However, she stayed to answer questions AP2 could not answer. AP2 is in charge of the test prep materials. LC2 is the one in charge of the new reading program. After a bit of Q & A, it was time for the next "training".

The third training starting "a bit late" was led by AP1 (looking at student portfolios). AP1 asked a couple of teachers to share what a student's portfolio should contain. AP1 provided feedback as to what Admin is looking for. After the two portfolio presentations, AP1 asked us to do a written feedback about what we would use in the coming weeks. She said that the purpose of writing was that we would receive a copy of what we wrote, but I think she will probably forget, sometimes she can be a bit forgetful.

Next on the agenda was "report cards" with no explanation, none of the teachers I asked seemed to know what that meant, either working on report cards, or finishing report cards. The third "training" ended about 12PM. When I asked about the location of the next training session (report cards) since the nicely written agenda had lunch at 12:30PM. Since the trainings were a bit off schedule, the fourth session was unofficially cancelled. AP2 just told me that if nothing specific is given then I should just work in my classroom. I decided to use the staff copy machine in the science lab. This year, I told myself that I would try to use my personal copy machine for emergencies only, but so far I've been using my personal copier like it was a heavy duty machine. Also, Across the Hall has gotten comfortable with asking to make a few copies every now and then. My hints about expensive ink and drum replacement no longer have much effect. But since she is a nice person and I enjoy her company, it doesn't bother me too much. Anyway, I managed to make all of my copies for the week. And I did a bit of running here and there, before I decided to eat lunch. I decided to pass on the usually "Principal's lunch special (cold cuts and lunch [potato, mac & cole] salads. I had a Healthy Choice meal. It was about 1:10PM when I was about to sit down for lunch, when AP2 made the following announcement over the loudspeaker:

"All teachers, report to their afternoon training locations at 1:15PM."

I was told that according to Admin's watch, lunch started at 12:15PM. I was so annoyed that I decided that I would eat lunch and arrive late to the "training".

For my group, afternoon training session was the grading of the city-wide ELA practice test. Then about 2:50PM, Dr. Data (a former high school teacher with a PhD hired to be a data analysis) announces that teachers will have to find time to input the grading students received for each extended response question. I was annoyed to put it mildly. My plan was to be out of the building at 3PM or 3:30PM, the earliest I've ever be out this school year. I was also annoyed that I was the one who mentioned twice that the teacher's directions mentioned that the individual gradings for each questions would need to be uploaded to the testing site. I mentioned it the first time it was suggested that teachers needed to read the directions...and I did. I also mentioned it the day of the test. A total waste of breath, day, time, and effort. For the remaining half hour, Dr. Data kept for lack of a better word "schmoozing" the crowd about how technology has arrived and how we need to not be afraid of it. Then she wanted us to scribble down the website address. I just got fed up. I (politely) asked her to write down the necessary information. I was thinking in memo form, but she misunderstood, and scratched down the website address on a piece of paper. I had wanted the address written down because I don't have good luck with web sites or email addresses. In the end, I spent about 30 minutes trying to find the website because Dr. D forgot an "s" in the address. Dr. D is actually a very nice person, but that incident just annoyed me.

Oh and during the last 15 minutes of training, the "Spanish" teacher passed out evaluations for each teacher. I think I will have to drop the quotation marks from Spanish teacher. This year, he seems to be doing a bit of Spanish in his lessons I've been told. He made note of each person he hand delivered an evaluation to. And...each evaluation required that the recipient wrote down his or her name on the evaluation. About 3PM, AP2 announced that all evaluations had to be submitted to Mr. Spanish. And being a "dutiful" teacher....he walked the various rooms collecting the evaluations.

I was out of the building about 6PM.

Well, I was going to just summarized a few days but it is late. I will do the summary another time. This three day weekend I need to finish my students report cards. I also want to do my lesson planning.


Post Date - Sunday, November 11, 2007 1:28AM.

Professional Development
My day started about 5:21am. I was tired, went to bed the previous night about 11pm. Since, I didn't have to stress about kids going wild, I did not have much difficult getting myself together and out on time.

I arrived at the school about 7:40. The class is a professional development for teachers. The class was scheduled for 8:00 to 3pm. The program is for the teachers to gain 30 hours of "development". About 8:00, the instructor came to the auditorium (where we were told to wait), to take us to the room. The room was located on the 4th floor, I decided to take the stairs rather than crowd into the elevator.

8:05 - The instructor explains that "paperwork" needs to be done(attendance, policies, etc...). Nothing has started.

A lady came to sit next to me. From her body language, I got the impression she did not know a lot about computers, and was looking to sit next to someone who could "help out". She sat, started pushing the monitor on button several times. And since it would not come on, she moved down one seat. She did not bother to try the power button. I thought I lucked out, but then...

20 minutes late, another person (a Russian lady) came (with the same "look") and sat next to me. She dropped her purse in my space, then starts giggling the mouse and repeating the same panic button push the other woman did. Wondering why the computer would not come on. I told her the class had not started yet, and that I was going to wait until the instructor told me what to do. But that was not good enough because "the others have their computers on". She was determined to get that computer on. She did manage the power button, but that wasn't enough, she then wanted to know the password. It amazed (and frightened) me at the behavior of a few of the teachers in that room. It is late, so I can give the details that I wanted to...sleeping, complaining, making shopping list, not paying attention, having to be told 4 or 5 times, and still not following directions, excessive talking etc...

8:50 - The instructor gives a 5 minute "talk" about the parking problem of last week. Still doing "paperwork". After the "talk" about parking, a couple of teachers were advised to move their cars. The instructor said that she would not start until they (two teachers) returned.

9:15 - Parkers returned. Instructor begins with...dismissal time. We (the class) have an option of leaving at 1pm with homework, or leaving at 2pm without homework. She tells us that it has to an all agreement, if even one objects, then 2pm will be the dismissal time. One guy honesty admits that he does not want homework, so he does not mind staying til 2pm. Then others agree with him. Others also don't want to do anything without the instructor to "help" them if they have difficulty. It is obvious to me that the instructor wants to leave at 1pm, but others can't see that, so they continue to defend their positions that 2pm is better than 1pm. After explaining the benefits of 1pm, again, the instructor tries to "take a vote". Again, it is not a unanimous vote. So, the instructors says that "since some are confused" we will revisit the discussion again later.

9:25 - The lesson begins with....individual introductions.

9:55 - The individual introductions are now finished. And...it is break time. After about 5 minutes of conversations, the instructor finally tells us the return time from the break is 10:15.

9:16 - I arrived back. The school is located in a residential area, the nearest store is a few blocks away. I returned. The instructor is having a one on one conversation with a student. The conversation finishes about 10:30am

10:30 - The lesson finally starts with the basics. "This is a mouse. This is how we hold a mouse." The first skill was typing our name two times, then saving the document. The next skill was typing our name three times, bolding the last one, then saving the document. Next, students were asked to type the Star-Spangled Banner lyrics, while the instructor left the room for something. I cheated. I cut and pasted the lyrics from the Internet. When the instructor returned, we were asked to changed the fonts, colors, etc...

12:30 - The subject of dismissal time is revisited. This time, the instructor clarifies, homework will be assigned whether dismissal time is 1 or 2pm. Then, instructor asked for a show of hands for those that objected to leaving at 1pm. No hands went up...Democracy at work.

Since we did not have a lunch break the instructor told us that we would be leaving earlier than 1pm. She is telling us this at 12:30. We only had to finish the Name Poems we were working on. We finished....1pm

I headed home. I stopped at 42nd street. I had lunch at the Japanese takeout restaurant "Yoshinoya". I returned to the Bronx about 5 minutes after the Metro-North leaving, so I went food shopping and stopped at the 99 cent shop. I bought milk, juice, and wheat bread at the supermarket, and disposable cups and plates at the 99 cent shop.

I returned home a little after 4pm. I was going to go to the post office to pick up anther package from Amazon.com, but I changed my mind. I laid down with a plan of resting for a couple of minutes, but ended up falling asleep. I woke up 5:31pm. I could have went on another walking event with the walking club I joined, but I did not want to risk pushing myself too much. Finishing at about 8pm, getting home about 10 (or 11pm). I finally dumped the 5 or 6 trash bags that have been laying around. I then decided to bake the chicken that had been in my refrigerator for a few days. I put the oven on low so that I could do my rowing and soak in the bath.
I rowed for about 45 minutes, and relaxed in the bath for about 30 minutes. Since it was late, instead of making a big meal, I ate about 3 chicken legs, 2 slices of wheat bread, and a glass of orange juice.

My day is finished, my blog entries are finished, and it is way, way past my bedtime.


199.6lbs / 29.2BMI / 125.6CalB.
Post Date - Tuesday, July 17, 2007 12:11am