Today was originally scheduled to be a workshop on "Inquiry Based Science". Yesterday I found out it was cancelled. I'm not sure why it was originally scheduled or why it was cancelled. Last year one of the principal's few comments to me about my teaching was to make my teaching more content based and less hands-on inquiry based. I think this was because every 9 weeks I was having to give a 2 hour exam and I was having a little trouble coming up with 2 hours worth of testable content. We have a new prinicipal this year. The new principal was here 2 years ago, but he was shot in a car jacking and is now returning after his year of recovery. I was just told the exams every 9 weeks are mandated and they will be 20% of the student's grade. Time to start writing multiple choice questions.
We started the year with the usual (this is my 3rd year at this school) whole school faculty meeting scheduled for 8 a.m. I work at a satellite campus (about 200 students) which is 40 kilometers from the main campus (1200 students). The meeting always starts 45 minutes to an hour late. I had a 100 lempira bet with our principal that it would not start on time. He assured me this year was different and it would start on time. It started 45 minutes late with microphones cutting in and out. One of the topics the director talked about was being prepared for lessons.I let my principal out of his 100 lempira debt by telling him I was going to go double or nothing that the meeting wouldn't start by 9 after it was 30 minutes late.
After the whole school meeting we broke into our "divisions" for separate professional development meetings. We had the usual introduce the new faculty and ice-breaker game and then read an article on collegiality with a think-pair-share activity. We also had an activity about risk taking and moving out of our 'comfort zones' to a place where we are receptive to new learning. Hopefully they will be connected to something we do later in the year. Usually these activities aren't. Last year we made posters of what kind of teachers we hoped to be (or something like that). They hung in the faculty lounge all year.
I have been an administrator. I spent 6 years as the head of schools and 3 years as the head of a section in a university. I always tried to connect professional development with what we would be focusing on in the short or long term. To give the school its due there is a lot of pd going on this week about literacy and hopefully that will be followed through with during the year, but as the science teacher I am escaping the literacy program training.This year we are writing our SACS report for our 5 year visit which is coming next school year. Fortunately I won't be here for the visit. Unfortunately I am here this year for the writing of the report. I've been through SACS reviews a few times in the past 35 years. I have taken the course to be a visiting team member for SACS and have been on visiting teams for Middle States to schools in Bishkek and Dakar. I think these can be great experiences if the schools use them to reflect and direct. We should be reviewing the previous document and organizing now. We're not. I imagine we'll start after school or on a Saturday sometime in October when admin realizes the visit is a year away. We'll fuddle through committee assignments and committee chairs and document reviews when teachers are loaded down with all the other 'stuff' that goes with teaching and life and we will begrudge the extra time it takes to look at our school and where we are going. In the end the document will be a fingers-crossed attempt to slide by the visiting team.This week is a missed opportunity to make our reflection on our school and the direction we want to take part of this year's evolving ethos of the school.
My teaching neighbor and I spent a couple of hours yesterday planning a real-life task to integrate science and social studies for the 7th graders. Students will make a PowerPoint on a threatened species and how human activity directly relates to the possibility/probability that this species will survive. Collegiality!!
The idea came from natural connections between our first unit topics and something I read in a Richard Dawkins book this summer. I'm not sure if it was a Dawkins's quote or someone else he quoted saying that the laws of evolution (e.g. survival of the fittest) no longer apply. Human activity now dictates which species survive or become extinct.
I haven't made the rubric yet, but if you would like a copy when it is done let me know and I will either email or post it here. I'm not clear on how 2 way communication with this blog works yet - assuming someone is reading this.
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