New: I will have an occasional post of more journal-like blogs. An inside look into feelings, activities, thoughts, etc. of my experience as a teacher, or as a teacher-mom, or as a mathy-mom. Frequently, it is my hope, as I grow, to have them quickly followed up by a more professional post. It is not my intent to vent, so I hope you do not find that they are full of grousing. My goal is to share, while also providing a springboard to conversation, or at least of thought.
So, I have so many ideas of posts I want to share. I have been keeping notes in my classes over the past couple of weeks- when students get excited, and when they celebrate the little victories they didn’t even know they wanted to have in over numbers. I also have ideas from my recent trip to the NCTM Regional Conference in Boston, which I followed up with a couple of college tours. I will post them… soon. I want to document them, and I want to document how I am personalizing learning, and I want to document my curriculum growth. But first, I want to connect with something that seems to happen every fall…
Teachers, has this happened to you? Has your year begun to get away from you, and quickly? That is what is happening to me. Best intentions for success in all aspects, has quickly become a game of ‘which priority should I attend to today’? Is planning important? How about assessment? What about utilization of the assessment? Implementation??
I have chosen implementation. Of course, I plan. I have planning down as curriculum is my area of expertise, at least I am hoping so after all of this time and all of the money I spent on my degrees in curriculum. Plus, I just love planning. So, I plan, before AND during my implementation with students. But, the real priority is the learning of students, and with the miracle that is teaching that allows the students to have the power to push all of the teacher “stress” out of the window while I just teach them to love math and to learn math. I choose implementation over all else because if I leave nothing else in my wake after the sunset of my teaching career, it will be that math can be learned, and it can be fun!
I’d love to hear your thoughts, and welcome you to make this a collaborative venture.
Talking Math 