Crazy Days

Crazy as it sounds, I'm sitting outside on an amazingly warm New Year's Eve day in Colorado. The warmth of the sun hitting my face is intoxicating and reminds me of my summer break spent reading book after book in front of my favorite Starbucks. Hard to believe it is winter and almost 2014. 

As I start thinking about the second half of the school year, I get a little panicky. I have finally relaxed into this break and yet I know it's time to start planning the next math unit and my second go round with a health class. 

The new math standards have my head swimming. There have been several times when I have felt like a first year teacher. My first year - of course. The last time I switched buildings, because I was also moving from elementary school to middle school, we were starting standards based grading, and going from a junior high model to a middle school model. Yes, ALL of that in one year. 

And here I am again with that same scrambling to stay on top of things first year teacher feeling. I have not moved schools, or rooms, or changed content, or even grade levels. However, my team and I have taken on the challenge of implementing the new Common Core State Standards. 

I am not new to standards. I helped write my district's first run at math standards about 18 years ago. I have helped with updates, creating rubrics (state, district, building), and have done training for other teachers at the state and regional math conferences, but this is a major shift.

Let me say that again - This is a MAJOR shift. Teachers need to spend a lot of quality time getting to know these standards if they are going to be expected to teach them. (I do know there are places that will not be adopting them.) In our district we were told that we could continue with the old standards and curriculum for one more year, take on the new standards (with no aligned curriculum, but resources), or a combination of the two. Next year we move full steam ahead. My grade level team chose to take a deep breath and dive right in. Honestly, in hindsight we had no clue what we were doing - and I'm saying this about a group of three teachers with 45 combined years of experience. We are not newbies....and yet, here we are. 

I will not go into the details of the standards here, but what I do want to say is this....if you are going to have to teach them PUSH for training. PUSH for support. PUSH for resources and/or curriculum that is in fact common core aligned. READ the Publishers document. Spend MORE TIME than you ever have planning ahead. And then remember to BREATHE because it will take more than one shot at it to get it "right."

Ready or not....

I must have lost my mathematical mind to think that I have the time for another blog, but ready or not here I go. One of my goals for this year is to get my ideas out there. My peeps at school keep telling me I should, so I decided to give it a try. I have no illusions that anyone else is interested, but what the heck. All I ask is that as you read this you keep the phrase, "Be gentle," in mind. As a newbie, I am certain I will make many mistakes. I am also certain that as with most things in my life, I'm a quick study.  

So for the moment, that's all I have to say on that....that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.