Entry #3 - Sept. 21, 1998
''I'm glad I have my CFG colleagues to turn to for
this kind of honest discussion. We took a full year to build our trust in
each other and I know I'll get some good questions and feedback from them.''
A lot happened this week. We had the first School Council meeting of the
year and planned some activities to encourage community involvement in the
school. First, we'll have our annual Back to School Night on Wednesday.
We usually have a good turnout. This year we'll be introducing parents to
our discipline code which hasn't been changed, but has been spelled out
a bit more to ensure that we're all on the same page.
The next activity will be a full Saturday of tile setting for the mosaic
mural project in our building. I'm pleased that the artist agreed to this
because it means working families can get involved and I'll miss less class
time. Finding the right balance between special project opportunities and
regular class time is always a struggle.
We also set the date for our first "Family Math, Science and Technology
Night" for Nov. 19th. Our planning will begin on Oct. 2nd and hopefully
a lot of our staff will volunteer -- they usually do. We'll need all the
help we can get; last year 600 folks came out! I hope we can match that
again.
We had a (CPI) Continuous Practice Improvement planning meeting too. [Find
out more about CPI in Debbie's first post.] We set up the schedule for
teacher visits through the end of December. We also talked about some training
our technology facilitator can do to level the playing field for all the
visitors. In the past some folks have come to visit without knowing how
to get into the web site or what their password was and we lost a lot of
time going over those details. This year I hope we'll be able to get right
into lesson design and management.
During the CPI meeting we talked about the need to identify other resident
teachers. It was mentioned that some people are leery because they think
being a resident means working like I do. I'm going to approch some of my
"critical friends"(in my Critical Friends Group -- see
my first post) about this problem. I like to be involved in a lot of
projects and I have a lot of energy, but I don't want to back others off
from increased involvement. If my "leadership" is scaring folks
off then it's not the kind of leadership I want to give.
I'm glad I have my CFG colleagues to turn to
for this kind of honest discussion. We took a full year to build our trust
in each other and I know I'll get some good questions and feedback from
them. Working on a question like this alone would just be a drag, where
I'd probably just feel really low, then confused and then just go back to
the same style of work. With a "critical friends" discussion,
there is a procedure to make sure I can discuss the issue in a depersonalized
way and be accountable, which is so much more meaningful for the work. I'm
sure I'll have more to say on this next time.
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Comments about this week's diary entry
From: "william l. fridley" <wlfridley@bsuvc.bsu.edu>
Subject: Reflections on Reflections
To: diaryD3@middleweb.com
I teach potential teachers at Ball State University and we are about to
enter the middle school portion of our participation experience. I am
looking to use your information as a check point and reflective review
for my students. I look forward to this experience. As you know we
teachers need all the help we can get in and out of the classroom. Good
Luck. Let me know if we can help