Sometimes I wonder if breaks were created to actually make life harder - don't get me wrong, I had a great break. An AMAZING break. I read 5 books that have been on my "to-read" list for the last year. It was great... But it only made the return that much harder.
So I prepped. And prepped. Spent budget money on teaching books that I felt would help me better access and engage my eighth graders. I read both novels again that we would start reading in the next week and a half and created a reading schedule. I even got to school 45 minutes earlier than I usually do because I wanted to make sure I was ready for whatever the day was going to throw at me.
But I walked into my room and couldn't access the internet. Not at all.
I'd created an entire powerpoint for today's lesson, but I couldn't project to my television.
I roamed the school in search of our technology supervisor who has having his own melt-down because the iPads (which had been turned in over break to do some syncing of apps), were scattered all over the lab with no rhyme or reason and were completely dead. No one had charged them. So he was definitely too busy to come to the aid of my dear-old lesson plans.
I went back to my room and wanted to cry. All of my anxiety about returning to school boiled up inside of me into a heap of emotions.
In the middle of a VERY toned-down freak-out, a sweet teacher came up to me, looked me straight in the eye and spoke to every hidden insecurity. "You need to calm down, Cali." (Mind you I really wasn't freaking out at all outwardly, but she could tell there was much more going on within.) "Do me a favor: today, don't let anyone come to you for help. You need to worry about yourself right now and focus on YOUR classes."
It was almost like magic. I gave up trying to manically plug in the iPads and said to myself, the rest of the students are going to have dead iPads, so I'm just going to alter my plans so we don't use them. I gave up trying to make my powerpoint work and printed off one of the slides with the focal point of my lesson on it so that students would have a hard copy to look at themselves (which actually turned out better than any powerpoint). I gave up trying to come up with a completely new lesson in 15 minutes, and went with my gut.
And it worked SO well. I had students raising hands that I hadn't heard from (willingly, that is) at all this year. I had my 4th period class, with a few exceptions, genuinely interested in the task - I'm serious! I only had a few sarcastic comments throughout the entire lesson! WOOT!
And - perhaps the best part of all - I felt so confident, so composed, so ready for whatever would happen today. There were no lectures about behavior, there were no secret meetings in my office where I pulled out my hair and asked myself Where did I screw up?, there was none of it. I felt like the day went seamlessly.
And, boy, am I grateful for UCTE. I pulled some ideas from some of the classes I attended and from some books I had read - and they were great. One teacher presented about how to teach argumentative writing by using pictures from Laurence Treat's Crime and Puzzlement books, and my students were so entranced. I'd like to thank Psych, CSI, NCIS, Castle, Law and Order, etc, for inspiring my students to be little detectives of their own - so many of them walked out of my classroom with grins on their faces and questions of, "Wait - who REALLY did it?" echoing through my classroom door.
End of term - 7 days away, and I feel like I'm starting to solve my own mystery: the mystery of how to be a better teacher. I can't take every moment so seriously. Each minute, each missing assignment is not a life or death scenario. Can't be. Today - today showed me what matters more. My students reflect the attitude I project each day. And, boy, did they rock today!
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