Is This The End Or A New Beginning?

For all of us teachers out there we are staring into the impending doom that is the end of the summer! We have had approximately three months off and yet when this time come it seems like school just ended. Though I have spent countless hours in my classroom this summer I still feel so unprepared for the students to be back next Tuesday. Today is my official last day of summer since tomorrow starts our beginning of the year professional development. I will continue my long hours through this week to help me be as prepared as possible to welcome the students back!

Yes, I may be complaining that my sleeping in and boring days are coming to an end, but at the same time I am very excited. I am excited because I love my job and miss my students! I am fortunate that each year I do not get a whole new group of students. The students stay in my classroom for about four or five years and I only get a handful of new students each year. And with all my new changes I cannot wait to dive in a try them out! I think we will have a very successful year, or at least I can only hope.

I want to take this moment to share a few more pictures on the finished bulletin boards:

*By the way, the punch card idea is spreading to the other teachers! Hopefully in the next year it can become a school wide PBS!


Good luck to all the teachers out there as we kick off a new school year! It may be the end of the summer but the beginning of a great new school year!

Persistence

So lately the word persistence keeps coming up in my world. Persistence is defined as: to continue steadfastly or firmly in some state, purpose, course of action, especially in spite of opposition, obstacles or discouragement. When asked about my weaknesses in a job interview I say that I'm persistent because this is a quality that most find very annoying (just ask my husband). I have also been persistent when it comes to working in my classroom this summer. Every time I walk into that room I discover a problem or something that has thrown a wrench in my plans. For example at the end of the school year I was looking at maybe having 14 students in my classroom and now I'm up to 17. For those of you general education teachers I'm sure you're thinking "17, I'd love to just have 17 students!" It is not necessarily the extra students or the extra work that causes me added stress, its the extra body in the classroom. My classroom is very oddly shaped and fairly small. My classroom measures approximately 40' by 20'. The classroom is full of adults 17 students and 5 staff and we need a "break" room for students to calm down when getting aggressive. Also, there is not one corner that is available to utilize because I have 2 doors in 2 corners, a sink in another, and the furnace in another, which makes classroom layout difficult.
Anyway, I consider myself very persistent but maybe I'm just impatient and want things done my way right now.

Tell me what you think:




I just realized that maybe many of you do not know exactly what kind of teaching I do. Currently I am a Special Education Teacher in a Community Based Program. My students have a variety of disabilities but fall within the Moderately Impaired range and are ages 16 to 20. We have students in the school until the age of 26 (Michigan is the last state to allow students to attend a public school, all other states are only to the age of 21). It is in the works that Michigan cuts the age back to 21 to join the other states and the funding will then transition to programs that provide work for adults with special needs, such as Mid Michigan Industries and (those of you from Hillsdale) Key Opportunities. Therefore it is not saving money by cutting the students the monies will just be used differently.

Another Day

Spent another day in the classroom. Now that volleyball has started I'll head up to the classroom after practice probably every day until school starts. But everything is finally coming together set up wise. But I still have a long way to go with teaching materials. Here are a few pictures of what has been keeping me busy all summer.

The front of my room:

 One Bulletin Board

 Behavior Plan (kinda)

 The whole room

 Worksite Organization

But all the progress doesn't really matter because I still have tons of paper work here as you can see in all the boxes on the left. And under the fabric, that is hiding shelves, is even more boxes with papers that I have to go through.

It may help me to move a little faster on progress if I was there when the office was open to make copies and such.