Self care

I took a class last fall on social emotional learning. One of the big take-aways I got from it was about self care.

If you are not a good model of taking care of yourself, you are not going to be able to teach good ways to model dealing with stress and anxiety to your students.

That was something that I know I need to think about. 

Teacher stress contributes to teacher burn out. Not having the tools to deal with stress leads to people not being about to deal with being a teacher.

Holidays are stressful. Having to deal with family drama on top of having to think about evaluations, IEPs, and upcoming report cards is stressful.

So, my resolution to myself is to work on forming good habits. I've been reading Better Than Before by Gretchen Rubin. It was a good plane read on my trip last week to New Mexico.

If a habit becomes automatic, you don't have to think about it. If you don't have to think about it, you don't have to worry about it. 

 Good habits that I want to work on:

1. Regular exercise.

2. Clear my desk before leaving at the end of each school day.

3. Put in systems to make documentation easy. The easier it is to show progress, the easier it is to talk about the progress that my students are making.

4. Spiritual connectedness. This is an area that I always identify as lacking in when I self evaluate my values.

Here is to looking forward instead of back. 

Happy Holidays

I love CHAMPS

I watched the Randy Sprick video on positive physical space in the classroom. He opens up by saying that the most important thing is that you have access to every student in your classroom. How you arrange your desks really depends on what you want from your students. If you want them to do a lot of collaborative work, clusters work best. If you want less talking, everyone facing forward works better. When you have the space and the numbers for it, have a u shape around the room gives the least amount of talking, because you have access to every student. When possible, have room that has individual desks to provide flexibility.

Randy Sprick goes on to say that it is important to have physical and visual access to all parts of the room, and to activity and energetically supervise it. Some other things he says to consider are to move desks away from high traffic areas, use some bulletin board space to post student work, and to have the time out area in an area where it is not on visual display.

When setting up my room I made sure that all teaching areas had visual access to the room. All teaching stations have visual access to the center of the room, where the reading/puzzle area is. The cool down area is also located in the center of the room, next to the wall and behind the reading area. This gives all the teachers visual access to the cool down spot, but it also is in a secluded area. The least used teaching station is next to the door and the pencil sharpener, making it so students are learning away from the high traffic areas the majority of the time. The students sit at u shaped tables, which gives the teacher access to every student, but also allows them to work cooperatively when needed. There is enough area in the room for any adult to circulate when needed.

Something could do better at is ensuring that I am continuing to post student work. I made sure to have a place designated for the students to hang up their work, and they did initially. The students lost interest in it after the first month or so though. I need to get them re-engaged in showing off work that they are proud of. Another thing I need to consider is how to minimize traffic around teaching areas. Right now I have the sensory table next to one of the teaching stations. This is not an issue for the majority of the day, as the sensory table is closed the majority of the time. The only time it is open is when some of my kindergarten and 1^st graders use it for reward time, mainly at the end of the day. When it does get used, it becomes a distraction for the students.

New Mexico Adventure

I just got back from a trip to visit a friend in New Mexico.

I love New Mexico.

My friend is studying to become a teacher. He is going to get duel certified in sped and K-12 education, with an emphasis on secondary English.

He asked me if I felt prepared to teach after my teaching preparation. I said that of course I felt prepared to teach, I just wasn't ready to do everything else that proves that you are a good special education teacher.

How to show that you are a good teacher is something that is tricky. It's definitely something that I need to keep working at. 

He mentioned to me that he has never seen a good special education teacher. That made me sad. I know I am a good teacher, but I'm going to keep exploring this year things to do to make sure that I appear to be a good teacher. After all, transparency is everything.

What I took from what he told me about what he looked for as a student observer:

1. Have the kids be engaged.

2. Be able to explain what you are doing to differentiate for each child.

3. Address the behavior problems if there are some. If you are purposefully ignoring the behavior, explain that to the person observing you.

4. Have the kids be able to explain what they are doing and why they are doing it.

5. Have the kids like you. If they say they don't like you, it's going to give someone observing you a negative opinion of your classroom.

I like to travel because it gives you a chance to think. Just the process of sitting for hours in an airport slows you down. It also gives you time to color.