Staff Development, the First

This year, we only have to do 14 hours of staff development (or as Ed U Cater calls it -- StD) for our professional traning requirement. This equates to 2 day long seminars. I took the first one today.

This was a class on the new curriculum for the English Language Arts/Spanish Language Arts content area in Dallas. As per usual, I was bored out of my skull. The highlight of the day was a Reader's Theater acted out by 3 of my classmates, in which one of the characters talked about being bored at the training and thinking about her impending vacation to Vegas.

BTW, that Reader's Theater was written by another employee of DISD, named Ray, and I wonder if it's the Ray that sometimes reads Learn Me Good?

Don't get me wrong, as trainings go, it was not bad, and the presenters were good at what they did (aside from the first one sounding annoyingly like Harvey Firestein). I just don't get up and excited about these things like many others do, though. Some people get a little TOO excited at these events, in my opinion.

The presenter started talking about the components of the new curriculum -- online tests, boxes of novels, access to lower grade levels -- and it sounded like Oprah Winfrey's Great Giveaway show. WOOOOOOOOOO!!! WHEEEEEEEE!!!!

A few quick hits:

• Early on, the presenter made the comment, "This program is like you just bought a new horse." This made me wonder if we the teachers were going to be cleaning up a lot of shit as a result.
• One of the guided reading books on display was about Helper Monkeys. I will go on record now that this particular book will be read, aloud, every single day in my classroom.
• The word "slit" was used during the presentation, but there was no use of the word "moist." Not that these 2 words need to go together, they just generally seem to be 2 of the most hated words in the English language.
• As I flipped through the Teacher's Edition, I was accosted by multiple misspellings. I would just like to throw my hat into the ring as a potential spell-checker for new curriculums (curricula?) in the future. I would only charge a modest $5,000.
• Exactly when did "conversate" become a real word?
• Want to go online and browse through a jumbled curriculum guide? There's an app for that! Yes, there was a little pitch for using the iphone to access the CPG.
  

At least I don't have to go to another training until after I've been married, had a couple of honeymoons, and possibly a few kids.

Story time

This week, as part of ELA class, I've been reading aloud a story each day and having the kids complete a small literary element chart. Characters, Setting, Problem, Solution, and Summary.

Today, I read them MY story from last year -- The Million Dollar Test (which can be found here).
I needed another story, AND I figured it wasn't too early for them to hear a story about the importance of showing their work on tests.

They really enjoyed it! In fact, my afternoon class was asking for copies of it, and asking if I could write another story!

I'm thinking maybe I could charge a buck a copy and pay off my mortgage!

When you plan to fail, you fail to plan

You know, as a brand new English language arts teacher, I'm looking for all of the tips and guidance I can get on how to put my lessons together and what to do for my kids. So it sure would be nice if the vaunted Curriculum Planning Guides (CPGs) that the district tells us to follow were actually UP TO DATE!!!

It's Tuesday of the 9th week of school, and the plans for the 10th week aren't even online yet!!!

As Cliff Claven would say, "What's up with that??"

I'm thinking the people in charge of writing these things, DEFINTELY need to buy this shirt...