Months ago, I came across a post on Joanne Jacobs' blog that I knew I'd want to respond to, probably several times over. But it was one of the comments that particularly struck me.
Palisadesk mentioned something really interesting:
Pressley ... discovered that the most effective teachers were the most self-critical and constantly anxious to improve their practice and learn more, while the least effective considered themselves already outstanding and not in need of any further growth or learning.
So it sounds like a little bit of neurosis isn't necessarily a bad thing. And that's very encouraging for me, because I'm almost constantly second-guessing myself and my methods. If something didn't work, I wonder what I could have done differently. Heck, when things DO work, I still wonder what I could've done to be even more effective!
It's nice to feel validated like that.
On the self-critical side, I haven't done nearly as much summer planning as I'd hoped by this point. It's already July - eep!
But on the improving-my-practice side, I do think I'm doing a pretty darn good job of mowing through YA texts. And I've also got several donorschoose projects currently up over at http://www.donorschoose.org/languagearts.
I've signed up to help out with summer remediation for students who are going to retake the graduation test. (I need to make sure I schedule any doctor visits around that.) And hopefully I can also get some of my journalism staffers together for a couple of workdays.
I'm looking forward to next year. 2009-2010 was a good year, and I have every reason to believe that 2010-2011 will be even better because I've identified clear goals based on what worked and didn't work this past year.
Knowing that I'm a good teacher, and that I'm still going to become an even better one... it's such a lovely feeling!
Image thanks to http://www.flickr.com/photos/spaceodissey/
Dreams of a Sex Strike
1 day ago
5 comments:
I can never stop growing and learning. In fact, I sometimes think I overdo it with workshops and seminars. I don't stop, though; every single one brings me ideas and strategies I'd not considered before (and contact with wonderful people I couldn't have otherwise met), and those are always worth far more than the price I pay to get into the programs.
I'm desperately hoping to go to the NCTE conference this year. The biggest problem I have is keeping all these lovely ideas straight! *laugh* I get to the end of the year and review my idea-list and go... "oh DARN! I so meant to do all these things and I didn't!"
ah well - there's always NEXT year! ;D
Do you also do Facebook? I'm only asking because it seems that everyone I know (both privately and professionally) does it, and they all encourage me to do it. However, I find that I neither have the time nor am I inclined to do it. I'd much rather peruse my favorite blogs and educational websites! I'm always looking for the next best thing or the next best way to do something. I applaud your efforts. And I hope all goes well with you and the doctors.
Never mind...I see now on your sidebar that you do Facebook!
I do indeed! I prefer it to twitter; I like the interface better, but unfortunately I haven't found a way to put my FB status updates in a widget. So I still tend to use twitter more.
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