I think one of the things that is often neglected when teaching as a profession is described is the total amount of tasks that you will be expected to complete on a daily basis. Today I really thought about this as my schedule was completely changed due to a new student arrival. I was supposed to check in with 3 students during my case managment time. Yet, here I am marking notes and shifting the schedule down a day because of student testing. This morning I had to check in with one of the SpED teachers about accommodations for testing in early spring. I still have 3 more teachers to connect with. Sure, this may not sound like much, but when I started actually thinking about my day, I wondered what a list would look like if I wrote down everything that I do in a day. I know that there are some articles online that have compiled all the tasks expected of teachers, but I’m pretty sure that these lists are not comprehensive to a single duty day. So, there is goal number one before leaving work today. Make the list. Cry. Start over. 

EL 200 went okay today. It wasn’t exactly the epitome of great teaching today. It felt like the activities were in a bit of discordance and not well connected. I didn’t follow my first rule of planning that I wrote down 5 years ago: always have an activity. Sure, we made it work. But if I had to give the class an analogy, it was like trying to start a lawnmower in the dead of winter. Eventually, it will turn over, even with the wrong viscosity of oil. But it takes an inordinate amount of time and effort to do so in that temperature. I like that analogy because even after we got moving, the engine stuttered and sounded rough even when fully warmed up. There is a bit of a silver lining, though. I realized that we hadn’t done any running records in a while and I was able to get it ready for tomorrow even though they have tested this text and practiced reading it fluently. This will tell me how much they are absorbing and remembering pronunciation. 

The biggest challenge is yet to come. I just got a student to transfer into my co-taught econ class. We are already two weeks into the class on a block schedule with about 6 weeks left. I’m probably going to have to make an individual learning plan for this student or there is no way he will catch up. So there is goal number two for before I leave work.