Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Summer Training
Ah, those wonderful, warm summer days, where you play outside, or sit at the side of the pool and listen to the kids splash in the water. Or, if you're me, you spend the last two days at countywide training for math and social studies. This year is a new math adoption, plus the great state of Georgia has completely re-written the social studies curriculum, so we all have to go to three days of training. Of course, with thousands of elementary teachers, there's no way to do the training all at once, so there were a number of sessions. I appear to have chosen the one with NO ONE else from my school. So that's the first problem. The second problem was yesterday. I arrived at 8 in the morning ready to dive into the new math and social studies programs and learn what new materials we were receiving. Did that happen? Of course not! I spent all day sitting on a hard theater seat learning that worksheets don't really help kids learn and retain information. Really? I think I learned that in a freshmen college course about 15 or so years ago. We didn't even look at our new curriculum until 2:00 in the afternoon! Plus, the presenter was not exactly thrilling and scintillating. Needless to say, I was not happy when I got home after eight hours. I had a much longer post/vent ready to write, but I wasn't able to get on the computer last night. It's probably a good thing. Today was much better. We were able to see what technology we'll have both for us and for the kids. Then, we spent the rest of the day looking at the new social studies curriculum. To let you know just how much it has changed, my units in social studies last year were: The Flag and Citizenship, Economics, Eastern Woodlands and Plains Indians, Jamestown and Plymouth Colonists, The Continents, Australia, and Japan. My units this next year are Georgia's geography, Georgia's natives (Creek and Cherokee), Georgia's Settlers, Civil Rights (we'll focus on Martin Luther King and Jackie Robinson), Human Rights (Government), and Personal Finance. So, you can see why I really wanted to see what the county was going to provide us. We have one more day, thank goodness, and I am getting paid $300 to come, so I guess I can't complain too much. Of course, I probably won't see that $300 until the end of July at the earliest, but hey, it'll help pay for school clothes, I guess. :)
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1 comment:
I appreciate your comment to my post. You know I understand why you work and think it is awesome that you look at your job not as a source of money but as a ministry. That is amazing! More people should view their careers as outreach opportunities, and those kids in your class are blessed to have you as their teacher. Being a second mom to them (and for some maybe their only mom) is definitely a passion God has given you for those kids. My post is more to those people who live in this area and are caught in the rat race, not knowing how to get out of the race. I get so annoyed with some of the people here who complain about never being able to be with their kids, yet they work 50+ hours a week so they can afford their too-large home, their SUVs, their Harley motorcycles, their convertibles, their iphones, their high-def flat screen tvs in every room of their house, their brand new furniture, their expensive clothes, and their kids' fancy toys. Then these same moms complain that they feel they have missed out on their kids lives because they "have to work" and wish they could stay home. Really. Those are the ones who should downsize. You and Jeremy are very smart with your money, and I know better than probably anyone else that you are not materialistic! Please don't take my post personal - it was not directed towards you. I will never condemn you for following God's direction for your life.
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