School’s back, baby! We resumed classes Wednesday, 17 August 2022, a full sixteen days after the poor unfortunates in my county’s public schools resumed (they started back on Monday, 1 August 2022; while the school district has transitioned to a “semi-year-round schedule,” as they call it, it still seems borderline criminal to start school that early).
Just like last Friday’s post, I’m actually filing this one early; indeed, I’m writing it the day before school resumes. As such, I can’t comment on how this first, abbreviated week has gone, but I can give some insights into what we’re planning on doing, and how I’ve prepared for the start of this year.
Before that, though, I will note that this start of the school year is, perhaps, the most prepared I’ve ever been, at least in terms of planning out my lessons. All departments were charged with getting lesson plans done through the Friday before Labor Day, so I actually had to sit down and visualize everything beyond the first few days or the first week of school (I typically plan a week at a time, and make adjustments and tweaks as I go).
In doing so, I resolved to have quizzes, study guides, and readings for those opening weeks printed and copied before the first day of school. I did that, in part, because I am floating again this year, hopping between classrooms throughout the day. While my Music classes are in a fixed location—the Music Room—my History/Social Studies classes are all over the place. As such, I’ve been planting copies of course documents in the classrooms where those courses will be taught. I floated last year, but it was just to one other room (this year, I’ll float between two different rooms in two different buildings—three and three if you include my Music classes!). There were many days that saw me running to the copier first thing in the morning to try to get copies made in time for one class or another, so I know that this year, I want to avoid scrambling, especially jumping between three classrooms in total.
As for the first day of school—which is always a wash in terms of any real learning (but that’s not really the point of the first day), we’re back to the good old days of full school assemblies. We had a reprieve from piling everyone into the gym for Monday meetings and Thursday chapels during The Age of The Virus, but they’re coming back. Seeing as we’re starting with 412 students (that’s pretty big for our little private school; ten years ago, it had about 100 students!), the gym’s gonna be rockin’ during those meetings (and probably was Wednesday!).
So, hopefully my advanced planning and years of classroom experience have paid off, and I’m coasting into my first weekend. I can guarantee that by the time you read this post, I’m already exhausted—ha!
Happy Learning!
—TPP