Thursday, May 11, 2006

Sharing

This morning the primary school meeting ended up in my room. By that point - sadly 8.15 am - I really didn't give a sh*t. One of the other teachers really didn't want to and at least my room was tidy after open day yesterday. So I did my sharing... The sharing thing has always been a strange concept to me in this context. So I did something that was easy for me. I took lots of photo's of the class during a hand program with our OT where we made play dough. Flour, salt, water, food colouring & 6 year olds going banana's! I pasted them into a PowerPoint slide show with some smart a*se comments. The other teachers thought it was great but were dismayed by my use of technology. It looks professional, but that's not really me, it's the program.

Had a good chat with my 'team'. My OT and physio are thinking the same way as me but none of us really have the experience to do anything but experiment for possible solutions. I guess this is what everyone does, but I reckon we'd get there faster with a few more years experience between us. Perhaps that's the point, we learn together. At least they are trained in their fields, I feel I am the one most lacking.

Helped out Dolly with a computer problem. Her formatting was up the creek and she wanted me to help. In the end it was just the page margins that needed adjusting to make the documentfit the page like the original she had. Relatively simple but it really highlights the difference in my comfort with computers compared with most of the teachers I work with. I wonder if this would be different in a school where the kids are capable of using the technology maybe they would drag the teachers up with them.

At the end of today I went to chat with B1 & B2 about my problem with Cinderella and the ohters. I put it honestly, that it pisses me off and when I am tired, sick and grumpy I snap at them and I want to deal with it in a different way. I'm not sure B1 is used to either the way I use language or what I am prepared to be honest about - my failings. She seemed taken a little aback and it was her that replyed that that was a very honest way of putting it. I like her use of 'honest' when I seem to have shocked her a bit. They gave me some different strategies, suggestions and things they did last year. I am still perplexed at the way B1 reacts to me. Maybe I'm too out there for her. I dunno. I won't be anyone but myself, ever. Not doing.

At the PD I went to the other week he suggested we have a telos (brief statement of purpose) - or in my words cheesy quote - to define the important stuff for time management - or sorting out the important stuff... So, I put one up in my room. The kids noticed, so I explained it to them. and in my PD evaluation where they ask what you will implement after the PD, I said that's what I'd do. So this is the quote:


"It is good to have an end to journey towards;
but it is the journey that matters in the end."

Ursula K. Le Guin

1 comment:

cnwb said...

Thanks for your comments on my blog. I was hooked on yours from the time I read the 'chance encounter at a BBQ' entry - a great example of the unexpected turns life can take.