Do you ever take a step back from your busy life and wonder what the heck you've done to yourself? I'm having one of those weeks. I managed to completely over-schedule myself, and now I'm paying for it.
Yesterday, I had the first meeting of an after school book study and today I held the morning session. Each was an hour long, and while I was tired for the 4-5pm session, I was super tired for my 7-8AM session. I was moving slowly this morning and realized just as I was about to cut and toast my English muffin for my egg & toast breakfast that I really needed to be at school in 10 minutes. Cue me inhaling my sliced mango and quickly mixing my coffee in my travel mug and then dashing out the door. I was half way to school when I realized I didn't have my keys & fob to get into the building. I had to turn around and go back home. (This was not a tragedy, as I live super close to my school and luckily was not stopped by a train.)
The book study group was pretty good for 7AM, especially considering we were having some pre-reading discussions around the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts. We're prepping to read Pathways to the Common Core by Calkins, Ehrenworth, & Lehman, and I'm actually excited to have people to talk with about this book. Though many of the participants were not quite awake, we had some good discussion around two wordles I created from the anchor standards. Not a bad way to start a morning.
This was followed by two data meetings where we identified students for the next round of literacy interventions. Data and I do not get along well. When I agreed to change roles and take on the job of literacy coach in my building, I knew that analyzing data and leading these decision-making meetings would be part of my job. I figured I would not like it, and I was right. I'm hoping as I get more comfortable with looking at trends and thinking about what the data tells us, I'll feel better about leading these meetings. I am lucky that I have colleagues who are willing to help me and to ask the questions that put students first.
By lunch time, I was pretty much a zombie. My afternoon was less than productive.
So this isn't an earth-shattering slice tonight. In fact, it's a pretty run of the mill slice about a run of the mill day in my crazy life.
How many more days until spring break?
Time to slow down a bit and pace yourself. It's far easier, however, to SAY than to DO! Hope your spring break is soon!
ReplyDeleteSo there with you, push, push, push. I am looking toward spring break. Enjoy yours.
ReplyDeleteI think I should read your posts more Mindi, since we both have the job title of literacy coach, but from reading today, we do such different things. I mostly meet with individual teachers and help them make personal goals for liateracy learning, sometimes working with math and science teachers in literacy. I think your day was very full, as you've said, but talking about data sounds challenging. I hope you like the Calkins book. I saw her speak at a conference in Feb. & she was certainly excited about the CC, which surprised me. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteLinda, that is mostly what I do, too. About 95% of my job is working with individual teachers or teacher teams. I also teach one literacy intervention group. In our district, the literacy coaches coordinate and analyze data from our school's literacy benchmarks and share with the staff. I only do this about 6 days a year, but those six days wipe me out!
Deletejust wait until tomorrow!
ReplyDelete