Rather than having a day off for Washington's and Lincoln's birthdays, my district takes an entire week off for "Presidents Week"--or, as I like to call it, Ski Week. Before you get all bent out of shape, though, we just go longer in June when everyone else is already enjoying the summer vacation.
My school is so spread out that we have 3 different staff lounges, and yesterday in the lounge I frequent we had a potluck--in our parlance, a "Try Mine"--during lunch. No organizing took place other than the person who suggested we have one; everyone brought what they wanted to bring, and we had a great mix of entrees, side dishes, and desserts. Having my prep period immediately before lunch (and failing to bring anything), I nuked what needed to be nuked and set up the "buffet" so that everything was ready to go when lunch started. A few minutes before lunch was over, a couple people started grabbing plates and washing them in the sink.
Such is the caliber of people I'm privileged to work with.
By the by, did you catch that I said people were washing the plates? That's right, we keep a (donated) set of very nice dishes in our staff lounge, along with more coffee cups than you can shake a stick at! And at the beginning of the year each of us brings in plastic cups or flatware or napkins or something so that the lounge is fully stocked.
With only 2 classes after lunch between us and a week off, you might expect that there were movies a-plenty being shown in our classrooms--but not in mine! Good thing, too, because in the middle of my instruction on Linear Equations In Polar Form, in walked all three of our school administrators. In 6th period. The day before a week off. And my class was knee-deep in instruction.
I'm sure they saw some good things and they might very well have seen some things on which I can improve. I hope to get some feedback from at least one of them, as it's always nice to have another set of eyes in the classroom.
3 comments:
I've got the weeks before and after Ski Week permanently tagged on my calendar as "Shark Week."
You can be assured of a visit from an administrator during Shark Week. I'm not sure why this particular window of classroom visitations is so predictable, but it is.
I was paid a visit yesterday as well. We were deep in the midst of laboratory work which will continue on the other side of the break.
I'm not a fan of throwing in the towel on days leading into or out of vacations. Too few days on the calendar to begin with.
And with lunch consumed by ExploratoRio exhibit adoptions, yesterday was a full-throttle day; students fully engaged. As they should be: Live every week like it's Ski Week!
I can understand the week before--perhaps the bosses are winding down and can "find time" to visit, leaving a stack of work until after break not unlike the stack of statistics projects that I collected on Friday. But the week after? I can't understand that one.
Wow! At my elementary school in Riverside if our administrators visited the day before a holiday there would be a s-storm of outrage. I also held a regular day of instruction in my special ed classroom.
Post a Comment