My supervisor came in for an hour on Tuesday morning as part of the Teaching and Learning Initiative he and I are participating in for our school corporation. The idea is that we do a narrative on what we observe and then look for strengths and ideas for improvement.
He took three pages of notes in less than an hour. I was amused by his noticing the traffic and the noisy pencil sharpener (like a machine gun, he said!) which I never notice at all. The morning was particularly chaotic because there were 16 students, an all time high for the year. Two young ladies had not been there for three weeks and then just showed up. Three young men came in late and took their time to settle in. Three students were very new to the class and not used to our routine.
My supervisor said it was a very good experience for him to see what it is like in a classroom again. As he left, he thought to himself Mary has four more hours of this today and then two more days this week! He was very positive in his comments and I was happy to have him see us at our craziest.
However, that kind of day is not ideal and I made some changes. The three young men were told to show up on time or not come. Two of the young men came on time, in fact early, to the afternoon class which was fine. One did not show up. I'll send him a note regretting his dropping out of class. One of the young ladies will be told to take a "leave of absence" due to her erratic attendance. She didn't come anyway the rest of the week. The rest of the week was much calmer and more productive.
But I am very tired at the end of each day and desperately need some down time at home before I recover.
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