Too many top priorities

I haven’t posted in a while.  I had a much-needed three week winter break during which I got much less done than I intended (so what else is new?). Now school has been back in session almost two weeks, during which time my journey has been very bumpy.  Just when I think I’ve made some progress rolling the boulder up the hill, it slips away from me and rolls back down the hill, knocking me over on the way down.  Where do I stand as I face the end of the first semester?

For one thing, I am getting to know these boys better and better, and the more I know them the more I like them.  They are mostly very likable and good-natured.  I enjoy chatting with them before class as they line up in the hallway and after school when I encounter them around the campus.  This sometimes makes it more enjoyable to teach them, but at other times when I face them as a class they resist all of my efforts to guide their behavior.  I have had more than a few very frustrating moments already in the new year.  I continue to feel constrained in what I can plan because of the difficulty in getting them to cooperate as a class.  

For another thing, it is truly awesome what the policy makers in the state government and the district administration expect me and all teachers to do.  Here’s a little list:

1. District concept-lessons for the four writing units (narrative, expository, response to literature, persuasive).  As I’ve said, they’re good lessons, very student-centered and constructivist, but they are very involved and often need to be simplified and abbreviated.  Each unit culminates in a major writing project.  For example, in the expository unit they must write a 500 word news story about an event in their neighborhood   It is a state and local priority for students to write more and better, of course, a priority that I share.
2. This is good since students should write a much as possible, and it also lends itself to the use of the online writing program I have described, MyAccess.  That has its own requirements for implementation, valuable as it is, and takes time to organize, but it is a priority that they write a lot.
3. We also want them to read more, especially on their own, so we have the program called “Accelerated Reader” in which students read a book at their level and then go online to take a brief quiz about the book.  I have now assigned them to read and pass quizzes on four books before the end of the semester.  This is now serving as homework, but it’s a lot of work to convince them that they really have to get a book from the library, read it, and pass the quiz on it.  Again, it’s worthwhile but has to be a priority of mine if it is to be successful.
4. Then on top of all this, we have the California Standards Test coming up in May and the District’s Periodic Assessments in February and April.  It is of course (you guessed it!) a priority for the state and district to prepare students for these tests.  I have received voluminous materials on paper and online to prepare them for these tests.  As I said in the kudzu post, I could spend all of my time on this priority alone.

So there you have it.  Four top priorities to be implemented with all of the attendant adaptation and organization they require.  I can’t argue with any of them, but together they present an almost insuperable challenge.   Each must be implemented on its own and then integrated with the others.  No wonder my head spins when I try to juggle them all in the pedagogical air!

And so I stride towards the end of a semester, the mid-point in the year, head bloodied but unbowed.  More soon.