Warning Label

This book should come with a warning label that reads: Do not attempt to utilize all these techniques too quickly or you may experience severe indigestion, disrupted sleep, frazzled nerves, and an overall sense of exhaustion. I'm stretching myself as much as I am using STRETCH IT to get my students to talk more.

I've been doing an overhaul and reading ahead while doing these daily techniques and trying to change too much too fast! I just read an addendum chapter on Reading (reading on reading, yes this is a teacher's life) last night and am integrating these ideas as we start Animal Farm. I am still pretty shocked by how my students struggle with reading aloud. Supposedly the gap in vocabulary between kids of privilege and kids of poverty is 10,000 words, and I believe it. This is the one area that I feel I have some strength; we read a lot in my classroom. If they did nothing else in school ever again, continuing to read would be vital.

Oh yeah, and if that wasn't enough, I have long realized that my planning is most definitely not organized enough. I have spatial relationship challenges, and mapping the year makes me feel lost in the desert with goat heads in my feet.

I'm like a first year teacher all over again. New school, new city, new grade levels, new books, new tests, new everything. It reminds me of my brother, a professional trumpet player who recently discovered that his embouchure was wrong. This was after almost 18 years of playing and performing this way. He had to start all over again, to learn it right. That's mastery. I'm taking his dedication as my inspiration. STRETCHING IT. Let's hope I don't injure myself.