Testing out the teaching waters

I have been a substitute teacher for a little over two weeks now. I had my ups and downs, but am getting the hang of the management needed to have a successful day as a guest teacher! I have been in Pre-K, Kindergarten, 4th grade (a number of times with different schools), 5th grade, and 1st grade. The upper grades have been more challenging for me to keep the students from getting disruptive, but I am coming up with systems that work such as points for losing or gaining some recess, etc. I have also found that I like seeing all the varying schools and teaching styles – it is eye-opening to observe the huge differences based on where a school is or the principal’s techniques. I look forward to subbing until the end of the school year, and CAN’T WAIT til it is my turn to be the head teacher!

Kindness in kindergarten (reblog of Life is baeutiful from kindness blog)

I really enjoyed this post! Even though spelling and grammar are big pet peeves of mine, I think it is important for children to learn to be themselves in writing and have confidence before spelling is important. As they become better readers, it will be something they notice on their own.

Do you remember the name of your kindergarten teacher? I do, mine. Her name was Mrs White. And I remember thinking she must be some older relation of Walt Disney’s Snow White, because she had the same bright blue eyes, short dark hair, red lips and fair skin. I don’t remember much about what we […]

http://kindnessblog.com/2016/01/19/life-is-baeutiful-by-singlestep/

Liking the links (176 out of 365) #blogaday

There are so many articles out there that are “important” to read. I’m glad that these are all in one spot, and they are about various topics (education, technology, etc).

http://traintheteacher.me/2015/07/03/links-you-should-be-reading-a-bunch-of-7/

A bunch of blogs! (157 out of 365) #blogaday

After about 6 months in the blogging world, I thought I would broaden my interests for blogs I follow. I used to stay tame with what my blog was about – following fellow teachers, children’s reading as well as writing, and education. From browsing the “recommended blogs,” I now follow blogs about DIY, music, book reviews, cute videos, food, culture (Nairobi women, African elephants), and homemade comics. It is really fun to look at other people’s blogs and interests because I am becoming more interested in their hobbies. I feel the connection of the blogging universe ha! I still can’t believe that I have over 200 followers 🙂 This #blogaday challenge has helped me stick with something and make it part of my routine every day. Creating a blog was a great somewhat spur of the moment idea.

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New Zealand knows? (86 out of 365) #blogaday

Interesting points! And it is beneficial to see how education is doing overseas.

Teaching the Teacher

Photo by author

An interesting article appeared in my newsfeed this morning on retaining ‘quality’ teachers.

The first thing that struck me was the use of language. Would the study of retaining teachers have been as newsworthy if there wasn’t  ‘quality’ or ‘elite’ teachers to contrast with the legion of ‘bad’ teachers in our classrooms.

There’s often a red herring put out when talking about teacher conditions are talked about in the media that our education system and economy would be better if we fired all that bad teachers. However as this article demonstrates we don’t need to worry about that particular problem.

Our system is doing a great job of getting rid of young teachers.

Welcome to the educational hunger games.

Getting a job – good luck

It disheartens me how many excellent teachers New Zealand loses before they’ve even stepped foot in the classroom. Out of the…

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