What I Want to Accomplish this Year

     Though I am already three semesters in, I still feel like there are many things I have yet to accomplish. For one, classroom management is still an area in which I try to improve every single day. While I am leaps and bounds better at it than I was last year, I can realize that it is a long road to mastering that area of teaching. One thing that I have come to realize about it is that, given my personality, quality classroom management is a dynamic technique. Perhaps, though, I should elaborate on hat I mean by “given my personality”. I see some teachers who are able to control their classroom with an iron fist from day 1 to day 180. I also think that the exact opposite, controlling a classroom with humor and “zaniness” from day 1 is, if even possible, extremely taxing on the soul. What I have found in my short career as a teacher is that I am best suited at the traditional approach of coming in hard and controlling at first, and then slowly easing up as the year goes on. I did a fairly good job at the beginning of this year, especially compared to last year, of being mean, but I have found that the process of effectively and efficiently easing up has become my new challenge with classroom management. As far as the rest of the school year is concerned, I hope to continue experimenting with how far I can ease up while still ensuring that learning is occurring. 

Another thing that I plan to accomplish is to surpass my state test scores from last year. Since we have two Algebra I teachers at North Panola High School, it was thought by the administration at the beginning of the year that splitting the Algebra students into a slow track and fast track would be advantageous for state test scores. I had, and still have, the pleasure of teaching the slower half of the students. Given this, I still feel confident that I can surpass my QDI from last year. From my end, my classroom management and teaching techniques have improved A LOT (mostly because they had so much room to grow). From the students’ end, they could definitely behave better, have a better attendance record, and care more about the work, but they show so much potential and untapped ability. If they hadn’t already shown me this, then I probably would have stopped showing up to work a long time ago.

Either way, I still have much to work on, and even a third year will not mean mastering these aspects of teaching