FRIDAY!

I thought I’d throw everyone for a loop and blog two days in a row! ☺ No news yet on whether the chicken made it or not.

I’ve realized why they don’t let student teachers do report cards. I used to think it was because the seasoned teacher was responsible for the classroom or they thought student teachers had enough work, or some other reason. The TRUTH is, if they let student teachers do the report cards they would all quit. It really is crazy. Trying to write a narrative for every student explaining their unique personality, their strengths, their weaknesses and their current goals is quiet the challenge. Especially when there is a 600 character limit. There are also general guidelines about how to write reports, particularly for students who struggle. You always start and end positive, sandwiching the more difficult or upsetting news. You also word everything as positively and constructively as possible. Then you read and reread it to ensure that what you have said can only be taken the way you want it to be read. Then you enter about 20 grades in 5 different categories, click save, and repeat 21 times. That is why they give teachers a work day.

As students, we thought this was their goof-off day. To be honest, if they tried to make up do this while we had students in the classroom or after students were dismissed, it wouldn’t be pretty. The one positive though, is you get to brag about most students and see how far they have all progressed. It also gives much needed time to catch up with specialists about students who need more help. So, I guess it’s not all bad it’s just like having tax season four times a year!

We’re trying to make plans and go away for Spring break but we need to find someone to take the dogs. We’re looking for a kennel since we don’t have anyone to take them. If we find someone to take them we’re going to go to either Karlovy Vary (a famous spa town in Czech) or Munich. We don’t have many options since Terrel doesn’t have a passport. We’ll fix that by this summer though so we can take weekends and see Paris or London. Then eventually take longer breaks and see Italy or Spain. My goal before we leave is to take a 9-14 day trip to Italy and start in the north or south and just work our way across the country. A day or two in Florence, Venice, Rome, Tuscany and anything else along the way.