Unlock with PatreonThe Problem with CI
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Weekends
Share:
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Ben Slavic
Get The Latest Updates
Subscribe to Our Mailing List
No spam, notifications only about new products, updates.
Related Posts
CI and the Research (cont.)
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
Research Question
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
We Have the Research
To view this content, you must be a member of Ben’s Patreon at $10 or more Unlock with PatreonAlready a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to
8 thoughts on “Weekends”
I will have to say that as good as this year has been, I am VERY tired. I have hundreds of papers to correct this weekend and am feeling a bit overwhelmed (our school requires an end of the year – high stakes – comprehensive and common assessment.
I hope to have grades in by 12:00 on Tuesday when they are due… I will be thinking of you out there in a similar situation.
Thank you to ALL for your crucial support, training, insight, caring and time. I continue to count on it and appreciate it.
Skip, I have been out of school for three weeks now–but I suppose the tables will be turned in August. When you’ve had a chance to relax and regroup this summer, I’d like to read about what your high stakes test looks like as I have to do the same thing next year, for the first time.
In the meanwhile, one graded paper at a time, you are getting closer to a time to disengage from school (it took me a couple of weeks before I even wanted to read posts here again) and relax.
Ditto the remark about the training and support we receive here on this blog! It is so good not to feel alone.
Skip – I am so sorry for your non-work-free weekend! I wish I could help!!! (as you have helped me SO much this year!!)
But, like Lori, I would love to get an idea of what this high stakes assessment is like also. (we are working on common assessments too for next year — one per Level; however, I am stressing that it is NOT to be the final….end of the semester, yes, but NOT the final when we and the kids are burnt out. Besides our final is only worth 10%)
I am VERY pleased to say that none of my “TPRS” students failed the final this semester!! (I did not do TPRS with my 2Bs — only my Level 1s, as this was my first year; I decided to keep to “what they know” for the kids who have been taking it for 4 semesters so far between me and the other teacher.) I designed my final very much like the National Spanish Exam and the NYS Regents — all multiple choice with grammar, vocab, culture, listening, and reading comprehension. So I’m happy that with my first year attempting TPRS, I didn’t mess the kids up!!! and they actually DID “acquire” something from me!!! 🙂 Thanks to Skip’s mentoring, and this forum!!!
What’s a weekend? ;o)
This has been good, although I’ve unfortunately been MIA for a few weeks on here. I’m just checking in. I’ve been very busy for the past month! Today was the last day of a 3 day TPRS workshop with Donna Tatum-Johns. It was awesome! There may be some new members on here over the next few weeks, I was singing the praises of this PLC since it’s been a life saver for me.
And Ben was referred to as being badass today.
That makes my year, Chris! Thanks. I have always wanted to be badass. But in Portland this past week I couldn’t wear the big glasses and hats and I wasn’t hip enough so I felt myself to be the opposite of badass, so this makes me feel better!
Now, on a serious note, what is the above conversation about? You are talking about grading papers on weekends and working so hard and talking about high stake assessments and stuff like that? This is not my idea of what we do. Here we have a way of teaching, of living our professional lives, that is completely and 100% geared to the full support of the other aspects of our lives, especially our emotional support, and relaxation, bc it is so healthy a way to teach, with so little preparation needed and so little concern/credence for the illness of data gathering and testing that has taken over our colleagues’ lives and is ruining our colleagues’ lives and the lives of our students, and we are still giving credence to that? Blaine jokes that he invented this method so he could play golf, and yet there is much truth in that statement. Do we not get here in this venue that we have full permission to fully relax in our profession all the time? Do we not get that, once we have come to a certain minimal degree of mastery of the method, that we then no longer need buy into the culture of death in our schools? Have we missed the entire point of this work we are doing, which is to bring into our classrooms a kind of happiness and a full acceptance of others for who they are and not for what we want them to be (the old way)? This method is life giving. It is a method of balance and sanity, so that we can live happily and not worry so much about our jobs. Is it not? It is my firm belief that, along with the change that this method brings to our teaching, it also brings a commensurate degree of mental balance and freedom from school-related suffering into our personal lives. The new sense of happiness that we gain in our classes as a result of doing this work pours into our personal lives. That has been my own experience. Do we really want to keep suffering in this most difficult of professions? I don’t. And now that I have a way of teaching that protects me from those old hell states of mistrust and power struggles with kids, I don’t intend to.
Related: https://benslavic.com/blog/2007/11/22/sick-can/
You’re welcome! I was talking to Donna Tatum-Johns about classroom management and I mentioned that I consider you my mentor and that you’re pretty tough with classroom management and she nonchalantly just said “yeah, Ben’s a badass in that regard, he’s pretty B.A.”
“It is my firm belief that, along with the change that this method brings to our teaching, it also brings a commensurate degree of mental balance and freedom from school-related suffering into our personal lives. The new sense of happiness that we gain in our classes as a result of doing this work pours into our personal lives. That has been my own experience. Do we really want to keep suffering in this most difficult of professions? I don’t. And now that I have a way of teaching that protects me from those old hell states of mistrust and power struggles with kids, I don’t intend to.”
AMEN
Much love to all of you (and myself) who commit themselves to this idea and work it to the best of their ability.