It's been a long time since anything has felt "normal" in regards to school. Last year I was a virtual academy teacher and worked from home most of the year due to health issues. I'm excited to be back in my classroom and working with students in person again. There are some takeaways from the last year that have made us all better teachers and will hopefully become the new normal. There are other things we hope to never have to deal with again.
This year will still have a learning curve for all of us. Being back in class, everyone having a chromebook in class everyday, still utilizing digital tools while not abandoning paper and pencil, and just readjusting to not having asynchronous days built into our schedule. But the most important thing, as said best by the song my Spotify playlist randoming starting playing while I was typing this, "We Back."
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I've told several people that the hardest part of all of this is all of the things we don't know. This week has made that part a little better. School will not be back in session before May 18th. That day feels so far away, but having a potential end date does help. We aren't ready to go straight to classes online, but I've now seen a plan and timeline for when and how we are going to get there. Knowing more makes everything else a little easier.
Now that I do know more, I've felt more comfortable reaching out to all of you more. I've sent two reminds this week, asking people to start checking in on google classroom if possible. If you can't access google classroom, email me to let me know, if you can! I've posted a few supplemental, optional assignments for people looking for routine and something to keep their reading skills sharp. I've also posted a check-in I'm asking you to complete so I can know how you're doing. If you don't want to use the flipgrid option to answer the questions, if you click the link you can at least watch my video where I answer the questions myself. I'm continuing to try and keep myself to a routine. I've started setting an alarm this week to start my day at the same time. I do let myself "off work" every day between 3 and 4, depending on what I need to get done that day. I also have given myself an hour (!!!!!) for lunch every day. But I discovered this weekend how much I need work and routine to keep the days from feeling like they are 30 hours long. I love the walks I take every day around the block, just to get me out of the house. Figure out your own routine. Get out of the house! Step away from technology from time to time. Listen to the experts, stay home if you can, wash your hands, and check-in with me! Today is our third day of being out of school. I suppose I'm better prepared for being at home because of summer breaks, but this is a very different feeling, especially since I'm trying not to go out if at all avoidable. I am trying my hardest to keep a schedule. I'm actually keeping track of how long I spend doing each activity, in part to keep myself from spending hours wasting time on the internet. And kids, if you're reading this, adults are just as bad at losing themselves on the internet as you are.
The hardest part of everything is not knowing exactly what is happening now or what is going to happen in the future. We thought for Monday and Tuesday we were on "spring break". Last night we found out we are actually on teacher workdays and should be working from home. I ask that you have patience with the people who have to make very hard decisions for all of us because the information is changing all the time. And have patience with your teachers and schools because we aren't the people making the decisions. Everyone right now is doing the best they can. So I ask you to do your best during this time. Do your best to take social distancing seriously. Do you best to develop a routine or add structure to your days. Do your best to stay home as much as you can. Do you best to find a way to be physically active every day. Before we were officially working from home, my goal was to everyday do one thing for home, one thing for school, and one thing for exercise. I'm going to have to tweak that some now (more than one thing for school each day!), but try to find a routine that works for you! Be smart, wash your hands, and get off your phone from time to time! I was determined this year that I would add a little more of myself to my website. I would keep a brief blog to share what was going on in my classroom. And then the school year started. It is easy to get bogged down in the day to day and focus on what has to get done. It is often the little things, the things we do for ourselves, that get left behind as requirements start to pile up. At the end of the quarter I had two weeks to turn around 115 essays so I could include that grade on quarter 1. But instead of getting to take a minute to breathe after that I had 115 poems to grade (or 230, since everyone was supposed to write two). Our curriculum moves at a fast pace and it is easy to forget about things like a blog on my website when I know I still have tests to grade and that I'm giving another test in a little over a week.
Sometimes I have to make myself stop and appreciate the moment. Stop and reflect on the things that make me smile instead of worrying about everything else I have to get done. I have loved watching my students engage with Shakespeare, take on challenging reading roles, beg for fairy wings and crowns. It's fun bringing Shakespeare to their world (Did you know Demetrius totally ghosted Helena?) and hearing their laughter when the name calling is "acorn" and "painted maypole". This is my favorite module of the year because we read it together and it is fun. We only have a few days of reading left before we jump into essays again, so I'm going to appreciate every minute of it! Last night was my 12th open house as a teacher and I still get nervous. I don't get nervous for meet the teacher night anymore, that's more about the suspense of meeting my students and getting a feel for what my classes might be like, but open house gives me butterflies. I'm confident in what I teach and how I run my classroom, but there's just something about open house. I enjoyed last night asking families to share something with me about their student, and it is always great timing to have open house the day before an assessment. Today's assessment is essentially a mini essay. Students will have to write two Quick Writes in response to two passages. We've been building to this assessment all week, and I feel good about the discussions we've had in class in preparation. If students are careful and thoughtful, I think they will see a lot of success! We're ready for this!
It feels like we had a false start to this school year. We got off an running and then had to pause for a hurricane delay. This week has felt really long because of the chaos of last week. It is hard to believe it took us to long to finish the first ten days of school. This week felt long, but I also finally felt like we all settled into a routine. Students are back in the habit of school and doing work, and I'm able to remember how I have to schedule my time carefully during the school year. We've already had one test (grades should be coming by Monday!) and our second will be here before we know it (probably Friday). Our curriculum moves fast, which is why missing so many days of class in a row can be disheartening. Next week we will have a visit from our fabulous librarian, Mrs. Walters, dig deeper into our novel, and look into the history of the fall of Saigon. I'm excited to work without the interruptions!
It is finally the first Friday of the new school year! Don't get me wrong, I've had a great week, but the first week of school generally feels like it lasts 15 days. I'm excited that we have already gotten to start our content and students have already started reading their novels. Yesterday was the first time we got to talk about our new book and it felt like my students were very engaged with the discussion and interested in what we are going to read. The protagonist of our novel is from Vietnam, and I'm both excited (and nervous) to have a student this year who speaks Vietnamese. I definitely do not have an ear for language, so I generally do the best I can with the Vietnamese words in our book. Yesterday the student tried to help me pronounce one correctly. I think she got me a lot closer than I was on my own, but it is definitely humbling to know that it feels like you can't get it quite right now matter how much you try. I actually I'm glad I felt that way, though, because I know many of my students will feel that way at some point this school year. It helps to remember that struggle. But now I'm really just looking forward to three days in a row of waking up without an alarm. The early morning struggle is real!
You've probably noticed that my last name is short. It's just three letters. Nay. But all of my life my last name has been messed up. When I was a kid it was messing up the first letter. I've got some form of Ray, May, Day. May was most common. And it makes sense, people mishear, May is a more common word. I almost always automatically say Nay, N as in no, when I give my last name to someone for the first time. But since I've started teaching it gets messed up in a new way, Naye. Why are people suddenly adding an e on to the end of my name? Well, because most systems in our school cut off last names to the first four letters and mine only has three. So with me, they fill in they last letter with the initial of my first name instead of just stopping at three letters. That's when it gets a little trickier. I'm an Elizabeth that goes by Betsy, so people think my first initial is B and then just assume that the e on Naye is just how Nay is spelled. None of this is a big deal (other than people sometimes using the wrong email address), but it always amuses me that my simple three letter last name is so easy to mess up.
Today was our first official day back at work. There are so many new faces on campus and in our building! It is exciting to meet new coworkers and I always appreciate the new energy and ideas they bring to the table. Just like students have a lot of information to absorb on the first day of school, teachers have a lot to absorb on the first day of work. It can be hard because I really want to jump into planning my year and thinking about my classes, but it is important that everyone is on the same page so we can be the most effective school and team possible. I can't believe that at this time next week we will have already completed two days of school! Summer was over way too fast this year, but as always I'm excited to get back to work.
Even though teachers don't official come back to work until next week, many of us have been in the building this week for Leadership Retreat, Newcomer Camp, and just trying to get a head start on the new year. Today I started unpacking a few of my things and worked on a sign for our very long hallway. (New 8th graders, if you've never been in the 8th grade building it is a long walk from the entry to the end of the hall. Also, while I'm giving new to the building tips, the 8th grade building is split so that odd numbered classrooms are on one side of the hall and evens are on the other. It always takes people a bit to get used to the layout.) I'm always torn at this point of the year because I'm excited for the school year to start and to get to meet my students, but I also feel like I don't have nearly enough time to get everything done that I want and have to accomplish before the first day of school. The good thing about experience is that I know that the things that need to get done will get done and I will be ready for my new students when they get here!
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Ms. NayThoughts and updates about our year! Archives
August 2021
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