student teaching week five

So, I enjoyed having the snow days (I got my laundry caught up), but one of them got in the way of one of my inservices, so I'm having to reschedule that. We're trying to put it on the 19th, which is after I move to Gresham Middle, but that's real nearby so I should have any problem getting over there after school. We're also tweaking my schedule as a result of missing 3.5 days for snow, so I'll still be at Central all of this week instead of switching on thursday; I had two extra days built in since I didn't include the 16-17th inservices in my original count, so I can do that without missing any time at the middle school.

The inservice I did have on thursday went well. We talked about how and why to use book studies in the classroom--I had about 12 teachers, and only a couple were English teachers, so not everybody already uses books--and I walked them through how to use teachingbooks.net and What Do I Read Next, which is available through TEL. Both are favorite new toys of mine, and y'all need to go check them out right now if you aren't already familiar with them. We also did a brief look at the author/criticism databases in TEL. Nancy and I talked about it afterwards, and I'm gonna need to cut some material out of my rescheduled inservice to keep kosher on the time (we all know how I over-talk things) so I can really slow down in spots where teachers need some help following along (we're in a computer lab where everybody can try it I present). It's a funny balance that Nancy thinks takes a while to master, trying to talk a subject way down for the people who don't use much technology without treating them like children. Seems like you get a similar problem with students, but it's maybe easier in a classroom than with teachers, because you can have some natural authority with the kids but are in a crowd of equals with the teachers.

The big fun at the end of the week is that the movers came and moved the bookshelves for my fiction reorganization project this week! We started moving the books on friday, and we're definitely going to have room to get those books out from behind the teachers where kids will be able to get to them. We're also going to be able to fix some crowded shelves in the fiction that was already accessible, we gained a ton of display space, and the new position of the shelves makes a great divider in the front sitting area that helps with the general flow of the library. Paula and I had a field day moving all the tables and chairs in the whole library while we were at it. They're really happy with how it's shaping up, and I'm really excited that we were able to do it while I'm still there.