(Let it Snow) x 3

Today is the first day of Christmas vacation and I get to celebrate it with more than a foot of snow!  Most of you who read my blog can see this same storm out of your window, but I thought the rest of you might enjoy some photos.  I went for a 2 mile walk in the neighborhood and it was amazing how many people were trying to drive someplace.  Several said they just wanted to go buy some milk...didn't they think about this yesterday?  Are they really so desperate for milk that it's worth digging out the car, pushing it through drifts, and digging out a spot when they get back?  And if so, wouldn't it be faster just to walk??

This is a good indication of what the back roads looked like 2 hours ago - and it's still snowing!

It's hard to capture in a still photo how hard it's snowing.

Celebration

Tomorrow my students take their midterm exams.  Historically our students do very poorly on their exams (across the board, not just in math).  So before the potential downer that tomorrow may bring, I thought I should take a moment to celebrate the good things that are happening in my classes.

- My IB juniors are getting better at problem solving and explaining their solutions, which was my goal for the year.  Last week I gave them a bunch of very challenging problems and it was a pleasure to watch them bounce ideas off of each other.  It was hard not to give them help but it was worth it to see their delight when they figured it out by themselves.

- One of my Precalc students memorized the unit circle.  (If you don't remember, the unit circle contains all of the basic trig values like sin 30 = 1/2.  You probably once had it memorized too.)  We don't require our students to memorize the values because it would be impossible for some of them, but anyone going on to Calculus needs to know them.  So I made it an extra credit opportunity for students who could take the test without their circle.  Only one student took me up on it but it was a pleasure to see her figure out all of the patterns and grow to a deeper understanding as she figured out how to commit it to memory.

- Another Precalc student has turned around from barely passing first quarter to getting A's on every test.  He attentively takes notes and asks excellent questions.  His parents and tutor get all of the credit on this one, but I get to reap the benefits.

- My students were quiet and focused during our review day for the exam.  Typically these days have been a disaster for me as some students just don't care enough to pay attention and end up disrupting the students who want to learn.  This year I am really blessed with studious kids - maybe the exams won't be so terrible after all!

Surviving November

I didn't realize how long it had been since I last posted.  Last week I was off for a glorious 9-day Thanksgiving break and tried to avoid thinking about school.  Even with that ridiculously long break, November is still consistently the toughest month of the school year.  In fact this was the first November that I didn't start planning my next career move.  What makes November so crazy?  I'm not completely sure, but here are some contributing factors:


- The honeymoon is over
The ice has been broken, personalities are coming out, and as the course difficulty increases, stress sometimes brings out the worst in people (myself included).

- Parent-Teacher Conferences
I actually really enjoy these, but teaching from 8-12, meeting with parents in 10-minute intervals from 2-8, and then getting back in at 7 the next morning to teach again is exhausting (especially for an introvert!).

- Senior Retreat
Every faculty member goes on retreat with one of the classes.  The seniors go to a retreat house for a brief 27 hour retreat (Monday afternoon and Tuesday).  Only 60 seniors go on each retreat and it's actually pretty low-key and relaxing.  The downside is having to make sub plans and grade the papers that I left for the students to do to make sure they actually learned something while I was gone.  I also tend to be wiped out for the rest of the week after getting very little sleep on a Monday.  I really do not function well without adequate rest (how did I survive college?).

- Many consecutive 5-day weeks!
This year the administration got rid of all of our Professional Days (instead we get an hour of team planning every Wednesday morning).  Having one day a month to get caught up and get a break from the students was rejuvenating.  I don't think I realized how much those days helped with sanity until they were gone.

Well, all that is behind me now for another year.  Just two weeks until exams and then Christmas break!