Mosaic - Little bits about Lots of stuff

The end of the month is in site and, looking back over 2010 so far, I haven't had much to blog about. Between work and classes, I've had little time or inclination to do much else. It feels like I'm sort of suspended, yet time is still progressing.

My ESOL classes are going pretty well. Much of what we discuss/work on is stuff most of us already know. Like many of the professional development things we do, I think the collaboration is most useful.

So, I got the word yesterday that I'll be working full time for the rest of the school year. That's a good thing, but now the real work begins to put meaningful lesson plans together and to ramp up my role a little bit. Until now it's been sort of like subbing. That's got to change.

And speaking of work, today was conferences. I admit to having an intense dislike for secondary conferences. On the whole, turn out is low. I don't know if parents don't find them important, or if they believe no news is good news. It's really interesting. Anyway, for this round of conferences the district implemented "conference calling." We had to log so many calls to parents during our time. This worked really well for me since I (maybe) see one or two parents during the hours of sitting and waiting. Today I actually spoke with four, doubling my average! I also sent a couple of emails for those parents I know will respond. During this time I came to the realization that if I could email progress to all my parents, I'd do it much more regularly. I think that's going on my goal list for next year.

Haiti has been the big news for the last couple weeks. I haven't blogged about it on purpose because I wasn't sure what to say. If you haven't overloaded, check out Lisa's blog. Her dad's a doctor who spent some time with a medical team there after the earthquake.