Markers

I have a love/hate relationship with white boards.  I love the convenience of being able to write on the walls.  I love that I can just think out loud and write it down and not worry if I make a mistake because it erases (relatively) easily.  I also love how much space there is on a good sized white board.

I hate how fast the markers dry up.  I hate how they don't erase completely.  I hate when someone else uses the board and doesn't clean it up afterward.  I hate when marker tips get smashed in and I can't use them anymore.

The solution? Today I bought my own set of markers that are supposed to last longer (we'll see) and that only I get to use.  I like having control over what goes on in my classroom, and I don't want to deal with the frustration of having seventy markers that don't write well (that's what it felt like last night).

SuperBad Bag

Two weeks ago I ordered a new backpack when I realized that my go-to-gear-bag, my Chrome Mini Metro messenger bag was just a bit too mini for my needs.  That bag is still a phenomenal object of holding, but I needed something a bit bigger.

Enter the Timbuk2 SuperBad.

First week of school

For me, this week marked the beginning of my master's program at National University.  I'm working toward a master's in education and a single subject teaching credential for mathematics.  My program is designed to be fast paced and pretty intense; I finish a course every 4 weeks.  This first class, TED 601 is based around the teaching and credentialing standards for California.  Mostly it involves reading a lot of the different documents that describe what is required of every teacher and strategies to be an effective educator at the most basic level.  As the course and program advances, I'll be focusing on different aspects from some developmental psychology to lesson planning, etc.

The online format is a little bit new to me, but I'm not having trouble keeping myself disciplined and making myself work on things yet.  Hopefully I'll keep that up (since I pretty much have to).

This morning I have a meeting with my 7th grade math teacher to discuss some observations that I'll be doing in his classroom over the next couple of weeks.  It's a little odd to be going back to my Jr. High School, but I'm really looking forward to it.

Everything else this week has gone very well; I subbed for another teacher at work yesterday, so overall I was teaching for 6 hours rather than my usual 4.  I really do enjoy working with a variety of students, and didn't have any trouble in front of a completely new group of kids.  I'm enjoying what I do and am fairly confident this is actually what I'll be happy doing for a good amount of time.