1. Second semester slump: For some reason, every year about February or so, I get super down on myself and lose my love for teaching. I feel like everything I do is garbage, my kids hate me, and they haven't learned anything. Plus, my body is physically exhausted and I have a hard time keeping things together. Next year, I'll try to keep a folder of home run activities that I can rely on during the long dark days.
2. Classroom management: I start every year strong, but then, as I get more comfortable with the students, classroom management goes out the window. I think this is where being a mom of five is a real disadvantage for me because my tolerance for shenanigans is really high (or else I'd live my life screaming at kids). So I just ignore ignore ignore until I can't handle it anymore and I get frustrated with my kids because they can't read in my mind where the imaginary line is that they've crossed. Next year, I will try to focus more on loving redirects. I've also considered participation points...I'm still very up in the air on this, but I feel like a big part of being successful in my class is participating (being engaged...not necessarily speaking). So we'll see. I need to think about whether or not that fits with my SBG philosophy.
3. Lack of vocabulary: I feel like I could do a much better job of focusing vocabulary and building on existing knowledge. It's hard when I have new students who come into my French 2 or 3 class because I feel like I need to quickly re-teach them everything we've learned in my class in the past one or two years...but I need to remember that if we recycle vocabulary effectively, we don't need to waste the time doing that. So....a better vocabulary plan for next year. Hopefully based on novels and the frequency dictionary.
4. Distracted by "curriculum": In my district, we are supposed to teach the same curriculum at about the same time. Thankfully, we aren't held to this super strongly, but I still feel the need to "cover" the curriculum. I have no idea why I feel this desire because my students don't learn this extra stuff any better or worse than the students in other classes... But this year, I at least tried to look at the units and create some sort of plan (for my French 3 classes at least). So, for example, we looked at the health vocabulary and then we did Bryce Hedstrom's Dr. joke (Patient goes to several doctors complaining that they hurt all over. 3rd doctor figures out that the patient's finger is broken), then we read an article targeted for French children over an 11 year old boy who had a heart transplant, and finally, we discussed health issues like nutrition and exercise, working our way up to questions about whether or not health is a right or a privilege and whether the gov't has the right to tax junk food. It worked for me!
I've still got a ways to go....I start of the year full of energy and ideas and then teaching 4 preps and having two jobs and 5 kids gets to me and I get lazy and then I feel like a sucky teacher and then I don't want to do anything. It's a terrible cycle that I HAVE to break next year.
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