Year 18 has begun!

The Staff came together for our annual Advisor Training at Camp Androscoggin on a Thursday. It was a great opportunity to do some planning for the year ahead and also to get to bond a bit as  group. We have many new folks on Staff this year inlcuding two new Advisors at my grade level. One of the thintgs we did was to make a Junior mascot. Ours is below!

Friday was a "nuts and bolts" day. I always try to not let these days overwhelm and annoy me but its tough. We get reminded of the multitude of things we have to learn and be responsible for. Unfortunately some of these are outside mandates with very little support. Not a one of them is bad for kids, except that it takes time away from students for teachers to be able to do them. I'm convinced that the only way we can do the things for students we need to be doing to serve them well is to only teach one class a day of about 10 students. That would give us the time to do the things we need to do for those students. Some of these things include: RTI programming, IEP adherence, Marzano Standards for teachers, proficiency-based education, technology expectations, etc. I won't rant any more, but it was a long day. By the end I was thinking, just send us the kids!

This year may have been my best start out of the previous 18! I and my students were enthusiastic and had a great time talking about collaboration and leadership by participating in the Marshmallow Challenge. This requires them to create a freestanding tower with limited supplies in 18 minutes. I have a few pics from their work below.

The weather was rough this week. Maine has such a short summer in most respects, that almost no schools have Air Conditioning. My classroom hit the upper 80's with high humidity each day during the week. The kids whined a little, but they did what I asked of them. I enjoy warm weather, but it is sure tough to get students to think and work after they have done so for 4 hours in the heat and humidity.

We kicked off my AP Psychology class with an experiment to measure reaction time. In U.S. History classes we debated the merits of Columbus and his holiday. In Ethics we evaluated eating a cat and whether or not morality was involved. In History v. Hollywood we looked at historical film clips and discussed the message. Great fun!

My LCD projector died on Monday, but the tech folks provided me with a loaner and I am told a new one will be installed soon. Aside from that and the weather, it was a fun week! The students were engaged and positive and I can't wait to get into some fun activities next week! I will blog more about our start to the school year and what we are doing in two weeks. It should be a bit cooler by then!