Today I love teaching. I love teaching because I woke up at 9:00, spent an hour reading in bed, made myself breakfast, did some laundry, worked out, showered, and walked downtown before noon. Summer is amazing.
I walked across town to the bank, and then back to a coffee shop. I sat and used my favorite new possession, a good old-fashioned fountain pen, to make tags for the guitar straps that I've been diligently weaving in my spare time over the past few months.
It took me a while to figure out a way to finish the straps so that they would actually look sort of profession and be functional, without needing to spend lots more money and time on them. But I finally had a breakthrough on the design, and now seven of them are for sale at Richard's Music Company in Lawrence. I have to admit they look pretty awesome hanging on their own littIe rack. I am really proud of them and at this point I don't even care if they sell as long as people at least see them and admire them.
(Sorry for the quality of the pictures. I had to take them on my webcam because I just misplaced my camera... which is the second brand-new camera that I have lost in the past month... Ugh. This is why I can't have nice things).
I plan to use this afternoon to go through the huge stacks of paper that I filed over the past year. I need to organize them so I can find them and reuse them for next year. It is amazing how much paper I generated this year, even though I was trying to be conscious of how many copies I used... Hmm.
Already I know that much of what I did this year I will NOT be reusing next year. As I cleaned out my classroom and glanced back through some of the tests and worksheets that I made for the first semester, I couldn't believe that I ever thought that they were a good idea. Although I tried my best to think ahead and plan lessons wisely, I really didn't have a clue.
I still maybe only have half a clue about teaching, but where I am now is a world of difference from where I was a semester ago, not to mention a year ago. It is really shocking how steep the learning curve has been, and how much more confident and competent I will feel going into next year than I did at the beginning of last August.
And here is the summary of my first year of teaching:
"It's alright that it didn't work... as long as I learn from it and improve it for next time."
Meanwhile, I have an entire summer to ponder a million ways to do that. Stay tuned.
P.S. It goes like this: There are three reasons to teach... June, July, and August.
