Just around the corner

Phew. I have a couple of days rest between visitors and I finally have the chance to hop online and catch up on all the posts I've missed!  I have truly enjoyed my slightly hectic summer so far and it is nice to be forced to not think about school and work!  Instead, I have enjoyed the beauty of Washington!

As soon as my guests left, my mind switched back to school.  I have taken on a lot of additional responsibilities this year, aside from the typical "back-to-school stuff," and I am beginning to realize that August/school is just around the corner!  I was reading this list of 21 Things that Will be Obsolete by 2020 and I started to get even more anxious! Number 15 is Paid/Outsourced Professional Development.  My district has taken the leap toward trusting teachers to run professional development for the district and guess whose team was asked to be the first guinea pigs!  I truly view it as an honor that the district I work for trusts my skills and the skills of my teammates to ask us to lead a professional development day for all 3-5th grade elementary teachers in the district.  I was so excited when we started talking about the possibility in April.  Now, now that the date is set and is less than a month away, I am beginning to question my common sense!  I can't believe that I agreed to lead a workshop on August 21st- less than a week before school starts!!  You know, despite the stress that I will certainly feel, I am still very flattered that I get this opportunity and I just hope that my peers treat me and my team well!  We are leading a day on interventions and how to use data to form your intervention.  It should be a productive day with plenty of time for teachers to work with their own data.  I know that no matter how fantastic we will still get negative reviews, but I will need to brush them off and know that I did my best and my team and I have the best interests of the students at heart!

Expect an update sometime this week on A Courage to Teach.  I am almost finished and it has been a fantastic read.  It is one of those books that you read slowly so that you can stop and reflect/remember the amazing words on the page! Looking forward to sharing my thoughts with you.