Observation Journal Entry #16
Mar. 19th, 2013 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aelfieToday was a slow day. A relaxing day. And a fly by the seat of the pants day.
Normal Flag ceremony. We had to sing the third verse again because we forgot to sing the new chorus. Then moved to the deck to do a early-rehearsal for tomorrow's Eurythmy performance. Fifth Grades' been practicing it for months. But, we have a new wrinkle. One of the children lost a Grandfather last week, the memorial service is tomorrow, and thus will not be joining us for the performance. I've been asked to fill in. I've done Eurythmy with them 3 times. The piece is fairly simple, I originally was going to take a boys part, but it threw everyone off sufficiently that the Eurythmy teacher and I switched places, so I have the easier role. Run through that twice and it seemed to work. Run up the hill to the classroom, practice the piece for Spring assembly. Grab chairs and run down the hill for 6th grade play (The Day Julius Caesar Died. Not bad...everyone needed to slow down and speak up!) watch play. Grab chairs and run up to classroom. Notice we have 30 minutes to kill. Okay, we have time for silent work! I handed out my corrected dictations to everyone, handed the student absent yesterday a hard copy and everyone has a big pile of drafts in their binders, pick one and work on a final draft. One bright student noticed a mistake that I made in the dictation (off his own copy no less) and I announced it to the room, so they could correct their copies. Silent work time is a time of observation (for me) and just general helping. Some had questions, some needed guidence, most just got to work. Then snack, recess, and meeting time
Upper grades meeting. This was a really interesting one. The school is going through accreditation renewal and a couple of representatives of the accreditation association sat in on this meeting. One representative was from a Waldorf School and one from a mainstream school. They had a LOT of very interesting, thoughtful questions to ask. I just sat, listened and absorbed. What was fascinating was watching realizations come over the faces of "my school's" teachers as they answered questions. So I'm getting the impression that even though accreditation is a huge PAIN, it brings out good things.
Then Ms. R and I had a one on one meeting. Topics of discussion: How to we get parents to realize early enough that our recommendations for evaluation are REALLY important! (i.e. before they cascade to a point that we can no longer help and the child either leaves or is asked to leave), why in the heck is Waldorf Education "Educations best kept secret" and what can be done about it. How hard it is to get office people who know what's going on so they know how to help. Outreach, capitalizing on our resources (you know, like the huge, major, world class university literally right behind us!) Good conversation! Lots of ideas. Lots of energy. She checked to make sure that I was crossing all my I's and dotting my T's and if I needed anything from her.
All in all, a good day! I went home very happy!
Normal Flag ceremony. We had to sing the third verse again because we forgot to sing the new chorus. Then moved to the deck to do a early-rehearsal for tomorrow's Eurythmy performance. Fifth Grades' been practicing it for months. But, we have a new wrinkle. One of the children lost a Grandfather last week, the memorial service is tomorrow, and thus will not be joining us for the performance. I've been asked to fill in. I've done Eurythmy with them 3 times. The piece is fairly simple, I originally was going to take a boys part, but it threw everyone off sufficiently that the Eurythmy teacher and I switched places, so I have the easier role. Run through that twice and it seemed to work. Run up the hill to the classroom, practice the piece for Spring assembly. Grab chairs and run down the hill for 6th grade play (The Day Julius Caesar Died. Not bad...everyone needed to slow down and speak up!) watch play. Grab chairs and run up to classroom. Notice we have 30 minutes to kill. Okay, we have time for silent work! I handed out my corrected dictations to everyone, handed the student absent yesterday a hard copy and everyone has a big pile of drafts in their binders, pick one and work on a final draft. One bright student noticed a mistake that I made in the dictation (off his own copy no less) and I announced it to the room, so they could correct their copies. Silent work time is a time of observation (for me) and just general helping. Some had questions, some needed guidence, most just got to work. Then snack, recess, and meeting time
Upper grades meeting. This was a really interesting one. The school is going through accreditation renewal and a couple of representatives of the accreditation association sat in on this meeting. One representative was from a Waldorf School and one from a mainstream school. They had a LOT of very interesting, thoughtful questions to ask. I just sat, listened and absorbed. What was fascinating was watching realizations come over the faces of "my school's" teachers as they answered questions. So I'm getting the impression that even though accreditation is a huge PAIN, it brings out good things.
Then Ms. R and I had a one on one meeting. Topics of discussion: How to we get parents to realize early enough that our recommendations for evaluation are REALLY important! (i.e. before they cascade to a point that we can no longer help and the child either leaves or is asked to leave), why in the heck is Waldorf Education "Educations best kept secret" and what can be done about it. How hard it is to get office people who know what's going on so they know how to help. Outreach, capitalizing on our resources (you know, like the huge, major, world class university literally right behind us!) Good conversation! Lots of ideas. Lots of energy. She checked to make sure that I was crossing all my I's and dotting my T's and if I needed anything from her.
All in all, a good day! I went home very happy!