Needed a little reminder card to slow down the phases of anger in some stressed kids today. We talked about the process and how slowing down in the moment will help to figure out when to reach out for help or a cool-down.
Slowing down the process
Tag: freebie
More for Career
So, as I said earlier, I have been working on a small career lesson for my 8th graders. I found some awesome videos to use, and I was stumped trying to avoid yet another assessment to tell the babies what they must be when they grow up. Those things still make me nervous when I take them recreationally, and I am actually in my meant-for-me profession; I can’t imagine how it must make them feel. Granted, if presented correctly (which I think I’m still working on), I understand kids can get the point that career assessments are meant to simply explore the broader idea of what they might like. But in the age of so many serious tests and exams, I can’t imagine they would be able to relax enough to not feel like they would be banished from all educational rights if they answer incorrectly. Luckily, I found this really cool diagram from Willo O’brien (which turns out is actually a pretty inspirational and cool bog too):
I’ve seen this before, but I thought this version was especially appealing. I remade it by middle-school-izing the verbiage and adding blanks so that they could fill in the information. You can get the PDF of the Career diagram by clicking the jpeg below, or you can snip the image to re-size if you’d like!
Now I just have to cross all of my fingers and toes that I can get the point across to a classroom of pre-teens before the 8th grade minds start to joke about my using the words “sweet spot.” I’ll have to work fast.
Tracking Time
Sooo…Today I had to start tallying my time for work, delineating how I spend my time (e.g. P/T Conferences, 504 meetings, one on one, group, department meetings, etc). It is sort of hard to break apart all of the components of such crazy, moving days. You sit down and start responding to parent e-mails, start to organize classroom student response forms, get called down for a registration, get stopped with a class change form on the way, get an impromptu lesson on departmental goals upon walking into the office, talk with a family about a student’s history and choose classes, stop in at the lunch room on your way back and discuss some friend drama-rama, offer consultation on a student with a teacher picking up their class, speak with a student in the hall who has been put out and reiterate behavioral goals, return to a ringing phone, and then try to remember what it was you were trying to do before you left your office 15 minutes ago. How in the world is it possible to outline the tasks that you do all day, every week, within a month, throughout an entire year? And when we don’t record everything, we feel as though on paper we look like we may not be doing enough to justify our profession.
But alas, it must be done. Recording what I do throughout the day has saved my butt plenty of times. In going over a student history, recalling why I made one decision over another, catching a student not living up to the things they agreed to; I refer to my notes all the time. But still, I find myself thinking, ‘wait, I remember talking to that parent, what was it that they called about? Or, I did talk to that kid, but I never agreed to change his class past the deadline, or did I?’ One thing I have learned through internship and counselor subbing has been to make my own worksheets for processes that help me get the job done. In Grad school, I remember professors encouraging having us make worksheets in class, and begging us to really get cozy with Microsoft applications that can be helpful. Well let me tell you, I spoon those puppies now- and Word and Excel are the big spoon.
This is the Daily Log Sheet I created to keep record of everything I do. It is based on a sheet one of the lovely ladies had made that I subbed for when I was on the maternity circuit. I keep it on a clip-board that I bring with me everywhere like a besty. Then I move it over to a Daily binder, and have a running log. This way, if I so happen to forget to record my goings ons daily like I am supposed to (which I typically do), I have a reference to go to. Between this, and appointments in my Outlook Calendar, I can usually get the majority of my time down. I love to hear how other people track there time though, and like to take bits and pieces as I alter things.
