Prompt: If you could collaborate with any teacher/class what/who would it be and what would the collaboration look like?
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Our spring break is very late this year. It's felt like an incredibly long stretch, I am sure exacerbated by my surgery at the end of February. (It was my second surgery this school year and the 4th time I was subjected to anesthesia). All these things are incredibly hard on one's body. I'm ready for a break.
However, this is also the time of year I start thinking about next year. All the things I can do differently... better. I often feel like I have failed my students, I could have done so much more, so how can I improve and do better.
Next year will be round 9 in my own classrooms. Year 11 since I walked into my first DOE classroom. I have lost some of my passion when it comes to teaching and I have to work harder to fine new ways to grow and challenge myself and my students. There has been some great stuff with student led discussions in my 10th and 11th grade classes this spring that I would like to figure out how to vertically align so students are doing this type of work each year. Giving students a structure and the space to teach and learn from each other is powerful. I learn so much about my students and the content from listening to them grapple with what they are studying.
That's all well and good Meredith, but get to the prompt. I would like to teach a block with someone from our social studies department for 9th grade to design and implement a humanities curriculum that reflects some of the themes already existing in the 9th grade curriculum around power. I want to take many of the things I have learned and design a scope and sequence that challenges students to read, write, speak and listen. That it challenges them to find connections between literature and history.
I think back in one of my most successful semesters in college. I took:
- Intro to political science
- U. S. History, 1865-today
- Clothing history (my BFA is in costume design and construction)
I remember the point in the semester that the first two classes synced up and suddenly the content was clicking in a new way. The parallels between clothing history and the political climate was eye opening. When content from multiple POVs aligns the learning can be so much richer.
Another class I would love to teach is in fact a costume design and construction in Design & Tech with our teacher Mr. Rothman who runs the makerspace. That is my HUGE dream class.
Happy Spring Break!
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