So, I decided yesterday to create(and maintain) a blog about my teaching life. I want to make a more conscious effort to write more and to share experiences. This seems like a way to do both. We will see how things progress.
Here goes: we just finished Week 2 of the 2009-10 school year, my 21st in the business,and it was a great week with the kids. My ninth grade students are energetic, excited, chatty and pretty much a wonderful group. We spent part of the week on team building/class building and then we developed a class mission statement. That was something new for me and it went great. They brainstormed what things they want in a classroom and we formed those qualities into a mission statement. Using that statement, we then set class norms. That too went well, with the kids taking things seriously. They set norms like "respect people and property", "have fun learning" and so on. http://www.spiritofbaraka.com/baraka
The rest of the week, we talked geography--intro stuff--but we had some good discussions about trade, human-environment interaction and life in the South. We finished yesterday watching clips from the movie "Baraka" which illustrates many of the five themes of geography. If you have never seen it, get a copy and watch it. It is beautifully filmed with no dialogue. The kids really liked it.
Can't wait for next week--we will do many activities related to culture.
