I forgot it was St. Patrick's Day until I arrived at school and was threatened to be pinched because I wasn't wearing green. But, Happy St. Pat's Day to everyone.
The resource schedule has been nutty since FCAT began last week. Fortunately, it returns to normal tomorrow. I have not seen my 4th graders for a couple weeks, and I am sure I'll have to exert some effort to get them back on track. Hopefully, they can begin working on re-designing the sets for our televised morning announcements. The backgrounds for our sets are, in a word, fugly and have not been updated for about ten years (so I'm told). I barely finished asking the principal and vice principal if we could change it when they begged "Yes, please! You don't even have to ask. Just do something with it!" Let me just give a brief description of one of the sets to put this into perspective...
Made out of foam core (several layers hot-glued together) were these panels with grooves cut to look like a cement block wall. It was painted the same light blue of the actual walls....and the walls, not to mention, are indeed real cement block. Why, for the love of God, would you re-create what is already there and then paint it the same color?????
Anyways, I have taken on several little projects to help improve the appearance of the school. Fourth grade now has a large tree mural in their hallway, as per the teachers' request. They are going to use it as a "Compliment Tree" to acknowledge students of the month, etc. I have a few other requests which I hope to complete before May. Our school tends to look very sterile because of its previous function as a 6th grade center.
At this point, I feel like I'm rambling.
Happy Monday.
2 comments:
I'm really happy to hear you're brightening up the walls of the school. I've been reading a lot about the fact that schools haven't been updated since they were first invented. It makes me angry to see desks in neat little rows with no kids talking...and cement blocks?! Holy crap. Is it a prison?
Oh wait...maybe it is. I read something in a textbook for one of my classes (kind of paraphrased):
If attendance was optional, then schools would have to become what they should have been all along: places where kids want to be. I keep that in mind.
I am cracking up at that post "Just do whatever you want! Don't even ask!" I love it. I am with ya all the way on re-creating something that already exists - holy crap on a stick.
I think it's great that you are working on things to improve the school. Hopefully it will make the kids feel at least a drop of ownership and pride in their school. At least for maybe 3 seconds? Schools are ALWAYS too sterile. What's up with that?
"I don't think I have a knife that can cut through a shoe! I'm going to get that knife and cut my shoes up."
Post a Comment