Curriculum Night

I know it sounds crazy, but I had a blast at Curriculum Night. I was kind of dreading it, being that it was the first time I was presenting as a middle school teacher. I had to write handouts from scratch - not that I didn't have models to follow, but I had nothing already ready that just needed a tweak or two. I had to create a PowerPoint presentation to show parents, mostly to keep myself on track, and not forget to say something important. I had to present to two different sets of parents (8th grade and 6th grade) at the same time, in three back to back sessions. And before all that, I had to introduce myself to every parent that attended the pre-meeting. With a microphone.

I had a cup of coffee at 5:00pm, which I think helped tremendously. Being at work from 6:30am-8:30pm, with a brief run to dinner with a few other teachers, is very wearing.  But apparently I didn't present as tired. I was told parents in the pre-meeting were happy to have teacher who is excited and passionate about middle school humanities, that I appeared to be really enthusiastic during the third session, and that I seem to be a "college track" teacher. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I'm pretty sure it was meant as a high compliment.

I began each session with a joke. I projected a slide of basic professional info about myself - where I got my degrees, how long I've been teaching, where, and at what grade levels. I got my Bachelor's from U.C. Davis, so I opened with, "I got my Bachelor's from U.C. Davis, don't hate me because I'm originally from California." The next slide had pictures of my family, including one of my boys standing next to the 12-angled stone (discovered by my Dad's uncle) in a wall in Cuzco, Peru. I told these parents, the most ethnically diverse I've ever presented to at Curriculum Night, "Soy media peruana, pero no hablo español muy bien." Both lines got a laugh. I'm sure I won't have any problem working with these parents... at least not the ones that showed up and heard me talk about when, where, and how student work should be turned in. "If they tell you they didn't know where to turn something in or that they didn't know something was collected, they are lying to you."

I had all the sixth and eighth graders work to create my newest display. I led a discussion about what makes a great leader, and each class came up with their own definition, which students had to copy onto a worksheet. Then they were asked to name three "great leaders" known outside their immediate community. Then they wrote a short explanation, that connected back to the class definition, of what makes each one a great leader. Finally, they had to find a quote from one of these leaders and put it on a document in a fun font and sized to take up the entire page, being sure to attribute the words to the great leader who spoke them. It was a great activity to start off the year, and I was able to cover a wall with work generated by students in time for Curriculum Night.

I hope the energy carries forward into the remainder of the school year, and that I can replicate the same enthusiasm and connection to parents at next year's Curriculum Night.