Saturday, September 01, 2007

Lucky teacher

Time to put aside the distractions of summer and buckle down. The kids come into my classroom in four days. I'm scrambling.

I had my first "back to school" dream last night. It was not a good one - they're usually not, at this time of the year. It was awful - I can still remember it clearly - aaack, it was so real.

Yesterday I moved student folders around on our server at school, saving the work from last year's kids. And then I created new folders for all my new kids.

And then, of course, the blogs. I posted a farewell message to last year's group at roomtwelve.com, with hyperlinks to all their blogs, so it can serve as a sort of archive of their old home page. Added them all to the "Room Twelve Alumni" group and changed their passwords. Sent an email to all their parents letting them know their kids can still keep blogging if they want, and what their new passwords will be.

Finally, I set up 22 blogs for my new group of third graders. This will be my 17th year teaching third grade at this school. I shake my head in disbelief, and remind myself of what I often say when it comes up in conversation, "Sometimes you just get lucky".

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I hope you also mean lucky kids and parents for having someone like you as a teacher in their community....

Anonymous said...

Mark-

I have subscribed to your blog since last spring, and your work has helped inspire my recent entrance into the blogging world. How would you feel about adding a link to your blog on my blog(http://amykenyon.edublogs.org)? Since I am new to this, I don’t know if it is required that I ask permission but I think it is polite.

What do you think?

Amy

Mark Ahlness said...

Amy,
I've added you to my Blogroll (you're #1!). This kinda reminds me of the MySpace "add a friend" thing :)

Out here in the blogosphere it's accepted practice to link to whomever you want, without asking (my goodness how far our manners have lapsed!) - but it's still awful nice to be asked. I'm following along with your blog on Bloglines. So anyway, thanks, link away, and have a great year with your third graders! - Mark

Unknown said...

Thanks, Mark!

Anonymous said...

Aren't those "back to school dreams" something? I had one too. I had a class of around third grade and for some silly reason I decided to go and sit in my car and leave them alone in the room for a while. When I got back the principal fired me (for good reason :-)

Janice