Good… great…overwhelmed.

I am overwhelmed!  There is no other way to describe my current state of being.  I’ve taken on many extras this year at school, and am starting to rethink some of them, not that it’s possible to back out of any of them now…

I’ve been thinking about several questions: what makes a great teacher? is it better to do many things well or to do a few things great?

Within my own classroom, I am trying to find room for projects with my kids.  I really want to have more fun with the curriculum than what is planned or allowed for.  The projects deal with both academic and civic duties.  However, in trying to find time for these things, I find that I’ve rushed through some topics.  In Social Studies, there have been days where I’ve just presented the kids with information to know so that we have time to work on our Social Studies project.  In this instance, I can argue that the time is equally traded as students can apply what they’ve learned to the project.

In word study though… we are looking at grammar, spelling, patterns, vocabulary, big words, etc.  There is a lot to get through each day, and we don’t spend a great deal of time focused on one type of word study lesson.  I’ve been debating this one… on one hand, I really want the kids to know that all of these topics in word study is important and relevant to their academic and lifelong careers.  Other the other hand, how much information is retained if not focused?  I ask these questions not for my top functioning students, and not even for my middle of the road students.  I ask them for the struggling students.  I wonder how much they are actually taking in?

Back to my main questions… I am running several projects at school, along with after and before school work, and learning a brand new curriculum.  While I am not yet failing at them, I feel like that day will come.  Every second of my school day is accounted for.  I am either planning for my kids, or I am working on a project that my principal has assigned me to…

Perhaps the better question is: is it more important that the kids think I’m a great teacher, or that the administration thinks that I’m a great teacher?