Education, Math, and More with Mr. Allison

Today was the first day of school for us. All-in-all, it was a great day for me. I love my family and I love my coworkers, but I always look forward to the first day back with kids. Today began my 18th year teaching and I realized a long time ago, this is my calling. It's what I'm supposed to do. There were a lot of great things to say about today, but I'm going to focus on one -- what I learned from our social contracts. What is a social contract you might ask? To some it sounds crazy. To others silly. Some think it's stupid. But a few...a few of them took it serious and used it for its intended purpose -- to give kids a voice in the standard operating procedures of the classroom.  Kids were supposed to brainstorm and come up with suggestions for rules, policies, and procedures framed around four essential questions How do you want to be treated by the teacher? How do you want to be treated by others? How do you think the teacher wants to be treated? How do we want to ...

Thursday's coming. First day of school for us of the 2023-2024 school year. This will be my 18th year. There are a lot of teachers with more time than that and a lot with less. But in my 18 years I think I've picked up a little bit of wisdom that's worth offering to those who might be a little nervous about the year to come. First, there's too much to do it all. Today we just finished our pre-start professional development. It ended with all the stuff that gets saved for last because it's what everybody hates. Basically a list of everything expected of you that's longer than the Mississippi River. Duty. Roll. Forms. Detention. Discipline. Lesson plans. Unit plans. Parent contact logs. Parent contact procedures. IEPs. 504s. Documentation. Documentation. Documentation.  And somehow with all that you're also tasked with getting to know the kids, giving them input on classroom procedures and rules, dealing with classroom interruptions, schedule changes, new kids...