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Tsunami - 12/28/04
As teachers, we must be prepared to help students process the tragedy of
Sunday's earthquake in the Indian Ocean and the resulting tsunamis. I've
written a page with commentary and links about emergencies
for your use.
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Apply Yourself - 12/26/04
OK, so I'm interested in returning to grad school next September. (Ms. Kee
wants to be in 19th Grade!) I've done everything I need to do,
except apply. Well, this is the week that the applications have to start
going out. Help! I'm so nervous! I welcome any encouragement
and positive energy you can send my way. Today is also the first day of
Kwanzaa, Umoja (Unity). Thank you!
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Dynamic Templates - 12/25/04
One of the nice things about being on vacation is that I get to spend time
updating this website. I now know what dynamic web templates are; I know
how to insert a code snippet; and I know more about navigation structures.
So I've improved how this website looks. I'll update content soon.
Happy Holidays!
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DfL III - 11/12/04
I'm temporarily coming out of hiatus! I wanted to post something for my
DfL III students at Mercy College. Here are the
score sheets. Also here's a link from
Scholastic to help with PTCs:
http://teacher.scholastic.com/professional/parentconf/index.htm.
OK, back to hiatus for me.
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Hiatus - 11/3/04
A couple of days ago I made a list of all the projects I'm involved in.
It's official: Ayana is over-committed. And my commitments have
given birth to obligations and deadlines. I need to take a hiatus from
this website until January. Before I go though, I've added some links for
teachers who are looking for information on
writing assessment. I wish
everyone a happy holiday season, including all our Muslim or Jewish teachers
whose special days have already begun! Back to Top
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GREat! - 10/12/04
So yesterday I took the GRE again and it went well! I was grinning from
ear to ear as I left the testing center. Thank you to my well-wishers and
my post-test congratulators. In spite of my personal success, I want to
point out that the standardized testing industry is riddled with problems (check
out www.fairtest.org) as is the idea of
"standardizing" kids (check out
www.alfiekohn.org/standards).
Today I added some links to
Teaching in NYC for teachers using Everyday Math.
And I deleted my picture from all but this page, just in case the grin was
just getting to be too much!
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Sunday Night - 9/19/04
Sunday night has been an unofficial work night for me for as long as I've been
teaching. One of these days I'm going to change that so I can relax on
Sundays. If you're feeling jitters about school tomorrow, you're not the
only one. The first week of school took a lot of courage even though it
was only three days long (Happy New Year to all our Jewish teachers out there!),
and now we get ready to go back. Here's a blank
To Do list that I use.
I'm sitting at my desk surrounded by teacher's guides planning for tomorrow.
If you don't have teacher's guides, check out My
Favorites for links to sites which have lessons. Good night! Back to Top
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Happy First Day of School, New York Teachers! - 9/13/04
So yesterday I got my act together enough to call families. That was
fabulous... There's nothing that calms jitters like talking with kids and moms
and dads and aunties and uncles and grandparents. The kids especially were
more scared than I was! Today went by in somewhat of a blur. My kids
are great - I think "spirited" is a good term for my class. My
first day wouldn't have gone nearly as well if it weren't for the dedicated
staff at my school (the custodians even let us come in over the weekend!) and
the help I've gotten from certain professional books. Here's an amazon.com
list of my favorite beginning school books. I always forget how much
energy it takes to teach. Those of you in the corporate world, imagine
having to facilitate 5-6 meetings, 45-50 minutes each meeting, each meeting
on a different topic, and the twenty other people in the meeting are not
sure whether the topics are relevant to their departments! Anyway,
congratulations to all the new (and not so new) New York City teachers out there! Back to Top
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Jitters - 9/12/04, 12:00PM
It's official. I'm having serious first day jitters. The proof is
that I am writing this right now instead of planning and prepping for tomorrow.
OK, enough procrastinating... (More later). Back to Top
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Sleep Deprived - 9/9/04
I haven't adjusted to having to be at work by 8:30AM and of course there's tons
to do to get ready for the kids. But I vow to try and get 8 hours of sleep
a night so I won't get colds as much this year. I added a few documents to
the Teaching in NYC page. Thank you to all my GRE
well-wishers. Alas I managed to get an ear infection that morning, so my score didn't meet my goals. We'll try again in
October, OK? (10/12 It also turned out that I needed glasses!) Back to Top
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Is it September yet? - 8/31/04
I don't know about you, but I'm looking forward to the first day of school!
I finally got an HTML editor so it was much easier to update this site.
I've added a page specifically about teaching here in New York
City. Hey, wish me luck on the GRE; I take it tomorrow.
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Teach For America - 8/11/04
New York Induction! Today I had the pleasure of meeting fabulously dynamic TFA teachers who are ready, willing, and able to teach here in NY starting in September. Welcome, teachers!
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Mercy College - 7/29/04
Today was the last day of class for a Designs for Learning II class I taught. I want to thank the teachers for a fabulous class and for ideas on some great teaching links! I'm going to work on updating the links page, so I'll let you know when the update is live.
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On Teaching With ADD - 7/18/04
I'm in an article in the New York Times,
reprinted here, about
adults with ADD (look for me near the end). So I wrote an essay about teaching with ADD that also has some useful links about kids. Check out
On ADD !
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Congratulations - 6/25/04 Last day of school in New York City
I want to congratulate all new teachers for completing their first year.
The learning curve is so steep with teaching, but the rewards are so great. Kudos!
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Launch! - 5/2/04 night
We are live! Thank you to Jay for fielding my two calls to technical service. Time to call Mom, then it's off to bed.
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Almost there... - 5/2/04 afternoon
Today I worked on the favorites and I added my resume. I also googled myself and came up with... nothing. So it must be time to go live, despite the butterflies in my stomach!Back to Top
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Hi! - 4/10/04 Back to Top
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