packing & next year

Yesterday I started packing. I don’t even have a place to move to yet, but the packing up has begun.

I have a signed contract. I am continuing in education. I will still be in the classroom. I’ll be teaching history. I’ll have a small number of administrative responsibilities; but the school is designed so everyone has administrative responsibility. That’s what I’m at liberty to share right now. There will be more information in June.

I’m also thinking about how to manage and organize my library. I have a LOT of books. Which ones should go to the school? Which ones should be in my apartment? Which ones should I leave behind, either for colleagues or for the trash heap? (not all books are created equal – some will be cherished and loved; others need to go away).

I find I want a much-lightened life in many ways.

Lemov And the Administrator

Yesterday I stopped in the hallway to talk to the head of our middle school. He said, “that Doug Lemov book is the best book about assessment and classroom practice I have ever read. It’s so good I can’t wait to pick it up again.”

I told him he’ll really like the new book I’m reading, Driven By Data. It’s about designing and giving assessments that result in good data collection, that allow you to check whether the material you’re teaching is really being learned. But he wasn’t as interested, really. Mostly he wanted to give teachers a set of teaching skills that they could rely on and use constantly.

But Lemov himself says that having a curriculum and the techniques isn’t enough. You need daily plans of what to teach in order to use the techniques, it’s true. But you also need data about what to teach, what to reteach and what to review only lightly.

I’m finding right away that I want that data. Because the techniques are working, but I’m still searching for rigor.