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| WV take three... this has gtta slow down sometime |
HARVESTING HOPES
alright, so I know I just posted the much delayed and overdue blog post two minutes ago, but I am feeling super motivated by the end of this week, and by the fact that the Penguins are making a comeback and Chris Kunitz just scored a shorthanded goal. Sorry it has been extremely long between posts, not that anyone is waiting up at night for me to make a blog post, but if you are, then here it is, and ill add some volleyball pictures at the end of this! School pictures to come soon!
so after my wonderful thursday/friday, things returned to normal for a little while, with several weeks of school and volleyball and all that good stuff. Last week was where I really started to feel the drain of the semester catching up with me, and each night I managed to be in bed and asleep by 7:30! It was nice, except that I still felt worn out the entire week and going to bed so early made it so I had to rush around each morning to get things ready for school. The further I go with this, the more and more I see that I am facing and the more and more I want to accomplish. I have made some connections in the community, and I am hopefully going to be getting together with some of the other new teachers that have just moved to the area. I have also been selected as the new teacher for the CCD classes at the catholic church where I live. This is what I came down here for, but it is definitely extremely trying and wearing to just handle everything that is thrown at you each day. Im not gonna lie, my life has been pretty easy to this point, and this is pretty much the first time ever that I am not completely surrounded by people who are constantly building me up and telling me how great I am(although I got the super encouraging statement on my first quarter evaluation of "is a new teacher, but shows potential to be good" so I suppose that passes as some type of encouragement?) There is also lots of things that are done in ways I am not used to or that dont seem like the most logical or efficient... For example, last Friday, I was supposed to go to a weekend new teacher training, and had submitted all of my forms and paperwork to be registered and approved. However, at the last minute(Thursday) the schools central office called our buildings office and said they wanted the three new teachers that signed up to stay local and go to the mcdowell county in service day. I obliged and went to our schools in service, but then a week afterwards got the form back in the mail approving my mileage request for traveling to the training outside the county. But anyways, this week that is just ending was a VERY long one, and a VERY eventful one as we had all of our grades for the second quarter due today by the end of the day, I had my first quarter observation, and we also had a volleyball game monday, tuesday, wednesday, and last night, which meant I left for school at 7:00 each morning and returned home between 10:: and 11:00 each night. So enough of that and me griping about how crazy everything is, I will write about how school is in the next section and write about how volleyball is in the last section...
School has been going fairly well, it is always one ridiculous thing after another, but we are moving along pretty well. I have tried some things that have worked out really well, and also some things that have not worked at all, but either way, I am learning more things more quickly than at any time in my life(both learning from seeing and doing things the right way, and from seeing things done completely the wrong way). My twentieth century history class is currently studying WWI, and I got really excited today when I realized veterans day will most likely line up with the end of our study on the war. We also watched the movie flyboys, which is about pilots volunteering to go overseas for WWI, and it is very good, and does a great job of showing the fighting during WWI. My psychology class just finished learning about child development, and we did a project where they had to take the chapter on child development and turn it into their own book on child development complete with a cover, foreward, table of contents, glossary, etc. It seemed to go over really well, and im hoping it is something that will help them learn and understand the content more than if they just read it. Next week we move towards old age and death, so it should be a fun time. My third class is the travel West Virginia class. This is proving to be the most difficult of the three, especially since a majority of the students are unmotivated and I have no idea what materials to cover in it. Recently, I had been focusing on poverty, and trying to get them to understand the situation in their area, so that they can go out and make an impact. I know that they heard what I was trying to tell them, but it was one of those situations where they were not necessarily super receptive. Next week I am going to try to figure out a way to get them thinking about making a difference in whatever path they choose. If anyone has suggestions or could think of any topics on the state of WV that would be good to study, please let me know, and we will try to use them! That is pretty much my classes, they are all very large(25+ kids) and the amount of resources/foundation we have to work on is not what you would expect in a school system, but I know we are making progress and accomplishing something, and that is the biggest thing. I am constantly trying to improve my teaching and come up with better methods/ideas, and also trying to get my students to constantly push themselves to be better. All of our grades for the second quarter(1st nine weeks for those of you used to that system) were due today and report cards go home on Monday. This made for an extremely long week, especially today trying to get everything caught up and finalized, and having no time to put grades in because of spending so much time with volleyball all week. However, it also means a new start for the upcoming week, as the beginning of a new grading period feels like a fresh start and is similar to starting a new unit as a student in the sense that you have everything new and dont have to turn in your final product(in this case grades) for several weeks. Things in the class room will also slow down as the volleyball season wraps up, because I will have that extra 2+ hours each day to do work after school once practice/games are over. This will also make entering grades easier, because I will better be able to keep them up as we go instead of doing them all at the last minute. It will also give me more time to do lesson plans, and plan for the three seperate subjects, which has been completely insane. Bottom line, this semester could possibly end up being the most challenging and "whelming" of my life, but im still standing(or right now sitting), so there is nothing else I could be expected to face that I cant handle. Now on to volleyball...
Our season has been moving right along, and as I have mentioned several times this past week was the most full and hectic one of the whole season. The team has continued to work hard and really come together and improve, and this week for the first time, I saw us play as a volleyball team that believed in what it could do instead of a group of girls who were on the court playing a game. We have made huge strides, especially at the varsity level. My players have started trying to block and hit, their passing has greatly improved, their defense has come about a million miles, and we no longer go back to the serving line pretty much guranteed to miss at least 1/2 of the serves. A majority of our team is underclassmen(jrs and sophomores) and the potential some of them have is unreal. This is the ending part of our season, but they seem to be peaking at the right time. I am finding myself having to say less and less as a coach as my players begin to see the game better. This is a nice thing because it allows me to just sit back and not have to constantly instruct on every play. Last Wednesday we had senior night, and we played a team that had previously beaten us. We ended up winning three games to zero, which was a great confidence booster since it was only our third win of the season(we are 3-17 now!) and because they are one of the teams in our section. Last night we played against Big Creek(the school we are combining with), and it was the longest night ever. It was the night of their homecoming parade, and so the start time of the game was pushed back to 8:00. I also had to sit through all of the traffic from the parade and accidently passed up the school and then couldnt turn around because they had the road blocked for the parade, and ended up having to park up the hill from the school at a funeral home and run down the hill to the school. We ended up losing the JV match, and then came out and won the first varsity match, but we ended up losing varsity 3-1. It was kind of frustrating because the official we had is very ignorant of the game of volleyball, but is also very stubborn and tries to screw over anyone who disputes anything he says. He started calling every one of our sets a carry or lift even if they were clean sets(not all of them were, but enough that it was extremely frustrating). This completely took our players out of the game mentally, and resulted in us losing the next two games as well. They are one of the other teams in our section, and we face them for the play-in game for the section tournament on Tuesday, with different officials, so we will see what happens. We also have a JV tournament tomorrow morning, and then the JV season will be over for the year. We have varsity practice on Monday, and then the sectional playoffs on Tuesday(which we get out of school at 2:00 for WOO HOO!!!) Depending how we do on Tuesday, it could mark the end of our season, or we could move on to regionals, but we will find out shortly... I will post a end of season update on here for all of our fans!!! haha! We also get to be featured in the October student activity this coming Thursday as it will be a staff/students vs. the girls volleyball team game in front of the whole student body. I also get to participate, but on the girls team instead of the faculty one. It should be a good time! Pretty much I feel the same way about volleyball that I have felt about the school year, I am really enjoying it and feel like I have gotten a lot accomplished, but there is also a lot that I have not done yet that I want to see happen, especially with the organization and structure of volleyball in this area, but those are things that cant happen instantly I suppose. There is definitely some potential for great volleyball in this area, it is just a matter of time until something happens with it... As promised, here are some pictures.
Thanks for reading harvesting hopes copyright 1985-2009 Harvesting Hopes Industries. The things contained in this blog are the thoughts of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views of harvesting hopes industries. No materials from this post should be reproduced or used in any way without the expressed written consent of Major League Baseball...
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Posted by got0465 on 2009-10-30 21:46:29 | Rating: | Views: 60
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