Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Teacher Inservice - Need Therapy

Teacher training is not the way I would choose to put an end to a good school year.  Stuck in a small classroom with a laptop running on battery and trying to finish as much grading as possible while working on the umpteenth redundant revision of the scope and sequence using committee-approved verbage to please the accreditation team that will show up next year.  So for the last two days, the closest I've come to satisfying handwork is the progress on the socks I'm knitting for Steve.  Those are small enough to take along to inservice, and I had Knit Night last night. 

I'll need a lot more needlework, though, to recover from the trauma of trying to decide whether "The student will be able to identify and describe the major characters and events of Roman history" would fit better under "Information to Recall" or "Concepts to Explain" -- or perhaps it should be reworded entirely and filed under "Perspectives to Adopt."  And just between you and me and the internet, I have substantial doubts about whether the Harkness Method of discussion would be ideal or even adequate to convey Latin grammar rules to middle school students.  I can maybe try an open-ended discussion, but somehow... yeah.  Is lecture really that bad a word?
Meanwhile, I have two quilts that are calling to me.  The first is the Framed In Quilt I've been working on.  The blocks went together incredibly quickly and I was able to piece the body together over the weekend.  Now I'm adding a narrow white border and I'll plan to add a scrappy border and another final border before quilting it.
And I'm putting the binding on my Shirt Stripe Boxes quilt.  It's very comforting and therapeutic to see the finished edge grow slowly, while I watch or listen to tv.  Should be a finished object soon.

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