Just another day in paradise....

Today I finally acted on the decision I made last Saturday. First of all, I used cohersion and manipulation, but it worked, so I think I'll utilize it more often (;o). I told my teaching partner I had made a decision and that was that she would be teaching 6th grade again with me again next year. That was a LONG shot based on her talk up through this point.....but hey, it worked! She told me on Saturday she had decided she wanted to do it one more year....how about that?!?!? It should be fun, it'll be the first year we will both get to do the same thing we did the year before (then again, this won't be the first time I thought that was going to be the case, but the one word I had to add DAILY to my job (and I'm sure I'm not alone) is FLEXIBILITY! I knew I would stay if she stayed....you can't replace great co-workers....Today I FINALLY wrote the email I figured I was going to write anyway, regardless of what Sonia decided to do, and I 'retracted' my application for the Campus Reading Specialist position. I sugar coated it, and I got a nicely sugar-coated email in return....so I think all is well....I guess I'll see how that works if I decide to apply once again for the position! So it's officialy....I'm a sixth grade teacher....it'll be my 6th year....that's two sixes.....I'm going to worry if I think about a way to add a third six to that.....though if it were something like a 'six figure' salary, I'd probably get over the creapiness of triple 6's. A few things to look forward to, we are going to a week training in Austin this summer to implement this new program that tries to put 'blue collar" (the only summary phrase I can think of without turning this into a disertation) families with kids on the college bound path....the ones that slip through the cracks. They have the program in JR high and now HS, and now we are piloting the elementary level program, which I'm REALLY excited about. Beyond that I'm also working with the SS department, which I'm always pumped and happy to do.....I'm presenting two workshops this summer (yet to be written or planned).....they had six dates for me.....I negotiated down to 2, and I'm working on writing some sixth grade SS curriculum to align with the new reading program. It's been the 'forgotten' subject this year for a lot of campuses with a reading, math, science and writing state test.....social studies is the only one not 'tested' in school....just in life.....so we will see what we can do. The name of the workshops are "Social Studies in Five Minutes".....the problem is....everybody doesn't necessarily speed talk like I do....so even teaching short meaningful lessons, maybe I should make it ten. It should be an interesting year to say the least....but it's one less decision to make....now I can work on the life altering decisions I've put on the backburner, like, where I'm going on my summer vacation :O).