Beware of Mr. Stanley

Today was a good day. I love knowing how to do what I do well. It makes for a great level of comfort when people randomly stop into my classroom unannounced. Today was that day apparently. Three parents stopped by today and my students are always busy with a task. I leave very little room for down or play time. Today when the parents walked in, the kids were busy making posters that would be use to teach the different operations you do with decimals (addition, subtraction, etc). It was a great way to show the parents that we are about the business. One of my parents I have actually known for the past 4 years and had no idea I was teaching her son. We worked together at Vanderbilt. I also had a chance to speak with a number of parents last night. My boys work hard and they have involved parents who were delighted that I even took the time to call them.

In the past two days I have gotten two new students, taking my class size up to 13. Its apparent that I do not have to orient new students because my old students beat me to it. Thats the joy about having set classroom procedures. Expectations are easily recognized and reachable. Part of this "new orientation" my students give is to explain how strict I am and how much work we do. As I explained to the parents, we work hard in class and we have homework nightly and on weekends. While I do realize how tough that seems, I wish my teachers in the past hadn't let up on the work they assigned. My Senior English teacher was the only teacher who really made us work hard so when I got to Vanderbilt I was not prepared for the workload. I want my boys to be able to attend any University and feel just as at ease as some of the colleagues I had at Vanderbilt felt when they attended.