Is it too early to tell?

Well, shoot!

Everything is going really well in Room 312: the room with a first-year teacher in the confident body of a fifth-year teacher.

I have an AMAZING cluster, who eats lunch together everyday. While the specialty cluster (as much as I love them), didn't spend much time together outside of our meeting schedule, and being spread throughout the building certainly didn't help that feeling of isolation.

My partners in crime/fellow ELA teachers, Sharon and Nicole, make me feel like I know what I'm doing! And while I go into each class with new material I've only previewed on my own, when I use it in instruction I feel like, hey---maybe I'm supposed to be a teacher!!!

Teaching ELA is fresh, exciting, and fulfilling. I feel like I'm seeing my students from an entirely new perspective. In specialty I got a version of the students sitting in front of me today. My ELA students clearly come from a background trained in ELA techniques, strategies, and concepts. Theatre Arts students were somehow wilder, freer, uninhibited by what is and isn't ok in acting class.

Once again I am faced with the challenge of 2 performances this year: a december touring musical, and another talent show. I've already had students begging for info on the talent show, which makes me think we did the right thing last year.

I'm also attempting to add a bit of cultural education to our 7th graders. At our first cluster meeting I suggested we organize monthly meetings for the students with guest speakers. Anyone out there in the interweb with ideas for adults who could be: role models, share experience, inform (entertainingly), or teach our students something they don't get during the school day? I'd love your feedback. I've already gotten some ideas, but you can never have enough!