Hey Everyone!
Welcome to my blog! I am super excited to be joining the amazing community of educators who share their experiences online. Hopefully I can learn along the way and really turn this into something good.
So the first things first, let me introduce myself. I am a middle school math teacher (as the title suggests). More specifically I teach 8th grade math and Pre-AP Algebra 1 in Texas. I just finished my second year working with the most amazing group of teachers and students and I feel like I am really coming into my own in my classroom. A large part of my first two years has been learning from the teachers who share online. It is my goal to maybe help some other teacher just by sharing what I have been through and what I go through next year. I will share more about myself through other posts in the future.
I find most of my blogs through Pinterest and what attracts me most to the things I click on is color but something I notice ( and please please please correct me if I am wrong) is that the majority of those sites are focused on elementary grades. (Observation about 8th graders: they are elementary minded with the hormones and attitudes of high schoolers... they are inbetweeners in every way). I feel like there are very few techniques used in elementary classrooms that cannot be adapted to work in a middle school classroom. The hesitation is that the students will feel that the classroom is "baby-ish" so we cut out the fun activities that students loved as recently at 6th and 7th grade. It seems that we equate rigor with lectures and tons of homework... boring math class from back in the day, with the teacher up front working out problems and the students copying them down (if they are still awake). In my class I focus on creating a place that the students want to be in. I try to do activities that the students want to do (Yes, we have had circle up story time in my math classroom) and I have had a huge increase in the amount of students that tell me that math is their favorite class to come to. I will do whatever I need to do to help my students learn and having fun in class is a start.
Walking up and down a typical middle school or junior high campus you are more likely to see the same bulletin all year. You will be lucky to see those amazing teachers that make the environment FUN as well as educational. ( I am NOT saying that the environment is what makes a teacher great because a great teacher can teach in a plain white room. None the less, in my opinion is that environment make a HUGE difference).
So long to sum it up, I am going to be writing about activities to do with middle school students and about a engaging, safe and colorful learning environment (let's all be honest... we live in our classrooms and when they are fun we are happy and when they are drab, well, we aren't). Also, in Texas, we are changing out the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) so 8th grade got a facelift to look a little more like Algebra 1 and I will be writing about that as well.
That was not short and maybe confusing and cluttered but I'm excited so I will take it!
Until next post,
Whitney
