Herman Wood

Another stroll....

Next week is conference week.  In my first year, I only had a few parent conferences, but I remember not being very well prepared for my first.  I think the only thing I carried in was my grade book!  That's not very much help for a parent trying to figure out what their child needs help with.  I'm very glad we are doing more formative assessments now!

25 Years

This week marks 25 years of service in the district for me.  It seems like it was only yesterday that I sat down in Grace Calhoun's office for an interview fresh out of Gail McBride's classroom at Clark Central in Athens, where I had student taught.  Thanks to my future Mother in law's charm with Mr. Tony Melton, then Principal at Dodgen, I was granted an interview and hired for a position at Dodgen.  I finished up the school year for a teacher who moved, but with no prospect of keeping that position for the next school year (partial year contracts give no security for the next school year, and there was a teacher surplus!).

I remember being anxious about that first day, because I still feel it when I've been off for a few days.  It's a real sense of excitement I feel while working to get ready for the students to return, even though my interactions with them are less frequent now.

Getting ready was certainly different then!  Everything was on paper!  There were only a few Apple II computers in a small "lab" off the 7th grade pod.  I used them primarily for my gradebook (a DOS program I had written myself in college).  Unfortunately, I don't remember my students ever being able to use them.

Thanks for indulging my stroll down memory lane.  As I'd really like to continue my stroll with future posts, I'll set up a category called reflecting.  Perhaps it will be something useful for our new hires.