Back to school and New Goals

New school year, means a fresh start and of course the creation of goals for the year. For me, this is my first year that I will be teaching in the same school as I was in June. Also it is my first year teaching the same grade and curriculum. With my goals usually being something surrounding me trying to "figure things out" and "stay on my feet", I can now slow down my pace and take a look around. It feels great to be able to look ahead to the whole year, able to picture it, but with that also comes with the awareness of what could be lying around the corner. One of my students said it best when sharing her hopes and fears for the Grade 8 year. She indicated that in Grade 7 she had many fears and hopes since everything was new, but now that she knows about the school and the expectations, they are bigger hopes and even bigger fears. Being aware of what is around the corner, didn't make things easier, just made her more aware of what was to come. 

For me my goals are the following:

1. Remain flexible. Just because I can see beyond the week, doesn't mean that I need to lock myself into any set ideas or plans. A strength I feel I had from my previous years was the idea of things can always change, and I always need to be open to that change.
2. Use my resources more. We have a great Junior school in my building. I hope to go and see how they work through their math curriculum with the students and see what skills I can gain from them. Also I hope to continue reading my RSS feed each sunday which has consistently introduced me to new and creative thinkers. 
3. Fine tune and challenge my Challenge by Choice (Green/Blue/Black) program. Ever since being introduced to it while living in Jakarta by David Suarez, I have adapted it to fit my teaching style, resources and students. Now applying it in the same school, two years in a row, I can really explore and make bigger changes to fit my students.
4. Keep in touch with my online professional community. Last year I was apart of a program geared to help teachers develop a blog. It was the encouragement I needed to do something that was a goal for a while. Now that I am out of the program, I hope to keep up the reflection and communication as best I can. I have changed the site (using blogger) and hope to gain any suggestions.

So here is to a great year. As my roommate on the ship said so well after finishing our first semester, "The first bit we just tried to survive. Now we can truly live the experience". And with living, my buy-in is greater, making the highs even higher.