Looking Forward and Backward
September is a great time of year for me. It is when I start back to work as a teacher and I get to plan for my school year. I get excited and energized planning out new classes and units. While I do use ‘tried and tested’ projects, I have found that I also like to innovate and change things up regularly. For example, in my art classes I rarely use the same projects from one year to the next. Rather, I will rotate them on a three to five year cycle. “Why?” you ask. Sometimes it is because I like to do new things and want to see new ideas coming out of the students I work with. More often, it is because I like to teach to the people I have in front of me. I will spend some time getting to know my students and then design projects to suit their interests and needs. Over the almost twenty years (!) I have been teaching, this has led to a ‘cabinet full of projects’. I can share an example with you from last semester. When I had just wrapped up a unit and the news broke of Notre-Dame sustaining damage from a major fire, I changed my upcoming unit plan to one about creating Rose Windows and stain glass design. The students were instantly engaged because they had followed the story and it was relevant to them. This was a project I had not done with a class for over ten years.
September is also the time when I can reflect back on my summer and the things I have accomplished. And let me just say “whew!” I had a busy summer and accomplished so many things. I set out to focus on my painting and art and really build up the business more. And that is where this website comes in! It was quite a journey to learn all about buying a domain name and setting up a website. But I have had fun and am happy with the result. Now I hope to add to the site regularly. This summer was mostly about the painting. That is where my focus really needed to be. I would like to do a blog post in the future that explains where the inspiration came from but for now I am looking forward to this fall and building up what I can in between teaching my great classes!
Part of my planning process involves bullet journaling. Here is a video of how I set up my bullet journal for the school year. I like to do this to give me a sense of calm for the year ahead. I don’t have to stress or get concerned about not being able to access the information because I have it all written down. I was thinking I might also write a blog post about why I started bullet journaling in the first place. So stay tuned!
Thanks!