School starts on Monday.
No, no that’s not true. For me, School started several weeks ago when I came in during the Summer to put my lab back together. (The custodial staff needed me to break it down so they could move the desks and wax my floors.)
I found out only recently that many of the students I had last year will also be returning. I met this news with mixed feelings. First, I had some awesome kids last year. There was more than one time that I took student work to my principal and said “This is why I need majors.” Seriously, we’re an Arts Academy. We have dance, drama, visual art, chorus, media production, band, AND orchestra majors – why not computer graphics, too?
That may happen in the future, but for now the red tape is in the way.
Unfortunately, for every student who was absolutely thrilled to have my class there was another who was only there because the Guidance dept. needed to give them an elective.
I don’t fault students for not being thrilled with technology. It’s my passion, it doesn’t have to be everyone’s. I was, however, concerned about credit. There have been two other occasions where I’ve had students put in a class after they had already earned credit. In one case discipline problems were a concern.
But then again, I’ve been assured that if the students couldn’t get credit for taking Technology Concepts a second time the scheduling software wouldn’t have let them into my class.
And it’s not like I’m teaching all the same lessons again, either. As technology and my own skill sets evolve, so do the projects I assign. Granted, some lessons will be repeated – every class starts with students using PowerPoint to introduce themselves to the class – but others were already on the chopping block not because they were old news to the students (I didn’t know I’d have returning students yet), but because they were old news to me.
The media we use will still be the same. Students will still create animations, avatars, wallpapers, posters, and more. I don’t think I’m wrong for repeating those things so long as there’s something new about them. After all, I doubt the chorus majors will be saying “But we sang songs LAST year!”
I just have to keep things interesting, but you know what?
I think I just might be able to do that.