~Life's Minor Frustrations
2005-10-20 - 7:30 a.m.

Yesterday during my APT (allocated planning time) I visited Peggy for some planning help. As I've made perfectly clear, I spend a lot of time trying to improve my planning for teaching. It was decided last week that Peggy would be available for teachers in our Unit during our APT for if we needed any extra help with the planning. I intended to take her up on this because I want to get better at planning rich (i.e. enriching) follow-up activities for the students' guided reading (group reading with a teacher) texts.

When I got there, Peggy and the Principal were there discussing things. I had brought three texts and explained to Peggy what I wanted: For her to look at them and list maybe five activities that could be done for each of them but could also be done with other books, to get me jump-started, to show me more clearly how it's done, because I tend to spend far too long coming up with good ideas.

And this is where Peggy has begun to frustrate me this year: I asked for something quite specific and explained why, and Peggy begins to tell me what I should be doing for something not quite what I'd asked. In this case, she started spurting out these general things such as "look at the text and think about what you're trying to get from them" and "use the Thinker's Keys". I persevered a bit, explaining what I wanted to get from the texts (e.g. characterisation, narrative structure, comprehension), trying to be very explicit with what I wanted, but feeling a bit frustrated.

All praise the Principal! The next thing I knew, she'd picked up one of the books and started giving me examples of things I could do with the text, saying "I know what you mean." She was suggesting things like (pointing to someone in one of the pictures) "What would he say if he was writing a letter home to his mother? Write that letter." Things that showed me a concrete example using the text, but were also general enough to be used on other books, once I'd realised how to use them. She went to so say a few more things that explained to Peggy what it was that I needed - that it wasn't enough to know these kinds of activities (which I do), I was asking for help applying them, that it wasn't easy until you'd had a model and some practise. By the end of it, I'd walked away with a few ideas and a promise from Peggy to take one of the books and come up with some more ideas for me.

I felt a little bit as if I'd been put through the ringer, but I was relieved! Sometimes it's worse having the principal nearby when you're asking for advice, but we really do have a lovely principal and, in this case, I think I would've left Peggy's office feeling royally stupid if she hadn't been there. It's not that Peggy means to make poor, over-sensitive me feel inadequate, it's just that this year, the way she says things, makes me feel as if I'm asking things that I should already know. Well, I was, so thank goodness for the Principal, who saw that it wasn't the knowing I was having trouble with, it was the seeing the possibilities for a book and applying them. I'm so sick of being in the classroom!

P.S. Woke up with a sore throat this morning. A large part of me is thinking "Damn, I don't wanna get sick." Another part is thinking, "Yayyyy a day off!"