November-Overwhelmed-Rachel Platten

By the end of October, I was starting to realize how much I had to do and how little time I had each day to actually get things done.  Needless to say, I got really overwhelmed.  So much so that I ended up making a mind map to help me keep track of all of the things I needed to do.  To give you some context, this list was for about a two week time period.  Here are some of the things that kept me busy:

my lunch once a week-today's topping=salsa

Serving on the Superintendent's Commission on School Lunch and Nutrition Programs.  This committee has been very interesting.  Each week we meet during lunch to have school lunch.  Most of the time I have to have lettuce with random toppings because most school lunches are not gluten free.
  


I was part of an accreditation team who visited Flathead High School to determine whether or not they should receive state accreditation.  It was so fun to visit another school and see how they do things and bring back ideas for Bozeman High.  We also had to complete 10+ hours of online training and meetings in order to participate in the trip.  Flathead had such a great school climate and culture, hopefully we can implement some ideas at BHS.

online training

eating lunch and working on the accreditation report

 

Flathead had an amazing sense of community and school spirit

 



Since I'm in charge of technology at BHS, I attended a STEM Mentor Summit.  The goal of this event was to inspire more women to explore STEM fields and the information was pretty interesting.  I thought back to the Intro to Engineering class I visited in September in which there were four girls compared to about 24 boys.

 


In my spare time, I was also preparing to present and participate at the annual National Council for Social Studies conference in New Orleans.
          

And there are always more books coming in.  Not only are we still receiving new books to hand out to students (in November!!) but also by this time some students are moving or dropping and new students are always coming in so I'm still dealing with books for a least a little while each week.  I started to jokingly say that by the time I get everyone a book, it will be second semester and time to check in the first semester books and check out second semester books so it will start all over.








Of course I was still getting into as many classrooms as possible each day, here are some highlights from those visits:


 Practicing vocabulary and conversational language skills by creating sentences about their families in French classes.

Playing Financial Fued, a Family Fued type game, in Personal Finance.  This class offers so much important information for students it's sad to think it's just an elective and not every student will gain this important knowledge about budgeting, checking accounts, retirement planning, credit cards, and investments.  This class was a good reminder that sometimes the best thing to do is just laugh with your students.  I ended up laughing to hard I had to leave the room!

World Geography students were participating in a role playing simulation dealing with immigration.  Each student was either an immigrant, or an immigration officer and it was interesting to see them interact as they acted out their roles and determined who was allowed into the country based on refugee status.


Students in a U.S. history class had created patriotic displays as part of their recent unit on American historical culture.



I especially liked this one created in Minecraft






The Intro to Teaching class was visited by Lieutenant Governor Angela McLean who was a former social studies teacher.  I was so impressed by the questions the students asked.



These Spanish II classes were in the middle of an art unit.  Each student had selected a piece of art and was explaining the history and background of the piece, describing the piece, and explaining how it made them feel-all in Spanish!  Students took notes as they learned about different pieces of art in small groups.


 

One day I was walking down the hall on the way back to my office (after delivering books) and I heard a lot of activity from a science classroom.  It looked and sounded fun so I poked my head in and saw Biology students building glucose molecules.  I ended up staying and joining in the class as they discussed glucose and diabetes.
 


These German students were participating in several stations to help them practice and assess their language skills.  Each station had a different focus and students were actively engaged all period.  I even got to join in the Bingo game, thanks to Google translate on my phone :)

 




With all of this going on, I try to remind myself it's still important to take time for the little things and a few laughs.  Here is a piece of the Bozeman High professional art collection that I enjoy seeing outside my office.  And here I am with the photo teacher as we competed in a rap-off skit for a Hawk tv segment.

 


And when fire alarms keep going off all day, I am now expected to know how to deal with that.  There are always so many things to learn!!