Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Need Some Serious Schooling

Short post, busy day into busy night. I just got off the phone with one of my summer school kids. Yes, it's after 9 pm but it goes without saying that when you see an opportunity you take it. In the past 24 hours two real chances to put my $$$ where my mouth is. Chance #1 was yesterday after working the whole day, not just the 9-12pm that I thought I would be working each day on this class did I realize that I had really screwed up.

24 times on 24 separate reports I included a major, major typo on the report I sent to every student, their parent, their school, my online boss. Nice 1st impression.

It's not that I didn't read what I wrote, it's just much like this blog and anything I seem to write, I tend to get sidetracked/hurried and not be careful. Enough said belaboring the point but it's a major note to self for the need to reread, read it out loud if necessary, and always run spellcheck an additional time.

It's not like at my ripe old age I can't learn to be the literate person I want to be thought of as teaching your kid.

2nd chance came this am when this morning with someone in the class. I have been talking with him daily to get started on this class. I am super inspired by his risk taking to ask for help when everything about him says otherwise. My entire class is repeating Civics before taking a required to graduate state exam. Almost all are from a inner city school district where motivation and payoff are key to getting and keeping student attention. Each day I feel like their biggest cheerleader which feels amazing and a selling point to do this beyond the summer commitment.

2 comments:

Beth said...

Sounds like you need a professional proofreader! Does Bill ever proof your stuff? I can't tell you how many times I've missed typos and errors, and I proof read for a living! LOL. An extra set of eyes is a must. But in the end, it's never as big of a deal as we think it is. Glad that despite the work load, you are getting personal satisfaction from this class. So this is the on-line class? For high school kids? I assumed the class was college-level or community ed. That's awesome!

HeatherV said...

Bill was editor of his paper in HS so I get MUCH grief about anything (even texts) to the pt I'm paranoid.

But, this was a major wake up call since online I'm only words. This is really different and I love having repeaters to encourage if that makes sense. Plus more time with the kids!!!