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I made it through today! I gotta tell you, it was excruciating. Having to sit there for hours on end and listen to someone talk was just… guh. I did not want to be there. None of us did. We were like the kids, wiggly and inattentive and when it hit 3:00, we just could not focus any more. Mercifully, they let us go at 3:15, a whole ten minutes early! I felt bad for the presenter, who was honestly very good and presented a lot of valuable things, but it was just the wrong day for an in-service.
Plus, the whole thing made me feel kind of bad. I’ve been going to math training all year, and I’ve been trying to incorporate the strategies and number talks and everything, but this in-service just seemed to highlight how much I’m failing. My students can do the work–sort of, most of the time–but they aren’t flexible in their thinking. I mean, they were showing videos of kids doing problems like 26 + 49 in their heads, saying things like, “I know 20+40 equals 60 and 6 + 9 equals 15 and 60 + 15 is 75, so 6 + 49 is 75.”
I don’t think my kids can do that. Not in their heads. And I know they don’t know what the equal sign means. I haven’t taught open number lines (I didn’t know what an open number line was), they can add ten without counting up 10 ones, and…… and on and on. I fell like I haven’t taught anything this year, or, what I have taught, I’ve taught all wrong.
Luckily, I’m to excited about winter break to let it cast too much of a pall over me. I mean, I’ll just have to do better when I get back. Just because we’re working on subtraction now doesn’t mean I can’t go back and do addition number talks with them for a few minutes every day. It’ll be okay. And, I’ll make a vow to start strong next year.
In the meantime, IT’S WINTER BREAK!!!!!
Plus, the whole thing made me feel kind of bad. I’ve been going to math training all year, and I’ve been trying to incorporate the strategies and number talks and everything, but this in-service just seemed to highlight how much I’m failing. My students can do the work–sort of, most of the time–but they aren’t flexible in their thinking. I mean, they were showing videos of kids doing problems like 26 + 49 in their heads, saying things like, “I know 20+40 equals 60 and 6 + 9 equals 15 and 60 + 15 is 75, so 6 + 49 is 75.”
I don’t think my kids can do that. Not in their heads. And I know they don’t know what the equal sign means. I haven’t taught open number lines (I didn’t know what an open number line was), they can add ten without counting up 10 ones, and…… and on and on. I fell like I haven’t taught anything this year, or, what I have taught, I’ve taught all wrong.
Luckily, I’m to excited about winter break to let it cast too much of a pall over me. I mean, I’ll just have to do better when I get back. Just because we’re working on subtraction now doesn’t mean I can’t go back and do addition number talks with them for a few minutes every day. It’ll be okay. And, I’ll make a vow to start strong next year.
In the meantime, IT’S WINTER BREAK!!!!!
