Still learning...

I think I have to resign myself to the fact that I am never going to be a regular blogger during the week. Especially by the end of the week when the majority of my lessons are timetabled, I come home so tired it's enough to actually be bothered to cook dinner and load the dishwasher, let alone scrap and blog about it. But one blog post a week is better than nothing, and I need to share most of last week's lessons.

First up is a lesson I think everyone should have in their book, because it's one that I think too many of us (certainly the kids I teach) forget. I was reminded last Tuesday that I am valued for my contribution at school and my work, no matter how often I am overly critical of myself. There is always room for self evaluation, but you should never underestimate your value. If you don't believe in yourself and your capabilities, noone else will.



The lesson for last Wednesday was a reminder to myself for the rest of the year. My Wednesdays are absolutely manic - I teach every period of the day, in lots of different rooms and from year 7 to year 12. It can be really hard to keep track of what you are doing - planning is absolutely essential for these days and I will have to get used to spending Tuesday evenings getting ready for it.



Day 16 is about a lesson when I felt totally out of control - I hadn't felt so frustrated with a class (not just an individual pupil like last week) for about 4 years, even more surprising because they were year 7. I was a bit shell-shocked, and it inspired one of those dreams at the weekend when you wake up crying. (Bizzarrely in the dream, the kids had run riot in the classroom and broken my bedroom mirror. God knows what my bedroom mirror was doing in the classroom, but that's dreams for you!)



Day Seventeen is about sometimes forcing yourself to make the effort to go out and socialise, even when you are knackered and feel like vegetating in front of the TV. It was a friend from work's birthday and she had organised drinks at a local pub. I ended up having a nice evening, and was glad I had got myself into gear and gone out in the end, even though my eyes were a bit droopy all night!



Saturday was a very frustrating day. I have been doing a Developing Leaders course for the last two years, and the last assignment is due in this Friday. A 4000 word assignment. You can't just conjure one of them out of thin air! So I had to give up most of my Saturday to write it, and I wasn't happy to say the least. But I got on a did it, and have so far managed about 3300 words. Just a few finishing touches to put together during the week before I submit it in a few days. My lesson was that however much you want to, you can't leave an essay to the last minute - there is no way I'd have been wanting to write this on Thursday night!



Finally, we have my page for yesterday. Apart from a trip to the supermarket, I spent quite a lazy Sunday catching up on some scrapping, while Ed cooked a gorgeous roast dinner. He really is good at cooking a roast, and it really made for a lovely Sunday evening when I normally get the Sunday blues really badly.



So, all caught up again. I'll probably try to do today's page this evening, but after that we'll see...