"For me, coming back to school means..."

INSANITY!

Whew! I've had a rough couple of weeks... there was school situation drama, then more drama, then a quick and easy solution and then even more drama! CRAZY! I'm anxious to see what the next few weeks bring. I wrote up a kid for the first time EVER last week, which kinda made me sad, but in a way made me feel like there was hope... Most of my discipline books say "removal is the best strategy" but I don't have anywhere to "remove" the kids to! (Sorry, English people. I know I ended that with a preposition.) We'll see if it makes a difference this week...

Anyway.. Today was an in-service day and it was AWESOME. I don't usually say that, but seriously: I really and thoroughly enjoyed being with my colleagues for the whole day. PLUS, our clinicians were amazing AND I actually got a little bit of time to fellowship with OTHER fine arts/choir/band/theater/art people! I've been feeling kind of lonely all year since I'm the only "fine arts" person on my campus and haven't been able (or haven't scheduled, rather) to observe or go to a convention since July. That's a LONG time for me to go without "learning from others!"

Speaking of learning... our session today was based on the book, "Teaching With Your Strengths" which has you take a Gallup poll before you read it. The poll spits out your top five strengths and then as you read the book you basically learn how to use your strengths to your advantage rather than try to build upon your weaknesses. It's a phenomenal book, and I learned a LOT about my colleagues today.

What are your top five, you ask? Well, it won't be any surprise to those of you who actually know me but here ya go:

Ideation
Discipline
Communication
Learner
Focus

Basically, I'm the most structured, organized, focused thinker/idea machine you can find out of at least 10,000 people... Not that any of you really needed a book and statistically sound poll to tell you that about me.

But I digress...

In-service was awesome, and I expect to go back to school totally pumped up tomorrow. (I just hope I get to teach people rather than a bunch of crazy rabid hyenas wearing kid costumes...)

Finally, I want to apologize for not telling you more about Bobby's work stories. Most of them I can't post on the internet and the others, well... I'll just let him tell you all about them the next time he sees you. =)

Until next time, Blog family...

~KP