School's Out for the Summer!

So I was a bit late in calling it this year. That's 'cuz I wasn't ready to celebrate until my graduate class ended. But now I shall sing it: "School's out for the summer!"

Well...for the most part. I still have an evening grad class on Thursday. And I still have to go in this week to pack up my classroom. And I still have about 400 standardized tests to grade for the district. Oh, and I have 3 more graduate classes coming my way before August. But yeah, I think I can still celebrate a little. Right?

What a memorable year this has been for me. For some reason, I bonded with this class in a very special way. I got to know all 120 of them more than I ever knew my students before. The highlight of the year was having my first student teacher, who ended up being a superb professional and someone I can now call a friend.

Another huge highlight this year was the fact that my principal nominated me to (and, after an observation, I was selected by) the Pennsylvania Department of Education as an "exemplary master teacher" who consistently uses "best practices" when teaching.

As a result, on May 8th they sent in a camera crew to set up tripods, microphones (including a boom operator), and those reflective umbrellas. And on that day, one class of students and I spent 4 hours together, filming to create a DVD that will apparently be used to teach other teachers in the state how to teach! Yikes!

I was more nervous than ever before, knowing that this performance was more important to my professional career than any student teaching observation or any observation made by an administrator. The PDE is the father of all education in the state! This event was going to make or break me!

And so, after having me sign a talent release form relinquishing any rights to royalties, they strung a mic up through my clothes and interviewed me privately (before I actually began to teach), asking questions about my lesson planning and strategies. And when the class of students entered, I gained strength just from looking out and seeing their familiar faces. I could tell that this time, it was them believing in me. And they were fantastic.

All the fun, generic things happened, as they should on any set worth its salt:

1. I almost fell, tripping over a wire.
   
2. I sweat so profusely that my armpit appears visibly wet in a photograph where I am using large gestures.
   
3. They almost forgot to mute my microphone before I went to the bathroom.
4. I stammered through words periodically and would call for a "Cut!" when I realized the botched sentence I was formulating was non-recoverable.
5. The 7 camera crew men would yell, "Rolling...rolling...ACTION!" at the top of their lungs, as if this was a real, cinematic movie production. As a result, I kept wanting to giggle every time it was time to start! (But don't worry, I didn't!)
   

So will they have a blooper reel? I hope so. But in a month or two, the video will appear online, and in the Fall, there will be a DVD. Maybe it will be a showcase of what NOT to do instead of what to do! Hahaha.

In the end, I decided not to further my movie career. I think I'll just stick with teaching. :-)

But either way, it's a wrap!