Mrs. Evans Blog

"He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8 I hate the song, but I love the Bible verse. I was doing a lot of thinking and praying while on a walk with Chuck tonight. I started out thinking about some of the things that have frustrated us this week at school. We hoped to take the opportunity of splitting schools to really talk about our culture and what is important to us and the unified message we want to send to our students as a whole staff. We didn't have an opportunity to have these conversations as a staff, but I asked myself what three things I wanted to focus on this year. I reflected for all of 10 seconds about what three things I want to send a message to my students when immediately I thought of the above verse from Micah. These three things are what I want to live this year in my classroom. 1. I want to seek justice in every decision that I ...

Well, I've survived the first three years. In the documentary "Saving Superman" (I think that's the title), a teacher says that it took five years for him to really master what he was doing as a teacher. I'm getting closer! I've organized my classroom and spent some time talking with other teachers about this year and what we want to change and do the same. I'm going to try doing in-class problems this year. This is my vision. The lesson (often there will be notes involved) will only take 10-15 minutes. I want to give students the "Important Notes" first. These will be things that are crucial to the day's lesson. If they get stuck later, they should look back at their "Important Notes." Then I want to do just two or three examples. I know that won't allow me to cover every possible case, but then I will have in-class problems that the students will work on while myself and the co-teacher are there to help them that will cove...