As I am beginning to wrap my mind around going back to school and all that getting back in the classroom entails, I have to admit that I am not jumping for joy. I am working really hard on focusing on what I am looking forward to: seeing my precious students, all the funny interactions that I know are coming, and throwing myself back into American history and literature. I am trying not to think about the getting up early, the grading, and the perpetual correction I know I will have to do. Today as I thought about the coming year, I smiled as I remembered some of simple errors that I have corrected thousands of times on kids' papers especially misspelling "a lot" as "alot". For example, I ate alot of ice cream. This is a very common error and one that drives me CRAZY. I hate when "a lot" is misspelled A LOT. Anyway, when I was a kid someone gave me a little saying to remember the spelling: a lot is a lot of words. So I have this little ditty written on the board at the front of my classroom. While the kids still misspell it, this year I actually had a parent tell me that she saw it on my board and now remembered it whenever she spelled a lot. Maybe her kids will pick it up from her, because they were still misspelling it when they left my class. Oh well. I guess I am looking forward to reentering the educational environment and especially all the relationships with kids and parents that I know will develop over the course of the year.
I have a lot of the same feelings you have about returning to school.
ReplyDeleteI recall a high school bulletin board that said, "a lot is always two words" and I remember it to this day also.
ReplyDeleteSandy - A neighbor to the "little house"