March 2011 Newsletter

This month’s nugget of wisdom is about thinking things through before you do something you will regret later.  This article is based on a true story!

One day, a teacher was frustrated with one of her students.  His name was Jimmy Zimmerman (not really).  The teacher was so frustrated by Jimmy’s disrespect and attitude that she sent him to the office to be disciplined by the Assistant Principal.  The AP gave Jimmy a day of In-School Suspension, and asked the teacher to gather some work for Jimmy to do the next day.

The teacher, still frustrated with Jimmy, decided to email all of his teachers so they could also send work for Jimmy to do in ISS.  She didn’t know Jimmy’s schedule, so she thought it wouldn’t be a problem if she emailed the entire staff, but put Jimmy’s name in the “subject” line so that people who didn’t have Jimmy in class could ignore the email.

She wrote the email, then (while still frustrated) put “Jimmy Zimmerman is a jerk” as the subject line of the email.  She didn’t think anything of it, since the email was just going to her teaching colleagues (many of them were as frustrated with Jimmy’s behavior as she was).

The only problem with her plan is that she forgot all teachers in the building utilized smartboards….and that everyone in the school had the cool feature where the email (with the sender’s name and subject line) pops up on the computer screen whenever a new email is delivered.  So, to make a long story short….this led to an embarrassing situation for the teacher.  Every student in the school got to see how the teacher really felt about Jimmy Zimmerman.  The teacher also got to see how upset Jimmy’s parents (and the Principal) were about her actions.

All of this drama could have been avoided if the teacher had thought before she sent that email.  When she hit “send” she took all of the focus off of Jimmy Zimmerman’s terrible behavior and put it on herself.  Every time Jimmy acts foolishly in the teacher’s class, Jimmy can just use the excuse that the “teacher doesn’t like me”, and his parents will believe the story!  What a terrible situation for the teacher to be in…and it all could have been avoided.

Have you checked out my “Common Core State Standards” on Facebook yet?  I have put all of the CCSS on Facebook through the use of “fan pages”.  If you teach 2^nd Grade Math, just type “CCSS 2^nd Grade Math” in your Facebook search bar to access the page.  Hit the “Info” tab to see a listing of all of the standards for 2^nd Grade Math.  Hit the “Wall” tab to see a huge collection of educational videos, curriculum maps, free downloadable lesson plans, and links to cool websites to help you teach each standard!  The other categories are “Speaking & Listening”, “Language”, “Reading”, “Foundational Skills”, “Literature”, “Reading for History/Science”, and “Writing for History/Science”.