...and so it goes.

I just finished my first round of real life Student Led Conferences.

Not the ones where I was just a student teacher observing. No. These were my students sharing work that I gave them. These were students that I see every single day sharing the goals I helped them write.

It was one of the most unexpected experiences I've ever had.

I am so lucky to be where I am this year. I'm teaching 6th grade Social Studies at Stewart Middle School in the Tacoma School District. It's one of the SIG schools in TPSD. They lost about 80% (if not more) of their staff to displacements last year and have completely restructured the school.

The principal for Tacoma's School of the Arts (SOTA) and brand new high school the Science and Math Institute (SAMI) had an incredible vision for a middle school that went along with the SOTA and SAMI model. Thus was born Stewart STEAM school.

We have a heavy focus on science, technology, engineering, art, and math. Our goal is to use these outlets of education to help foster not only improved test scores, but more readiness when it comes to the future. The work has been incredible so far.

Many of us on the teaching staff this year are first year teachers, and most of us have been teaching five years or less. We have a wonderful team that uses collaboration like I've never seen it used before. I've taught many classes with another teacher where we've combined our students into one room and team-taught, and the entire 6th grade humanities (language arts and social studies) team is working on a School Building of the Future where students design a school that best suits student needs and focuses on how they affect the environment. This project integrates social studies issues (environment, needs of people, interaction), math (scale drawing, scale building), technology (computer programs, educational technology), language arts (writing, public speaking), art (physical representations), and architecture (they actually build their buildings!). Working with an entire team on a single project has been both overwhelming and awe-inspiring.

Another way we're going to collaborate, a way that I'm extremely excited about, is during our January Mini-terms. In January, we'll get three weeks to teach a collaborative lesson with another teacher (or two) with only 15 students per teacher. We'll see the same kids for three weeks, all day every day, and put our efforts into a project (which will be displayed Down Town Tacoma for those who are interested!).

I'm so excited about everything we're doing that I want to spill it all onto the keyboard and explode with all the knowledge I want to endow you with! But I'm starting to realize that for the non-teacher, this particular blog is really not that interesting.

In fact, it's probably interesting only to me.

I'd love to share more about my mini-term (Discussions on the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years War and Hamburger Hill during Vietnam-- and the art, literature, media, and theater that came from it!) in a later blog. I'm very excited to work with the drama teacher on that effort.

Please bare with me as I post these long, rambling blogs... it's been two months since I've been teaching and I have so much to share!