That was the easy stuff

So it turns out that the mess in my room proved to be much easier to deal with than my next job.  First, let me say that I work with the most outstanding group of teachers. They create outstanding learning environments for our students and I am blessed to work along side them. Our classroom teachers have been teaching science in their own classrooms. This curriculum was based on thematic units through our Language Arts curriculum and the older science standards. As we moved ahead with plans for the STEM lab we decided to base our program on the new science standards just released by the National Science Teachers Association. We still wanted to have connections to our Language Arts curriculum as well as maintain some of the units that were traditionally taught in certain grade levels. I am sure that you see by now how complicated that was going to be.

Well, after many hours pouring over lots of documents and information, I was no where. I had no idea how we were possibly going to make this work. As a result we contacted a classroom teacher from each grade level and asked them to meet with me one on one. Even though it was summer they were more than willing to come to school and meet with me. With their great ideas and a willingness to be flexible we came up with some outstanding units of study. There is absolutely no way I could have done it without them.

You know the saying "it takes a village to raise a child". Well, it takes a group of teachers to create a dynamic and engaging STEM curriculum too. Our students arrive on Wednesday and I can honestly say that in my twelve years of teaching I have never been more excited.