SIOP

Disclaimer: for those of you who will read this and think, "And I thought she was a professional and great teacher, but this obviously negates all of that," I apologize if it makes you think less of me. But, I just attended two days of THE MOST boring, pointless, repetitive training on the face of the earth. Really. The microphone/sound they used made it sound like the presenter was the teacher from Charlie Brown. "Waa wa wa wa." I could make out some vowels, but not consonants, so I stopped trying yesterday at approximately 9:24 (I looked at my watch). If you can't hear your presenter; your only day to work in your room to arrange your furniture, unpack your boxes, make handouts, make copies, and set up to go is taken away for this "training" so you'll have to be there some evening or Saturday to get things together; and you're locked in a room that is a sub zero temperature for TWO FULL days, you lose professional conduct. That may make me a bad person, but I already apologized.

In case you ever need to know, SIOP stand for Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol. Since it has Sheltered in the title, you would think that it would help me with my Sheltered class. In theory, yes; in reality, no. If could have understood anything, that would help. We had 4 packets and were constantly told, "turn in your handout to page x." Which handout? By the time we found it, she had moved on. Today I brought a book, read all 267 pages. Good book. My table mates & co English teachers took other measures of entertainment:

This is a white surrender flag attached to a red pipe cleaner that is sticking out of a Chicken Express Tea straw after lunch. We passed the cup to the Social Studies department at the table adjacent to us, they added and we added back and forth all afternoon. On guy added the HELP in staples seen in the picture below. Both were taken with my camera phone, which I OBVIOUSLY didn't hold still, sorry.

Yeah, I just wasted two days of my life. Hope this doesn't offend anyone. I PROMISE we are THE hardest working department at GHS, but we also know when to surrender. At least WE didn't start the SIOP murder-suicide pact that another department did. I didn't sign. At the end of the training, one of the 'new' guys found out I was a "preacher's wife." He apologized profusely for passing the pact to me and the paper that had new explanations for what the acronym SIOP stood for. He thought he had deeply offended me. They were funny to read.

Otherwise, I'm looking forward to a terrific year, I really am. Please pray for my job share partner, Jacqui. She had a jet ski accident on Saturday, broke her ankle in 2 places, and will have surgery Wednesday of next week. She'll get to be there the first two days, but then misses the rest of the week. PLUS, she has to be in a wheelchair for 6 weeks, at least. I'm going to be rearranging the room a bit, and it stresses me a bit because she was taking care of Eng III for me while I did AP & Sheltered, but how can I be so selfish at a time like this!? So, pray for Jacqui - I'm not really worried about me! Bless her heart!