Building excitement

I am getting excited.  I move into a new building next year and it is exciting.  There will be a lot of changes and I love change.  I got really excited as I read Curriculum 21's Chapter 4.  It's all about redesigning the reinventing the school.  We are going to have to opportunity to do things differently and I think it is important not to try and make everything the same.  Instead of having the science classroom 1/4 mile away, it will be across the hall.  My whole team will be more centralized and hopefully that will make for more collaboration.  While I have seen the building under construction, I am anxious to see how all the spaces will look and work when finished.

I've really enjoyed this week on Middle Level Education as that is what I do.  Even though I already do some of what we read about, I love the revitalization I feel every time I read about what is happening in middle schools.  We lost our Team Time this year with budget cuts and we are feeling it.  It is harder to find the time to figure out how to best help our students.  On a brighter note, since I have to "do" two different study halls, it has given me the opportunity to help students learn about the laptops at the beginning of the year and explore Lego Robotics now.  It is so cool to see what the kids can do.  I have one student who has programed a robot to break dance.  He went from design to programming to design to programming.  I talked to our guidance councilor, who schedules, today as I would love to have Lego classes instead of study halls next year.  I had never worked with Legos before and had to learn the programming form one of the students.  It was so much fun!  And so I am letting my excitement for next year continue to build!