Yearbook Fortune Cookies

One of my fellow teachers refuses to sign student yearbooks. She says there just aren't that many ways to say "I enjoyed having you in my class this year" (a sentiment that isn't even true in some cases) and "Have a great summer". So she prints up an inspirational poem or short story and hands that out instead.

Another teacher I know draws a sketch instead of signing yearbooks. He's a lot more talented than I am, in that respect. I could sketch different molecules, I suppose, but just how many aromatic rings can one draw before the novelty wears off?

So this year, instead of signing yearbooks in the traditional fashion, I've assembled a list that I affectionately call "Yearbook Fortune Cookies". I'm going to roll a d12 and write whichever quote comes up from the list. Here they are:

1  If you know immediately that candlelight is fire, then the meal was cooked a long time ago.

2  Understanding is a three-edged sword.

3  Deserve victory.

4  Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so.

5  A brave man likes the feel of nature upon his face, but a wise man has the sense to come in from the rain.

6  The heart is not so easily changed, but the head can be persuaded.

7  If you seek meaning, then listen to the music, not the song.

8  Even a mirror will not show you yourself, if you do not wish to see.

9  You don’t have to leave to find a better view.

10  Life is the future, not the past.

11  The point of a journey is not to arrive.

12  You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.

I'm hoping I roll '1' a lot. ::evil grin::

End of Year Report

Writer J. Michael Straczynski, borrowing from Robert Heinlein, discusses the following metaphor:

“If you are trapped high in a burning building, you are eventually left with one of two options. You can stay where you are and perish in the fire, or you can jump and buy yourself a few more seconds to figure out what to do next.  The former spells certain doom; the latter provides at least the possibility of hope.”

I feel like I’ve spent a lot of time this year jumping out of burning buildings.

In retrospect, the decision to implement Canvas more fully as a content delivery and assessment system, while simultaneously moving full time to a new electronic textbook, was probably too ambitious.  Despite preparations I made over the summer, I feel like I spent the entire year trying to catch up. Everything took longer than expected to implement—the fact that we didn’t have the promised access to the e-book for the first month or six weeks of school certainly didn’t help—and pacing suffered.  There was a fair amount of material that I simply ran out of time to cover.  SAGE Summative results will probably reveal this in detail.

If I had it to do over again, I would probably move forward with Canvas first, using the textbook we’ve used in previous years.  However, having made it this far, I feel I’m in a good position to implement both the e-textbook and Canvas more effectively next year.  The groundwork has been laid; the infrastructure is, for the most part, now in place. I can spend my planning time next year revising instead of inventing.