Educating Erin

Its halfway through September! The last post I wrote was July!

2 main reasons:

• uni is hectic – we have 6 weeks out for rounds (I love my school and the first lot of rounds went really well – kids are challenging my classroom management skills and my concepts of engaging curriculum) BUT we still have the same semester workload. AND two subjects are very theoretical, which at the very end of the course seems backwards and frustrating to be writing 2000 word essays. I want to do practical stuff!
• THE dance concert. ‘THE’ because its massive – 190 dancers from preps to year 12!!. As well as teaching and choreographing and sewing and painting props for my two classes, I have been heavily involved in the organisation and running of it this year, making sure each dancer is in the right costume and the right place at the right time (I’m in charge of the backstage movements!).
  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE details and precision and the whole thing has been a big learning experience, it just kind of takes over the closer you get to the weekend. (which was last weekend so I’m finally finding time to write this post ) It went so smoothly thanks to all the preparation and contributions from many. I’m so proud of us!

What I keep thinking through all of this is how good it will look on my resume and how it will be useful next year – who knows where I will be working and what sort of things I will be doing. At least I can be confident in my crowd control and organisational skills!

I know its been ages since I wrote anything, but holidays go so fast!! I’ll do it tomorrow……

Well now I’ve been on holiday for about 4 weeks, I figured its about time I committed some of the ideas floating around in my head to the screen. That includes my portfolio!! Apart from wanting some time away from uni, and work, there is so much flexibility and choice in how I can turn my ideas about teaching into some recorded form. It’s a bit scary! So I’ve decided to just start with something, and refine it from there or I will never get started! When I get it going, it can be found at http://erinburton.teachfolio.net

But apart from what I haven’t done, this past month has been very productive in other ways! My sister and I have been doing a serious amount of work on the dance concert for the school we teach at. We have been costuming (organising and sewing) and planning for how to coordinate 150 students. That’s going on the resume…:-P It’s a big job and we are part of a great team, and I find this kind of thing an engaging challenge, so I don’t really mind spending lots of time on this.

We also borrowed 3 seasons of Stargate Atlantis from a friend, which has kept us all very occupied!