Evaluation Time Again

Today I had my second classroom evaluation. The evaluator was the band director, Mr. T. Now, way back in the day, my sister Joon and I were band geeks, and my parents were really involved with the Band Boosters, so every time Mr. T sees me, he sends his regards to my mom and dad.

I'm not saying that I think his relationship with my family was going to have any bearing on my eval, but ... I wasn't really stressed about it either.

I invited Mr. T to observe my third period class HA! HA HA HA HA HA I'm not stupid, people. Those kids and I are enjoying a truce right now; I'm not going to jinx it by inviting another teacher into the classroom. And anyway, I'm not sure where rolling my eyes back into my head for ninety minutes straight falls under the state guidelines for teacher development. [Although, I did use them for my first evaluation. A long time ago, they used to be my best-behaved class. I miss those days.]

I did use a freshman class, though, because I spend a lot of time with ninth graders, and I felt that one of my evaluations should reflect that. I didn't tell the class that Mr. T would be coming in, so they were surprised when he showed up. Until that time, they'd been doing their work--reading or working on vocabulary--and everything was going smoothly. They continued in this fashion even after Mr. T was in the room, and he was pretty impressed.

When I talked to him later, he said he really thought everything was very well-organized, that the kids obviously knew what they were supposed to do, and that their transitions from one activity to the next were practically seamless. He said that I was very encouraging during individual conferences, that I obviously knew what I was doing, and that the class ran like a well-oiled machine.

If only he knew how long it took to get it to that point.