Week 2 Reflection-Observations and Pep Rally

This week was pretty cool. I started doing formal observations, we had back to school night, and I experienced my first Cedar Creek pep rally. Back to School Night was pretty typical of my experiences at Millville, but I did get a chance to catch up with Janet Ponzetti, so that was pretty cool. When I think back to this week, though, the only things that pop into my head are the observations and the pep rally.

Observations: It was a pretty weird experience doing formal observations for the first time. I have had almost no training on how it is done, so I had to figure out how I wanted to do it based on my experiences as a teacher and the brief conversations I have had with other CC administrators. I made sure to go into every class I was observing at least once last week before the official observation. I had some great conversations with the teachers and got good insight on why they did certain things during class. I am adapting on the fly as far as how I prepare for the observation, how I write up the observation, and my follow up the following week, but I feel like I'd be a better teacher already based on conversations I had about what I saw. It makes me wonder why teachers don't do peer observations on a regular basis... Anyways, I feel extremely lucky to be working with the group of teachers at Cedar Creek in the #PirateSTEM department!

Pep Rally: I heard a lot about the pep rallies before Friday, mostly from Scott, but from others as well. I kind of felt like there was no way they could live up to the hype they've received (like a movie everyone tells you is so good, but it doesn't live up to your expectations). Well, I was wrong! This was one of the coolest things I ever witnessed. The set-up was pretty normal: introduce all the sports teams, tug of war, musical chairs, and other little things. What set this apart from other school events was the buy in from the students. The people at Cedar Creek (I was only a minimal part of it this year), mainly Scott, did an awesome job of getting kids invested in the school from the second they walked onto campus. The first thing they did during freshmen orientation was the "We Are Cedar Creek" chant and everything else built on that. There was not a student in the gym who was unengaged.

By the way...we beat the crap out of Absegami Friday night at their place!

Follow #PirateSTEM and #WeAreCedarCreek for cool stuff happening at the Creek.

Bobby