Still Nervous After All These Years

The other day I had my observation. Even after all of these years, I still get so nervous over these things...Even though I have the best principal ever whom I adore.

Anyway, my principal wanted to see a math lesson where the students used manipulatives in some form to learn/practice a math concept. It just so happens that one of my 6th grade team members is involved in this math study group, and she had just recently shared a lesson she wrote up for looking at patterns using colored cubes, and coming up with an algebraic equation to explain the pattern. It was a perfect lesson, and I didn't even have to stress over thinking it up! I just had to do it, and it seemed a no-fail lesson. I wrote it up, and submitted it to my principal.

I thought I was being so smart. This lesson involved the students, whom I had put into working pairs, creating a "cube train" of yellow and black repeating cubes (yellow, black, yellow, black, yellow, black, etc.). I planned on having a cube train of my own showing on the screen using my document camera as the kids began the lesson, so that I could easily show them what they were to do.

My principal showed up, and my lesson began. "Using the cubes, make a cube train like mine," I instructed. They began to quickly build their own cube trains. So far, so good, as expected. Then I asked them to talk in their teams, sharing anything they noticed about their cube trains. Partners shared everything from noticing that it was a repeating pattern to it looked "like a bumble bee..." I accepted all observations, like a good teacher.

Soon, I needed to get to the meat of the lesson, which involved the students looking at particular cubes. For instance, in this yellow-black-yellow-black combo, the FIRST black cube is the SECOND cube overall. The SECOND BLACK CUBE is the FOURTH cube overall, etc. They were to eventually fill out a table, look for the predictable pattern, and come up with a rule that could correctly predict which number of cube overall the nth black cube would be (n times 2).

This is where I realized I was in trouble. As I began to have them look at the first black cube in the cube train, I glance up at the image on the screen. And guess what? It was the REVERSE image of what I was looking at in front of me! Then I remembered that that is what would happen, and I could not for the life of me figure out how to correct this. I finally said to my class, and to my principal, "I cannot figure out how to do this backwards, so you'll just have to look up here for a minute..." And I held up my cube train, pointing out the things I wanted the students to pay atention to. The rest of the lesson went well, except for being called over the intercom to send in my attendance (math for me is first thing in the morning, and I'm always late with attendance), and the discovery that my electric pencil sharpener was broken (advertised as a "heavy duty" sharpener, it couldn't last four months of use by sixth graders).

Later, I was in the office to pay for my school vest order. As I was leaving, checkbook in hand, my beloved principal walked in. "You don't have to pay me for a good eval..." she said. I followed her into her office.

"I'm just hoping that after this morning, you are either thinking, 'Julie is spatially challenged,' or "Wow! Julie sure can problem solve and think on her feet!' I said.

Probably, she was thinking both.