Extra Extra?

A little while ago, we had an assignment to write a newsletter for my Instructional Technology class. Because I'm a long term substitute, I've been teaching the same class of 7th graders for 6 weeks. We also are just coming to the end of a unit on area, perimeter, and circumference so I knew adding a table would be easy. I would create a little cheat sheet of sorts.

The problem is, who was I supposed to write the newsletter for? I aimed mine towards the parents to facilitate a discussion at home about how area is used in everyday life. I had just given the students a quiz and one of the bonus questions was to give an example of a practical application of area, or why they had to learn it. So I included a couple of the best answers from the students. I also introduced myself to the parents.

The problem that I had with this particular assignment was that I just couldn't shake the feeling that this would be better received in a larger city at maybe a public school. I think newsletters to the parents are an excellent way to keep the parents involved in their students learning, but at a private school in a small town, I am confident that the parents are already fairly involved. And I wasn't sure they wouldn't just scratch their head at what the new teacher was doing.

And as for introducing myself, I was torn. I am an outsider to my pleasant little town. I was born in Michigan, which one of the students thought was similar to his mom being born in Argentina. The small town culture eludes me on most days. But I do know that the great majority of my students know that my father in law is the local veterinarian. And some of them know that my husband's law firm is across the street from the post office. Introducing myself then seems sort of silly. Most parents already know who I am.

In the end, although I packed up the hard copy of the newsletter that I had printed up the night before and took it to school with me, I never did make copies for the students. I lost my nerve.