GATE trIaining

On Monday and tuesday I attended a GATE training through USC. I signed up for the novice section, but spent most of the second day ant the intermediate section. First, can I say that it is SO COOL that my fifth=grade team partner (and former master teacher) is one of the demonstration school teachers! That is so neat.
Anyway, the training was very helpful for me and clarified a lot of things. I felt really good becasue I feel like ai have more of an understanding of the basics then I realized... but whgat is overwhelming is the amount of things I can do with these tools Iove learned... and of course, the fear that I am not using them to their best potential.

I face every year the guilt that since I have learned so much more (through training and the experience I gained from the previous year) I constantly think of all the things I SHOULD have done with my previous students. I know thats silly, and part of learning, but I do twist it around to the positive and think, because of what I've learned, think of how much better I will be for next years students! Well, I try to think that anyway... but I constanly think there are so many things I need to do to become a better teacher.

Anyways, I have lots of ideas swimming and next week (when I have 3 weeks at home) I will spend some time planning and getting ready for the next school year. I have so many ideas!