This year I am once again mentoring/coaching other teachers. I know there are plenty of ways that I can improve, and one thing I’m trying to do is to be more organized about my time, and communicate more often with my teachers. I’ve started sending out a weekly email with my schedule, and whose classrooms I will visit, and when. The teachers have responded well to it and a few have even said thanks, which tells me I didn’t communicate this sort of thing to them well enough last year.
The first week I went to the kindergarten classrooms, and was delighted to see that the well-deserving K teachers have a more mellow group. Last year and the year before were somewhat challenging (two years ago at this time the kindergartners were like wild wolf puppies, tumbling and wrestling on the floor, in all three classrooms, and last year was only a bit better), but the K kids I saw were listening to their teachers and participating in their storytimes.
Then this past week I went to first grade. One teacher was putting tape on the floor in three rows, to mark where the kids should sit, which is an idea he got from me last year. I was pleased to see that at least once, I did something useful! His class was mellow, but the other two were more challenging. My job is to assist teachers in improving the quality of their teaching in general, and to help them with readers’ workshop and writers’ workshop in particular. Behavior management is not part of my brief, but sometimes that has to be done before the teachers can settle in to teach reading or writing.
Next week I’ll make my visits to second grade, and then I’ll be visiting on a regular schedule to observe and coach.
Elbows, knees, dreams 
It makes my heart soar to know that this is happening. I think we would all benefit from more of these mentoring and collaborating opportunities.