My philosophy is that how you spend your time and resources reveals what your priorities are. This is my third year of creating a master schedule for Bladen Lakes Primary School. My efforts each year follow the process outlined in the book Elementary School Scheduling: Enhancing Instruction for Student Achievement by Robert Lynn Canady and Michael D. Rettig. This year, I am explicitly charting out the steps I took in making the schedule. My faculty and I at the school participate in shared leadership. The foundation of the schedule is laid out through multiple ongoing conversations with teachers, parents, and students.
I want my teachers to be able to retrace my steps and perhaps provide alternative schedules or make adjustments that I had not considered. All alternatives to the master schedule should be presented to the grade level committee using the same methodology and should be based on deliberate strategy. "I don't want to teach after lunch" is an example of a schedule request that is not well thought out. An example of a schedule request that is well thought out might be, "If teacher A and teacher B trade media center times on Tuesdays, the second grade could have additional common planning time."
It should also be noted that my school follows a time allocation chart in which each subject is assigned a specific number of minutes per week by grade level. Lunch, recess, special classes, computer lab time, math, reading, social studies, science, physical education, writing, and rest time are all charted down to the minute.
My school has about 350 students, until the spring of each year when we get an additional 50 students who are the children of migrant workers in the local blueberry fields. I consider the school to be medium-size. One of the complications we face each year is that we share our music, physical education, and art teachers with three other elementary schools. Different teachers are at the school on different days. This makes a cookie-cutter daily schedule simply impossible.
I have listed below the steps I followed in creating the master schedule:
1. I charted out what teachers are on campus at what times. I created 30 minute slots of time (our lowest unit of time) for the entire school week.
2. I assigned lunch to special teachers.
3. I assigned open media/Accelerated Reader (AR) time each day, per an ongoing discussion with my media center coordinator Mrs. Brigman regarding our AR upgrade.
4. I scheduled grade level planning and common time. Each grade level will have at least one common planning time on Wednesdays for one hour.
5. I scheduled all special classes except computer lab and media time. I made every attempt possible to ensure that
This year, I will present the schedule and these steps to the grade level chairs in a summer meeting. I will talk to them about alternatives and go over how I came to this schedule. Grade level chairs will then have the opportunity to ask questions and then take the schedule home with them for careful consideration. I will then present the master schedule to the faculty in an email. There will still be several weeks before school begins, so everyone will have the opportunity to provide input.
I have several expectations for the schedule during the school year. First, the homeroom's schedule should be posted in the classroom. Some teachers like to create a different format than the grade level grid that I use. This is fine, as long as I have a current copy of the grade level schedule in grid format. Secondly, the schedule should be followed with near 100% accuracy. Permanent adjustments must be approved and I must always have an accurate and up-to-date copy of the schedule in the grade-level grid format. Short-term changes must also be approved. An example is swapping the recess and math blocks because the chances of rain in the afternoon. The teacher can tell me this in passing or-even better-send me an email prior to the swap.
Greek Impact on Western Civilization
Ancient Greece has been one of the greatest civilization's to have ever flourished because of its enormous impact it had on Western Civilization.
The Classical Age of Greece (8th century BC - 146 BC) was characterized by colonization and Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey were the first two greatest epics in world literature.
During the Golden Age of Greece in the 5th century BC, the greatest artistic, literary, architectural, scientific, philosophical and sporting achievements took place.
Historians, Herodotus and Thucydides, Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine and the philosophers, Plato and Socrates all lived and worked in 5th-century BC Athens.
Today, we can gaze at the arcthitectural wonders of ancient Greece and gain an insight to the wisdom of ancient Greek philosophers.
The Hellenistic Age (4th to 1st century BC) was Alexander the Great's legacy to the world when Greek culture dominated the Mediterranean and Middle East and Greek became the international language.
Hellenistic Alexandria
From about 350 B.C. the center of mathematics moved from Athens to Hellenistic Alexandria, a port city in northern Egypt, founded in 331-BC by Alexander the Great and built by his chief architect, Dinocrates of Rhodes.
Rhodes Island is famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, a 33-metre-high statue of the Greek sun-god Helios which straddled the harbor of the city and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.
The Greek, Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt (from 305 to 30 BC) during the Hellenistic Period.
Cleopatra VII Philopator (69 - 30 BC), was a descendant of its founder Ptolemy I Soter, a Macedonian, Greek general of Alexander the Great.
The Great Library of Alexandria was one of the largest libraries of the ancient world and its Museum had scholars such as Euclid (Greek mathematician and "Father of Geometry") and Eratosthenes (Greek mathematician, geographer and chief librarian) who worked there.
Importance of Mathematics
There are two periods of Greek mathematics:
1. The Classical Period (600-B.C. to 300-B.C.)
2. The Alexandrian or Hellenistic Period (300-B.C. to 300-A.D.)
The word "mathematics" is derived from the ancient Greek word "mathema" which means "knowledge or learning" and is the study of numbers, shapes and patterns.
It deals with logic of reason, quantity, arrangement, sequence and almost everything we do today.
Famous Greek Mathematicians and Their Contributions
Pythagoras of Samos (570 BC - 495 BC)
Pythagoras of Samos is the Father of the famous "Pythagoras theorem", a mathematical formula which states that the square of the hypotenuse of a right triangle is equal to the sum of the squares on the other two sides.
Samos was famous in antiquity for its navy, wine, and sanctuary to Hera, a goddess in ancient Greek mythology.
Pythagoras taught that Earth was a sphere in the center of the universe and that the paths of the planets were circular.
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoras founded Pythagoreanism which made important developments in mathematics, astronomy, and the theory of music.
Many 6th, 5th, and 4th-century's most prominent Greek thinkers are labeled Pythagoreans such as Parmenides, Plato and Aristotle.
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 - 348/347-BC) was an Athenian philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece who founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world.
Parmenides of Elea (late 6th or early-5th-century BC) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher from Elea in Magna Graecia ("Greater Greece," meaning Greek-populated areas in Southern Italy) who founded metaphysics (branch of philosophy that examines the fundamental nature of reality).
Euclid of Alexandria (around 300 - 270-BC)
Euclid is the father of geometry (Euclidean geometry) who was active in Alexandria during the reign of Ptolemy I (323-283 BC).
He made revolutionary contributions to geometry 2018 dse math paper 1 and introduced the axiomatic method still used in mathematics today, consisting of definition, axiom, theorem, and proof.
His book, Elements, served as the main textbook for teaching mathematics (especially geometry) from the time of its publication until the early 20th century.
Archimedes of Syracuse (287 - 212-BC)
Archimedes is the Father of mathematics and is considered the greatest mathematician of antiquity.
He lived in the Greek city of Syracuse, Sicily, his birthplace.
His father, Phidias was a mathematician and astronomer.
Archimedes revolutionised geometry and his methods anticipated the integral calculus (its applications include computations involving area, volume, arc length, center of mass, work, and pressure).
He is also known for the invention of compound pulleys and the Archimidean screw pump device (machine used for transferring water from a low-lying body of water into irrigation ditches).
Thales of Miletus (624-620 - 548-545-BC)
Miletus was an ancient Greek city in Ionia, Asia Minor (now modern Turkey).
Thales was a pre-Socratic philosopher, mathematician and astronomer, renowned as one of the legendary Seven Wise Men, or Sophoi, of antiquity.
He's best known for his work in calculating the heights of pyramids and the distance of the ships from the shore using geometry.
Aristotle (384 - 322-BC)
Aristotle was born in Stagira, an ancient Greek city near the eastern coast of the peninsula of Chalkidice of Central Macedonia.
Aristotle was a pupil of Plato and made contributions towards Platonism.
He was a polymath (knowledge spans many subjects) during the Classical period of Ancient Greece