Working on Grades

and one of my ecology students has a 15%.

A 15%.

It’s a combination of terrible attendance and doing zero work when he does show up. He’s a respectful enough student, most of the time, and remarkably bright.

But I don’t think he’s completed an assignment yet. His midterm exam was an in-class project for which he did nothing. I’ve sent work home for his various suspensions; none of it comes back. When he is in class he frequently refuses to pick up his head or hold a pencil. Often asks to go to the nurse. 

I don’t know what to do for him. Or, more accurately, I don’t know how to help him do things for himself.

It’s really alarming how quickly one’s summer calendar becomes crowded.

Fourteen more days. I’m excited about all of my summer plans so far, and I’m over this school year.

Today was a work day for teachers

No kids! (I didn’t miss them.)

Here are some bullets:

  • I co-presented along with mb24jg about implementing STEM (science, tech, engineering, and math) standards at our school. This is one of my favorite soapboxes so I was excited that she let me present with her. And it was generally well-received, except for one English teacher heckler.
  • We got our “tentative” teaching schedules for next year. Mine is OK. I have afternoon planning, and I’m not too sure how productive I will be then. I’m keeping all the classes I currently teach, which I’m very happy about. I have big plans for ecology and for gifted. But I’m getting a new class, regular (on-level) biology. I’m not upset about teaching the on-level class; I am bothered by having three preps. There was no way around it because there are only 2 ecologys and 2 gifteds and I need to teach 5 classes.
  • No official word on classroom assignments. If I do in fact get my own room I guess I can deal with 3 preps.
  • Next week at school is going to be a giant clusterfuck.
  • State testing is on Mon/Tues/Weds. Monday morning I lose a planning period to proctoring an exam and all my biology kids sit their state biology test.
  • Graduation is on Thursday, so there’s a half day of school and nothing will get done.
  • This means that graduation rehearsals are happening simultaneously with state testing. On Tuesday I lose a planning period to covering the class of a teacher who runs the graduation rehearsal.
  • So my interest level in next week is basically 0.
  • 14 more days
  • At least next weekend I will get to hang out with privilegedwhitegirl
  • I am so checked out.
  • I don’t want to lesson plan anymore.
  • But I do really want to lesson plan for next year.
  • But it’s still this year.
  • 14 more days.

I Guess They Like Me

Twice in the last week my kids have told me I should teach the classes they’re taking next year (3rd period has decided that I should be their teacher for gifted sophomore English; 5th period wants me teaching gifted chem).

Of course as a teacher having your students like you is never really priority one. But it does make you feel pretty damn good about yourself, your classroom, and your work.

47 out of 74

That’s how many papers I graded.

I did not get the exam review prepared.

Do not have protocols for tomorrow’s microscopy lesson.

And look at that! Bedtime!

(18 days with students left, and 4 of those are half days…only 19 more days of 5:15AM.)

Longest Week Ever

Seriously, if I didn’t have to get my ecology unit finished in the next ~4 days, I’d be calling in sick tomorrow. So over this week:

  • Yesterday I supervised a half-day in-school field trip for my 9th grade ecology students
  • It was like herding cats (thanks mb24jg) except without the cute
  • My paras/co-teacher were no help (Note: In general, I love my paras + co-teacher. They are usually very capable and supportive and I appreciate that their work is generally more underpaid and undervalued than my own. But please don’t walk over to me to tell me that the group of 9th graders 200 yards away that you just checked in with have all switched groups. Fix it!)
  • When I got back my department head informed that in my one class he covered a boy made an offensive comment about a girl’s weight; the girl left the room in tears and had to leave school early. I was irate. It was probably the angriest I’ve been all year. And I was upset that a student had been so bullied in my classroom. It made me feel like I had failed to establish a safe space in my classroom, and that I had failed to protect a student.
  • Every goddamn time I leave that class there is a legitimate incident requiring phone calls home and office referrals. Every. single. time.
  • Today a student with a 56% came to see me about her grade and we had the conversation I wanted us to have in October.
  • Which made me feel like a failure for not forcing the conversation in October.
  • Today as I graded I came across an assignment, a case study, on which one of my students had written: “I’m not smart” as her answer for an experimental design question. She is definitely in over her head in my gifted class but she is certainly a bright student, and she has tried hard all year. It broke my heart, and made me feel like a failure for not giving her more active support sooner.
  • But they know that I’m available, and they need to take the initiative to let me know when they are confused and when they need clarification.
  • Maybe I also need more patience.
  • Happy Teacher Appreciation Week?

Retooling my classroom management because I can’t plan more than 2 days in advance

Yep.

I want to be a second year teacher.

8 More Weeks

I need to run. I need to run because I did not run yesterday and I will not have time to run tomorrow. This means when I run on Saturday it will have been 3 consecutive days since my previous run. I have not missed three days since I began training.

But I don’t feel up to it. I don’t feel physically or mentally up to it. I just did my long range pacing for the last quarter of the school year, and I feel overwhelmed.

State testing begins May 21st. This means I need to fit in all of the biology curriculum by then. I missed today because I was out of school for PD and nearly every single student of mine was on the freshman history field trip. I’m losing next Wednesday to career day—I purposefully did not sign up for career day because I knew I wouldn’t have time, but the freshmen counselor cornered me in the copy room on Tuesday and pressured me into accepting speakers. I’m losing a day at the end of April to PD.

This gives me slightly less than four full weeks to cover evolution and ecology. I decimated my evolution unit this afternoon, cutting out four topics. No population genetics, even though that’s a critical link between heredity and evolution. They don’t get tested on it and I don’t have time to fit it in before the test window. No human evolution. No origin of life stuff.

The annoying thing is that after testing, I have three weeks to play with. So I’m sprinting right now, but then I’ll have all of these instructional days to do whatever I feel like with. I can loop back to evolution after the tests, but that seems sloppy. Ugh.

I just assigned them a project yesterday that includes a presentation component. They have not formally presented in my class at all this year. But now I am thinking seriously about cutting the presentations, because I just do not have 2 days to spend listening to presentations in class.

And tomorrow I’m assigning twice weekly test practice, because I feel like I’ll be doing them a disservice if I don’t. They have to pass this biology exam in order to graduate. I only just reassured them that this quarter was the easiest of the biology quarters, and now I’m going to be slamming them with work.

For my ecology class, I just feel drained and tapped out. It’s hard to believe I was just on break. I have zero lesson ideas for our next unit. I spent half of today doing nothing but brainstorming for that class, and came up completely empty. My creativity has been exhausted and I am TIRED.

Eight weeks.

Grades are due tomorrow

Why didn’t I grade more over break?

Making it to Summer

Lots of first years have been posting their personal plans for keeping themselves going for the next two months. As my last day of vacation winds down I thought I’d chime in.

School:

  • Leave by 4:30.
  • Use the after school time effectively (i.e., don’t spend a half hour comatose at my desk from 2:15-2:45)
  • Grade a little bit every day
  • Do some re-norming in both preps to keep the students focused from now until June
  • Lecture less
  • Clean out my folders weekly and clean off my desk weekly
  • Start getting things in order for first quarter next year
  • Do one hour of schoolwork—either grading or lesson planning—at home every night. No more, no less.
  • Stop using my morning prep to lesson plan that day’s lessons—be prepared the night before and use the morning for copying, long-range planning, and organizing

Personal

  • In bed by 10PM
  • Eat at least two full meals + one snack every day
  • Drink more water
  • Keep running 3-4 times a week, even after the 5K (register for another 5K to keep myself on track?)
  • Friday night + one weekend day school-free
  • Check in with fellowship stuff once every other week (portfolio and discussion board)
  • Call at least one family member once a week
  • Read for at least 15 minutes every day
  • Keep using my planner
  • Go to church on weekends I am in town
  • Get summer schedule in order, as much as possible (figure out when I am going where and for how long and who is coming to me when)

Nine weeks to go, and this week is only 3 teaching days for me. Let’s do this.