Must be ’cause I’m a Leo. (O:
Ugh. Longest five weeks of my life, culminating with the apex of long, exhausting, upsetting days.
Firstly, professional development is bullshit. Lots of people talk about “We need to have all of our arrows pointing in the same direction” and “We need to raise student achievement” and “Discipline precedes learning” but no one actually tells you what the hell your policies are for things like grading and what the consequences are for disciplinary infractions and it just feels more and more like a big act. WHAT THE HELL IS THE PLAN, PEOPLE. It’s like the Union Representative at our induction who handed me a sheet of paper with four bullets on it explaining me why I want to be a Union member. When I dared to inquire further as to the benefits and services of the Union, I got a very snooty “Well it’s all right there on the sheet!” Four bullets. One thin sheet of Xerox paper. Welcome to the wonderful world of public schools in a district that covers 599 square miles of land and over a hundred schools. Bureaucratic like whoa.
Then, after planning out the first five days of classes, I come to find out (two days before school starts, mind you) that a set of objectives and assessments has been pre-written for the first two weeks of school. And let me tell you, it’s boring people. The first day of school, I would like to engage my students with something interesting like, oh I don’t know, maybe why biology is relevant to your life and some exciting ways it’s used by everyone everyday. Maybe a fun group activity that helps students explore and evaluate what actually makes something “alive.”
Oh but wait!! The powers that be have a better plan! LET’S TALK ABOUT CONVERTING MEASUREMENTS TO THE METRIC SYSTEM!!! That way we can bore the kids to tears and maybe they’ll never come back! Wouldn’t that be instructive and exhilarating?!
I know I can’t control this, and that I need to just surrender and lay low until the dust settles and I can devise my own crafty ways to teach the kids what they need to know in a way that won’t make them want to hang themselves. But damn man, I want so much better for them! This is why students hate school.
To relate this to my original tangent about professional development, I have now had an entire graduate course and three professional development sessions on how to differentiate your lessons for diverse learners. How to make learning interesting and fun. But now I see that all was a waste of time and money, because I won’t actually be allowed to implement anything I’ve learned. Just follow that curriculum guide! Don’t take any risks and please don’t ask anyone to think about anything.
No wonder there are 800 new teachers in Baltimore county this year. If it weren’t for the paychecks and the practically free education, I’d strongly consider growing a dick so I could tell a few people in Baltimore County to suck it.
Okay, okay. Maybe that was vulgar and uncalled for. I’m sorry. This too shall pass, and I’ll find my way through and around all this nonsense, but in the meantime I just had to get all of that out somewhere. And I know that the people around me (mostly) have really good intentions and are just trying to be helpful and do the best job they can. We’re all in the same boat up Shit’s Creek, trying to scrape together enough money to buy our own damn paddles because there isn’t enough funding to have them provided for us.
::sigh::
Her dance moves are incredible, but I beg you: PLEASE stick around for the Michael Jackson impersonations. She just slays me!!
Things I liked:
-Aaron and I both got rings that are too big for us.
-Visiting with my parents was amazing, we ate lots of delicious food, swam in the hotel pool, and played card/board games.
-Mandy got me some fun birthday presents, including a metal squirrel named Oliver!
-Went for a nice walk with Mom and Dad in Patapsco State Park.
-Had a really heartfelt and inspiring conversation with Jillian about teaching, as well as some hilarious storytelling (I LOVE that girl!)
Things I didn’t like:
-Saying goodbye to my parents (always the worst)
-Aaron not being home to distract/console me after said goodbyes
-Feeling nervous about work tomorrow
-Not being sleepy at all even though I have to wake up at six a.m.
-The house feeling too empty and quiet, even with all of the fans on and kitties sleeping everywhere.
I’m terrible at goodbyes. They always make me feel so lonely. Also, even though the students won’t be there tomorrow, first days of jobs are always really nerve-wracking. I’m all a-twitter.
TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT!! I’m sort of on overload…
It’s been a long month, but a very fruitful one. Today I went to my school and we had a mentor session in the morning, which was actually pretty useful and very entertaining. Most of the “New Teacher Induction” was an abbreviated regurgitation of my last three weeks of classes, so it was refreshing to hear some new information given from the point of view of someone who actually works at my school and has seen the environment first hand.
So that’s one thing I liked about today. Here’s a few more:
-Free breakfast!
-Tour of the entire school, which isn’t as confusing as I thought (flashbacks to my own high school experiences!)
-Free pizza for lunch!
-The first thing I found in my classroom: a can of Progresso Chickarina soup, which is my favorite! (Although I doubt the contents of that can were edible.)
-Student projects from 2005, one of which was about precipitation and had a weird little picture of a monster under “Fog”
-Voyeurism: found a very apologetic note from one teacher to another…I wonder what the silent treatment was for…
-The custodial staff being super-friendly.
-Getting a box of goodies from my supervisor!
Things I didn’t like so much about today:
-Trying to rearrange the lab tables in my room
-The room’s “portrait” as opposed to “landscape” layout - pretty impossible to get a good seating arrangement (see #1)
-Finding out that the former teacher is coming to claim her mini-fridge. )O:
-The 50ish pounds of paper and binders (no joke) that the previous teacher(s) left behind which I must root through and dispose of.
-Finding a spider in said papers and having no one to call on
Overall it’s been a good day. Kitties are gently wrasslin’ immediately to my left. My birthday is the day after tomorrow!!! YAY!
I think I will purchase/eat some sushi from Giant for all of my hard work today.
busy, busy, busy.
Left my phone charger in NJ, the wedding was beautiful and fun. (i didn’t cry)
Class is good, in the last two days I have pendulum-ed between uber-productive and incredibly lazy.
Aaron comes home tomorrow, I can’t wait!!
My kitchen appliances are getting some love, I made a FAILsmoothie today and currently have the bread-maker making some honey-wheat bread. (hopefully)
Kitties are happy, piano is lonely.
I should try to sleep, so Tschus!
This made me laugh harder than I have laughed at anything in a LOOoong time. My face was soaked with tears. “It may, in fact, be a moth!”
Priceless!
School is HARD. I foolishly agreed to work with one of my classmates on our final project because we will be working at the same school this year. (And because I’m a sucker who can’t say no to anybody about anything.) I’m wishing so bad that I had just stuck with my original intention to do it on my own.
This lady is really nice, but she’s not easy to work with. She is not originally from North America, and in her culture it’s common for women to be very domineering, so she doesn’t really let me put in many ideas even when her suggestions are not in line with the format, inaccurate, etc. I’ve pretty much given up on arguing it with her. Our professor is really awesome and laid-back, so I’m hoping he’ll grade this as leniently as he’s graded our past assignments. Plus, since English is not her native language I am hoping he’ll let it slide when things are out of order or whatever. Because I’m pretty much over it. I’m going to do my sections of the project to the best of my ability, and the rest of it can go to hell.
The thing that really upsets me though, is that this project was supposed to essentially prepare us with lesson plans for the first unit of the school year. Which it won’t be doing for me at all. Because the lesson plan outline we came out with sucks. Sucks hard. And I really went to bat for it, trying to point things out, but she was so adamant and literally would not let me change anything. Or if I typed something in on my own, she would change it.
Okay.
After I hand this assignment in tomorrow I’ll go home and relax. Oh, wait! No I won’t because I have to drive 3 hours to New Jersey, then get up early and drive 2 hours to a wedding in Pennsylvania, travel 2 hours back, make time for all the family members that demand my attention, drive 3 hours back to Maryland, and then get up and go to school at eight o’clock on Monday morning! WHAT FUN THAT WILL BE.
Well the wedding should be fun. The driving and the child-watching will be draining.
Maybe I just need a fast-food feast to calm these jangled nerves.
It’s fortunate that I don’t live by myself all the time, because I would weigh like 600 lbs.
I’m going to Taco Bell now. Goodbye!
Half-blood Prince preview!
Or if that doesn’t work, try this:
http://www.moviefone.com/movie/harry-potter-and-the-half-blood-prince/27063/trailer?trailerId=2181231
OH MAN.
I want it.
