5 days down, only 175 to go
School years have a set number of school days(barring some kind of emergency like last years fires), and I heard a variation on the above “joke/cry for help” a bunch this week. How much was I chanting it? Suprisingly, not so much.
It looks like my classes might turn out okay. It is early, so I haven’t figured out how much of a problem my problem kids are just yet, but so far most of my kids are trying to do the work and seem to be following my directions. Due to my unusual schedule, I have to spend a lot more time than even most 1st year teachers do on logistics, and I hope by the end of the year I am not doing as much with that as I am now. I am also trying not to be a freeloader and just leech off the other teachers for all worksheets, powerpoints, and lessons, which just adds a lot of time to my schedule. Basically the other teachers told me to stop doing the latter and just let them carry my curriculum this year. I have two different preps(means I teach 2 subjects and have to prep for minimum 2 lessons a day), 4 different rooms(on 2 different floors) and the grading has just begun. I’m thinking I will take them up on it, for it will at least save me from having to get all my stuff to duplicating. My only problem with that is I won’t feel as prepared to teach the lessons because they aren’t my lessons. I didn’t write the stuff, so I don’t automatically know what is going on in them.
Positive stuff:
- All classes are manageable size. My class of 40 seems really mellow. Too mellow for now, it actually drives me crazy they don’t talk and it feels I’m talking to a wall. I’m used to more interaction. Probably they are mostly bored right now since we have to cover the basics before we get into the real science. All other classes are smaller which is good as they are all 9th graders in those classes.
- Really nice department and unbelievably supportive. Even the teachers I don’t work with directly come up and ask what they can do to help me. My union rep, my BTSA support provider(beginning teacher support a-something), my vice principal, and my principal have all come by at some point to say hello and see how I was doing.
- We have a computer genius in our department. The gradebook program they have at the school is for Mac, and at home I use a PC. He personally wrote a gradebook program and gave it to me(he didn’t write it for me, he already had it). He doesn’t use powerpoint either, he makes flash presentations. He’s due to retire soon, we’ll be sorry to lose him.
- Air-conditioned classes. This has been the mildest summer I can remember, but last year at my non-air conditioned school it was 95+ the first week. Ties were a bad idea.
Negatives:
- I don’t have a laptop from the school yet. I do my prep work in the library(shades of student teaching) and use my flash drive for everything. The only problem will be powerpoint presentations and how I will get them set up in each room. Each teacher has a laptop in their room and a projector, but some need it to work on while I am teaching.
- 3 of my classes I work in the same room as the subject I am teaching in that class. That means the labs are set up for me by someone else. The 4th room teacher teaches different subjects, so I have to coordinate with that teacher and not get in his way.
Conclusion:
In 2 years we get a brand new building with state of the art science classrooms, 12 rooms for a department with 10 teachers so there is room for growth as well. Right now I get a ton of sympathy for my traveling situation and a lot of admiration for how calmly I am dealing with it. The best part of my day is definitely the classes themselves. I feel slightly on edge all day before class(I have the first few periods off) worrying I am missing something critical to a lesson that I won’t have with me when I teach each period. I am also slightly on edge after school as I didn’t have a gradebook program till yesterday(still catching that one up) so I spend most of my time thinking about logisitics and not forgetting key stuff while I am doing that. I didn’t sleep well some days this week as a result, even though the teaching itself did not tire me out as much as other years did. I know this is the right move and I will really enjoy it here, I just hope I am not still worrying about logistics in March when I am trying to finish BTSA and start on my masters.
Beamza and I may not see many people for awhile. She is getting more translation work and got a new calling at church that will probably be more work than her old one. This week our biggest interaction was dinner and throwing stuff at each other from the 2 computers we are simultaneously working on.
Watch out Beamza, here comes a map of Iran!
