When is it my turn?
Since June or July, a number of people have been giving me advice and told me what to expect from my first year as a teacher . "You'll think you suck," they said. "The paper work is ridiculous." "Classroom management is the most important thing." They also said that it would get better after Christmas break. Well, this is the fifth week of school, second semester, and I'm still waiting for things to improve.
This semester didn't start off where last semester ended. My students' behavior and attitudes got worse. My classroom management suffered from these changes (and a few others that I couldn't avoid). I expected my semester to get easier so much that when things got worse I was just very sad. My focus became getting through each individual class period (not even getting through a whole day, but through class periods).
I have so much work and grading to do it's crazy. This week has been slightly better, but it's only the beginning of the week. I guess I'm just waiting for my year to finally get a little bit easier. I want to start seeing more immediate proof that anything I did last semester had a point to it. I want things to be a lot more manageable. Hopefully that time is coming soon...
posted by Ghost Writer @ 2/06/2007 06:47:00 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
If the advice you've been getting isn't working, seek new advice. Seek out different teachers or different administrators, and solicit new opinions. If teaching doesn't seem easier than in August, perhaps your standards and expectations are higher now because you know enough to demand more of yourself and of you classroom? You are no longer learning names and personalities; you are maturing people -- a much harder task.
There *are* solutions to your problems. Find someone who thinks/works/teaches like you do. Ask an administrator to visit your classroom and to admonish your students.
What really worked for me was deciding that I was THE TEACHER -- that I didn't have to nitpick with children, that my word was law in the classroom, that I would discipline swiftly and consistently, opening the door and removing problematic behavior from my learning environment. Children need boundaries, and if I didn't stand stalwart, they'd run me over. I vividly remember snatching a quiz from a discourteous student last winter, booming "student" while pointing at him and "teacher" while pounding my chest. I threw his quiz into the trash, and the class fell silent. They'd been waiting for the teacher in me to emerge.
Grade less. As long as your students THINK you might grade an assignment, they'll do it. A check-plus (100), check(80), check-minus(60) system for a completion grade lets you burn through 100 papers in just a few minutes. Sometimes it goes in the gradebook; sometimes it doesn't! You can't grade everything for accuracy, so grade for effort and completion, assign a lot of work FOR THEM to practice on, reinforce the concepts during class, and let tests/quizzes be measures of THEIR accuracy. Put the burden on them.
We are currently four weeks from spring break. A well-timed Friday/Monday day off means one 5-day week, one 4-day week, one 4-day weekend, one 4-day week, district exam week, and then spring break. After spring break, time flies because of state testing and related tutorial nonsense.
As teachers, though, we'll never understand our long-term impact. We'll never see our hard work really pay off. They graduate, and we never know how it turns out. Think of the two or three students you've really helped this year. Those faces. The two or three who've really made the year worthwhile. Focus on the positive. It won't be long before your head swims with a dozen faces and fond memories. That's where I always start.
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