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Year 5
[2nd year at the same high school. My boyfriend buys a “fixer upper” house 45 minutes away from our jobs. I start the year feeling better and then hate everything when we move in January.]
August 3, 2009
For the first time ever, I am going to try and plan part of the year ahead of time. I went to Staples today and bought my lesson planner for the year. I am actually excited for the school year to start.
August 31, 2009
Wow. I’ve never been so excited to be back at school. I read my reviews from the kids last year. Mostly good, but I was a little too harsh on my intensified kids. I will definitely work on that this year and well as trying to improve my SPED teaching.
September 3, 2009
I am starting my 5th year of teaching. I am not sure where the time has gone. One of the things that surprises me the most is how much I would not like to re-live those years. If I get older and still feel like this, I will be pumped.
The school year is starting soon and I just want to reflect what I can improve on for this year. Here were some repeated comments from my regulars:
I don’t let them go to the bathroom enough and I need to relax.
Also that SSRT [silent sustained reading] helped them. A lot of them said “thank you.”
My honors students were a bit more harsh, but I had come to most of these conclusions myself with the exception of Word Study.
Word Study is awesome for regular kids but I am going to switch to vocabulary in context for the honors students.
Oliver Twist? Some kids wanted to read it because others classes got to. Hmm.
Grade papers faster!!! Agreed.
Once in awhile, let them journal about their day for homework.
More free writing.
Anyway, I am excited for the year. Time to get down to work.
September 8, 2009
1st day! Today went well and all my classes seem great.
The toilet paper game was cool, but I am still not sure I am in love with it. I don’t really have any 1st day plans that I am completely in love with, but this has been the best one so far, especially for the crazy schedule. Overall, though, super fun.
September 9, 2009
Yikes! Today – super boring. We covered a lot but I talked a lot and it wasn’t very active. Actually, the identity PowerPoint went well. Isn’t there a better way to go over a syllabus? How can I make that not boring?
September 10, 2009
Class was a little more active today, but I still didn’t get to start the year off like I wanted to. I fool myself when I have different things on my agenda, but it really was just me talking a lot. I need to keep working on it.
September 17, 2009
I am really happy right now because my lesson went well. It was everything I wanted: organized, active, and cohesive. The kids even got in an exit response. All this was due to planning ahead and working with coworkers.
September 24, 2009
I am feeling the stress. There is a lot going on. Although they are all good things, my partner and I have been wearing ourselves down. He is really stressed about the house he bought and I am trying to do everything else: help him with the house, go to class, keep my apartment clean, make breakfast, lunch, and dinner for both of us, schedule doctors, etc.
Plus, I went and adopted the kitten against all logic. He’s SO CUTE, but then the kitten woke me up at 4 am today.
September 25, 2009
Being a public school teacher is so overwhelming to me for a lot of reasons, but mostly I think it is because I like to do things right or not at all. This leaves me in a tough spot with school: I could live at school or not. Usually by the end of the day I am tired of school and ready to do something else.
A break here and there is good enough for me. Too much down time is not good for me.
October 13, 2009
So I need to create my quarter exam soon and I’m feeling a little torn. English class is not really about memorization. Kids should know and understand the stories. They should be able to compare and contrast characters and ideas and use them to add to their store of ideas. They should be able to recognize themes, traits of writing, and connect to their story. They should be getting the hang of annotating. A quarterly exam should reflect this. They should be able to read excerpts and pick out effective literary devices, compare and contrast stories and themes, and know how to look up and use vocabulary.
Regular students need to be able to comprehend what they are reading and demonstrate that. They need to express their thoughts in an organized, grammatically correct fashion, and interact with a text. Write! Write! Write!
October 21, 2009
I am feeling a little flat right now. A little stuck.
October 26, 2009
I am happy. Today was a really nice day. I woke up early and headed to work to get organized. Class went smoothly and I had a lot of fun doing Lord of the Flies stuff with my 5th period. It paid today to put in the thinking time. It was one of those days where I actually felt like I was teaching the way I wanted to. Those days have been too few and far between.
This is the Lord of the Flies unit that I am referring to:
November 4, 2009
I am cranky. I felt tired, but I turned cranky when an administrator asked me if I could stay late for a conference. We are already coming in early and staying late for conference day, and this bothers me because we don’t get that time back and we don’t get paid and none of the parents understand that we are staying late for them. They are always just grouchy. Maybe I am burnt out. Actually, I am probably definitely burned out.
November 11, 2009
I am so anxious right now. I am getting chest pains. Momo’s dad [Momo was one of my students] is on the warpath. I am feeling sick because I am not part of the union. [Momo's dad was very rude during our conference and accused me of setting his child up for failure. He threatened to sue the school for not providing more accommodations for his child, who is doing just fine (A/B’s) in her classes.]
Just met with the school psychologist to see what I should do about the situation with Momo. Feel better.
December 4, 2009
School was good even though my 4th period was wild. I got a lot of planning done and also started grading.
December 9, 2009
I am feeling okay. School is pretty good. My first period is a little rough but I don’t know what to do with them.
I like the format of the honors classes: warm up, activity. Now I just need to get the closing in and I’ll be good. Then I need to transfer that to my grade-level classes. Speaking of which, I am not sure what I am doing with them today…
December 10, 2009
School is fun. I feel like I am getting the hang of it (a little). If I wasn’t so cross-eyed over money right now, I would really be in a good place. Please, please, please let us get raises next year.
Today was a good day. We had fun. The unit test will show me if the kids picked up everything. Next year I want to focus on style in Night, specifically irony, simile, and metaphor.
December 12, 2009
I am sitting here in Saturday school with some pretty disgruntled kids. [I picked up a Saturday school shift to make extra cash. I worked from 9-3 on Saturdays helping students who were either assigned to be there or came voluntarily.] The good news is that in 2 hours I have 3 free weekends without Saturday school. Wahoo. Then I have to work three Saturday schools in a row, but after that my Saturdays open up a bit about mid- March. I guess that’s not too bad. I will be busy with schoolwork and in the middle of moving into the new house, so it will go fast.
Anyway, I feel like I need some writing encouragement so I am going to look back over some of my college books like Peter Elbow’s Writing With Power and Landmark Essays on the Writing Process by Sondra Perl. [Both of these books make my feel happy. Peter Elbow's Writing With Power makes me feel happy and I have read through it so many times. It was assigned by one of my college professors in a higher level composition class. I read it when I feel down and then get all hopped up on encouraging the kids to write! write! write! Landmark Essays is also really good because it shows how writing is a recursive process (and that's okay).]
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There is a big difference between the type of writing kids have to do in middle school and the type of writing they have to do in high school. In general, my students’ writing right now is very creative and flowery but unorganized. They are also and not able to synthesize. It might just be part of where they are developmentally, but I still need to get them to improve.
I am very interested in the writing process, but I haven’t written anything myself since I’ve started teaching.
December 16, 2009
I feel like a wreck and I just want to self-destruct by myself but my partner is always around and I end up being mean to him instead of just to myself… and then I feel worse.
I definitely burned myself out by taking grad classes and teaching Saturday school, but the good news is that 2nd semester classes don’t start until late January and I will be done with Saturday school by then. I think I should get a 3rd job instead of just moping around worrying about money and snapping at other people who haven’t done anything wrong. Shitty. I feel like I don’t remember how to be nice.
I want to be a decent teacher. I know I have good ideas for teaching and for life and I know I can execute them if I treat every idea like a paper or task with a due date; I have to get over the initial hurdle of organizing the logistics.
December 27, 2009
Today I finished reading The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I think it is very important to know where your food comes from. One quotation that I liked was that “cuisines embody some of a culture’s accumulated wisdom about food. Often when one culture imports another’s food species without importing the associated cuisine and its embodied wisdom, they’ve made themselves sick. This quotation explains how certain food pairings were kind of like a biological adaption. Wasabi kills germs in raw fish, etc., and if you try and eat one thing without the other the effect is not the same. “
I could not help connecting this same idea to what I have learned about education through UVA: basically, learning theories are nice, but you have to implement every part of them under certain conditions or they don’t work….which is just overwhelming. It connects to my misgivings about being a teacher. I feel so overwhelmed and inadequate…still… after four year of doing this. I guess it would be every teacher’s dream to have small groups or small classes and an even smaller curriculum.
There are so many kids who need help. Am I really doing anything for these kids? I am not sure me being a teacher is the best thing I can do to make a difference. I feel up- down-up-down-up-down constantly about it. I don’t know what the answer is. What is the best way to keep my sanity, make a decent salary, and make a difference?
December 29, 2009
I talked to John today. He is feeling ambivalent about teaching, as I do sometimes…most times. [John was a co-worker of mine. He is not a teacher anymore. He quit the at the end of the school year.]
This is the end of my "Year 5-Part 1 Journal Entries." The journals are continued here: "Year 5 Journals-Part 2"
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