This August was the first August in my entire life that I don't remember "starting school." My year has always been organized by school start and end dates. This year, as I drive through my neighborhood, I see kids walking home from school and I feel the strong feeling that I'm late. I'm missing something. While I still work with school districts, I never had that "first day of school" feeling and it's left me a little disoriented honestly. I miss getting to know new students' personalities and planning out the year (I know I'm weird, but I loved lesson planning a unit.) I miss the feeling of "starting again."
But there are a few things I don't miss. There are tasks that teachers do without even thinking that are unknown to most professional communities. Here are a few things I no longer deal with at my non-education job:
1. Sneaking to the Copy Machine Before/Between/After Work Hours:
Copies were literally the bane of my existence. Lots of jobs make copies, but most do it during their working hours. They also don't get reprimanded for making them last minute. I can't tell you how often I woke up early and didn't have time to even brush my hair because I knew I had to make 100 copies of a test before anyone showed up. Or how many times I skipped lunch to print something. Also, in every single education job I had, I was reprimanded because my lessons changed and I didn't have my copies sent out to the print shop a week in advance. In my current job, I was sent a printer that I don't have to wait in line for and can order ink whenever I want.
2. Someone Walking in Mid-Presentation:
Principals or Instructional Coaches will just walk in your room as an educator with no notice all the time. I had nothing to hide, I assure you. But do you know how distracted a class of middle school kids can get when the principal stands in the back of the room? It also threw me off. Does he see the kid that's falling asleep? Does this lesson seem rigorous enough? Are my objectives posted on the board? Now, my manager might join a meeting that I am running, but she never pops in mid-presentation. I am very grateful.
3. Internet Outages Ruining Your Whole Day:
Everyone experiences computer problems or Internet outages. It is always an inconvenience in every job. Imagine this, though. You have planned an entire hour of students working on a project online. 5 minutes into the period, no access. All your plans are out the window. Think on your feet. Should they read something? You don't have enough books for every student. You can't leave and make copies (see #1). Should you give them paper to write a paragraph? That will only like like 15 minutes and then what? Think fast because the kids are starting to get loud and aren't staying in their seats. I hated those days.
4. Creating a Substitute Binder:
Last month, I went to a birthday party in Vegas. How did I prepare for the day of work I was missing? I told my manager and set my email automatic response to say "I will be out of the office and will respond to emails when I return on Monday." That's it. When I missed a day of teaching, I had to create an entire binder before I left. The sub needs to know how where to find the materials, what the seating chart is, how to keep students occupied the entire period (and remember it's 3-5 different lessons each day so make sure he/she knows which period does what), where to take them for lunch, how to deal with the student who may or may not start screaming for no reason, what to do in a fire drill, what times the bell rings... Get the picture?
5. Committee/Duty Requirements:
I like to volunteer and be helpful. I just don't like being forced to do it every day and to get a sub if I can't fulfill the duty. Every education job I know of requires participation outside of the classroom. You might be assigned to parking lot duty in the morning on Monday and recess duty on Thursday (leaving 10 minutes for lunch tops). Oftentimes, you are required to be part of a committee. I was part of a social committee, school improvement committee, and curriculum committee. I was assigned "door duty" where I just watched to make sure kids made it out of the school building each day and a "bus duty" where I made sure students didn't miss their assigned bus. It was exhausting.
6. Contacting Parents:
This probably should have been #1. The thing I miss least about teaching is contacting parents. I know some educators live for this. One of my coworkers called home every single time a student didn't turn in an assignment. I'm not a phone person anyway, but calling parents about a child's behavior are the worst calls I ever made. It was always a gamble. Sometimes they would politely said they would talk to their child. Phew. Other times parents cried and told me their hardships. Sometimes they yelled at me and wondered why I made their child feel bad. No matter what, I couldn't avoid the calls. I couldn't give a student a failing grade without notifying a parent. I once called an admin on my school phone to tell her that a student was trying to climb out the window of my classroom. She asked, "Have you called home?"
Stay strong my educator friends. I hope the school year is off to a wonderful start with less of the stuff above. Stay tuned for Part 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment