Teacher=
- The stuff people think of when you say teacher. Up in front of a group of teenagers, trying my best to keep them on task, learning, engaged, paying attention, not sleeping, not bored, not poking at each other, off their cell phones...
- Preparing to teach. Reading, researching, making lesson plans, making work sheets and handouts, deconstructing a book or an article, creating review games, creating assessments...
- Assessing student work. Grading quizzes and tests, checking homework for completion and understanding, writing notes on their writing, writing notes on their classwork, inputting grades into a grade book (required by state law to have a hard copy), inputting grades into electronic grade book...
- Calling parents/ guardians. Informing parents that their child is failing/not doing homework/not keeping up with the school reading program/has done something inappropriate in class, getting stuck on the phone with parents who ask silly questions instead of working with me to get their kid back in the game, getting cussed out by other parents.... and, sadly not often enough letting still other parents know that their child is doing wonderfully and it is such a pleasure to have them in class (these calls are usually at Christmas when I make myself make time).
- Keeping track of an entire grade level for school wide reading program. Printing weekly reports, inputting grades, staying in at lunch to create a reading study hall.
- Committee Attendee. Teachers serve on all the committees a school has in place to run said school. It is endless. If you are actually reading the small print and still here I am amazed and will spare you the details of the 3X a week meetings and paper trail of these meetings and implementing all the shit decided on by these committees.
- Recorder of all things in triplicate. In addition to just doing what I do, I need to prove it. I need to have a binder with all my lesson plans, aligned to state standards and school wide initiatives, a binder with notes and data from all those meetings, a data binder of student test scores and other indicators of learning, as well as post in my classroom student work with exemplars and rubrics once a month...
- My own personal assistant. A couple we hang with once asked me why I did not have an assistant to make copies, file, make parent phone calls....this same couple also would complain more than a bit about the costs of public education. The irony eluded them. So I pointed it out.
No bulleted list needed here. You all know what this means, then just add a dash of unbloggable goodness and a sprinkle of people who pretend they cannot feed themselves and you have the pretty picture.
Woman Who Tries to Exercise
Woman Who is Attempting to Stay Centered Even if it means getting up at 3-fucking o'clock in the morning, I WILL have my zen time - those one to two hours of meditation, prayer, journaling, yoga, reading, and centering myself have become the standard of my day. And yes, it may not be coming through on this post, which is coming off a bit more bitchy and a lot less tongue in cheek than I had in mind. But if I leave the draft for revising it will probably not make the publish button any time soon.
Business Woman Yes, this is about the home business I started a few months ago and is turning into the THING I LIKE TO DO THE MOST AND YET SOMEHOW IT ALWAYS GETS PUSHED TO THE SIDE WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE FAN AND EVERYONE IS NEEDY.
Blogger Sporadic at best lately...
I am blessed beyond measure to have so many activities in my life, and yet... and yet.
The work from the business I began has captured my heart and attention. Meeting new people, learning new skills, a chance to create an income I will never see as an educator...
So while the juggling continues (third metaphor for those of you counting), the ball most often dropped is blogging. I have thought about stopping completely, but have decided I would rather be a bad blogger than no blogger at all.
And there you go.
