As school rolls around again, students and teachers both begin to get that dreaded feeling in their stomaches. For teachers, the end of summer break ushers in a flurry of activity that doesn't end until roughly Memorial Day. Lesson planning, behavioral planning, interventions for those "bless yer little heart" children that need to be saved from themselves. Checking medical records, academic records, re-reading and complying with the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA.) It's enough to make a seasoned teacher feel like he or she is at the bottom of a mountain with an avalanch crashing down upon them. And all of this is without mentioning one little chore: ACTUAL TEACHING!
In my district, children go back tomorrow. So after all the lectures from the experts (they are experts because they found a publisher to put out their book,) faculty meetings, departmental meetings, grade-level meetings, coaches meetings, course-alignment meetings, and meetings to plan future meetings, the teacher then retires to his or her room, looks at a list of chores to do, checks the clock on the wall, and screams.
Now you may ask, "Then why doesn't said teacher just prepare for the upcoming school year throughout the summer?" If only it were that simple. Teachers do go to different trainings, think about certain lessons, and so on, but most of the work to be done can only happen after the mandates from up above come down the pipe. If I print off a syllabus without knowing the new and improved rules, I'd just have to redo the work. So it's a waiting game.
Yesterday I spent the whole day in meetings. The calendar had yesderday scheduled as a teacher work day, but I didn't put a single minute of work into my classroom. So I stayed until 10:00 at night, preparing what I could from what I had learned that morning. So after two hours of meetings this morning, I was finally released to my room to prepare to save the world, one "bless yer little heart" at a time.
And the meetings will continue throughout the year, scheduled outside of class time. A teacher goes to school at 7:30 in the morning, leaves at 4:00 thirty minutes for lunch (tutoring time) and with five minutes to stand in line at the bathroom every hour. Tutoring before and after school. Then the teacher drags his or her bones home to be Mr. or Mrs. Mom, waiting for the kiddo's bedtime so paper grading may begin.
That is why when somebody tells me that teachers only work nine months out of the year, I tell them two things. 1) Summer break is only two months now. 2) We put twelve months into the ten we work.
I hear you. This is my first year teaching and us teachers have been in school for two days now and I haven't gotten anything done. Meetings, meetings, and more meetings.
ReplyDeleteWith a parent as a teacher, i have had the chance to experience first hand the joys and well, the gooey green muck of being a teacher. To me, there are two categories of teachers. One, the kind that merely show up for school every day just so they can collect their meager salary, and then there are the teachers that never cease to amaze me. Not only do they fulfill the duties that our "type one" teacher does, but like you said, they are the ones that give their lunch up to help the struggling student, or show up early or stay late, at their own expense, to accomadate a student truly in need. "Type two" teachers, in my opinion, should be commended at a very high level.
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