Being absent as a teacher is a double-edged sword. While a break or a change of scenery is always appreciated, no one (or very few) can do the job while I am away. I have had a few substitute teachers in my career who were excellent and did an amazing job of teaching, not just babysitting. Most substitutes though are at best decent babysitters. Even a certified teacher of my subject matter would find it challenging to jump in and understand what we were doing.
I was absent two days for training and one day for my near death experience (dramatization disclaimer). I came back and knew I was pretty much going to have to start all over from scratch with my students. I did. I am really struggling this year so far with students who are so far from functional that I don't know what to do with them. I give directions and five minutes into an activity a student will be sitting there staring at a blank piece of paper.
"What are you doing?" I ask, mostly rhetorically.
"Nothing," she answers.
"Why not?" I reply frustrated.
"I don't know what we're doing. I mean what are we supposed to do?" she exclaims snarkily.
At this point, she's been sitting there doing nothing, rather than ask me to explain the directions again. Flummoxed, I try to contain my frustration. She is probably more frustrated than I am and needs me to treat her with kindness instead of anger. Still feeling sickly and overwhelmed at work and home, managing my emotions is tough.
I feel like instead of English, I am having to teach basic social skills. I have 16 year olds to whom I have to direct teach raising hands and taking turns, asking questions for clarification, bringing pencils. When I think about trying to also teach vocabulary, spelling, reading, literature, listening, public speaking, writing, and grammar; it flabbergasts me.
I am racing through curriculum, feeling that at best I am skimming the surface of what I used to cover in depth. My students seem less and less prepared to face the future each year. Today, the assignment was to read a standard rental agreement and answer a few questions about it. They read it and answered the questions once already, but today I used some of the strategies I learned at my conference. I had one class rise to the challenge, but many of my students would have gotten evicted if this had been for real.
I wanted to impress upon them a real world example of the importance of reading. I don't know that they grasped the concept. I felt so demoralized by the end of the day. It didn't help that one of our assistant principals came in to lecture some of us about having too high a failure rate.
No Child Left Behind has to be the worst decision that has ever graced public education. Forcing everyone and every school to improve at a fixed permanent rate, has led to a lot of artificial inflating of grades and pushing kids through. I worry so much about how they will function outside of my classroom. I see them barely able to read, write, with very little work ethic and I can't imagine the future.
I came home depressed and again, my itty bitty Lil Bit, who is getting to be less lil, cheered me up. She was in her jumperoo just giggling. She was almost bouncing herself out of her seat and giggling until she snorted. I finally sat in front of her and laughed with her. I can't solve the problems of the world. I can barely solve my own problems. But I can love her. Today, that may be the only thing I got right, but after playing with her for giggling hours that led her to crawl into my arms and snuggle, I know I have been doing that right.
I was absent two days for training and one day for my near death experience (dramatization disclaimer). I came back and knew I was pretty much going to have to start all over from scratch with my students. I did. I am really struggling this year so far with students who are so far from functional that I don't know what to do with them. I give directions and five minutes into an activity a student will be sitting there staring at a blank piece of paper.
"What are you doing?" I ask, mostly rhetorically.
"Nothing," she answers.
"Why not?" I reply frustrated.
"I don't know what we're doing. I mean what are we supposed to do?" she exclaims snarkily.
At this point, she's been sitting there doing nothing, rather than ask me to explain the directions again. Flummoxed, I try to contain my frustration. She is probably more frustrated than I am and needs me to treat her with kindness instead of anger. Still feeling sickly and overwhelmed at work and home, managing my emotions is tough.
I feel like instead of English, I am having to teach basic social skills. I have 16 year olds to whom I have to direct teach raising hands and taking turns, asking questions for clarification, bringing pencils. When I think about trying to also teach vocabulary, spelling, reading, literature, listening, public speaking, writing, and grammar; it flabbergasts me.
I am racing through curriculum, feeling that at best I am skimming the surface of what I used to cover in depth. My students seem less and less prepared to face the future each year. Today, the assignment was to read a standard rental agreement and answer a few questions about it. They read it and answered the questions once already, but today I used some of the strategies I learned at my conference. I had one class rise to the challenge, but many of my students would have gotten evicted if this had been for real.
I wanted to impress upon them a real world example of the importance of reading. I don't know that they grasped the concept. I felt so demoralized by the end of the day. It didn't help that one of our assistant principals came in to lecture some of us about having too high a failure rate.
No Child Left Behind has to be the worst decision that has ever graced public education. Forcing everyone and every school to improve at a fixed permanent rate, has led to a lot of artificial inflating of grades and pushing kids through. I worry so much about how they will function outside of my classroom. I see them barely able to read, write, with very little work ethic and I can't imagine the future.
I came home depressed and again, my itty bitty Lil Bit, who is getting to be less lil, cheered me up. She was in her jumperoo just giggling. She was almost bouncing herself out of her seat and giggling until she snorted. I finally sat in front of her and laughed with her. I can't solve the problems of the world. I can barely solve my own problems. But I can love her. Today, that may be the only thing I got right, but after playing with her for giggling hours that led her to crawl into my arms and snuggle, I know I have been doing that right.
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