A rolling thread where we are teachers

Hello, thread. I am a) old (early 40s) and ii) an RQT, teaching English at a secondary school. I'm a classic midlife crisis, basically. The job is fucking mental, isn't it? It's a bit like parenthood in that if anyone could actually communicate the day-to-day chaos of it, no one would actually do it. That said, I do love it. Most of it. Well, bits of it.

if anyone could actually communicate the day-to-day chaos of it, no one would actually do it

The disconnect there is why the longer you teach, the more you're inclined to let every new initiative go in one ear and out the other. It's all well-meaning, but most all of it takes place in some fictional classroom that has very little connection to the day-to-day chaos.

Yes, I'm slowly coming to terms with this. I'd no real sense of just how autonomous teachers actually are - how, after a time, it's really you and the chaos. This is still half-formed but... it's a mixture of that and managing what is essentially an always already paranoid teaching subject by which I mean the teaching-ego that's formed in that first, unbelievably intense first year, where one is watched, and critiqued mercilessly, is by design and nurture, self-critical ('the best teachers are self-reflective!') to the point of madness. I still feel that watching eye, even now. That might be just my particular pathology, though.

That's spot-on. After a few years it's just you, the kids, and the chaos; I would guess, in the last 15 years, a principal has been in my room watching a lesson or activity fewer than 10 times--and some of that was the annual 5-year review. It gets to the point where you can't even convince someone you're doing a lousy job when you absolutely know that you are. I was having a nightmarish time last year--wrote about it somewhere in here, I think--and whenever I'd share that with another teacher, that I had no idea at the time what I was doing and wasn't helping anyone, it was always "No, no--you're doing a great job." Some combination of politeness, support, and the shared assumption that merely getting through the year counts for a lot.

time for eating and sleeping and general physical maintenance.

― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, February 22, 2018 12:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

in my experience you can choose one of these 3 (i choose eating)
srsly my health is in shambles but i'm a pretty decent teacher now and im happy

i think it should bother me more that ive put on like 80 pounds the last few years but im still extremely fucking cute so whatevs

That's spot-on. After a few years it's just you, the kids, and the chaos; I would guess, in the last 15 years, a principal has been in my room watching a lesson or activity fewer than 10 times--and some of that was the annual 5-year review. It gets to the point where you can't even convince someone you're doing a lousy job when you absolutely know that you are. I was having a nightmarish time last year--wrote about it somewhere in here, I think--and whenever I'd share that with another teacher, that I had no idea at the time what I was doing and wasn't helping anyone, it was always "No, no--you're doing a great job." Some combination of politeness, support, and the shared assumption that merely getting through the year counts for a lot.

I've been thinking about this a fair bit, amongst general introspection about the madness of the job. We've just had a few snow days which were like a window of sanity. I got to read, which was novel, and sleep relatively well, not dreaming about Y11. But yeah, simply being there is a thing, isn't it? No matter that you feel half-powered most of the time, if not worse.

about to start year #9. im stoked bc i'm going to have a full academic decathlon team and we're actually going to be competitive. i...might be teaching AP? they still havent told me LOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL goddammit. im in my last semester of grad school before i graduate in december which means i'll get some of my life back in the spring.

have you ever taught AP before?

the first year is brutal, esp if the course has been recently revamped (mine has)

i'm not sure if i'm going to do science olympiad again this year ... the last two years we have not been competitive and honestly the event as a whole is kind of a drag (in that it's very parent-driven, not that engaging for the kids, and not really structured toward developing scientific understanding, creativity, etc) ... but i am sure i will have some kids come begging for something to buff up their resumes

i already had to tell the kids that want to do rescue committee firmly no because they had been so useless the last two years

well it wasn't a firm no

it was "no until you bring me written plans with deadlines and deliverables for three meaningful student-run service projects", no more "raising awareness" bs

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep-black-students.html

man

been sitting with this article all day, incredibly fucked up

what a nightmare

not the only alternative school out there that's functionally a cult, from what I've heard

I've been keeping a Google classroom page this year--better than the board-created page I used to use (which wasn't bad). I posted a novel-study assignment today: "Joey Pigza - Culminating Task." (Jargon...I rail against it, but sometimes I give in.) The kids--grade 3 and grade 4--love to post responses, some of which kill me.

From V___: "thank you so much for the joey pigza culmination"

Culminate away.

(Can I just post, being a parent, I'm in awe of teachers. Many tell me I'd have been good at it. But since I feel rub as a parent, I'd prob fuck that up too. The chaos description seems apt. What I find most saddening/maddening is the intro of technology/direct communication. So many patents pester the teachers. Question their authority. I myself have never done so. There's a distinct: that's the school/classroom. The teacher gets to decide and apply their rules. I even told teachers: if they are in the wrong, you are in charge. Not I.)

I was looking over some of the stuff I've posted here the past few years and came across the back-on-forth on rubrics six years ago. No better example of how they never settle on anything before moving onto something else. Rubrics are so passé now--it's task requirements and success criteria. ("Co-created," of course.) Our resource teacher--someone I like, and she's helped me at times--is a true believer in all this stuff, I'm most definitely not, so when she asked me a few weeks ago if I knew the difference between the two, the question put me off enough that I made it a point to make up an antiquated rubric instead. (I'm finished this year, so at a certain point, it's like nobody cares what you do anymore. It's a great feeling.) Would bet a small fortune: four or five years from now, the words "task requirement" and "success criteria" will never be heard.

When I started teaching in earnest (ca. ‘03) it was all about “learning opportunities” which now seems both quaint and de rigeur.

i still use rubrics and don't feel shame about it

my students like them too. sometimes i use a checklist to get them ready to turn in an assignment but the grade is determined by the rubric. i hate grading. however, i love teaching.

GRADING, you say?

more like DEGRADING if you ask me!!

Once a year--today was that day--the kids will be working on a math test and I'll take out some chocolate and say, "You guys work on your math test; I'll be sitting here eating chocolate." I'm going to miss that.

<3

I'm on the clock.

Swine! Seriously though, good luck and enjoy those 100-odd days.

(Just for a minute there, I read DeLillo and thought, Don!)

I can't tell you how many times people come up to me on the street and start asking about arcane plot points from Underworld...Thanks; only about 70 of them in the classroom.

Things I will miss, part 83: learning stuff I never knew, in this case what games and sports Ancient Egyptians played (from a grade 4 slide show):

"What the Egypt people played: fishing, rowing, football, basketball, golf, hockey, tennis, swimming...chess, weight lifting, wrestling, long jump and other card games."

i mean i bet there are people in egypt in 2019 who do that

Pretty clearly, their research led them to a page on Egypt today--happens all the time with kids. The thought of King Tut standing over a three-foot putt on 18 still made me laugh.

dying @ "long jump and other card games"

Dying @ ancient Egyptians golfing

one of my students got into yale!!!!!!!!!!!!! yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(for reference of how big of a deal this is at my school, more of my former students have been convicted of murder than gone to ivy league schools)

That's great--I've had other success stories, not an Ivy League school (that I know of), and they always mean a lot.

In 21 years of teaching, I've had to administer standardized provincial testing in all but four of them. (Students do it in grade 3 and grade 6 here.) It came in one year before I started, and I wouldn't be surprised if it only outlasts me by a few years. I think--I hope--it is gradually dawning on the public what a rigged charade it is.

The only useful things I've gotten out of it were 1) marking it for the first few summers, which was genuinely worthwhile from the standpoint of learning how to assess (and allowed me to put away some money), and 2) the signs I post on my door every year while we're writing it.

http://phildellio.tripod.com/eqao.jpg

One regret about leaving now: I won't be around eight years from now, when I'd have a class where half the boys and a couple of the girls are named Kawhi.

just got back from graduation. always a dope experience.

I always enjoy the grade 8 grad at our school. This year, though--with an incredibly small class of 14--I've never taught any of them (I've coached two or three).

i teach primarily 12th graders (high school seniors) so it's an annual thing for me now.

When I write my half-arsed 'the impossible profession' book, one of my chapters/sections will be titled 'getting used to holidays - the unspoken something or other' because, four years in, it's still really weird. I'm all a) BIG PLANS - do the garage, shave the cat, make the garden less like a jungle, write a poem a day b) spend every second with my family! c) read everything d) sleep and laze about etc etc.

A) I'm quickly reminded I'm shit at big plans and trying to actually do anything with b) being such a big factor is the key.
B) Well, christ.
C) I'm currently in the grip of this and literally trying to read everything and it's driving me mad.
D) This gets old quite quickly and a), b) and c) are like gadflies.

Anyway, yes, I'm turning having 6 weeks off into a ballache - what of it?

summer is def too long

i spent the entire time either dealing with a tooth infection or complications that arose from it. awesome vacay!!!!!!!!!!

i would rather have some scattered time off during the year than one time per year when i can try to accomplish something substantial and fail due to circumstances that happen to coincide with that one time of year

Can I still post here, or do I have to look for a "Rolling Thread Where We Were Teachers" thread? There are a handful of year-round schools in my former board that are exactly what LL describes above--a bunch of scattered two- and- three-week breaks throughout the year. I always needed the long break and was never tempted to apply to one of them.

tbh i think we all need the long break because it's the only break we get -- i wouldn't need it so badly if i had more breaks!

i literally spent my entire break being sicker than i have ever been and dealing with monster physical problems
now that they have been handled on my break they are invisible to my coworkers, who inevitably expect me to be feeling chipper and refreshed after a lengthy "break" when i barely feel able to function. this is not healthy imo

also i have stopped referring to it as a vacation. it's "time between contracts"

amen

This is how a teacher in Gaza welcomes the children in her class every morning.
❤️🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/LdVvz29AMV

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) August 10, 2019