Remember me?

Remember when I said I'd be back after fall break?  OOPS!  School started, yearbook started, personal stuff happened and well I'm back.  I have been absent the past few days and oh it is horrible!  I haven't been at school since Monday and it is weird.  I hate missing work!  We have a horrible time getting subs, and apparently (I was there this morning for two classes) my "sub" the man who covered my class (our alternative education teacher) didn't do much of the work I left for my kids.  I have two of my classes for 90 minutes so of course I left TONS of worksheets.  We are focusing on reading comprehension right now so what better way to get that going then reading comprehension worksheets.  (what easier way to get grades while you are gone?) so this morning I had my first/second hour making up some of those worksheets because they need grades.  I wasn't at work on Wednesday either and let me tell yall this, on my desk (which for once you could see) there is a bright green folder that says Emergency Sub Plans.  I had one teacher text me about them (but I was sleeping so I didn't see the text) and no one else bothered to look.  I have two teachers on my hall who know where I keep things, everyone knows that one of the teachers and I work together quite a bit so they could have asked him.  EPIC fail!  I did have another teacher find a worksheet on my desk and have them do that, which while it was a "quiz" on following directions it was something.  I felt bad because normally my kids can just read but I removed the classroom library before Fall Break and haven't returned it.  They weren't using it, and I need to go through the books to find new ones, get rid of the beat up ones, replace, etc.  I was there this morning for my first/second hour so they spent some time this morning working on those reading comprehension worksheets.  I gave them to the students so that they could actually use those skills we worked on.  I also gave my other classes TONS of work (oh wait would it be the worksheets I had already assigned) to be finished.  I handed them to the teachers, and then told them who they could trust. I am praying that some of it got done because I hate having to "waste" time and have the kids finish these assignments but at the same time I need them to understand when I am gone the work will be graded.  Anyone else feel that way?  Morale at school still sucks and it's funny because we just had a survey returned from the beginning of the year that explains about the Occupational Health of our building and some of the admin team think it's great.  If they only knew (or listened  to people) they would know that at least three teachers are thinking of resigning, quite a few are looking to "jump" ship, I can't even begin to tell you how many teachers are so burnt out and it's not even Winter Break yet.  It doesn't help that some of the stuff we are doing is paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork.  I miss teaching.  I miss working really hard on a lesson and watching it either succeed or crash and burn but I know that I worked hard on that.  Now, it's impossible to get myself motivated to write my daily lesson plan.  Yes, daily lesson plan and if I don't have a week's worth of lessons I will be reprimanded.  Really?  I understand wanting to know what I am doing but seriously people I barely have time to see my husband, get grades done, tutor (mandatory), try and cover, etc.   At the heart of it I still love my job, but when is enough enough? When are people going to start listening to the teachers again?

Fall Break

I am on Fall Break and will return October 28.  Happy Fall Y'all!!!

Thank You?

When was the last time you were thanked for staying late because a student of yours was the last kid to be picked up?  When was the last time you arrived early because another student needed help in Math and you teach Science?  When was the last time someone you work with said Thank You?  We spend so much time teaching our students how to be contributing members of our society that sometimes we forget to thank the other people working WITH us not against us.  I am not one of those people who believes in rainbows and puppies only, but think about this.  At one point or another most teachers became teachers because they "wanted to be the change in the world" thanks ghandi.  You have to want to be a part of something to deal with our LONG hours, growing piles of paperwork (not grading related), cranky parents, cranky staff members, students (big and small), overcrowded classrooms, and germs just to name a few.  I started thinking about this post because morale at my school stinks.  We are in the middle of renovations (which will ultimately turn our school into an elementary school), have almost an entirely new staff, some of the old staff are those old scary teachers you read about in horror stories, the administration keeps piling more and more and more for us to do, and of course people are cranky.  I am cranky!  I am on the verge of burn out but do you know what keeps me going back each day?  My kids!  I have two small classes due to the reading program I teach and today more than half of the kids were taking another test so I had 7 kids, so I decided to try something new and it worked.  It was wonderful!  I gave each student a piece of notebook paper and then I wrote one sentence on top that they had to finish, I gave each student about a minute to read and write on each story and then we read them aloud as a group.  They were hilarious!  My kids kept wanting to this silly assignment but the best part?  No fighting, no arguing, and they were writing (willingly.)  While this assignment was going on I had a student come up to me to tell me he really enjoyed my class because he knew I cared.  Those two reasons right there are why I go back each and every day.  So, I challenge you to two things followers!  1 - Thank something that you work with for doing a great job!  Don't mock them and say hey great job at making copies, but be sincere.  We all need a thank you now and then.  2- Tell me why you go to work everyday.  I'm honestly curious as to why each and everyone of you (ok all 66 of you) do what you do everyday.  Are you a stay at home mom?  Why did you chose to stay home? 

Here is my Thank You to my 66 readers.  I started this blog to keep in touch with friends and am starting to understand there are other frustrated but truly wonderful teachers out there, so thank you for putting up with the silly things in order to touch the hearts.  Thank you! 

Volleyball is OVER...

Volleyball was finished on Saturday during the All City tournament at which my girls placed 5th. My only goal was for the girls to make it past round one and well we made it to round 5.  I am super proud!  With that being said I will be back later this week to post again.

volleyball...

I am the head coach for the girl's volleyball team.  We only have a girl's team for volleyball at my school and while I moan and groan I love it!  I love seeing my girls play their hearts out (and this year win!) I love seeing the girls make new friends, some find their confidence, and some go out there and kick butt.  There are some that still can't get the ball over, but try, try, try and I love that.  Which that being said I won't be back until after Volleyball season which will end at the end of this month. 

mental health day

Today I took a much needed mental health day.  I spent the morning in bed snuggling with my sweet puppy and catching up on the DVR.  I ended up spending Sunday in bed due to the fact that I have caught cold/virus number 1 for the school year and it's only been in season for a month.  I then spent the rest of the afternoon reading, lounging, and reading.  I had to go to school this afternoon to coach volleyball (which is a laugh of course!) and when I arrived at school I wished I had stayed at home.  I found out that we have had more items added to our to do list, along with some silly people saying stupid things about me (just because we teach middle school doesn't mean we have to behave like middle schoolers.) I brought home some grading and yet I still haven't done it because I had to run some errands tonight and I have been trying and trying to make my lesson plans for tomorrow.  I know exactly what I am going to do but I have a hard time filling out our lesson plan template.  silly isn't it?  I can't seem to explain in my lesson plans what I am going to do yet I am an English teacher who loves to talk.  ironic much?  speaking of being an English teacher who loves to talk I must confess that one of the reasons I stopped blogging was because I have a horrible love affair with run on sentences.  I think that being self aware is impressive but I also never felt that my blog would ever get more than 10 readers so what did it matter, with that being said I will be having the rules of the blog updated soon.  Sorry tangent 1 of the post is now finished!  I am starting to think that mental health day was definitely needed but now I feel like I am stuck in a rut because I just don't care to do some of the stuff I am now being asked to do.  I will do it because it's my job, and because I am a rule follower for the most part, but I want to know when am I going to have time to teach, see my husband, relax, etc.  I know that being a teacher isn't always a job that you can quit at 6 but answer me this why are the teachers at school longer than the administrators?  Why are having to pull test scores that are two years old from our students?  Why are we the ones that are worried about getting in trouble when our teaching time is taken up by silly little things like vocab four squares that take up too much time?  Sorry this wasn't meant to be a rant but let's face I'm sick of it being one of the last people at school everyday.  I am sick of being there early and still not getting things done and getting in trouble for it.  I have a life outside of school or at least I used to.  Use your plans you say, well when you have meetings two days a week, tutoring two days a week, when do you time to use your plans?  When will people let us teach again?  I want to teach!  I love teaching, I love trying new things with my kids, I love seeing the lightbulbs go off in their brains, I love hearing a student tell me that they loved my lesson (or even thought it was lame) because it meant they were paying attention.  I went to school to become a teacher not a data entry, drone for the district.  Do you ever feel like a drone?  Do you ever feel like you can't really teach anymore?

today was...

today was one of those days where i seriously thought "why, am i teacher?" and it wasn't because of my children.  i will admit that my lesson planning isn't always as thought out as others, but i do know what i am doing since i have been teaching ramp up for the past three years (and it doesn't change!) but this week i did i planned an amazing lesson.  i planned an amazing cross-curricular lesson AND i planned an amazing lesson with my low kids and another teachers honors class but sadly that lesson did not happen.  why not?  why did we plan this lesson? i know you are all on the edge of your seat for these details so i will tell you why and why not.  we have begun the process of benchmark testing (insert groan here) and they (powers that be) are trying a new way to have my students test which seems to be working so i'm okay with it, but with that being said we were told that we would be holding our first hour for three hours when we were testing so we wouldn't have to worry about kids missing, kids rushing, etc.  this is why we planned an amazing lesson because we were allowed to plan a lesson we wanted to do that obviously fit in with our curriculum, which we did.  so, friday morning i come to school early and am talking with the other teachers about our lesson and then i run to get the lesson plan (did i mention i made a powerpoint for a few important things because i did) and when i get back they inform me our assistant principal told them oh they decided yesterday/this morning that we didn't have to hold our children for three hours anymore.  i understand that due to distract wide pd we had about fifteen teachers missing (don't get me started on that! i go next friday!)  these are brand spanking new teachers who look freaked out so i go talk to our new assistant principal and then our principal and they said "yes we don't have to hold, figure it out you can make something happen, etc." at that moment i am not proud to say i had to walk away so i didn't start throwing a temper tantrum or worse.  we had ten minutes to come up with a new lesson, which wouldn't be so hard except it was a friday, quite a few teachers were absent, and my first hour is ninety minutes because my ramp up classes are ninety minutes.  i managed to find some stuff for my kids to do, was it my awesome lesson?  no, was i disappointed? yes, did everything work out? somewhat!  the day only got worse from there but i'll blog about that and the interesting lesson we had planned later.  i promise i can only relive this day piece by piece.