A Week in the Life of a Teacher
Day 2 or It Doesn’t Have to Be This Hard
This is a long one.
6:45 - 8:30 Before School
I get to school and immediately print off the story that I need to make copies of for class today. I have to make 155 copies of a 3 page document, so I’ll need to find a copy machine that staples. The only working machine on my floor with staples takes about twice as long as the machine downstairs, so I hurry downstairs to make my copies before other teachers arrive. I also want to grade some of the in-class essays that have to be done before the end of next week that I haven’t gotten to yet. I go downstairs to make the copies, and then I check the front door to see if any students are waiting in the cold per the “No Students In The Building Without A Teacher Before 7:30” Rule. Sure enough there are about 6 students waiting outside, and they are either here for make-up work for me or my social studies partner.
I let them in, and as we’re walking upstairs, a secretary comes out of the office and asks the kids if they have a note to be inside. I wave at her and say “They’re with me.” She says “OK,” and walks away, but the whole encounter is so frustrating to me. It is literally freezing outside this morning. Let’s say they weren’t with me. We really can’t make exceptions to what seems like an arbitrary rule when it’s freezing outside? Another teacher that was nearby also shared their frustrations with the situation.
After I get back upstairs and get my students started on their make-up assignments, I sit down to start grading my in-class essays. I get a text from another teacher who knows I get to work early that they need me to come downstairs to let them in because they forgot their ID. Real talk: I’m annoyed. So I go downstairs and let the teacher in with about 3 more students, and another teacher that I know comes in at the same time.
We have several students in common, so we start chatting about the performance of those students and how some of them have not had the best attitudes lately. It helps to know that it’s not just me having these experiences with these students, but we don’t really have any solutions for each other.
At 7:30, I go to a cafe that’s been set up by the Exceptional Children department here where students with special needs serve coffee and snacks to teachers for a really affordable price. It’s a pretty great set up, and the kids are awesome. Plus, the coffee is pretty good.
I come back upstairs and begin another round of make-up assignments for students that have arrived, and begin to look for a portfolio that I need for an event next week. I can’t find it anywhere, and now it appears that I will have to assemble another one, which is pretty obnoxious. I also don’t understand how I lost it in the first place, but I begin to plan all of the things I need to assemble again for the portfolio. Beginning to re-assemble the portfolio takes up the rest of my before school time, and I never get to the in-class essays.
8:30 - 9:16 1st Period Essentials of English
One of the students who was difficult in this class yesterday brought me some hashbrowns this morning to make amends. All is forgiven, and once the bell rings for the start of class, 4 of 13 students are missing. While students work on their journal assignment to start class, I tell them to get the assignments from yesterday that they were supposed to complete on their own. Only 3 students completed the assignment. I tell them that they need to complete it as soon as possible if they want to replace this zero, but otherwise the zero sticks.
While students are supposed to be working, I catch a student on her phone. I tell her to put her phone away, and she responds in an argumentative and disrespectful manner. I ask her to step outside into the hallway because I’ve noticed this student’s attitude and work ethic to be on a steady decline for 2nd semester. When we are out in the hall, I ask her if she’s OK or if anything is bothering her because she is not acting like herself. She responds just as rudely as before, and refuses to acknowledge the bulk of my questions. I tell her that I’m trying to help and be an advocate for her, but I can’t do that if she won’t let me. She seems unfazed, so I shrug and say “OK, I guess you’ve made your choices.”
Inside the classroom, there is one student who refuses to be on task. He is constantly talking, staring off into space, or eating a cookie so rapturously that I can hear him moaning from across the room. He’s doing all of this for attention, so I do my best to ignore him. Finally, it’s too much to ignore, and I call him out for acting ridiculous. When I mention CookieGate 2k17, he tries to deny it, but the entire class confirms that he was moaning at a ridiculous volume while eating a cookie.
The rest of class resumes without incident.
9:21 - 10:07 2nd Period Essentials of English
This class gets off to an easy start, and only 2 students are absent. 1 student immediately asks if he go to the clinic because he doesn’t feel well, but everyone else gets seated. I do have to ask them about 5 times to get their journals out and the assignments they were supposed to complete yesterday. Unlike the previous class, almost everyone has the assignment complete. Also in this class, I realize that the portfolio I need is most likely in my car...or at least it was at one time.
This class works pretty much without incident for the duration of class. It’s pretty great.
10:15 - 11: 05 3rd period English 2 Honors
This class is finishing up their lecture on World War 1 from the previous day and then moving on to the first piece of literature for the unit. As the lecture starts up, a student requests more Introvert Jams, so I oblige. Then we spend five minutes talking about how my other classes don’t appreciate Radiohead as much as they do. We get through the rest of the lecture fine and then we move on to do background on our author, Luigi Pirandello. Pirandello believes that truth is relative, and there is no objective reality, which is a concept that usually generates a fair amount of thought and discussion.
However, for this class it actually generated a complete bizarre comment about how Pirandello “sounds like Hitler.” I have no idea what the student meant by this or why he thought he should say it, because when I asked him to clarify, he refused. When I then went on to explain what Pirandello meant, the student said “Oh! I wasn’t thinking about it that way,” but continued to refuse to explain how he thought that idea had any correlation to Hitler. For the record, I’m not saying that idea couldn’t be connected to Hitler, I just wanted the student to explain how it did.
This class gets a few paragraphs into the story and seems to understand the ideas and relevant details that Pirandello provides.
11:07 - 11:53 4th period English 2 Honors
I start this class by saying that I have reached my shenanigans quota for the day and please be cool. And after all of the before school hijinks, the student who wouldn’t get off her phone, CookieGate 2k17, and the Hitler situation, I really have had all of the shenanery that I can take. After I plead my case for nothing but total cooperation and focus, the student from yesterday once again asks me if I’m filling out a bracket, while another student offers me some graham crackers “to take the edge off.” I take the graham crackers and ignore Bracket Boy.
This class can usually get sidetracked pretty easily due to all of the personalities in it, but they do a pretty good job of policing themselves. Someone’s phone goes off and a kid yells out: “She said no shenanigans, guys! Ja feel?” One side of the room devolves into side conversation at one point, and I then quietly teach only the side of the room where everyone is attentive. Bracket Boy, who is on the noisy side, yells out: “She’s doing that thing again where she only teaches the kids that deserve it!”
We get through the background on Pirandello without anything crazy happening, but there was a fun moment when we are reading about how Pirandello’s wife “was declared insane and had to be institutionalized.” A male student began clapping about this, and a female student said “Don’t get too excited. She probably just had crazy ideas, like that women are human beings or something.”
12:00 - 12:46 5th period English 2 Honors
This class has absolutely no energy at all, which happens sometimes because this class is right before lunch. Everyone is quiet, and it’s like pulling teeth to get any of them to answer my questions or discuss the concepts we need to get through. I finally tell them that I’m frustrated with their lack of effort, and participation improves. We get through everything that we need to get through, and I dismiss them for lunch.
12:46 - 1:15 LUNCH
I have lunch duty on Tuesdays, so I skip eating lunch with my classes because it’s awkward to have to stand at the end of a hallway while you shovel food into your mouth. Plus the container is too hot to hold after putting it in the microwave.
For lunch duty I have to stand at the bottom of some rarely traversed stairs and try to prevent students from leaving through the doors on my left for my entire lunch period. I have never had to say anything to a kid about trying to leave. I also have to find the administrator in charge of my lunch to sign in for lunch duty. Last week, he never showed up, but this week he gets there right as lunch is starting.
As I’m standing there, a wave of students returns to their classes from 2nd lunch (I have 3rd lunch), and a student I taught last year comes up and pretends like we have some secret handshake that I can’t keep up with. He and another student that I know but never taught laugh at my ineptitude, and then they give me a hug and go to class.
After they leave, a student that I don’t know approaches and asks for Handshake Kid’s name. I ask why, and they say that he stole from them. I ask why they think he stole from them, and they say “He took something out of my hand as I was holding it.” I ask what he took, and the student responds “My vape.” I say “Sooooo he stole something from you that you’re not supposed to have in the first place? What do you think can be done about that?” And the kid just sighs and walks away. I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that for some reason this school is obsessed with vaping. We get bi-monthly vape updates so from security here about the latest vapes and what to look out for. The students talk about vaping constantly. It’s bizarre.
1:15 - 2:01 6th Period English 2 HN
This class goes well until the end of class when we get to Pirandello’s “truth is relative” idea. It’s important to note that I don’t want my students to agree with every philosophy that I present to them. For one thing, that’s impossible, and for another thing, that would be silly. However, I do need my students to understand these ideas and concepts so that they can understand the context for an author’s work.
Today, I had a student who refused to understand the concept of truth being relative. When I tried to explain to him what Pirandello meant, he would just yell over me, saying things like “But 2+2=4!” or “The world is round!” I would say “Yes, those seem like objective truths to you, but some people reject those truths, and that is what Pirandello is saying. He believes that everyone has their own reality that is true for them.” The student would respond by saying “That’s dumb. This guy’s dumb. I don’t like this guy.” It was frustrating and unnecessarily time-consuming. BUT it did lead to one student saying to him “You’re kinda proving his point by the way you’re acting right now.” I moved on with the lesson and the story, but that student spent the rest of class fuming and unwilling to participate.
2:01 - 3:45 PLANNING
During my planning period, I have to respond to a few emails from parents. One is from the parent whose child is trying to circumvent deadlines for their essay with no late penalty. Parent communication always stresses me out, because it’s hard to ensure that your tone and message will be received in the manner and in the spirit that you intend. I also feel the need to explain everything as thoroughly as possible for complete transparency. I spend about 20 minutes typing a response to the parent where I explain the the assignment, the deadlines, my classroom policies, and why her student’s situation does not warrant turning in an assignment late without penalty.
I then try to grade some of the in-class essays I never got to this morning, but I have too much anxiety because I feel like this whole situation with this student is about to blow up. Sure enough, ten minutes before the dismissal bell, I receive an email response that the parent and student would like to sit down with me after school with an administrator to resolve the issue.
3:45 - 4:40 SURPRISE PARENT/TEACHER CONFERENCE!!!! WOO HOO!!!!
So the parent and student walk in about 3:50, and no one seems particularly thrilled. Thankfully, the administrator takes over almost immediately, and I spend most of the conference in silence. My anxiety is through the roof though, and I’m shaking slightly. After a lot of back and forth,, the conference ends with the decision that the student will receive a late penalty.
I realize after everyone leaves that I don’t feel very well, and then it occurs to me that I never ate lunch.
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