Robbie - Day 1 (3/6)

Thanks to the amazing Heather for inspiring/challenging me to document a week in my life as a teacher. It was really eye-opening and interesting to read her perspective last week, and I hope sharing my perspective promotes a greater understanding of our profession.

Day 1 - Monday 3/6/17

7:35-8:00 I arrive at school and hurry to put the desks in my room back in order. They have been moved after a school event this weekend. We have a staff meeting this morning, so I have to get everything ready for class because there's no way to know how long the meeting will last. Quickly, I schedule my Remind messages for the week - these are text messages that go out to students to remind them of upcoming quizzes, tests, and projects. I schedule them for 4pm the day before any major assessment. I send a copy of my emergency sub plans to another teacher who has asked to see an example. I always make something general that can apply to any unit - this way, if I ever use them, I don't need to change them... students can just do the same assignment again with a different topic. I grade a few French 4/5 journals before walking down to the staff meeting.

8:00-8:46 Staff meeting. We discussed the upcoming teacher tea, in which each teacher chooses a student who "brightens his/her day". The student is recognized at a tea in April, the parents come, and refreshments are served. The whole thing makes me feel awkward, because then I have to (a) select a "favorite" student and (b) talk to that student and their parents for an extended period of time. I am just not a very gushy person, so it's not an activity I enjoy. I've successfully avoided the tea for the past few years as I've taught at multiple schools and couldn't make it to the reception, but I suppose I have no way to get out of it this year. We also discussed a committee that is coming to visit our school on Friday, and we all have to model excellent teaching practices and display well-written, detailed lesson plans. This isn't a problem, because I have excessively detailed lesson plans every day, but if they mark me down for not using my microphone, I will scream. Other staff meeting topics: prom, SIT, black male achievers, final exam schedule, Career Center dismissal (should we let Career Center students leave class early?), and good news items.

8:46-8:55 I rush down the hall before first period starts and discuss the teacher tea with another teacher while we are walking. She gives me good strategies for not letting it be awkward and for making the student selection process more fair, and I think I'm okay with the idea of it now. I still don't like picking a "best" or "favorite" student though. All my students are special and meaningful in different ways.

8:55-10:25 French 3H. Students work on their warmup assignment (interview activity) while I take attendance, pass back papers, assemble work for students who are absent, give one student a bandaid, answer two student questions about vocabulary words, distribute extra credit Euro winnings from last class, and circulate throughout the room to make sure students are on task. We review for their test and then they start working on their unit test. I can see that a girl sitting in front of me has a phone halfway sticking out from under her sweater, so I watch her for a while to see if she is using it during the test. I watch her closely and don't see a phone again, so hopefully she was not actually cheating. Cheating is so hard to prove and so rampant. I figure for every 1 person I catch cheating, there are at least 5 others I don't catch. While students are testing, I grade journals from another class. I skim over most of the entries and choose one to give detailed feedback on. I will get to teach a few of them about the availability heuristic (several wrote in this entry that the thing they fear most is dying in a plane crash). In a perfect world, I would write comments about all the entries (they have done 6 journals since I last collected them), but the reality is that there just isn't time for that. I feel disappointed and wish I could do more. A few students don't finish the test, but I told them at the beginning of the test that they had to finish by 10:25, and it's in my syllabus that there is no extra time (except for 504s/IEPs). I feel a little bad, but... it's in my syllabus.

10:25-10:30 I stand in the hall and supervise students during class change. I talk to another teacher about whether we should dismiss Career Center students early (which we discussed in our staff meeting). I think we should let them leave 5 minutes early, but Career Center should also dismiss them 5 minutes early to come back to their home schools. Also, there has to be a better way to make the CC/home school schedules mesh. There is an unnecessary 25 minute break in the morning at Career Center. Eliminating that break and moving up class start times could help students arrive back here better. An assistant principal said at our meeting that it takes 37 minutes to get from Career Center to our school (from classroom to classroom), but there is a 23-28 minute travel period in the schedule. We both agree this should be fixed.

10:30-12:00 Planning period. I have many things to do, and not all of them can be done, so I have to prioritize. I don't have copies made for tomorrow, so I run about 2 weeks worth of copies for French 3/4/5. While in the workroom, I chat with a few coworkers who come and go during that time. Next, I go down to the media center to get bulletin board paper for my students' upcoming Venn diagram presentations. This paper is impossible to tear neatly. It always takes me forever and is just a huge mess. I consider having them do an electronic version (that they could project in class), but everything on a computer seems to take them 3 times as long. With about 30 minutes left, I decide to work on lesson planning and plan my French 2 lessons for next week. I look at my notes from last year and fortunately don't have to change too much. I modify a warmup assignment to make it more communicative and change a section on a test that I haven't liked for a couple years but never had time to change until now.

12:00-12:35 Lunch. Teachers generally have lunch together here, which is nice. When I've worked at other schools, people would just stay in their rooms and work while they were eating. I think it's important to have those 30 minutes a day when I just sit and eat and talk and relax.

12:35-2:05 French 4/5H. French 4 and 5 are combined in the same class. I have 10 French 4 students and 3 French 5 students. I decided it would work best to teach everyone the same curriculum (rather than try to split the class). If I teach French 4/5 again next year, I'll develop a B curriculum so the students won't repeat the same material. A student asks me if their test will be open notes like the French 3 test was this morning. I reply that only PART of that test was open notes and that in French 4, the expectations are higher. Some of the students start to complain that they heard the test was really hard and some people didn't finish. I tell them that their test is different. They start working on their interview activity. While this class takes its test, I grade the French 1 tests from Friday. I usually don't have all my classes testing at the same time, but it just worked out that way this time, and I need to remember never to do that again. Too much grading. I like to return all papers by the next class period, but I don't think it's going to happen this time. Halfway through the period, I receive an email from a guidance counselor stating that I will be getting a new student in class tomorrow (not sure which class) and that the principal wants to meet with all his teachers today after school. This is unusual. I am supposed to have a French Club meeting and several kids staying to make up quizzes, so I have to send a Remind to all of them to cancel the meeting, and I put a sign on the door with other times they can come this week to make up their work. As a result, I have to reschedule our French teachers meeting that was scheduled for this Wednesday, because I have to push things from today back to tomorrow and Wednesday, and my co-facilitator is unable to lead the meeting. I hate that I have to change plans on all these people, but I don't have a choice. When he turns in his test, one student staples the papers together. I scream (jokingly), and several students gasp in horror. Every student in my class knows that I HATE staples.

2:10-3:40 French 2. I talk to the other French teacher in the hallway while students come into class. She is here for one period every other day and has my old job. Students have a warmup assignment where they convert an American report card to the French system. Meanwhile, I fix a pencil sharpener, put away a few papers, remind students about missing quizzes, ask a student why she is not sitting in her assigned seat, and tell 3 students to put their cell phones away. We then have a discussion about cultural differences related to school in France vs. the USA. As usual, several students ask about the legal drinking age in France (which obviously has nothing to do with the education system, but they like to ask). We play a white board game where students work in teams and have to risk points based on a category, and then I ask a question for them to respond to. I have to tell one group of students the instructions for the game 3 times because they were not listening the first 2 times. Aside from this, the students seem to do well with this and seem pretty ready for their test next class. This is normally my most... energetic... class, but they do pretty well today and are quite calm. I am thankful.

3:40-4:05 After school meeting to discuss a new student and his special needs. The meeting is productive and quick, and I am happy to have the information. The assistant principal who observed me last week compliments me on the lesson she saw and says we will meet tomorrow to sign off on the observation. I return to my classroom and see the door is wide open, even though I closed it when I left.