#ms. h

[187days]

Day One

AND WE’RE BACK! I mean, The Principal’s stuck in Covid quarantine for one more day (oops), but details, details! The rest of us are back, and we’re ready to put the past three years behind us and kick some ass. Pretty much every meeting we had acknowledged the fact that we tried to do our best throughout the pandemic, but it was tough, it was traumatic, and we were all in survival mode, so we all experienced what Mr. G called “professional slippage.” Some things fell apart. Now it’s time to put them back together, rebuild our school culture, help everyone reach their full potential. 

The Superintendent welcomed back the faculty and staff of the entire district, which he was delighted to do because, obviously, we didn’t gather everyone in the auditorium like that last year or the year before. He always does this thing where he asks everyone to stand, and to sit back down when he calls out our years of experience in the district (as this is my 18th year, I was standing for quite a while- and quite a bit longer than many of my same-age colleagues, who worked elsewhere before coming here). It’s cheesy, but it’s also really cool, especially when he gets to the last few people remaining and asks why they’ve stayed. So, yeah, he did that, and then set the tone for the year: vision, goals, all that. 

After that, the middle and elementary school folks left, and we had a high school-specific meeting. Our admin team has been restructured so that there’s not a vice principal anymore, but two Deans of Students (9th/10th and 11th/12th), one of whom is brand new to the district (and fresh off a decade in South Korea, so he’s very amused that my brain is full of kpop). Our schedule has also been revised to build in a more formal advisory program, so that was discussed, and we got instructions for completing state-mandated suicide prevention training online. We were sent off to do that, work in our classrooms, etc, etc... 

If you’re a longtime reader, and you’re wondering if I was playing Bingo at those meetings: yes, I was, and, yes, I got Bingo. Ms. H and Mr. F both got it before me, though, so they win. Note: I got six or seven people to play, and more to look on, because I’m a terrible influence and also an excellent one. Heh. 

What else? It was good to see my cacophonous friends again, and to get excited about the year with them. And we are all excited because there’s a real determination to move forward in a positive way, lift morale, foster school pride, all the stuff that’s been so hard to do lately. And we all believe we can do it.

So here we go!

[187days]

Bonus Day

The school year doesn’t officially start until Monday, but I went up to the high school this morning for a meeting with The Principal. My state has a few new laws related to education, and I had some questions about them, so I asked if we could have a chat. The Vice Principal crashed the meeting because she wanted to discuss some of the same things I did, and also pick my brain about how to present info to veteran teachers during in-service (note: I know I am, in fact, a veteran teacher, but part of me also still thinks that’s absurd). 

Because I am basically the dog in Up, we ended up chatting about a lot of other things, too: the anti-mask protestors who’ve been showing up to school board meetings (the district will be starting the year with a mask mandate in place), the recent uptick in drug overdoses in the area, the myriad reasons why sophomores are the most difficult grade level to teach, the school’s new hires...

After that, I actually met quite a few of the new hires because today was the last day of new teacher orientation, and The Assistant Superintendent asked all the mentor teachers to be present to meet their “mentees.” Fun fact: the teacher I’ll be working with, Ms. H, is engaged to another rookie teacher, Mr. Z, and he’s one of my former students. I think it’s awesome, and I also feel super old. Heh.

I was going to go up to my classroom if I had time between meetings, but I didn’t, so I’ll probably go in tomorrow to set things up a little. The in-service schedule is pretty packed, so getting a head start might be a good idea. I’m excited, though. There are going to be challenges, for sure, but there will be a lot of joy, too.

[187days]

Day Forty-Nine

I simultaneously love and hate the first Monday after Daylight Savings. I love that it’s not dark out when I go to work, but I hate that my brain is convinced I’m running late because it’s not dark out when I go to work. It had me all out of sorts this morning. 

So, y’know, it was a perfect morning to get observed Block 1!

Actually, it was fine. It was just Ms. H observing me, so it wasn’t for my professional evaluation or anything like that. Of course, it’s still important because I want to set a good example for the new teacher, but I’ve had new teachers observing me since my second year of teaching, so it isn’t a high pressure thing at all. It’s just part of what I do.

It’s the start of a new unit in World, but since it’s the start of a new quarter, too, I began class by asking my students to write me a quick reflection: what went well Q1, what did they enjoy, what was difficult, what are their goals for Q2. I gave them my thoughts on Q1, as well (basically, tons of compliments on how well it ended). After that, I went over the new unit vocab in my typical, old school fashion (board notes). Usually, students will ask a lot more questions than they did during Block 1 this morning, but they might’ve been out of sorts like me, or nervous that another teacher was in the room. The students in the other two sections had a ton to say, though, so it balanced out.

My GOV students took a crack at an argument FRQ to start class- just for practice, not for a grade, since there’s a test coming up- and then I had them read a couple news articles relating to executive orders, administrative adjudication, and oversight- all concepts I taught them about last week. I always like to link the things I teach to current events so students can see the application. They read while I marked their FRQs, then we discussed everything for the last 15 minutes or so. So that was good. 

The day didn’t end of a high note, unfortunately. I have a student who’s either been disrupting class or skipping class most days. I thought we were making progress, but now it feels like we’re back to square one. Mrs. F, the student’s counselor, asked if it would be better for the student to drop my class and enroll in something they could pass and get credit for this quarter instead- try again with World next semester, or even next year- and that’s a question I almost never say yes to. 

But this time I did. 

Nothing I’m doing is working, and I’ve been teaching long enough to know that sometimes it’s just like that. No teacher is the right match for every single student, sometimes there are things outside our control that prevent students from being able to engage in their learning, etc, etc... I know this happens. I’ve even counseled newer teachers through it when it’s happened to them.

It doesn’t make it feel any less lousy, though.

[187days]

Day One Hundred Thirty

I am tiiiiiiired. 

Mrs. T is still sick, so it was The Me Show once again in our classes. I can do it, but it’s 160 minutes with 40ish students- with a 25 minute lunch break about halfway through- and that’s a lot. I definitely missed having her there to divide and conquer that with me. Thankfully, she did have a good sub- same guy as yesterday- and he was wiling to get involved, talk to the kids, answer questions as best he could. 

I did tease the students for trying to ask him to sign out because they knew I’d say no; I had to point out that I was onto that attempted sneakiness. 

Amusingly, as I was setting up for the day, the sub started asking about how the debate would work, and whether Mrs. T and I had considered how some of our students would try to avoid having to speak. I say “amusingly” because that’s the kind of comment that’s not meant to be insulting, but kind of is when it’s coming from a non-teacher to a veteran teacher. Like, he totally didn’t mean it- he was genuinely curious- but I think he realized how it could’ve sounded after I gently pointed out that someone walking into the room today wouldn’t know how much preparation it took. We want our lessons appear effortless to our students, so all the deliberate work we do beforehand will be invisible to them and to anyone else who comes into the room. 

I think he felt bad, but I assured him that it was cool. Then I explained how we took strengths and weaknesses into account when we grouped students, and showed the rubric that explains how we grade them on their group work (can’t exclude yourself or others and get top marks). I’m reminded that having Mr. A student-teach last fall taught me how to field these questions gracefully. Thank goodness.

Civics was low key, which was fine by me. They took a vocab quiz, and then we started studying the executive branch by discussing the process of becoming President. Side comments about Russia and fake news abounded. How about that?

Practice was pretty low-key, too, for me. The kids ran stairs because the weather’s still gross, so it was high key for them. Afterwards, I joined a lot of them- and Mr. W and Ms. H- at an “international” dinner hosted by the foreign language honor societies. So much good food. 

[madtiitan]

Watches mark zuckberg in Capitol Hill

[wastedoncake]

OMG I THINK ENGLISH CLASS IS GETTING TO ME

So I'm writing this thing and I literally stared at the sentence I wrote and deconstructed it into sentence clauses and phrases. Like I saw the independent markers, prepositional phrases, dependent, and independent phrases!!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING! HELP everyonesuckseggs AND july9th2014!!!!!