Sans Guidelines

At my student teaching school, I never saw a referral slip. I presume that we had them, but we never used them.

At LMS, I tried to avoid writing kids up. No one wants to be the new teacher who deals with classroom management by sending all her trouble to the principal’s office, and some of my colleagues prided themselves on the fact that they had never used a referral form. Turns out I don’t have that kind of patience or management skills – or maybe I didn’t have that kind of students. I did end up filling out my fair share of referral forms before the year was up – things like kids hitting each other or stealing things off my desk or flagrantly cheating.

Then I came here, to CHS, and the discipline issues are like nothing I’ve dealt with before. And all I’ve really been given, in terms of advice for management, is that “You’ve got a really good support system here.”

Discipline here is all over the map. Some teachers kick kids out into the hall if they act up and leave them there, unsupervised, for the entire period. Some teachers put them in a corner of their room. Some give up their lunches for lunch detentions, and others stay after school for afternoon detentions. And the main word I hear is “referral form.” Since it seems to be the primary thing that teachers do, I started doing it, too.

And then I got fussed at by the Dean for writing kids up. I guess he thought that, in that particular case, I should have dealt with it in-house. If the infraction had been X degrees more severe, then I should have written him up – but in this case, it didn’t need to be taken to the Dean.

Okay, fine. I didn’t take offense. It’s just that it’s so hard to figure out what this particular school wants done, what SOP for CHS discipline issues really is. Each school has different unwritten policy – will someone PLEASE tell me what CHS’s is?!?

So I emailed him with a suggestion. I asked if we could maybe make a sheet with examples of infractions and suggested consequences. Like, “Copying another student’s assignment – first infraction –> call home. Cheating on test –> referral form.” Stuff like that. It seems to me to be a terrific idea. Teachers new to the school need to know what’s expected of them, what the appropriate thing to do here really is. And frankly, teachers not new to the school might out to have some guidelines, too – there’s some (IMHO) highly inappropriate classroom management going around. One of my neighbors locks his door at the bell, and if a kid – keep in mind, we’re talking high school here – is late, s/he has to sit out in the hall and miss 87 minutes of instruction. I didn’t tell the Dean that stuff, but I really made a strong case for creating a list of issue/consequence guidelines.

He didn’t respond.

Today I have a report from Monday’s sub that I had students leaving class without permission, roaming the halls, sitting on each other, and sleeping on my couch. I caught a student getting into my personal cabinet and suspect him of stealing supplies. I confiscated a note passed between two male students that consisted of a pornographic drawing of them having sex with a female student, her name labeled.

So what do I do? Is it a demeaning act of sexual harrassment, or is it just the eleventh grade equivalent of schoolboys drawing penises on their desktops? (I mean, I know what I think, but what does my school think?)

Sans requested guidelines, I’ve decided to email and ask him about each of these infractions, in the hopes that his direction on them will get me on the right page – and that maybe he’ll get a little irritated and realize that my list of guidelines is a good idea after all. After all, one of the things that we were taught was highly important about classroom management is that consequences be clear and consistent…

No-vember

See, I knew that November sucked.

This is a chart that my district provided to us “new-to-the-district” teachers at one of our in-service meetings.

You may remember that I posted a similar graph during my student teaching. It charted the highs and lows, emotionally speaking, of the student teaching experience. Looking at it, I wonder if the roller coaster ride isn’t more about teaching in general than specifically student teaching.

It’s November, and I’m firmly in Disillusionmentville. (I’m hoping that I’m ahead of the curve, so to speak, and that I don’t really have five months of this to look forward to.) I don’t really like my classes very much. I’m not crazy about what I’m teaching. My students are making me crankier and crankier. I’m not even enjoying NaNoWriMo.

I was really excited about moving to high school. Not only would there be all of those great high school-y things (sports, band, dances, events, graduation) but I’ve have students at a higher cognitive level with more life experiences – students who would get my jokes and be able to dig deeper into things. Well, the events and whatnot are here, but not worth it. And the higher cognitive level is totally absent. I’m pretty sure that my seventh graders were brighter than the majority of these kids, and certainly more motivated.

This is depressing. I am not enjoying this.

My school doesn’t believe in Honors English. Juniors and seniors have the opportunity for CP and AP classes, or classes tailored to their interests in their academies, but underclassmen are all lumped in together. As a result, I might have 3-4 smart cookies in the class, but they’re totally buried by the kids who are being forced to be here and who hate being in school and who especially hate being forced to learn about writing and literature. I don’t mind the “average” or even the struggling kids – they’re charming and hardworking and surprising. But there are so many totally apathetic kids that it makes it really, really hard.

Some days this feels like drudgework. I look out at the class. I’ve got a great lesson on a subject I care about, and it’s not like we’re doing predicates here, I’m talking about swashbuckling adventure novels and how Shrek uses parody and incongruity to satirize fairy tales and gender roles and how The Princess Bride is a satire and how it and The Princess Diaries are Ruritarian romances. And across the room, I see blank faces, tops of heads, rolling eyes, smirks as kids communicate wordlessly across the room. They don’t care. They don’t care when I read a section of The Princess Bride aloud and bellow about my broken radio at the top of my lungs. They don’t care when I show them the different movies being parodied when Fiona beats up Robin Hood and the Merry Men. They don’t care when I say that their 100-point essay is due next class, because they’re not going to write it anyway.

Is it me? Is it them? Is it just November? Has anyone charted student morale? Is it possible that the students hit a wall in November, and that their apathy and lack of motivation have this big a drain on teacher morale? Or is the low teacher morale leaking out and affecting student enthusiasm?

Or is it just teaching?

Look at that chart again. Here, I’ll even re-paste it so you don’t have to scroll up.

When I was counting the months of “disillusionment” I realized that they stretched from November through May. That’s practically the entire school year. According to this chart, teachers spend the first quarter barely getting by, the fourth quarter reflecting on everything that went wrong (and hopefully, how to improve it) and everything else during the school year is just dreadful. The only high point on the chart is during the summer months.

That’s not what I think teaching is like. Not really. The best part of being a teacher is not June, July, and August. I love teaching.

Don’t I?

Exactly which part of that chart isn’t accurate, Mrs. Bees?

Well, hopefully the part where the bottom of the curve lasts for two entire quarters…

I don’t want to mislead anyone. I’m in no danger of burning out on teaching – this is, still, the best job I’ve ever had, and I love it. I guess what I’m trying to say here is that, as of right now, I’m not sure that high school is the best fit for me. I miss my short, sincere, silly little twelve-year-olds. They can’t grasp metaphor, they can’t remember deodorant, and they can’t shoot hoops, but they at least act like they like me.

Back to School

I’m sitting here in my perfectly turned-out classroom with about twenty minutes left in my ludicrously long and luxurious prep period. (A girl can get a lot done in ninety minutes!)

The advantage to having first period prep on the first day of school is that I’m not the first person anyone sees, and I get a chance to eavesdrop on other people to see what they’re doing to kick things off. Just hearing other people talking to their classes without self-destructing makes me breathe a little easier.

I say that, but it’s kind of silly, because I’m not scared. I thought I would be nervous about starting the school year, but I feel pretty dang confident about it all. I’m looking forward to working with sophomores again. I’m looking forward to teaching again. The only thing that really gives me pause is the block scheduling, and I think I’ve got a grip on it now.

A few notes:

• There were flowers and earrings – golden CHS mascots – on my desk when I got here, and I’m still not sure how Mr. Bees did it. Going to have to tickle it out of him, I think.
• Instead of a ear-shattering buzzer, the morning bell – and the warning bells leading up to it – is Westminster Chimes.
• A girl came in during my prep to ask if she could be my TA, somehow not realizing that it was my prep despite the emptiness of the room (they don’t TA during your prep).
• High school students are considerably taller than middle school students. I’d forgotten that.
• A girl looked into my classroom from the hall and saw my Australia poster. She said to her friend, “Australia! I love that movie! Except that there was this one part that was pretty inappropriate.” Her friend replied that she had a book she’d like, but that it had an inappropriate part. The girl said, “That’s okay, I’ll skip over that part.” When she said that part of the movie was pretty inappropriate, it sounded just like my sister at that age.

It’s my first day of school all over again. Wish me luck, and best of luck to all of you out there for whom it is also your first day! Happy teaching!

Almost There

My classroom looks less like a box and more like an English class now. I’m missing some books – hello, where are my three torn-up copies of Jurassic Park? – so I need to do a search through the garage.

Gah, I can’t believe I’m worrying about lost paperbacks when there is SO MUCH TO DO.

Right now my class sizes are kind of worrying me. I’ve got 32 desks in my room, and don’t especially want more than that. My school is smallish, and class sizes should be smallish, too. I’ve got four classes under thirty, which is quite nice, but the other two are 35 and 36 strong. I’ve never had a class over 32, and… well, if it’s what I need to do, of course I’ll do it. But I hope it’s not something I have to do. We have an email from the admins telling us that class sizes are still getting balanced out; I just hope they’re balancing mine, too.

They hired three of us to the English department at CHS. I’ve heard a rumor that there were over a hundred people who applied for those three spots. Could be baloney, but regardless – if I have to teach 40 kids, I’ll teach 40 kids.

Countdown

It’s Tuesday. I’ve got keys to my classroom and the code for the burglar alarm. My bookcases are in my room, along with a love seat, most of my posters (many of which won’t do for high school), my school supplies, and about half of my books.

The other half of my books are in boxes in my garage. Today I’ve set up a base camp on my back porch – extension cord through the window for the laptop – to go through those boxes and weed out the middle lever readers. I had a wide range of reading levels on my seventh grade bookshelves, but I won’t need Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys for sophomores. Fortunately, there’s a lot of good YA lit in there, too.

Going to box up the no-longer-wanted books and, because I don’t really foresee going back to middle school, find them a new home. There was a gal who student taught at my last school, who recently got hired in a junior high one town past the town in which I will now teach. (Wow, that’s a train wreck of a technically-correct sentence.) She indicated interest, but I’m not positive how to get them to her. Worst case, I’ll donate them to the library or Goodwill. After all, that’s where most of them came from…

I don’t intend to drive out to CHS unless I find out that my P-card is ready, in which case I might just waste the gas and do it. I’m really anxious to start getting my supplies before all of the good sales run out. Our area Target all but gives away crayons and whatnot, and while not a standard sophomore school supply, I like to use stuff like that occasionally. Will need notebooks, etc….

Tomorrow is Wednesday. For three days starting tomorrow, I’ll be sitting in a (probably over-ACed) room being taught how to be a teacher in my new district. Joy of joys. I’m hoping that the good/necessary information I’ll receive will be worth the hours of stuff I already knew.

Friday afternoon I go back to CHS to meet my building mentor.

I’m in a concert Saturday evening.

The following Wednesday I have my “Benefits Fair” all afternoon, and I’m hoping it is less of a disaster than my last one. No district could possibly be as disorganized as my last, right?

That Friday, and the following Monday, are teacher work days at CHS.

Monday is also the first day of school at the university. I’ve basically decided not to try to take classes this fall – a decision aided by the fact that there aren’t any good classes scheduled when I can take them.

Tuesday is the first day of school at CHS…

 

So basically, I’ve got six days of “freedom” left. Of course, being a teacher, I have to rename that “time to frantically plan and prep”… 🙂

I’m excited. A tad nervous. But excited.

Classroom!

Houston, we have classroom!

• 30′ x 29′, if I can trust my clumsy use of a flimsy 10-foot tape measure
• three i-shaped windows overlooking the front courtyard
• relatively fresh, pleasant yellow-neutral paint
• 32 shiny new desks (one of which has a very broken chair, boo)
• ceiling-mount projector
• overhead projector
• lockable cabinet with coat rack and mirror (oooOOOooo!)
• computer, printer, speakers, flat-screen monitor – all on its own computer desk next to a full-size teacher desk
• file cabinet
• two metal bookcases
• clunky stereo left by previous inhabitant
• wall-mounted American flag
• television with DVD/VCR player

No keys yet, but I can access it whenever someone is in the office, and I should be able to get keys as early as next week! Hooray! I’m terrifically excited. Oh, and it’s on the second floor, which makes me quite delighted, and two of the windows open for fresh air.

Classroom?

I signed my contract with the district yesterday. After a brief moment of panic when my car wouldn’t start and I thought I’d be spending my day in the district’s parking lot, I drove past my new place of employment to see if anyone was home. I managed to drive up at the exact moment that the CEO arrived, and  he let me in. He isn’t in charge of room assignments, but he was able to make an educated guess and show me the room that he thought I’d have. (The school is new enough that the rooms are pretty uniform, so it gave me a good idea of what I’m working with even if it isn’t my actual room.)

It’s huge. When I’d walked down the hall and peeked in windows, they hadn’t seen so large. But it’s easily twice the size of my last classroom, made psychologically larger by the addition of three tall windows overlooking the front courtyard.

It’s on the second floor. That’s tough for moving in, but I prefer it. For one thing, I like getting the exercise of regular stair climbing, and I miss it since living in a one-story house for the past decade. I love the feeling of elevation.

There are 33 desks in there, and there’s plenty of room for more. It doesn’t feel cramped in the slightest. Then there’s a teacher’s desk, plus a computer half-desk. At the front of the room is a little podium cabinet, like you’d see in a college lecture hall.

A-n-d there’s a ceiling-mounted LCD projector!

There’s a sterile feel to the room, but then again, it’s a basically-empty classroom. I’m imagining my bookcases, and need to really get to work on making some new posters.

This morning I got a phone call from the CEO’s assistant. She said I could come in Thursday morning, find out what my exact room assignment is, and go over a few things. She won’t be able to give me keys yet, but she’ll be able to let me in whenever I call.

It’s good to feel excited. The inactivity of waiting breeds moments of terror, where I wonder whether I’ve made the right choice, whether I’ll be able to keep up with the older kids. I know that I’ve made the right choice, and that I’ll do fine with high school, but that doesn’t stop the occasional flashes of horrified doubt. 🙂 Having concrete details in place shoos away the crazy.