What I Will/Won't Miss From First Year Teaching
Well, the summer days are flying by. Here I am on vacation, already contemplating the new school year. I found out yesterday that I will be teaching FOUR sections of U.S. History, and just one of World History, instead of 3 and 2. I think this will be a good thing. I really enjoy teaching U.S., especially this level, which is the level below AP. It means the students usually care about their grades, which is a helpful start to being able to actually teach something. Sometimes, with the lower level classes, it seems more like glorified baby sitting, at taxpayers expense. To be sure, hire a baby sitter with an M.A, and it's somewhat likely your teenager will learn something once in awhile, even if they don't care to. Even so, it seems like a rather expensive social experiment.
The only potential drawbacks to this modified schedule are getting bored with doing the same thing four times a day. Less variety, that's for sure. Oh, and grading papers. World History is a lower level class, which means less homework I have to grade. In U.S., however, I generally like to torture their little minds with as much work as possible, until they're left bleating like lambs for mercy come May. By then they have put together a 10-15 page research paper. Of course, this means the average length is about 9 pages.
Anyway, as I start to look forward to the next year, and scheme about the work I will torture my students with (as well as think about clever things to do/say, jokes to play, etc.) I thought it appropriate to mention several things I will or will not miss from my first year.
Will Not Miss
1. Having classes in three separate rooms. Bouncing around all day from one place to another. Teaching World History in rooms A, B, then A, teaching U.S. History in rooms B and then A, and having my home room in room C! Though I got some exercise in the process, it was a pain to lug everything I need around to different rooms, including video equipment on days I needed it.
2. Cafe Duty. This stands for cafeteria, in case you were wondering. This job entailed walking around the cafeteria for about forty-five minutes each day, unless it was my turn to take students outside, in which case come freezing or heatstroke-inducing weather, students went outdoors after about twenty-five minutes. Inside, the job meant making sure students pick up the trash they throw around, or simply clean up after themselves. Also breaking up the occasional fights that occurred, which became rather dangerous the time when students started drawing knives, pistols, rifles, then machine guns. That was a fight to remember! Ok, just kidding. In reality, the girl fights are the worst. They're vicious. They're likely to end up with a fistful of the other girl's hair. Personally, I'll take a bloody nose any day over losing a fistful of hair. After all, I have enough blood to give, but too little hair to lose...
3. Not being able to set up the room as I wished. Because I had several classes in a veteran teacher's room, I wasn't able to arrange things as I wished. This meant whenever I used the overhead projector, it had to be pointed to the back of the room, where the screen was. So students had to turn around in their desks to see. Rather inconvenient. This year, if I can get an overhead and screen (which is a little iffy, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed), I will be able to set it up however I want. And I can arrange desks as I wish, decorate as I wish, and generally display the degree of power my egomaniacal self would like to.
4. Some particular students. Though I'm sure some of them didn't mean to, they tended to disrupt the class or complain about things in a way that was less than positive. I'm sure they'll be replaced by other worthy candidates this year. But now I am more prepared to deal with their tactics... Heh heh, bring it on boys and girls. I am ready.
What I'll Miss
1. Some particular students. This includes at least one student I was thinking about in the above category. Let's call him Joe Brown. Joe is very vocal, a football player, smart, but lazy. One of those types who watches the history channel all the time, and will be sure to correct you if you say something historically inaccurate. At the same time, he's careless, so won't read directions to an assignment. Then he'll complain loudly in front of the rest of the class about how picky I am in grading. "Yes, Joe, you better believe I'm picky. I do care if a 2 page assignment is only 1 page. I do care if you don't write in complete sentences. I do care if an assignment is not complete, and then late. I do care if any of the basic directions are not followed. Next time I suggest you READ the directions." (All of these types of things said, of course, in my soft, sweet, but firm voice...) Joe got it into his head during the year that I play favorites, because another student brought her work to me ahead of time to see if she had done it right, and I had mistakenly told her it looked good when it was lacking. So she got a chance to redo it, when he didn't get as much leniency after totally missing a key aspect of the assignment, due to simply not reading or listening to the directions. Despite my explanation, he apparently resented it the rest of the year. Then he complained on the end of the year evaluation form about how I grade based on effort. His advice to future students was for them to realize that if you're smart, it doesn't matter, because you get graded based on effort and not on how smart you are. So he hates me, right? I don't know. Later he told me he was going to make sure that his future son takes my U.S. history class. No matter where in the world he is, he's coming back to my school to take my class. Go figure. So I had a sort of love/hate relationship with Joe. I'll be glad to be rid of his complaining, yet at the same time miss his sporadic enthusiasm for my teaching. Maybe he simply wants his son to experience the unique kind of torture that he felt he had to endure...
Other students who worked really hard and showed improvement I will also miss, but details on them are better left for another post.
2. Getting a pass on some mistakes because of my rookie status. With the second year comes greater responsibility, I suppose. Now I'll have to fill out all of my discipline forms with no mistakes, and not be able to use the "I didn't know" excuse as much.
The only potential drawbacks to this modified schedule are getting bored with doing the same thing four times a day. Less variety, that's for sure. Oh, and grading papers. World History is a lower level class, which means less homework I have to grade. In U.S., however, I generally like to torture their little minds with as much work as possible, until they're left bleating like lambs for mercy come May. By then they have put together a 10-15 page research paper. Of course, this means the average length is about 9 pages.
Anyway, as I start to look forward to the next year, and scheme about the work I will torture my students with (as well as think about clever things to do/say, jokes to play, etc.) I thought it appropriate to mention several things I will or will not miss from my first year.
Will Not Miss
1. Having classes in three separate rooms. Bouncing around all day from one place to another. Teaching World History in rooms A, B, then A, teaching U.S. History in rooms B and then A, and having my home room in room C! Though I got some exercise in the process, it was a pain to lug everything I need around to different rooms, including video equipment on days I needed it.
2. Cafe Duty. This stands for cafeteria, in case you were wondering. This job entailed walking around the cafeteria for about forty-five minutes each day, unless it was my turn to take students outside, in which case come freezing or heatstroke-inducing weather, students went outdoors after about twenty-five minutes. Inside, the job meant making sure students pick up the trash they throw around, or simply clean up after themselves. Also breaking up the occasional fights that occurred, which became rather dangerous the time when students started drawing knives, pistols, rifles, then machine guns. That was a fight to remember! Ok, just kidding. In reality, the girl fights are the worst. They're vicious. They're likely to end up with a fistful of the other girl's hair. Personally, I'll take a bloody nose any day over losing a fistful of hair. After all, I have enough blood to give, but too little hair to lose...
3. Not being able to set up the room as I wished. Because I had several classes in a veteran teacher's room, I wasn't able to arrange things as I wished. This meant whenever I used the overhead projector, it had to be pointed to the back of the room, where the screen was. So students had to turn around in their desks to see. Rather inconvenient. This year, if I can get an overhead and screen (which is a little iffy, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed), I will be able to set it up however I want. And I can arrange desks as I wish, decorate as I wish, and generally display the degree of power my egomaniacal self would like to.
4. Some particular students. Though I'm sure some of them didn't mean to, they tended to disrupt the class or complain about things in a way that was less than positive. I'm sure they'll be replaced by other worthy candidates this year. But now I am more prepared to deal with their tactics... Heh heh, bring it on boys and girls. I am ready.
What I'll Miss
1. Some particular students. This includes at least one student I was thinking about in the above category. Let's call him Joe Brown. Joe is very vocal, a football player, smart, but lazy. One of those types who watches the history channel all the time, and will be sure to correct you if you say something historically inaccurate. At the same time, he's careless, so won't read directions to an assignment. Then he'll complain loudly in front of the rest of the class about how picky I am in grading. "Yes, Joe, you better believe I'm picky. I do care if a 2 page assignment is only 1 page. I do care if you don't write in complete sentences. I do care if an assignment is not complete, and then late. I do care if any of the basic directions are not followed. Next time I suggest you READ the directions." (All of these types of things said, of course, in my soft, sweet, but firm voice...) Joe got it into his head during the year that I play favorites, because another student brought her work to me ahead of time to see if she had done it right, and I had mistakenly told her it looked good when it was lacking. So she got a chance to redo it, when he didn't get as much leniency after totally missing a key aspect of the assignment, due to simply not reading or listening to the directions. Despite my explanation, he apparently resented it the rest of the year. Then he complained on the end of the year evaluation form about how I grade based on effort. His advice to future students was for them to realize that if you're smart, it doesn't matter, because you get graded based on effort and not on how smart you are. So he hates me, right? I don't know. Later he told me he was going to make sure that his future son takes my U.S. history class. No matter where in the world he is, he's coming back to my school to take my class. Go figure. So I had a sort of love/hate relationship with Joe. I'll be glad to be rid of his complaining, yet at the same time miss his sporadic enthusiasm for my teaching. Maybe he simply wants his son to experience the unique kind of torture that he felt he had to endure...
Other students who worked really hard and showed improvement I will also miss, but details on them are better left for another post.
2. Getting a pass on some mistakes because of my rookie status. With the second year comes greater responsibility, I suppose. Now I'll have to fill out all of my discipline forms with no mistakes, and not be able to use the "I didn't know" excuse as much.
posted by redsoxwinthisyear at 5:17 PM
3 Comments:
Chad! I cannot believe you called Joe Brown lazy and careless on your public blog! Shocking...
Man, a whole year under your belt! Whew, I can only imagine what the future holds. Well, good luck with it all and may you be a real blessing in your chosen field of service...
I think teaching gets better every year, but I'm only speaking as one who's entering her third year. :-) I don't have super fond memories of my first year. But I can relate to missing some students and totally NOT missing some students. Anyway, hope it's a great year for you! I'm sure we teachers will have some good blog material once school starts!
Post a Comment
<< Home