Teacher! Teacher !

Getting the hang of teaching..not posting. I say that becausre I spent no time on school stuf this wekend. It felt really good! Not that I didn’t lug all the normal crap home, I just didn’t touch it. I did lesson plans (by hand!) at 8:00 Sunday night. I was finished with the whole week before 10:00. Needless to say I was very pleased. I’m not sure it was faster than typing them but it seemed like they were higher quality plans. (don’t ask me why…I have no idea) I don’t think I’ll be making many changes to these. However the don’t look as cool either. When someone asks to see them, they won’t be impressed like they would have been with my usual weekend long works of art that turn about to be garbage by Tuesday.

In other related education news… If its possible to flunk out of grad school I am on my way. I tried to tell Sankofa that I couldn’t handle year 2 this this summer but nobody listened and here I am drowning. The problem this year is the same as my prob last year…I can’t justify, rationalize, excuse (…whatever you want to call it) spending time on school stuff of my own when my babies need me to be investing that time in figuring out stuff for them. There are a limited amount of hours in any day and its an accomplishement for me when I manage to get to class…completing asignments, readings etc… is all icing on the cake. And THEN even when I manage to do that I have to somehow kick myself in the butt and remember to turn them in!!! Take for example Nancy and Brian’s class, of the 4 assignments due thus far (…i think there’ve only been 4) I have completed 2, turned in 1 and not initiated communication about the catch up plan… (…BTW…hopefully by the time they read this I will be caught up….or at least have sent an email apologizing for my unprofessionalism thus far and a resolve to turn over a new leaf.) On that note..I’m ending this post and at least locating tomorrow’s reading.

Today was the kind of day that makes you completely reconsider what we do. He’s a brief synopsis…

I woke up violently il. It’s way too early in the year to call in. Gotta go, no sub plans anywhere! Got dressed. Sat down to check email while the black blood known as coffee brewed. Got an email (this is 5:30 in the morning) reminding me that something was due at noon. I replied that I was not going to make that deadline due to the fact that I’d had a meeting every day this week during my planning period and asked for suggestions. The best the admininistrator who sent the mesage could come up with was “After school, I guess?” At 8am I was observed by our reading coach. She came in before the annoucements could end. She distracted me; I didnt take attedance till 11:00 and of course I recieved a nasty warning email about that as well. At 8:30 my Asst. Principal comes to pay us a visit and at 9:00 our Book Buddies arrive. All I’ve managed to do wih my kids in the past hour and a half is some abbreviated version of morning meeting and give most of the spelling test. By this point I already want to pull out my hair however the day’s not half over yet and I’ve got yet another meeting during planning!!!!!!!Needles to say by the end of this day I am near tears. (Oh, BTW did I mention that today one of my students was withdrawn by his aunt (who has other children at our school) to go live with his Grandma in Mexico because his Dad got locked up. Never mind that this child speaks English and his biggest concern was not being able to read or write in Spanish!) because he was born here. So there ends thwe worst day of my brief career…I ‘m not interested in topping this one.