Coin Wars, Nothing But Coin Wars, All Of The Time...

Good day to you!

Today was a pretty fair day. We had a squashed schedule because of a speech contest in the afternoon, so I had to adjust a little for that, but it wasn’t too bad.

I got into school early this morning because I volunteered to help with Math Counts. It will be every Tuesday and Thursday morning before school starts. This morning, we only had one student come, but I think that may be from a lack of advertising. And it was ended a little abruptly as the one student who was there was sick and went back home. So it was an interesting start to the day.

Homeroom was annoying because this week we have a Coin War going on. Students bring in change to raise money to bring in new technology into the school. And there’s a whole competition with it. Well, each class gets 3 minutes to get their change and distribute it the way they want to, while music is played over the PA system. That’s what is really annoying because it’s hard to help students that are coming in for help. So homeroom was basically lost to me.

For classes, I gave the students some review notes on the commonly missed topics on the pre-algebra test. When the students were done taking down the notes, I passed them back their tests so they could make corrections for half credit back. But since all the classes were shortened, I will need to find more time for the students to be able to finish making their corrections. Because I don’t have enough things to get done with the students, we’ll just add this to the list.

After lunch we went down to the theater for the speech competition, which was interesting. Students had been working on memorizing and reciting speeches and they had to give them in front of the entire team. Most of them were okay, since most middle school students are too nervous to do a really good job. However, a few really stood out and one nearly made me need to leave the room because I was about to burst out in laughter.

On another note, I’ve found a job opening in a school district that’s about an hour away from where I am now. Asking around, I hear that it can be a fairly nice district. It’s hard to find jobs in the district because the turnover rate is very low. So, I will be putting in an application there! Hopefully all will be well!

The Good, The Bad, and the Unnaturally Long Workday

Hiya!

So, it's been about a month since I've posted last. And that would be because I'm horrible at keeping up with daily things. Maybe not the best thing for a teacher, but I'm getting better. So, this will be a renewed attempt at keeping both this blog and my daily log up to date! And now, on with the show...

Today was such a crazy day! There seemed to be so many different interruptions that I feel like I got very little accomplished.

I got to school at about 7am, which is really early for me. I’m usually not getting in until about 7:30. But can I tell you what I got done in that extra time? No I could not! I have no idea where that extra 30 minutes went. I don’t feel like I got anything different done in that time that what I usually get done when I come in in the morning.

Homeroom seemed crazy because I felt like there were too many people in my space. My co-op was trying to get some things done with her Yearbook helpers and we all seemed to be getting in each other’s way. I got everything I wanted to done, but it seemed much more annoying than it usually is.

During class, I gave the students a work day. I put up a list of everything that the students could work on, which was mostly finishing up some assignments that they weren’t able to finish previously. The only time that I got really agitated with the students was when they decided to not use the format for classwork that has been clearly laid out for them. I had ever put up an example of how I wanted the work to look on the board and they still managed to neglect what I wanted them to do. And then some students just didn’t understand how I wanted them to do the assignment even after seeing the example on the board.

During second period, because the students left for their elective classes, some electrical workers came into the room to run the wires and such through the ceiling so the smart board projector could be mounted. This would have all been fine had they not insisted on starting while I was still teaching. So while I was in the middle of teaching, I had to put up with drilling, hammering, sawing and all manner of interrupting noises. My co-op told me that it was best to let them get the work done while they were actually there because it could be months before they would get back around to us. Now that’s all fine and dandy, but I really would have appreciated some sort of notice that they would be coming in. Maybe if they had called Friday and let us know they were coming. Or even if the office called the room and told us they were here and coming down to the room. But I was completely taken aback by these men just showing up and expecting me to work around them! Needless to say, I was not a happy person.

After school, I had a conference with the parents of a child who has been having a fairly hard time of adjusting to the 7^th grade. At first he was just a very slow worker, but he progressed into a very disorganized and disheveled student. There were times where he would just be so unorganized that he would completely miss a topic because he was off in his own world. And his mother is another teacher in the district and expected us to really bend over backwards to make sure her student wasn’t going to get a bad grade. Now, I can understand that thinking, but when she basically (an I am paraphrasing here) told me that I should quiz her son to test his understanding of a subject before I give him a quiz, I almost lost it. Eventually, we got down to what could best be done to help him, and he has been getting better and is a little more well-adjusted.

So when all was said and done, I was in the school from 7am until 5pm. If I didn’t love what I do so much, I’d be furious! That all I'll write for now. Tomorrow I'll let you know a little about a potential job that I've found!