Hello from Study Hall

It has once again been a while since I blogged. Day by day, we are getting through, with not much time for anything except keeping my head above water. I am actually writing this in study hall because the servers are down and I have nothing else with me to do.

Some things I’ve been noticing:

- Weeks with early dismissals or days off are complete nightmares. The kids are bouncing off the walls and nothing gets accomplished. It’s like they have to have their structure in order to even feel like they’re in school. Any time that structure is broken, it’s play time to them.

- The more I work with High School students who are involved in sports and activities, the more I realize that certain types of students are drawn to certain activities. For example, my students who are on the Golf Team are absolute dream-students. I guess maybe because Golf requires a serious, individual mindset, those are the types of students who play it. My two best, most thoughtful, considerate and conscientious students are both on the Golf Team, and it’s just interesting because I never thought of it that way before. I say we should have more Golfers in the world!

- I had the experience of prepping sub plans for the first time last week. My grandmother passed away and I had to take a day off for the funeral. It was hard to leave my kids in the charge of someone else for the day. I was first concerned that I gave her detailed enough instructions and probably went a bit overboard on that part. All day, though, I was stressed out wondering what was going on at school, how my students were treating the sub, etc. It all worked out okay, but you know me, worry worry worry.

- I had a really, really good experience connecting with my 10^th graders last week. We were reading Of Mice and Men and we were just at the part where Candy’s dog is getting killer and so it was the logical time to discuss the theme of euthanasia. It was an interesting coincidence that my grandmother died at the same time because she had been sick for a very long time. When the students came in that day, I asked them to journal their thoughts on “mercy killing” and we talked about some of them for a few minutes. The mood was somber from the minute they entered the classroom and saw the topic. As our discussion progressed, I brought up my story of how I was seeing the theme applied to my real life: when someone is suffering, is it better to just let them go? You could have heard a pin drop in the room. I’m not sure what it was, but me and my classes connected that day. They opened up and talked on an entirely different level. It was really amazing, I wish someone had been observing that day! One of my students actually came up to me later in the afternoon and said it was the best class we had all year. I asked the students the next day what it was that went so well. They were all really positive and said they think just having personal stories and opinions helped to open us all up to each other. I had tried to get them to talk that way before, but it hadn’t worked as well. I wish I could bottle that up and use it on a daily basis!

- Speaking of observations, I have my first formal one next week! One of our assistant principals (there’s 5 of them!) is coming in during my 10^th period class to observe our intro activity to “Death of a Salesman” (convenient, I know). I’m relieved that I’m doing yet another unit with which I’m already familiar. But dreading the day when I’m going to have to move on to material which I don’t know as well!

On Blogging

This Thursday is our first professional development day. I have been asked/volunteered to teach 3 training sessions on blogging that day!! I have about 40 students consisting of other teachers, guidance counselors and employees of the local I.U. I figure this is a good opportunity for me to present myself as a tech-savvy teacher who would be a good permanent asset to their building, haha. It's of course a lot of pressure too. I'm supposed to teach a mini 15 minute lesson on getting set up in the website/basics, and then have about half an hour for them to explore and create their own blogs. The hard part about all this is that the school blocks all blogs through their filter. They have chosen a site, www.edublogs.org, specifically for use by teachers. After playing with it a bit for a few weeks, I've found it to be sort of clunky: hard to maneuver, site not responding, etc. I hope it works on Thursday so I can show what I need to! Naturally, I am terrified, and hoping it goes well because I don't want to look like an idiot in front of all those teachers.

Day by day, I'm getting through my weeks. Some are good, some are bad. As the time goes by, I'm getting a lot more of the in-between ones, and the bad are less frequent. I am at school late just about every night, but at least that makes me feel more prepared for the next day. I'm beginning to deal with some anxious parents. I won't go into detail on here publicly, but it is certainly a learning experience figuring out what to say to them.

Fortunately, because of my desk in the staff room, there are a lot of teachers around to lend an ear and some advice when I need it. This is something I've had to adjust to. It is nice having some folks around when necessary, but trying to prep amidst so much excitement is tough (that's why I value my after-school and Saturday morning time). As with any workplace, when people gather together, the topics of discussion are not always the most positive. I haven't found negativity to be a huge problem, but there are some days I honestly just have to put on my headphones. I have made friends with some of the girls who are also young English teachers, and they have been providing camaraderie and generally being a huge help in every way. I don't know what I'd do without them. The girls understand what I'm going through because most of them were in my shoes just a year or two ago. I do value the advice of older and more experienced teachers, but some of them tend to be negative without meaning to, and I can't afford to be brought down. I need every last ounce of positivity I can muster. Mostly I spend my lunch hour at my desk working, or just catching up on the news or reading a book. At the risk of seeming anti-social, I just don't want to get into the mix of lunch-table gossip and complaining.

Some good news

I found out today that the one-semester position I'm currently in has just opened up to be full-time contracted starting in January. Apparently some people prefer being a mom... not me. At least not any time soon! So this is exciting for me. It means that I automatically get sent to the final-step of the interview process for the position. This probably won't happen until sometime in November or December, but it's something to be looking forward to. It's a lot of pressure though. I'm already completely stressed about making a good impression and doing everything perfectly.

Needless to say, I'm making a lot of mistakes. I'm mostly trying to not get too down about them, instead adapting and learning. My direct supervisor has been wonderful and supportive. She told me today that I should make sure to invite different administrators to observe me, so that when my interview comes around, I have as many allies around the table as possible.