Okay, so I'm aware of the fact that my last post was rather urgent, and to make matters seem even more dire, I failed to post another entry in a timely fashion... whoops, that was my bad. Well, in any case, I somehow manage to get myself feeling guilty about not blogging, so here I am... blogging. :)
My life is crazy hectic right now (to say the least). I'm getting married in 16 days, I recently had parent/teacher conferences, I am being observed about 4 times over the next two weeks of school, our open house is on October 16th (from 6-8 pm) and the general public is coming, and I am trying to find a new car (mine is about ready to die). Between gathering RSVP cards for the wedding, trying to get in dress fittings, grading papers, creating engaging lessons, test-driving cars, and desperately trying to display student work for the open house, I have very little time to sleep, clean, or reflect. Now that I am done making a laundry list of excuses for myself, I am going to just say that I love reflecting, and here I have made myself time to do it (when I should be planning for tomorrow, or doing the LOADS of laundry that currently resides on my bedroom floor).
Today I had a crazy day with the kids. My attendance was low (about 33% of all of my students were absent), and the kids who were there seemed particularly testy, edgy, and just generally sassy. In addition to the discombobulation of my student population, I am feeling uneasy about lesson planning. My ninth graders are being such troopers with the Pebble Creek curriculum, and I actually like what I am having them do currently (we're writing self-created news stories about major natural disasters). So, the issue I'm having is not with them--I'm feeling uneasy about my tenth grade curriculum. About a week and a half ago, I decided to have my tenth graders take a brief practice test to get a feel for where they stand when it comes to the skills that the WKCE tests for. After looking through these practice tests, I was literally knocked on my a$$. Not a single one of my tenth graders scored better than a 67% on these practice tests. At first I was thinking, "well, they didn't take it seriously, they didn't have enough time, or this practice test is not a clear indication of how they will actually perform." With these more positive thoughts in mind, I formulated lesson plans that focused on the writing process, author claims and support, purpose and audience, and we had plenty opportunities to learn about grammar in context. The issue I am facing now is this: these kids are SEVERELY lacking in the vocabulary needed to perform proficiently on these tests. Agh, I hate to admit this, but I have sadly come to the conclusion that my students simply lack the lexicon that the WKCE expects these tenth graders to have. So, with less than a month before my students have to take this cruel test, I'm feeling a lot of pressure to make sure that I have done my best to prepare them for this assessment. Now, how do I teach two blocks of tenth graders what discuss, explain, extrapolate, emphasize, explore,..... means (without resorting to the awful teaching methods I have previously seen in terms of vocab instruction)?
So, as I'm venting about this vocab frustration, I'm feeling other frustrations storming in. They won't stop, so here they are:
- I have terribly limited access to technology--I have a computer for my own personal use in my classroom. This computer is not networked to a printer in the building, so I have to put everything on a flash drive and use another computer to print. In addition, I have no projector, and no smart board (this means no power points or demonstrations.
- My overhead projector died. There are no other overhead projectors available in the building.
- The only open computer lab that my students have access to (as a whole class) is in the CLC, and during both my block two and three classes, this computer lab is used by the computer programming class.
- My school is so broke that they can't even help me pay for supplies (like markers, construction paper, scissors, tape, staplers, index cards, ANYTHING).
- We also can't go on field trips because we literally have NO money.
- In addition to experiencing major budget cuts, we lost 6 teachers, and because of that, I have about 4 new students in each of my classes (this happened on Monday). How the hell do I catch up these kids??
To leave on a positive note:
- I still love my kids.
- I care about them so much.
- Sometimes I have to stop the lesson so that I can re-gather them (aka Ms. K goes into lecture mode and desperately explains to them why I need them to be a bit more serious..). When I do have to stop, and when I make these little "speeches," they actually listen. This isn't like silently staring at me and waiting for me to stop, this is like looking at kids who are actually concerned and who are honestly hearing what I have to say. Today, I was feeling particularly frustrated with the fact that some of my students refuse to show self-discipline by staying on task during workshops. I said something like, "I care so much about you guys, and it KILLS me to know that you know what it is you have to do to do well in here, and you blatantly choose NOT to do it. I can't go home at night and feel good about myself as a teacher when I know that a lot of my students are not living up to their potential." I could tell they were serious, and one of my students (who hears his name a lot in my class because he's always a little on the sassy side) said, "Ms. K, you know we love you and we love this class, right?" I didn't know how to respond. I know that they love me, but I don't necessarily know that they love the class. So, I said, "Well, I know that you all care about me, but I would love for you all to SHOW me that you care about me as a teacher by doing what you need to do in my class." I won't lie and say that the rest of the class was sassy-free, but I will say that I left my school today knowing that 75 young-adults care about me. I used to ask myself why it was so important for me to feel like my students care about me, and now I think I finally know why I have always wanted this so bad: because now that I actually feel like these kids care about me, it is PROOF for me that they know that I care about them. I could have never imagined (in a million years) that my first month of teaching would be this amazing.
I have so much more to say, but I need to do some planning, and then I need to do some sleeping. :)
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