Wow! What a week! I walked in last Thursday to find out that I would now be teaching 6th grade ELA (English Language Arts) on top of my three science classes that I already teach. This past week was my first week with trying out the new schedule.
The Good: I get to teach ELA, my first choice in subject if I had ever had a choice.
The Bad: Now I'm teaching 4 classes back to back without any preps in between. Exhausting.
The Good: I get to build a stronger relationship with my 6th graders because I have them for so long.
The Bad: I have to rearrange my entire classroom for the third time this year so I can fit in a classroom library and a word wall for ELA.
The Good: I finally get to read to kids.
The Bad: I have no social life.
Yesterday morning I also found out that I am pretty much leading student council and that I was the school coordinator for the STEAM Fair and that I must have every middle school student complete a STEAM project. I don't know if I walk around with a face that says. "Hey I am completely free please give me more work to do", but I just don't get it.
I'm tired.
The Good: I still want nothing more than to be a teacher.
-Ms. P
Friday, September 27, 2013
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
What They Still Won't Tell Me
The school that I teach at shares a building with another school. So there are two different schools in one building.
Little did I know, my students were being called down last week in order to get them to transfer to the other school in our building. What I don't understand is that why do I have to hear this for the first time from one of my students. Talk about being frustrated. One of my brightest students is now leaving because the "people from the top" decided the best way to solve our large student to teacher ratio is to send our best students to the other school.
Thank you Mr. Principal for not telling the teachers! I now have to rethink my lessons and lab groups because I'm losing kids tomorrow!
After about 20 minutes of crying in my room and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of the year, I have come to realize that the "people from the top" must have no sense at all. How do you expect a child to leave her classmates who she has been with for years and move across the hall to another group of students that she doesn't even know? To a school that she doesn't know? How do you not tell your teachers that they will be moving kids out of the classroom? How do you think that by targeting the brightest students and moving them out of a classroom will increase test scores?
I go to work everyday for students like her, if they're not there then who will I go for?
~Ms. P
Little did I know, my students were being called down last week in order to get them to transfer to the other school in our building. What I don't understand is that why do I have to hear this for the first time from one of my students. Talk about being frustrated. One of my brightest students is now leaving because the "people from the top" decided the best way to solve our large student to teacher ratio is to send our best students to the other school.
Thank you Mr. Principal for not telling the teachers! I now have to rethink my lessons and lab groups because I'm losing kids tomorrow!
After about 20 minutes of crying in my room and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of the year, I have come to realize that the "people from the top" must have no sense at all. How do you expect a child to leave her classmates who she has been with for years and move across the hall to another group of students that she doesn't even know? To a school that she doesn't know? How do you not tell your teachers that they will be moving kids out of the classroom? How do you think that by targeting the brightest students and moving them out of a classroom will increase test scores?
I go to work everyday for students like her, if they're not there then who will I go for?
~Ms. P
Saturday, September 7, 2013
What They Didn't Tell Me
They said it would be easy. They said my students are great. They said I would have a great year.
They said a lot of things, but they didn't tell me:
I wouldn't have room to fit 40 something students in my classroom.
I wouldn't have enough textbooks for my 40 something students.
I wouldn't have lab materials to teach a science lab.
I wouldn't have students that were ready to learn.
I wouldn't have to deal with two rival schools that would be located in the same building.
I wouldn't have to write detentions and suspensions on the first week.
I wouldn't have to worry about having a planning period.
I wouldn't have to prove to my students that I was here to stay.
Despite what they didn't tell me, will it be easy? Yes it will. Are my students great? Of course they are. Will this year be great? It has to be great because I can't afford to have the worst first year ever. Teaching in an inner city public school is something that I have wanted for so long. I wanted it so badly that I didn't even apply for a teaching position in the suburbs (Don't tell my parents).
People ask me why in the world would you want to work at a school like that and truly I've been asking the same question to myself these days as well. And the answer is why not? If I don't teach those kids who will? We talk about social justice and equal education but some of us never do anything about it. I wanted to do something about it and thats why I teach. I teach for my students who ride the public bus and train everyday through neighborhoods that they have never been to so they can get a chance at an education. I teach for those students who ask me, "Ms. Patel will you leave us like the other three teachers did last year?" I teach for those students who I know will rise above their drug and gang consumed societies and do great things. Because knowing that I was able to help one student overcome the hardships of an urban education outweigh the things that they didn't tell me.
Its going to be a long and challenging journey ahead, but a journey that I am fully prepared to take...
I think.
~ Ms. P
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