Disillusion is the feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be. Does that describe me at this point in my teaching career? Unfortunately yes it does. It amazes me at how accurate this graph is! It's October and I definitely have lost it. I have lost the touch.
I thought I had it. I thought I was there and I was going, but I was only surviving. I was surviving each day as it came to me.
This past weekend I wrote a long and extensive email to our middle school representative. Here is an excerpt of that email:
If there has ever been a time for communication it is now. Communication was one of the things that was addressed during one of our middle school planning hours. I feel that there is still a large lack of communication. For example, I found out that half of my middle schoolers would be gone on Friday for the college visit on Wednesday the week of. If I had known earlier, I would have been able to plan small science labs or something for the rest of the class. Also, the high school visit, no one had any idea who was going to take over the math class because the math teacher was on the trip. And "figure it out" was not an answer that was appropriate when asked who would be teaching her class at the last minute. I find myself being surprised everyday by the last minute schedules changes, announcements, etc. We need to know at least a couple of weeks in advance about these announcements. Preferably from administration and not a student, which is where I seem to hear about changes.
I also have not received any resources to use for my ELA class. The silent reading books that make up my small library have been bought by me and they are not enough. My students, unfortunately, do not have a large variety to choose from. I also asked the principal about this and I was given 3-4 classroom sets of books that I cannot put out in my library. I need a variety of books, not 30 copies of the same book. Also, those books given to me are not appropriate for my students. I had a parent who has come up to me asking me that his son not read those books. I know that there are many books at the old building that can honestly come in handy in my classroom. There were also many guided reading books that we will need once we get guided reading rolling.
I enjoy teaching ELA, but I am sad to say that it is too much to take on by myself. I find myself giving more to ELA because of the lack of resources and less to my science classes. I have a solution and that is to have another teacher co-teach with me so I can share the planning with one of them. I was very surprised when the solution to this problem was to hire a brand new teacher just for this position, especially when we are constantly complaining about the lack of budget. There are many teachers in this building that teach less than 1.5 hours a day that would be more than happy to take on this role. We have the resources right in our own school and we are not using them. I don't want to lose my ELA class to another teacher because I don't want to have my kids go through a third teacher. That would be inconsiderate and we cannot afford to play lets see what works and what doesn't. We need to get it right the first time around. We already owe too much to these kids and I am willing to do my best to help with this process.
Today during our team huddle we were told that the entire elementary team will have SmartBoards, but the middle school will not. The entire elementary team will receive computers, but the middle school will not. Oh but wait for it, we will receive laptops for our students that we will have to share amongst the three classrooms and we do not have any idea when that would be happening. I don't have a vocabulary curriculum, I don't have library books and I don't have science equipment on top of that. My classroom is being set up for failure.
We were also told that tomorrow would be crucial and that we must have our classrooms clean and neat because we would be having visitors. Last time I checked I was teaching a classroom, not putting on a show for the world to see. Sometimes I wonder if the requirements for our classroom are not for our students but for our visitors. For our visitors to see what an incredible school we are. How organized we are. How our college posters say that we are college ready. It disgusts me. I cried at that team huddle today. I couldn't keep it together. The words coming out of the "person on top" were meaningless today. They were just words. Empty promises.
I just realized today that its just me. No matter how much support and pats on the back you get from your colleagues, you're alone. It's you and the kids in that classroom. You're alone and its up to you. Its up to you to teach these kids. It up to you to play and loop around the system. Because we all know the system is failing and most importantly it's failing our kids. But there is no one more powerful enough than you to change it. It's just me.
Disillusionment...Pretty much sums it up.
-Ms. P
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