Paper Shuffling

This past Friday I noticed just how much paper shuffling teaching takes.  When I was in private industry, there were papers to shuffle, but they were not in the same realm as the ones I deal with now.  I have papers to grade, both homework and tests/quizzes.  I have papers to write: homework, tests/quizzes, lesson plans, and student recommendations.  I have other grading to record: programs and projects from computer science classes and online work for math classes.  Then, I have to put all this on the online grading system ... plus I have to put assignments, etc. on the internet ... plus I have to create a certain amount of online work so that my math students get more practice.  Also, in the modern American way, I have to send out either by email or the post office progress reports in case a student is failing or close to failing.  Aaaagh!

I am working on moving our school to an LMS (Learning Management System).  I personally like Moodle, partly for its free software and constant upgrades, etc. from the international Moodle community, but our school would need to have it hosted by someone else ... and that is where the problem lies for Moodle.  Or for any other LMS around.  Any suggestions, anyone?  I could certainly use them.

What's this about a teacher's short day?

There seems to be a misconception that a teacher has a short day because an official school day is usually 7 hours long.  Well, those 7 hours make up the students' day, but not the faculty's day.  I start my day at least 1/2 hour prior to the "official" start of school.  Actually, I have already checked my school email from home and dealt with some of the issues in them prior to leaving home.  I do not leave the school until about 45 minutes after the last bell.  I see students before school and after school to help them and to let them make up their tests and quizzes. 

Then, there is the grading.  Wednesday night was the open house for parents of current students to meet their children's teachers, so I really had no time to grade the homework I took up that day.  Hence, on Thursday night I stayed up an extra hour just to grade the waiting homework plus the quizzes I gave that day.  I plan for when I will grade work, so make up work is pushed to the end of my to-do list and may take some time for me to grade.  I usually do make up work on the weekends.

With the grading comes the responsibility of keeping an eye on which students need more than most.  I discovered in grading the quizzes that I have a student who will need extra effort on my part to help the student demonstrate the math skills he/she has learned.  That means more meetings with parents, the student, administration, etc. outside of the official school day.  Plus I need to make sure that that student's tests and quizzes allow the student to legitimately succeed.  I do not believe in false grades, but I do know that not everyone has good math logic abilities.  I'm so glad my art teachers didn't grade just on my ability to shade properly -- because I didn't shade at all usually -- but also included my best art skills, i.e. structure and form.  I try to remember that gift when teaching students who care and work hard to succeed.  They need to know that they have math skills, just not necessarily in the same way as their classmates.  St. Paul was right: we are all parts of the same body, but we each have different gifts to share in that common body. (My interpretation.)  Besides, nothing succeeds like personally-achieved success.  I have faith that this student will strive to achieve as much as possible in math when he/she knows what is possible.  I've seen it happen before.

After saying all that, I guess I lost track of my original subject, but I regained my incentive to be the best teacher I can be.

Waiting for the hurricane

I felt the title was appropriate since our NC community usually gets the tails of hurricanes, and, right now, we are getting an increase in humidity, clouds, and wind.  It also fits the beginning of the school year.  It's the first Saturday after the return of the students, and I am so glad to have the weekend off because I need the chance to rest and review for next week.

After 17 years in the profession and 10 years at my current school, I have very few problems with student behavior.  (I just wish sometimes that politicians and people-concerned-with-education knew how few of the first ten responsibilities of a public school teacher have to do with actually helping students learn.  They deal mostly with managing student behavior at all times and in all situations on the school property.)  Since part of my responsibility, training, and interest lie in using technology to help teachers teach and students learn, I am always adding technology to my lessons.  Currently, I am in year two of trying out Moodle with the intent of switching to it or some other LMS (Learning Management System) next year.  This year all but my AP CS classes will have internet assignments through the school's Moodle test system.  In addition, my math students will also be using the Khan Academy as part of their learning and practice process.

So I spent part of the week helping my math students start using our Moodle system and getting set up with the Khan Academy.  Yesterday, to get as many students ready to go further on these systems, we were in the general computer lab.  I felt like we were the shakedown crew because my classes were the first ones to use said lab this school year.  We kept on running into software problems, but at least the computer technology coordinator and I learned some important lessons for next year.  My poor students in all my classes get to be guinea pigs for almost all new general educational technology for the school.  I think they feel it's a badge of honor to be the first to try things.  They certainly end up with several stories to pass on to their friends.  Last year, my Intro CS class used Moodle all year, so each quarter they each had an extra project grade to compensate for being first in using Moodle at the school.  I believed that part of their learning was the input they gave us in using said system and in tolerating problems well I had with the system until I learned it better.  This year there will be no extra grades for using these systems.  They will, however, lose grades if they don't use the systems and do their work on time.  Obviously, I am not concerned with my students liking me personally; I just want them to learn.

While keeping up with lessons and help for the 4 subjects I teach this year, I am also trying to finish helping other teachers get their homework websites up to date on syllabi.  This school is the only one in which I've been required to have a syllabus for each subject area.  Syllabi are mostly used in college, not high school, but we are a college-prep school, so it makes sense.  It also makes it easier for the parents to know what their children should be learning and what the teacher's requirements and expectations are.

There is one new habit I want to have this year.  I want to carry my planning book with me always and everywhere so that I keep up with all my lessons and all my other duties plus having the school's calendar items in one place.  I mean to carry it with me because I teach using my classroom upstairs and 2 different computer labs downstairs, not to mention faculty meetings and parent-teacher conferences.  I have always had a poor short-term memory, so note-taking is one of my talents.  The problem lies with the fact that I don't always put my notes where I can use them; hence, the need for carrying my planning book with me and keeping my notes in it.  Wish me luck.

Opportunity knocks!

My son and I went to the school yesterday morning so that I could have an accounts payable "bill" signed and faxed to our host's office.  It should have taken all of 5 minutes, but it took closer to an hour.  The business manager was on the phone, so we had to wait.  A teacher borrowed my son to help him with computer hardware problems in his classroom while waiting.  I taught a new teacher the basics of using his homework website.  Then I got the paper signed and faxed.  Son was still working in the one classroom, so I spent some time talking with a graduate I taught a few years back.  Son was still working, so I spoke with a teacher about setting him up with a Moodle account for testing purposes.  Son finally returned, but he had not been able to fix the problem.  Funny thing is that the school pays for 2 full time tech people, one being my son's boss who was out yesterday, but the faculty call on my son whenever they have a problem and he's at the school because they have had no success with getting help from the other tech person.

Meantime, I finally took my serger sewing machine to a repair shop.  It's been broken but usable for more than 10 years, but I was always leery of leaving it with anyone to fix it.  The last time I left a sewing machine to be repaired (in another state), it really wasn't, so "once bit, twice shy" am I.  I hope these people do a good job because I need a reliable repair place for my other sewing machine ... the one that has the problem that was never fixed. 

In regards to both the one tech person at the school and the repair shop that never repaired my machine, I wish people would understand that life is far more than earning money.  One's life has to have meaning as in doing the best one can do for others, like fixing machines or solving computer problems.  Perhaps it's my religious view, but I believe that we all need to help each other whenever possible and appropriate.  No one was ever put on this earth "to make money", no matter how much he/she wants to believe that.

If I'm not being paid for the summer, why am I still working?

Frankly, I cringe when people talk about teachers having "summer vacation".  It's not true.  Teachers are 10 month employees who are not paid for the other 2 months of the year.  Vacation is paid time off, so teachers do not have summer vacation.  They have unpaid time off.

I note this because I am still working on school stuff.  I am currently creating new websites for new faculty as they get hired.  Today I go back to the school to arrange payment for the host company of our teachers' homework sites.  Of course, I am still working on lesson plans for the fall, but I know I'd do that anyhow.  I think my father did a very good job of instilling in me the need to do everything as well as I can.  Hmm.  Is that a good thing or not?  Time to think on it.

Breaktime chores

I am about to write 2 recommendations for students that must be postmarked before January 1, 2009. I would say that I'm procrastinating, but recommendations require some serious thinking, at least for me, since I want to be honest and positive at the same time. In these 2 students' cases it's not a problem because they are good students who do well in their work. One I've had for 2 years, the other I've only had for this year. The latter asked me for a recommendation mainly because he is applying to my alma mater, and he thought it wouldn't hurt to get one from an alumna. I agree, especially since I've worked to get any student to look at my alma mater over my years of teaching, and he's the first one I hooked. It helps that about half of his family also went to the same university, but I like to think that I am such a good influence that he was drawn to that school. Now, if I can only convince the admissions people that he's a keeper.

After that I get to start grading projects that were due on the last day before Christmas break. I'm glad that I have such specific rubrics since they keep me honest and actually make it easy for me to grade them. I figure that will keep me busy for the remainder of this morning.

Of parents and teachers in high school

There is a major difference between the parents of students in "poor" public high schools and the parents of students in "well-to-do" public high schools and non-public schools. The difference is the accessibility of the parents to the teachers and the willingness on the part of the parents to show up at school functions in order to talk with their children's teachers.

When I taught in public high schools, I always seemed to be teaching in poor schools, the type considered to be schools of failure -- and with 4th year freshmen, i.e. 18-year-olds, some of them had really earned that title. I learned early on that the students who believed that their parents would never hear of their misbehaviors were the worst behaved in classes. We would have open houses for the parents, and I would be lucky to see one parent even though I taught mostly freshmen and sophomores. I did learn to call parents between 10 a.m. and noon on Saturdays because that was when parents were more likely to answer their phones rather than letting their children do so. I did have a few interesting situations because of this. The first one was when the mother said to me, "Well, what do you expect me to do about it? She treats me the same way!" At least, I tried in that case and had documentation of it. Another time I heard the mother turn around to her daughter and use the worst language in screaming at her daughter for making her receive a phone call from a teacher on a Saturday morning. In that case, I spoke to the girl privately later when we met between classes. I try to make it a rule never to say that what a parent does is wrong, but I kind of broke that rule then. I told the girl that most parents don't use profanity when talking with their children. The girl and I agreed from then on to work things out between us because I was never going to call that mother again.

Where I teach now, the parents are an integral and important part of the school community. Many of them volunteer to work in the office and other places. They seek out their children's teachers in order to speak with them. There are, of course, some "missing" parents, but they are the very small exception to the rule. Usually when I try to contact my students' parents, I have very little trouble finding them. Our open houses are full, both the ones for parents of current students and the ones for parents of potential students. I would say that the cost of a non-public education is the main reason for this, but my acquaintances who teach in well-to-do public schools see the same types of relationships, so out-of-pocket cost is not the only reason. There are parents who are vested in their children's education and those who are not. Now, if we could only get the unvested ones to be vested. Hmmm.

I close with a story told me by another teacher. The way that legislators look at public education and teachers is much like the idea of making dentists responsible for the state of their patients' teeth without taking into account how the different patients take care of their own teeth when not in the dentists' offices. Educating young people takes responsibility of all people involved in their lives, all the way from birth until high school graduation. In our society, that's very hard to do sometimes.

When is standard time?

I have been thinking that it is rather dark in the morning these days. Being a person who wakes more to light than to sound, I woke up at the unheard-of time after seven a.m. yesterday and today. It is too dark for morning right now. I really have no idea how farm families manage if they have extra jobs off the farm since animals do not know about daylight savings time. My personal opinion: if we really want to have daylight savings time all year, why don't we just move our office, school, business, etc. times off by an hour and then we don't have to change our clocks at all. Frankly, living in eastern time, I am somewhat jealous of central time since they can get the same tv shows coming on an hour earlier in the evening. Then, I could watch whatever I wanted and still get up at 6 a.m. bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Of course, I could move, but I like where I live so that's a no-brainer.

Regarding people dropping responsibilities whenever they feel like it: the librarian did not need me the last 2 days of the week. She had a volunteer working over my lunch period on Thursday, and an English teacher had a class in during lunch on Friday which required the librarian's presence. If I were paranoid, I'd wonder if she found out I had a blog and she read it ... but I'm not paranoid. I'm just a one-noid. ;-)

Responsibility, or lack there of

There's a saying about how 20% of an organization do 80% of the work. I swear that some of the not-working-so-much 80% are people who have learned to ignore responsibilities they do not care to do and for which they are not called on by their supervisors. One school example: all of the teachers in my school have a week of lunch duty in the cafeteria 4 to 5 times a year. They generally do it because the principal calls them on it when they don't show up ... plus their lack affects what goes on the principal's final performance assessment for the year. Now, we have a second week of lunch duty 4 to 5 times a year, only this time it's in the library. Apparently, our current librarian does not feel comfortable getting parent volunteers to watch the library during the 3 lunchtimes, so she arranged with the administration to have the teachers take over. What has happened is this: those who care about doing the right thing show up for their duty times and the rest do not bother to even acknowledge that they have such duty assigned to them. Since the librarian does not have the gumption either to call the missing teachers and remind them of their duty nor to complain to the administration about this, less than half of the faculty do the library duty. This puts more of a burden to those ones only because then the librarian depends completely upon those people to get time off for her to get her lunch, etc.

Obviously, I am complaining because this is my library lunch duty week and the same suspects are missing. Hence, instead of sharing this duty so that each of us gets to have at least one day of duty off, I get the entire week. Hmm. I think I'll call my absent associates and ask them where have they been all week? Or maybe I'll mention the problem to the administration in a non-accusing way. Or maybe I'll take the cowards way out and do nothing but show up as usual since my experience has been that once I take on a responsibility, I do get in trouble if I join the slacker group even for a day.

Homecoming Week

Being that I teach in a non-public school, we have extra rules regarding dress and decorum ... and not just for the faculty and staff! Well, homecoming week knocks that down for a bit. Monday was pajama day with dire threats for students wearing negligees, babydolls, too short shorts, boxers, etc. Tuesday was celebrity day. I saw 2 John McCains, 1 Barak Obama, 3 Audrey Hepburns, and a bunch of characters and actors from shows I've never watched. I heard rumors of 1 Sara Palin but I missed her. Those political masks are very disturbing in their own way. Wednesday was tacky day. That's enough of a description for anyone. Thursday was decades day with each class having a decade assigned to it. Being the junior class moderator, I seriously considered wearing an old fringed leather vest from the 70's which was the juniors decade, but I realized that someone had to be the adult in the class. Friday was spirit day when students wore the school colors.

It was enjoyable except when the students would try to play around because they were out of standard dress code. For that reason, and my years of experience, I opted to dress very severely every day. At least I was taken seriously by my students in all my classes. My choices came in handy on Wednesday when I went down to the cafeteria to monitor the silent study hall during activity period with the students who chose not to join a club. I was not in the best of moods at that time because all faculty who had no clubs meeting were to be there helping with the study hall, but I was the only one there. I ended up talking with the principal about my need to have at least one other teacher due to the number of students. When the principal showed up with another teacher, I got kudos for my student management of getting them all facing the same way so they could not talk across the tables and having them silently working already. Severe looks can really help sometimes.

Friday we had too assemblies and I gave 4 tests in shortened periods. Plus I took someone's first period study hall. The class that followed the first assembly was so short that my students did not finish their tests. They will finish them on Monday since it was not their fault. Meanness and lack of fairness are not my forte in teaching. I had really wanted to go to the football that evening, but I was so tired from grading notebooks on the fly, grading computer science programs on the fly, administering and proctoring tests, running around like a chicken with my head cut off, and helping students and faculty, that when my son finished his work for the day, we headed home where I promptly fell asleep for about 2 hours. I'm still somewhat tired, but I plan on spending my afternoon in the arms of Morpheus. If I'm smart, I'll go to the late afternoon mass at one of the local Catholic churches so that I can rest up tomorrow morning, too.

I do love homecoming week, but this year it was purely exhausting. Next on the list is Backwards Homecoming during basketball season. At least I have a few months between then and now to catch up on my rest. ;-)

No personal time available.

One thing I have noticed about teaching over the years is that, unlike working in private industry, I almost never have time for myself outside of the class day. Before and after school I help/tutor my students who are having trouble understanding or remembering the lessons plus giving make up quizzes and tests for those who were out. (I picked up a "tool" from my former college professors. I insure that the make ups are different and harder than the originals so that students are motivated to be in school on test/quiz days or to take the test/quiz before a field trip or whatever so that they do not have to take the make up. There are far too many students in both public and non-public schools who have the habit of being out for a test and coming back after they've learned from their friends just what the test covers and how to mark it in order to get an A. My logic? If I have to go the extra mile to grade it just for them, then they have to go the extra mile just to make a passing grade. By the way, those make ups do cover exactly the same material; they just have more problems and no multiple choice for definitions.)

Back to my lack of personal time. When I do go home, I nap for about half an hour or so. Being a world-class introvert, I am wearied by being around people for the entire day with little or no time by myself to recharge myself. Of course, before taking my nap, I spend at least half an hour or so listening to my husband who has been home without conversation for most of the day. Typical person that I am, I married my alter-ego, i.e. my husband is an extrovert and needs to recharge by being around people and talking. Hence, I get a dose of it when I walk through the door every afternoon. My husband makes dinner -- he's the homemaker and has been most of our married life -- while I wake up and mentally prepare for the evening. There's conversation at dinner mostly spoken by my husband, sometimes by me, and rarely by our adult son who works at the same school but in the technology area. After supper comes grading papers or rarely lesson planning. I work to find time to exercise regularly without getting the exercise too close to dinner nor too close to bedtime. Lastly is bed between 9 and 10 p.m. Closer to 9 anytime I can get it there. Then rise and shine between 5 and 6 a.m. with the assistance of my cat. No wonder I have little personal time! How do teachers with small children and a spouse also working outside the home do it?

Weekends are my time ... except that I always bring work home to get done before Monday. I catch up on 2 hours naps Saturday and Sunday afternoons. I iron my work clothes. (My husband and I agreed when we first married that each of us would be responsible for ironing our own clothes, and we have done that ever since. Last year my son started ironing his clothes, so I am left to just my own clothes again.) I spend time with husband and son. If I have to shop or get my hair cut or whatever, that's when I do it. Church at either 5 p.m. Saturday (Catholic) or 8 a.m. Sunday (Episcopal) unless I mess up with my weekend plans. Extra long time for exercising each day. Writing to family, catching up on my brother's blog, cooking one special meal, usually pizza, and just zoning out while reading old newspapers (I'm almost done with June this weekend). Now, you know why I am currently only writing one blog post a week. Once I get to a particular point, I may be able to get back to at least twice a week, but this is where I am right now.

Haunted School

Due to the extremes of teaching, I have had no time yet to catch up on what's going on. We had the annual "back to school" night for parents of current students to follow their children's schedules and meet the teachers on Wednesday. I did not get home until 10 p.m. which may not sound bad until you know that I always get up between 5 and 6 a.m. on school days. So Thursday I was dragging all day like all the other teachers. The fact that I am an introvert and need a lot of alone time to energize myself does not help on days like that.

When I was in private industry, I could never understand why teachers complained about not having enough time. I was working 50-60 hours weeks a lot of the time, and I did not need more than 2 weeks vacation and a few holidays for any given year. Not really, but I believed that teachers had altogether too much time on their hands. I was so wrong. I get to the school as early as I can to get my day set up. This includes just mentally remembering which day it is and what each subject requires (yes, I use a planning book, but teaching to teenagers is not something most people do well on the fly -- organization is extremely important because in this day and time, one cannot leave one's students to take a quick trip to the restroom or copy a paper or just about anything). I need to take care of all personal needs, do any copying necessary for the day, set my room up for my first class, respond to parent calls and emails, help any students who come by, and go over my in-depth lesson plans for the day. That's just the regular before-school duties. When I was in a public school, the duties were worse.

Then the school day begins. Teaching and enforcing school policies are the 2 main duties of that time period. Teaching takes so much out of me that I make sure that I keep exercising in the evenings so that my energy level stays up with me. Another teacher swims every morning at 5:30 a.m. for her health and energy. We all have our ways to keep going amongst very energetic and enthusiastic young people. About once a month I have some type of lunch duty. This past week was lunch duty in the dining hall. It's not bad actually. I just have to help the administrator make sure that the students clean the tables before leaving lunch. In other schools I had to make sure that no one cut into lines (cause of many fights) or that no one tried to get into the rest of the school buildings. The one year that I taught at a middle school, I had lunch with my students every single day. I bow to all teachers who have that situation. They are saints in my mind. Next month I get lunch duty in the library for a week, mainly due to our current librarian's discomfort with trying to get parents to help her watch students during lunch. At least there I have a computer with which to work.

After school, there are meetings, helping students, answering calls and emails, copying more papers, doing anything else necessary for the next morning. If I remember, I make doctor, dental, whatever appointments before their offices close at 5. Last year, I chaperoned the senior class after school coffee shop twice a week. I also try to do some walking around the track with another teacher when we can get together; it gives us some exercise, time to talk with each other, and time to talk with students at practices. I strongly recommend walking around the school track after school for all those reasons. We leave the track refreshed and energized for the evening.

At home, I nap, then supper, followed by grading papers, lesson planning, exercising if time allows. After all that, blessed sleep.

I was so arrogant about the teaching profession when I was in private industry, and now I'm paying for it.

Teacher workweek - day 3

Successful day for my users/fellow teachers. Semi-successful day for me. I started bringing my syllabi up to the new official standards at 8 a.m., was caught by another teacher for help, and spent the remaining time available helping other teachers put their syllabi on their websites. Then to 2 hours of religious mini-retreat and serious reflection ... which was so good and definitely not a waste of anyone's time. Nice way to prepare for the school year.

After lunch I spent my remaining time training 2 new teachers on the homework website and helping several other teachers with their syllabi. I made it to my classroom once after I started helping other teachers early in the morning, and that was just to leave myself a copy of Thursday departmental meeting agenda. My syllabi are screaming for me, and I still have one more new teacher to train.

At least, I'm not bored.

Teacher Time Saved

On Friday I had my annual physical. I make sure that I get physicals, medical tests, etc. taken care of in the summer because it is such a hassle taking time off school as far as using a substitute goes. Since I teach math, there are very few substitutes I can get who can actually teach a lesson, so I have to create generic lesson plans that usually involve a lot of worksheets. I find that to be such a waste of teachable time. So much for the idea of teachers being out whenever they feel like it. Maybe I should have taken on history or some such subject. ;-)

I've been catching up on newspapers; I'm currently in the middle of March. I find it so amusing that politicians and others put the onus of students' learning on the teachers exclusively. It's like putting the dental health of patients entirely on the dentists' shoulders and ditto for doctors. As long as we have a cultural view that it is okay for students to do badly in science and math, we will never have major success in those areas across the board. Of course, we do have a president who takes pride in being a "C" student. That man shows me just what value a Harvard MBA does not have. End of sermon. I have some sewing to do.

Sometimes a not-so-great notion ...

Let this serve as a warning to all student teachers, new teachers, and teachers-to-be. I am paying today with a check ($142.53) to cover my error in judgement when I decided to bring myself down to the level of my students.

I was walking to the computer lab when I stopped at the ministry office's student hangout to pick up some of my computer science students. One tried to hide behind the door, so I decided to play a prank on him. I enlisted the assistance of some of the other students, and we all pushed against the door. I thought that he would eventually give up and cry "uncle" after which we would all go on to the lab in a good mood. Instead, he pushed back by putting his elbows on the bottom frame of the window in the door, thereby breaking the window. Since I was the adult in charge, let alone the instigator of the situation, I offered to pay for the window. That's one prank that I will never repeat.

As an aside, I was amused by the response of my computer science students to my owning up to what I had done and to my freely offering to pay for the damage. In a public school I could understand their response of "why would you go out of your way to admit and make reparations when there were no other adults to witness your actions?" My school is a religious-backed school, though, so the students' view was surprising to me. The financial cost of my error is well worth it if I have been a good role model in the art of responsibility.