I have learned that keeping this blog has been quite therapudic for me. I have never told the story of Victor to anybody, so instead I pour in into my keyboard, and all of a sudden it's out there. And I learned that I am not horrible. I am human. Even a teacher is going to break every now and then. I'm proud to say that Victor is the only student that actually received negative feedback from one of my breakdowns.
This past week was a bit of a trial for me because of this nasty headcold that likes my sinuses quite a bit. It's not willing to move out. So I had a substitute on Monday and was pleasantly surprised to find that my lesson plans had been followed all day and all of my markers weren't gone. My chalk had remained on my desk and in one piece. It was a good day.
Tuesday and Wednesday were a blur. I hate that I can't remember what I did on those two days. I know I met with my team, but I don't know what we talked about. I know I taught, and based on the assignments that were turned in, I assume I taught what I had been planning. However, I have no memory of those two days.
So I took Thursday off. I figured the failure to remember two days of my life and the complete lack of feeling in my extremeties due to the cold were reasons enough to stay home.
Friday, however, made up for the entire week that I didn't remember.
I co-teach one class a day with another teacher because of the large number of special education students that are enrolled in that class. It happens to be the first class of the day. I think the administration at my school did that on purpose to the both of us because we had both been quite used to not having a morning class at all. The past two years my prep periods have all been the first period of the day. As have my co-teacher's preps. So it became quite simple for me to not be at work on time every day. It was a gradual late problem for me. I came on time religiously for the first semester. Then I began to notice that nobody really saw me get there, nor did they care, just as long as my classes were taken care of.
So I started coming later and later. I got so bad that I wasn't getting there until right before my class started...at 9:45am. Yeah, it was pretty ugly.
Turns out somebody did notice, and during my annual review, my principal sat me down and commented on the number of times she saw me drive up at 9:30. I'm supposed to be there at 8:10 every day, so 9:30 was QUITE late. I apologized, told her I would definitely work on it, and all but RAN out of her office.
The beginning of this year rolled around and I was not at all surprised to see that my first period prep had been pulled and I had a prep later in the day instead.
My co-teacher tells of a similar scenario. Haha, we're so bad.
The year started ok, but it slowly went downhill. I got much better at making it to work on time, and I am at the point now where I actually make it to work early.
My co-teacher, on the other hand, is continuing to not make it to work on time. In fact, she isn't coming to work on time in any way, shape, or form. In fact, she gets to work late, then she goes to her classroom for whatever reason, THEN she gets to her actual class about 20 minutes late. This is an every day thing with her. I have learned to accept it. It bothers me that she feels ok going to her EMPTY classroom before she comes to her students. But whatever. I'm not her, and I don't want to make a big deal out of it. However, I am feeling put out, and I don't know how to handle the situation.
On Friday, my co-teacher came in twenty minutes late. When she came into my class she complained about the thing that were missing from her classroom after she had a sub. So solidfying that she did indeed go to her room first. THEN, she got into my room and informed me that she was needed in a parent conference. Ok, a parent conference shouldn't take that long. However, she was gone for half an hour. Upon her return, she said that mom hadn't showed up. Well that's a bummer, but why did that take half an hour?
At that moment, my phone rang and it was my husband with a dire emergency (to him anyway. He was ordering a birthday cake for my oldest daughter and he needed to kow the specifics) so I had to step outside. The students were all on task and I had to reservations about stepping outside. However, as soon as I got done, my co teacher informed me that the parent had showed up and they wanted her for the conference now.
Hmm, ok. Have fun hun. And she's gone again.
Upon her entrance in third time, she talked about the student, how horrible he is in her class, and how mom wants to blame him failing on her, which is pretty normal in this job.
Then she tells me she is going to leave to go get herself ready for her next class. That's about ten minutes early, so she spent a grand total of maybe 15 minutes with her first period class. Now, I can understand that sometimes things come up. But come on. She is late every day, and she leaves early every day. And every day in class she has to go do this, or she has to go do that. Now, I think this must be payback for last year when I smoked, and I took a break during the period we co-taught together last year. I'm not sure. I'm just feeling a bit like she's using me to have an additional prep period.
posted by lobo5747 @ 8:13 PM
2 Comments:
Well, students won't complain of an always late teacher :). Though, as I've noticed with my own English teacher, they tend to lose all respect for that person.
I've just finished reading all your archives and I don't understand why you HAVE to teach science, if you don't enjoy it.
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