The life of a teacher

[ringsandcoffee]

Let's hope this doesn't take an hour to do. Hopefully, since I will use the same plannng process I teach my students, it won't take forever.



You may only get the "lots of reds" part if you teach Step Up to Writing. Moving on...

green
I can't even begin to sum up all the things I've learned in the past month, which was my first month as a teacher. (that is, as a teacher with an actual contract position)
yellow
First of all, the time we spend. I used to joke how it's not an 8-3 job with weekends and summers off. Well, it really isn't. I didn't have a clue what it was like, and I was pretty busy as a student teacher. I have to be at school by 715; most days I get there closer to 6am. I don't think a day has gone by that I have not left earlier than 4pm, and school ends at 245. More often, I leave after 5 o'clock. Some days, I'm planning or getting work done, after which I take more work home with me. Now, I help out with cheerleading 4 days a week, 2 days practice, and 2 days going to games. Today, we got back at 5pm but 2 girls didn't get picked up until nearly 6pm, because their mom forgot about them! HELLO, how do you forget to pick up your child??? Doesn't the fact that they are not at home clue you in that something is wrong? Oy. Then, I bring work home on weekends. I've decided I have to leave Saturday to relax, but then I end up stressing out on Sunday.
yellow
Then, there's the stress involved. Ok, so I'm a new teacher and I really want to do well, but I also am like, ACK, I don't know what I'm doing. I feel like I'm winging it half the time. Most of the time. I'm a resource teacher, so I stress out because my kids are not getting things, but then again thats why they are in my class. But still, I feel like a failure. I feel like I am too easy on them, and I am in some ways. I worry that I am dumbing things down for them, but then again, I have to. I worry about how they will do next year, and think, their next teacher is going to hate me for not preparing them well. I worry about my students because they have crappy home lives. I worry about them because they hate the curriculum I have to do with them. I stres out and don't sleep well many nights. Then, many times, whatever I was stressing over blows over anyway. *le sigh*
yellow

I know I'm forgetting a lot of things, but oh well. I have to get some work done anyway, plan out what I'll do for writing tomorrow, and probably stress over it.

Comments

[orogenesis11.livejournal.com]

Okay...I have to ask: what do the greens, yellows, and reds mean? :) I am curious.

It's interesting to hear about your first month at school. You hear so much in the news about how much teachers have to do, how underpaid they are. Finally I get to learn about it firsthand.

[ringsandcoffee.livejournal.com]

LOL I meant to erase the color words after I wrote all that, but I was tired. We use this program called Step Up to Writing, which is a really cool system for teaching kids both narrative and expository writing (stories and informational, respectively. There's a big focus on planning, and they use a stoplight analogy. You start with the green, which is your topic sentence for a paragraph or an introduction for an essay. The yellows are your transitions and RDFs, or reasons, details or facts that tell more about your topic. The reds are where you explain the most, giving the most specific information. So, like a stoplight, green means GO, tell the reader what you are going to talk about. Yellow means SLOW down and give a little more information. Red means STOP and explain, say all that you need to say. (you can only have one yellow sentence at a time, but you can have as many reds after it as you need) Finally, your last green means GO again, restate the topic and main points in your conclusion. I wish I had heard of the program when I was in CA.

I'll share my teacher experiences, and I get to read about your grad school life :) It's a good thing I wrote this post, because I was able to just send the link to my friend who asked me today about school.

[orogenesis11.livejournal.com]

Heck, that'd be a useful analogy for almost anyone!! I love it. I might use it :).