prioritizing

[ringsandcoffee]

I don't know how to do it. I spend 10-11 hours a day at school (commute included) and bring home at least 2 hours worth of work each night. I only do about an hour of it though, because my brain starts to shut down. I'm perpetually behind, and it's only going to get worse. I can't keep up with grading, so I'm trying to figure out exactly what I want to grade. I collect everything, because if I don't, the kids will either not do the work or will do a crappy job. Some things I just mark as done or not, but that's still 90 papers to mark in my gradebook. I need to enter grades onto Excel also. If I could get a laptop to use at school, I could enter grades there and have a jump drive to keep the info at home as well. I know there's a laptop that't not being used, but I don't know if they will part with one from the (somewhat useless) mobile lab.

I turned off Strictly Ballroom that I just bought on dvd after 10 minutes because I need to get grading done so I have tomorrow to work on lesson plans. This sucks, as I usually take all of Saturday off from school work. Part of my problem is being new to the curriculum, as well as to having this many students. It's just...how do the teachers with families do it? How do they keep up with the work and actually have a life at home? Once again, I really wish I had another language arts teacher to plan with. I feel like I'm going at this totally blindly. All this work to try and raise some stupid test scores, and now the principal is adding to the workload. He has good intentions, but I feel like it's another way of saying I'm not doing things right.

Comments

[jessibobessi.livejournal.com]

Wow! I'm sorry your school work is taking so long. I can't imagine always collecting papers from 90 students! And I agree with you, I have NO idea how teachers with families and hobbies and (other jobs!!!) do it all! :-/

and I LOVEEEE strictly ballroom

[ringsandcoffee.livejournal.com]

I guess I need to work on my assessment strategies. I had been steered away from the theory of weekly tests and towards assessing everything they do for understanding, but look where it's gotten me.

[orogenesis11.livejournal.com]

Schools didn't put this much emphasis on test scores 10 or 15 years ago, right? I mean, I remember taking standardized tests, but I don't really remember the teachers worrying about them.

[ringsandcoffee.livejournal.com]

No, because the tests didn't really exist back then. It wasn't until NCLB that all states created tests to "measure schools" and faced consequences if students weren't measuring up. So, some kids have a lot of catching up to do to get on grade level.

Fellow teacher...

[devotedteach27.livejournal.com]

hey there! you started school very early - wow!!! What do you teach? Wanna be friends??? LOL!

Re: Fellow teacher...

[ringsandcoffee.livejournal.com]

My school is modified year-round. 2 weeks off in the fall, 3 in the winter, 2 in spring, and 7 week summer. It's pretty nice. I teach 8th grade reading and language arts.

I added you back. :)