Kunal: this is the way to think of it
you won't leave
you'll nail that shit tomorrow
and everything will be fine
forget everything else
if not, then you can deal with it later
- google chat
I stopped being nervous the night before. The wheels are in motion, the ball is in the air, at that point I just had to get it done. The lesson started with question marks, a stack of worksheets left on the copier, students showed up who haven't done work all year. I went through a lesson fresh, as in this was the first period that I taught it since my other classes were behind. We did everything by the book well until I was going to go up and start talking. A student who usually does their work wouldn't take his headphones off. I talked to him though. I asked for volunteers for the do now, none came up though. I kept pushing, I went around 3 times to tell kids to get out the worksheets from yesterday. To tell kids how to use the graphing calculator, to explain how they should analyze the table. kind of like herding cats, and then at a certain point they just got it. The disengagement was overturned, everyone started working for real. They weren't just copying stuff, they were seeing the connections the worksheet was supposed to give them.
There are a lot of mistakes, why were some students allowed to walk around the room, why did some students leave class early. If that is what this review comes to, I don't want to work here anyways. I taught my class, the way I wanted to teach it, and I worked hard to make it turn out positive. I'm satisfied with the results.
1 comment:
I assume by the time you read this you will know whether you got that S or that U, but my comment would probably be the same regardless.
It sounds like your school expects disciplined students despite the fact that they are frequently foreign to the idea of discipline, and you are not given the power to do it. It sounds like your policy of discipline through empathy and conversation is the best and possibly only way for this to happen. It sounds like you truly devote a lot of time and energy to your job and I'm sure you do it well. To this I add the gross disparity between your level of intelligence/education and the pay, support and ease of your job, and the conclusion is obvious.
that school is absolutely insane for even thinking of letting you go. The fact that they are even coming at you like this would be enough to make me advise you to try somewhere else.
and while i'm handing out unsolicited advise, i'll also trumpet my opinin that you can probably find a nice middle group bewteen a thankless teaching job and law or trading.
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