It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
I just want to rant a little bit about work today, so please indulge me. As you might have noticed I’ve missed some uploads, but in my defense I was in bed just utterly dead inside. This usually happens around late November/early December and I doubt I’m the only one, but the stress of work has definitely caught up to me and I felt exhausted. Not to mention these last two weeks have been brutal. With one week to go, allow me to give you a little peek into the things that can make teaching feel like an exhausting job sometimes. (It’s also great other times, but not now).
Let’s start with the classes. I’ve been struggling to get my class management in order and I’m getting there, but it’s a slow process. One of my classes is absolutely great and having known them since the day they walked into school last year has been a big help because you have already established that relationship with them. Another of my classes is fun but loud and I still need to work on reining them in at times, although I’m not worried about them. That leaves me with two more classes. One of them is currently in the process of testing out their teachers to see what they can get away with. They think they’re being funny – and to them it probably is funny – but it’s just exhausting and will eventually result in some detention and extra work. I think I’ll get there with this class, but it’s an exhausting process. That leaves me with one more class to talk about.
One of my classes doesn’t mesh with my style of teaching. At all. Let me explain a little bit what I mean with that. Every teacher has a style of teaching they’re comfortable with. Although I’m still trying to find my style, I know a lot of it is much more relaxed and less strict. That’s not in me, so if I do need to be strict, I need to actively put on a serious face and change my behavior. I felt lost standing in front of this class as they needed incredibly clear boundaries which I was unable to give them. So I ended up talking with one of my coworkers who also teaches this class and I’ve heard is quite strict. When kids call a teacher strict, that probably just means they have very clear defined boundaries. So I’m taking a page out of her book and I’ll copy the way she rules the class with an iron fist to see if that works. It will be very hard for me to do, but once it’s established I should bring a lot of rest to the classroom. And if that doesn’t work I’ll have to escalate to my supervisor. Speaking of supervisors, let’s move on to the next point of stress.
As a teacher, you get a visit from your boss twice a year where they evaluate your teaching. At least that’s how it works at my school, and I would assume it’s a fairly standard process. They watch you teach a lesson, then you evaluate and talk about future growth. Some of you might remember that this visit was a little bit of a struggle for me last year. Initially my boss told me he didn’t know if they wanted to extend my contract and I had to really prove myself to keep the job. Now I’m in a situation where I don’t quite know what to expect. I like to think that the lesson I taught where my boss came and watched went quite well. I filled in the evaluation form and I think I was fair towards myself. So now the rest is the chat about it on Wednesday. So yeah, I could be doing better mentally.
Finally, before we head into Christmas break on Thursday and I get to relax a bit, I also have parent teacher talks. I only have four of them, which I’m quite happy about, but that’s always stressful to do. I need to tell parents how their kids are going to be fine and although I have a pretty good general idea of most of my students’ and their progress, there are some that are more difficult to give concrete feedback to. I don’t want to hop onto a call and go “yeah, your kid struggles with writing a solid sentence and that harms all his English exercises.” I don’t know how to fix that in the short term while the other 25+ kids in the classroom also need some level of attention. If the problem is more specific than I can address it more easily. Two of the boys whose parents I’m speaking with just struggle with the grammar, so I’m giving them a little bit of extra attention and some more practice assignments. But fixing up your basics is more complicated. I’ll figure something out, I’m quite proud of how well my kids scored last year by the end of the year and I’d like to keep that trend going.
So yeah, long story short, stress bad, I’m tired, I forgot to upload. I’ll be better, probably. One of my resolutions for next year is to finish posts at least a few days ahead of time so that I can upload them the day before. For now, I once again thank you all for being patient with me. Good things are coming and I’m excited for what is arguably the core of this blog, the continuation of the Hesitant Hero. Thanks for reading and enjoy your upcoming Christmas breaks.
Also, last minute edit, I was supposed to go to the hospital today for my eyes, but they cancelled last minute. Turns out the hospital in my town can’t do the check I need (which I didn’t knew, and the person scheduling it didn’t realize), so it’s moved now. At least I asked for time off so I get an early afternoon I suppose, but this means I do have to go to the next town over in January and return half blind with eyes the size of basketballs. Fun stuff.
Opal Kaharis 