3 Weeks In

This week was the busiest and most tiring week so far. We had meetings, we had Back to School night, and I had piles and piles of things to grade. I attended all of the meetings, which went quickly & painlessly. This weekend, I will tackle 90% of the grading. It won't take too long, since it's all homework and classwork & a credit/no credit situation. As for Back to School night... it was the smoothest one I've had to do so far.

I really don't like meeting parents, probably due to the fact that I know they all have different expectations of what a teacher should be. Some of them want me to be the Grammar Nazi English teacher that will beat their children over the head with spelling, grammar, reading and writing. Some of them want me to just pass their kid, no matter what. And some of them DGAF what I do, as long as their kid learns something and I have a reason behind my actions. I'm betting that all of them expect me to be (or at least look) older. I used to try to impress upon them that I was that intimidating teacher (to the kids) and that they can trust me with their child's education by trying to be overly professional sounding, even though I look like I graduated last year. I don't do that anymore because it's ridiculous. I got tired of worrying if they automatically judge me as incapable due to my appearance, which I have no control over. (My mom would probably say they were just jealous of the fact that my family ages well, even though she once commented on how my 7th grade science teacher looked too young)

Truth be told, most parents are afraid of me just because I am The English Teacher. I know we've ALL had an English teacher that was a major bitch, no matter what you did. I had a few teachers like that throughout school--nothing you do will ever be good enough, they have ridiculously high expectations, they find it rude if you sneeze or cough without asking you first and punish you for ever smiling. Oh, and they correct your grammar at all times and look down on you if you don't speak or write "correctly". You don't know how many emails I've received from parents that have a note somewhere in there mentioning how bad their grammar and spelling is and to not grade them (or their student) on it.

Based on this, I went into this Back to School night with a different mindset. I dressed nicely (which netted me a lot of compliments that day) and I came up with a great plan to use the Promethean board to show my class website, the syllabus and the online textbook. These parents want to know that I mean business and I know what I'm talking about, but they don't want to be intimidated by me. I finally took the same approach I have with their children and applied it to them: I may look young, but I am an adult. I let them know that I know what I'm talking about, I've done this job before and had success, I'm approachable, and I'm more than willing to listen to their concerns. I don't care if the kids are intimidated by me, but I don't want their parents to be.

Unfortunately, this approach does not work on parents who like to intimidate teachers. Nothing I can do about that, though.

what a week.

Six parents. That's how many I saw at P/T Conferences. 10:30-6:30: Six parents. Six! Last year, I at least got close to ten. But, six?! Oh well. I got a lot done, like planning and finishing Slaughterhouse Five. Yep.
Wednesday was the first meeting of COMP (the workshop for 2nd year teachers). LONGEST DAY OF MY LIFE. It was a repeat of BEST (1st year teacher workshop last year) and alllll of my ed college courses. Plus, the woman treated us like children! Seriously, she lectured us and gave grown people "teacher looks" (similar to a "parent look"). The Granby table of teachers were the worst behaved-- we totally got split up. hah! We were passing notes, being very critical, giggling, etc. Bad, bad teachers. Oh well. We were trying not to fall asleep or scream in agony. Our biggest complaint, beyond what I already mentioned of it being a repeat of everything we already know, was that the first speaker wasn't following what she was telling us to do with our own students. Gotta love it, right?
Thursday morning, I got stuck in traffic for an hour. A whole hour! I didn't get to school until 7:35 (the tardy bell rings at 7:25). There was a multi-car crash in the tunnel, and I was stuck right near it for 30+ minutes. It took another 30 minutes to get through the tunnel and to Granby. ugh! Thank goodness I don't have a 2nd bell!
Friday was actually pretty good. The kids were a little wound up because it was the end of Spirit Week, and there was a Pep Rally for Homecoming at the end of the day. I was a little irritated with my 7th bell when they whined about me making them do their journal.

I'm glad this week's over. Now, I take a walk.

Conference day!

Today was Parent/Teacher conference day.
Plus: I got to "sleep in", as it didn't start until 10:30.
Minus: It goes until 6:30

There's more (and more that goes beyond this day), but I'm tired and it's time for Heroes (and Megan and I to discuss Heroes while we watch).

For now, take a guess as to how many parents/guardians I saw between 10:30 and 6:30 (with an hour break for lunch!). I'll give you a hint: it's more than I saw at the Open House this year, but less than I saw on P/T conference day last year.

you'll be somebody's girlfriend

It's been a pretty easy week. I knew where I was going, went there, accomplished some stuff. It's such a nice change having students who respect me (minus a small few) within the first full month of school. They try, they have direction, they're creative, they're honest and up front. Basically: how the hell did I get so lucky? I asked my department head if it was okay if people came to visit. I wasn't sure if they allowed visitors to follow teachers around. I was mostly thinking of when Meg comes to visit for spring break. I don't want to leave her here all day, every day, and she mentioned wanting to see the school. Rebecca said there's no problem. I think Meg will be very jealous of this school and wish she had gone there. haha.
Anyway. Week started off with parent/teacher conferenes. I had less than 15 parents, finished reading The Color of Water, and talked with another new teacher, Ms. H (she teaches three levels of Spanish! holy crap!). We shared wedding photos. She got married in August and has an adorable two year old. Today was an "early release" day. I had no 8th bell, only 2nd and my caf duty. During my cafeteria duty, I got to watch the "gang squad" pull kids in one by one, take some pictures of some of them, question them, search them-- all that fun stuff. Apparently, I missed some crazy stuff go down after school yesterday. One gang (grown men, as one teacher told me), pulled up and surrounded the school because one of their kids was threatened and told he was going to get jumped after school by the rival gang. I know a few of my kids are in gangs. I told them as long as they don't bring any of that crap into class and make a problem for all of us, I didn't want to hear about it. I haven't had a problem.
Cafeteria duty is kind of fun. Not only do I have a group of students who come to say hi and chat, I also get to see kids searched, handcuffed, pulled in to security, interviewed, etc. They aren't usually arrested for anything big. The other day, they caught two girls smoking cigarettes in a bathroom (right by the cafeteria! Did we want to get caught, ladies?) and other cops had to come in. One of my students was in some sort of fight and was in the security box being interviewed about it before suspended. I only have about one student per week that blows past me/doesn't listen/lies to me. Security usually catches 'em in the hallways, though.
Since it was an early release day, I spent the rest of the day (two hours) in professional development. I chose "Unit planning" because NPS uses a special kind of planning called "Understanding by Design" and I kind of wanted to know what that was all about. Funny enough, quite a few other new teachers (to Granby in general, not just first years) were there, too. It helped out a LOT.
Funny moment of the week: Chandra was telling me about this one kid that runs his mouth a lot in class. She kept trying to give him the subtle hint of holding one finger up against her lips (y'know, the "Shhh!!" without any noise). He asked her, "Why do you keep doing that?" She said, "I'm trying to subtly tell you to shut your mouth. You know... there are two people in this world: those that can take the subtle hints and those who need to be yelled at and told again and again what to do. Those that need to be told again and again usually end up in jail. You're kind of small and pretty, someone's just gonna love you and your green eyes. You're gonna be someone's girlfriend." (Or something along those lines) I laughed so hard when she told me this, I couldn't believe she actually told some kid that! And with a straight face! hahahaha.
One funny/strange thing that happened this week: We read a story by Chinua Achebe about a man getting robbed. We were talking about connections to our own lives. The kids were shocked (seriously!) by what I told them about Kalamazoo and my few brushes with being robbed/broken into. That shocked me. Norfolk is bigger, but has less crime than Kzoo. That is crazy and pretty depressing.
David's been gone since Tuesday. His program took a little trip to D.C. and they come back today. It's been weird to be around the apartment alone, but I've had more than enough crap to finish for school.
Today is such a beautiful day. It's sunny out and cool, but not too cool. Just perfect. I wish David was here and we both had free time to go take a bike ride or something. Or I'll just eat the pumpkin fudge we bought to celebrate that it finally feels like fall here. Sounds like a plan.