I must admit my favorite part of teaching is often the time I spend away from teaching. Sad. But true. I was reluctant to go back to class today as I knew what awaited me: excuses for work undone, unruly behavior, classes to cover, teachers who are so negative (sometimes me) and students. But wait, isn’t my job to deal with the students? I was told last week, “I don’t know why teachers complain, they get so much time off”. And that is true. We do get a lot of time off, at least days off. I didn’t challenge this person, but we spend a lot of time during the year working, “off the clock” so to speak.
I was told two years ago the downtown administration was thinking of installing time clocks for teachers. It seems many of our folks can’t get to work on time. At first I was indignant, and then I thought, “Hey that would be great” if I got paid the hour. Problem is I would have to install one at home and punch it every time I worked from home, I promise I would do much better. Speaking of downtown, would it be such a bad thing to get some more subs. I am getting tired of covering a class when it is my conference. I know things are tough know in Midland, but really? We need to do something to attract some folks to substitute teaching, wait, what am I thinking? That is virtually impossible. I would never want to substitute teach.
On a related topic, why do we have so many of us (teachers) are using so many days so early. We get ten “sick” days a year and I swear we have some who must have taken ten already, not just older teachers with days built up, but younger or newer teachers who only have the minimum. I need to take some of my days, but the problem is I have been out so much for school stuff, that I don’t feel like I can be out of the classroom for anything personal. Oh well, we teachers only work a few days a year anyway.
And another thing, why do I feel like spending less time with other teachers? I know, negativity. We are so negative. I noticed this over the Thanksgiving break, I was negative about everything. I found the worst in things instead of the best. I have to do better. I don’t even want to be around myself sometimes. It is so easy to be negative, and sometimes we have the right to be negative, but not all the time. And if I am not going to try to do something about the problem, maybe I should just keep my mouth shut. Mama always said, “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”. I don’t subscribe to that theory in totality, sometimes you gotta say something that may not be too nice, but not as a way of life. I need to do better. I will work on that.
On a positive note, I have all my grading done, in the gradebook and distributed back to the kiddos. I am working hard at trying to do this, the students deserve timely feedback, and sometimes I did a less than stellar job at this. But today, I am king of the world.
Well, it does feel good to be back in the saddle, I just wish the time in the pasture had been longer. But we only have three weeks until a Christmas break, better get serious until then. Better run and please read the awesome email I got from a former student. I posted it at, “Why I Teach”,check it out. Until next time, peace. (And please leave some comments!)
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