Good Teacher, Bad Housewife

I'm a good friend, good teacher, good family member - but one thing I know I'm not good at is housekeeping.

I don't like to clean. I like a clean house - but I'm bad at keeping it that way. I know this about myself - I have embraced it as one of my faults.

But today while I have the ability to have the house to myself my plan is to attack the laundry situation. I don't mind putting laundry in the machine - it's the folding that I don't like.

I guess this goes back to why I don't like grading. It's the teaching I love - if only I didn't have to give grades.

I would love to try the following experiment.

- teach all semester - assigning homework and essays but let students grade their own work. Give plenty of rubrics and make sure they understood what was expected of them. and at the end of the semester allow them to give themselves a grade. I would be willing to bed that there would be some kids who would give themselves an A no matter what - and there are the other kids who would give themselves a grade lower than what they really should have gotten. But I think for the most part kids would give themselves the grade that the deserve. I hate that there are so many kids who ask the question "what can I do to raise my grade" but they never ask "what can I do to learn more"

And isn't it the learning we should all be worried about. That's why I got into this field - not to give grades but to help kids learn.

But like all things in life if you are going to have the fun - there are the responsibilities that go with it.

The Guilt Bag

This is something every English teacher knows about.

It proves that there are simply just not enough minutes in the day.

I have a guilt bag. It's the bag that I take to work, put papers in, and hope that I'll get a few moments here or there to grade. (Insert laughter because it never happens). Every day I bring this bag from my classroom to my car - car to house - house to car - car to classroom. Secretly hoping that someone has graded those papers in the night. To my shock and surprise Santa has yet to show up and grade my papers.

I have to force myself to grade. It really is one of the hardest parts of my job. I have plenty of rubrics and forms to make sure that I am being equitable when grading. But it pains me to see a kid who worked so hard on something just well... stink as a writer.

This is why homework is important. I give homework so that there is some kind of buffer in the system to help the kid who isn't good at writing essays. If a student does all of their work - and puts their best effort in, they will almost always* get a C or better in my class.

So the battle of grading continues - it's a three day weekend. To be honest I have around 40 full essays and 100+ shorter pieces (two paragraphs) that I need to grade this weekend. Partly because back to school night is on the 13th and I don't want to deal with angry parents.

I've already gotten an email about how I need to reconsider their child's grade. I was tired when I was putting grades in and looked at the wrong column when I put grades in so it looked like half the class was failing. No matter how I phrased the email I still felt like I was a complete moron.

Thank goodness there are still 2 and a half days left of this weekend! Now I'm going to go make a cake in my new pampared chef bake-ware - that grading can wait a little while longer.

*It has happened on a rare occasion that the child gets a D ~ but I don't think they have ever failed.

internal struggle

I'm bad at keeping track of what i teach and when i teach it.

obviously this is a strength that i would like to work on. and at the beginning of every semester i try my best to keep a little book of notes. what i liked about something - what to fix for next year. this is the thing - i never go back to them the next year. i always tell myself i will but i just don't. does this go against everything i was ever taught while i was getting my degree - YES.

I can't tell you how many times i was told that i would be writing formal lesson plans for the rest of my life. i would like to say that is true - it's not. there are really only two times that i write out a lesson plan and that is when i'm not going to be at school - and that's never (i only miss about 3 or 4 days a year - and if i could avoid it i would be at work every day). the other is when i'm going to be observed by one of my admin. I would like to say that i worry about being observed. but really - the idea no longer bothers me. i have to be honest and it is something i enjoy. i love what i do and based on the feedback i get from my students (and the state test scores i get back) i'm good at it. i like having people come in and see what i'm doing. it pushes me to be a better teacher.

so what do i do about keeping track of my lessons? i'll continue to keep pushing myself to write things down - and continue to push forward with my plan that i always start with. and maybe this time will be when it takes root and grows the way i hope it will.