Pretty sure I can make it one more day

Not having a classroom on Monday and Tuesday probably should have been indicative of things to come, but this has been the first week I've actually found myself really not wanting to be in school. I love teaching and I love being in a classroom, and these simple facts alone have been a huge help in dealing with all of the accessory problems that accompany this job. But this week my lessons aren't at all what they should be, and that has made everything significantly less enjoyable.

My lessons aren't falling short due to lack of planning. I've put in a lot of time actually, but the material is difficult and I'm at a loss for fun activities. I've had activities suggested to me, but all of them were so intensive on paper use that I felt obligated to opt out of doing them. Maybe I should've just bit the bullet and printed the sheets; I suppose learning is more important then saving money and the environment. It's too late now though, so it'll definitely be something worth considering for next year.

There's no denying that this week sucked in a big way, but it's not all bad though. Tomorrow is Friday, meaning I have only one more day left on this unit, but more importantly life is pretty great right now and I really don't have a whole lot of complaints.

So here's what they really think of me

Ben Guest Assignment: At the end of class pick one or two classes, and ask them to anonymously answer, "Is the teacher fair?"

I really wanted to get some useful information out of this assignment, so I made it my bell work for all six of my classes and asked them to write a detailed, well-thought out response at least one paragraph in length. The feedback I got was generally very positive, and I was really pleased with the responses I got. Of course there were some naysayers, but those were fun to read too, maybe even more so since I love hearing those kids complain. Provided below is a sampling of the responses I received, ranging from the great to the awful, with all of the spelling mistakes and grammatical errors included.

Coach McAllister is a very fair teacher. His rules and procedures are very simple to follow. He doesn't have favorites; he treats everyone the same way. Whether someone gives a wrong or write answer or not, he still gives verbal praise for trying. Last but not least, his ways of teaching are far more superior than my past teachers. He teaches in the easiest ways possible to make work much more easy for the students.

Yes he is a fair teacher because he is real about what he say about given write assignment out. Make sure that you bring it in the next day. Coach McAllister he is a fair teacher because he wants everybody to do good in his room and pass on to Mr. Cobb class. He might get mad at some people but he just want you to do the write thing in the class.

Yes, I think so, even know you have to ask to follow all the rules. But, that's how it's suppose to be. To tell you the truth, I love this class because he keeps it under control. It is a good learning environment. But, yes I think he is a very fair and cool teacher.

Coach McAllister is a fair teacher because he don't do his grades like ever other teacher. McAllister is a very cool teacher. I love everything about him. The only the is that we have to raise our hand to say the answer or call out the answer. If we raise our hand to ask to go to the bathroom we get a "WA" and that's not fair. But everything else is fair. I like McAllister because if you are missing any work he will let you know or tell you to stay after school on Mon. or Tues. So for everything else he is fair. Coach McAllister is cool. And a loven person. Love Coach McAllister.

Yes I think Mr. McAllister is a fair teacher because he do everything equaly he don't pick no sides or say bad things about his student but I thing I don't like is we work to hard we never get a break can we sometimes watch a movie or play a game

I think that you are a fair teacher. You teach everything fairly and I understand it. I like that there is no talking in your classroom PERIOD. The only thing that I dislike is your bathroom policy. I think it somewhat unfair only one per semester. Beside all of that I am very happy with your classroom and I hope with you as my teacher I will pass the state Biology I test on my first try. Lastly, I like the way you are hands-on with your assignments. 

Coach McAllister is a fair teacher. I just disagree with rule rive. Gum is one thing that I like.

Yes, most of the time. It's hard to get tickets in your classroom. We could like answer a question and you still might not give us a ticket or anything. It's only sometimes when you give tickets out. Some of us even feel discouraged because they have the answer correct, but they don't get any tickets. Not saying that getting the answer right isn't required, but alot of people want a chance at tickets.

I'll say yes and no. I like his class alot because I learn and have fun, but I don't like the fact that we aren't allowed to talk or anything. His class is completely too quiet and that just makes it lame. I love the activities that we do in his class, but I just don't think he's fair enough. I feel that he expects a little too much out of us. We're not college students, so he could at least give us a break. In conclusion, he really is a fair teacher with just high expectations. So uncool.  

Yes and no because he catches me off gard. When I am saying some thing low it's class related. Other than that he's a pretty fair teacher.

Coach McAllister is not a fair but sometimes you can be fair. But your room is not a cool place to be. I hate been in here sometimes.

Mr. McAllister is a somewhat a fair teacher. One reason he is not fair is that we have to stay quiet the whole period, and raise our hand for every little thing. He is fair because he wants us to learn with no distraction but we are teenagers. We need a little freedom. He is also unfair because we can get a writing assignment for anything. I heard that he gave a student a writing assignment for sneezing out loud. He is a somewhat fair teacher. 

No!

Coach McAllister is not a fair teacher because he is boring in his room. If we did more fun stuff in his class he would be a fair teacher. He need to let us go to the bathroom more to.

No Coach McAllister is not a fair teacher. Even though we learn what we are required to learn, we have to raise our hand to do everything like we are elementary students. And another thing is we can't talk. That what makes his class boring and that is why everyone be going to sleep. We can't talk quietly when we are finished with our work, like we do in our other classes. We have to sit in the class like clones or dolls and wait on him to ask us something, like trained parrots or something. That is why I think he is unfair because we don't have any privileges. That is why I dislike coming in here.

On the first day of school I stepped up to the front of my classroom with two goals in mind; I was going to be strict and my classroom was going to be silent. There are times when my room isn't quite as quiet as I'd like it do be, but for the most part I have succeeded in my goals. I do my best to run a real tight ship, and so far it's been working out pretty great. I haven't had any distractions that I couldn't deal with, and the majority of the time my students are on task. The one thing I worried about though was whether or not my management tactics would cause my students to resent me. I used to tell myself that I wouldn't care and that I was doing what was best for them, but even then I knew I didn't want them to hate me. Going through all of the feedback I had gotten really helped to reassure me that I was doing the right thing. It was really nice to see that despite the strict climate of my classroom, students were still having fun and learning. I definitely have to work on winning over the opposition, but at least for now I'm comfortable knowing that I have the support of the majority.

Not enough hours in the day

Ben Guest Assignment: Answer the following question, "What has been your biggest challenge?"

Hands down, my biggest challenge has been finding the time to do everything that needs doing. I've always thought of myself as an extremely organized person, a quality that has hardly ever failed to keep stress at bay, and when need be, I can be efficient to an almost unnerving degree. Despite these characteristics, it seems as though my to do list never grows shorter.

Our school mandates we stay on premises for nine and a half hours each day, forty minutes of which is spent teaching an intervention period where the students are not given grades, but between coming in early to set up and staying after to grade, we're talking about a twelve hour workday. If only it ended there it might not be so bad, but that's just the part of my day that actually involves being at the school. I get home, more often than not after the sun has already begun falling, and I find myself spending four or five hours preparing for the next day, which includes writing up a lesson plan, finding appropriate YouTube videos, and creating all of my materials. Hour after hour passes as I sit trying to think of the most effective way to teach any given topic. Somewhere in all that mess I should really be making time to eat and sleep, but those endeavors always seem to be the first to get cut from my schedule.

Fortunately I really enjoy being in the classroom, so I keep holding on to the prospect that next year should involve significantly less time spent on planning. I know my second year of teaching is a long way away, but knowing that eventually there may be some relief from the incessant work and unrelenting obligations is just comforting enough to allow me to get by.  I don't see teaching ever becoming easy since there's always room for improvement, both in the effectiveness of one's lessons and one's ability to teach, but I can't imagine it ever being harder than it is right now. True or not, I've often found great solace in the thought that if I can just make it through this year, I'll be doing pretty all right.

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Cohesion courtesy of Wal-Mart

Drops on a Penny

I taught the properties of water this week, so of course I had my heart set on doing the Drops on a Penny lab to demonstrate cohesion and adhesion. Unfortunately it came as no surprise that our school, having such limited resources, had neither eye droppers nor pipettes. Determined to do this lab with my classes, I thought I'd try my hand at getting donations or discounts from local pharmacies, so on Sunday I drove around in search of a cheap source of eye droppers.

Walgreens initially sounded very promising. The pharmacist told me that only the store manager could give the kind of discount I was asking for, but that he was usually extremely receptive to teacher requests. However, the extended hours my school forces me to keep prevented me from ever getting the chance to meet him. With few other options, I decided to ask over at Wal-Mart.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were very accommodating. As it turns out, Ms. Ruby Johnson, the manger of our local Wal-Mart, just happened to be a North Panola graduate. We spent almost an hour talking about what the school was like in her time and our thoughts on the recent incident that has led to so much unwanted media coverage. In the end, I wound up with a set of eye droppers at no cost to myself.

I briefly toyed with the idea of offering extra credit to any student that wrote Ms. Johnson a thank you letter, but then I decided that doing something nice is much more rewarding when it's not done for a grade. Instead, I merely suggested to my students that if they enjoyed the activity that we did, they should thank Ms. Johnson. Without her help our activity wouldn't have been possible, and they were all well aware of that. No grade was attached to doing a good deed, and yet I had quite a few students turn in letters the next day, some of them written quite skillfully.

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