Almost There

This is a continuation of my last blog on block scheduling. The veteran teacher that I worked with was not very motivated or positive person. If I choose to stay in teaching for a while, I hope I do not become as negative as she was. The thing I did enjoy about block schedule, was that I did not have to plan anything for two weeks. That was nice. Yet, I really missed teaching. I am also not sure how much block schedule actually helped our children. The whole plan of the block schedule, was to get our children ready for the MCT. I think, we overloaded them. The children did not enjoy the block schedule at all. They complained everyday.

On the other hand, some of my worst children ,as far as behavior and class work, became some of the most engaged and well behaved students. For these children, this was their last chance to pass the eighth grade. Many of my students believe that if they pass the MCT, they will not have to pass the classes. Some of them are making more of an effort to pass and do their best than they did on the first day of school. These kids go all year and do no work, but they expect to pass at the end of the year. They come to me and ask for extra credit and ask what they need to do to pass. These children have perfected the art of playing the system. They know how much work to do in order to barely get by. It is really sad that they are that smart, but chose to not use their ability positively.

As part of the Tier I, II, and III intervention, I wrote letters to all my students who are endanger of failing eighth grade science. I told each student what he/she needed in order to pass eighth grade science. I am hoping it will motivate these students. Yet I think, it is unfair for these students to be so lazy throughout the year, and they are still able to pass my class. It is unfair for the harder working students. But this is what I have to do for Tier interventions. Apparently in order to fail a student, a teacher must prove how they tried to help the student. This is the reason for the letter. Many of the students seemed to appreciate that I cared enough to inform them of their possible failure. Yet other students, saw the letter as a negative gesture. They said they knew there was no way they could make the grade. For these students, they will continue to perform poorly and be lazy.
Have I already stated ,that I am very happy that the end is near. I am sure I will miss my students, but I am ready for the summer. I can’t wait to go home and see my family and friends. I have learned so much this year, a lot from myself and some from my students. I will never forget this experience. I can proudly say that I have almost survived my first year of teaching.

Block Schedule

I am so happy the end of the year has finally arrived. The last couple of months have been so hard for me. They were the worst months of my teaching career. For starters, I have been extremely home sick lately. I miss my family so much. My brother just had his first child, and I feel as if I am missing out on an important part of his son’s life. School has also been hard. We went to block schedule. We only taught Reading, Math, and Language Arts for two whole weeks. It was awful. Everyday I would come home and sleep. I was so tired. My job during block schedule was to manage two classes at one time, while another teacher taught Reading. The school combined two classes into each classroom and the students stayed in each class for two class periods. So I had to manage about forty students at a time. It was so tiring. I did not teach for the whole two weeks. I just disciplined students. I never thought I would miss the teaching part. At first, I thought it would be fun to be mean and that it would be good practice for my classroom management skills, which I am still working on perfecting. It was so draining to be mean for so long.; it was terrible. I wrote up kids all day and spent most of my time taking students to in-school detention. I also thought the block schedule would give me a chance to see another good teacher teach and allow me to learn things from the veteran teachers at my school. I soon found out that I did not need or want to incorporate any of her teaching methods in my classroom. I can understand why some of our students can’t read. That teacher was awful. She never took the time to explain anything to the students and she didn’t check for understanding, or answer students’ questions. So I found myself running around the class trying to assist forty students. On the other hand, eighth grade is almost too late to teach someone to read. It just seemed as if she had given up on the school and the students. It was very depressing and draining to be around her everyday. She just sucked my spirit and my optimism right out of me. The students took a practice MCT while we were in block schedule. The scores from those tests weren’t very good. The teacher told each student their grade aloud in front of the class. Then if the student scored basic or minimal so yelled at them and told them how pitiful they were. She did this aloud to every student. It was awful I had to leave the room. It really hurt me to hear her speak to my kids that way. This teacher has been there for about twenty years. The students do not like her. I think she is tired of her job and unhappy at the school. She told me the only reason she is working is try to get the top amount for retirement. She was negative about everything. Every time the principal told us to do something; she complained. She always did the very minimum.