News at Home:Sick and Tired
Yep that’s me. Sick and Tired. Last Friday I woke up with a bad sore throat and while that went away, the mucus cough and sinus congestion that came in it’s place has been with me all week. And to top it off, work just won’t let up. I’m trying to keep up, but the amount of work they are giving us is ridiculous. It all comes down to micro managing. There is no trust and the implication is clear – they BELIEVE we do not know how to do our jobs. If I didn’t love what I do and my kids I would have walked out that door weeks ago. As it is, I still don’t know how I’m going to make it through the whole year. The work load is just unreasonable. And when you’re sick, it’s just unbearable.
On the plus side my kids remain fantastic and I started seeing some serious growth in my lowest ones this week. I was giddy with excitement on Friday because a little boy in my class who is almost non-verbal made 3 BIG strides. 1 – someone accidentally took his book box and he said, “That’s mine!” Y’all I was grinning ear-to-ear because he was right, it was his AND he spoke a complete sentence without someone modeling it for him first. (so far this year he has only repeated after me to speak and then expressed happiness with a smile, sadness by crying and a need by grunting and waving, so this was BIG). 2 – during math I was helping him count. I’m trying to get him to be able to rote count (1,2,3, etc) and have 1-1 correspondence (point to objects as he counts). So I was holding his finger and pointing to objects (As I always do) and I said, “1” and he said “1” (repeating after me). I pointed to the second object and prepared to say 2 so he could copy and HE said “2”! I wanted to stand up and do a happy dance, but then he kept going all the way to 5! He was supposed to stop at 4, but who the hell cares?! Then at dismissal I was working with him on a letter tracing book. I do this with him everyday, trying to use every moment I can to get him that 1-on-1 time he needs to catch up to where he needs to be. I hold his hand and guide him tracing the letters and we say the letter he’s tracing over and over. Well, I’m also monitoring about 40 kids at this time, trying to get them dismissed to go home. So when I turned to the P page, I had to pause a minute to get a kid to pay attention and my little reluctant learner doesn’t wait for me! He says “P” and starts tracing!! He did the same thing with Q, T, V, W, and Z!! Not a single letter from his name (which would be what you’d expect) but he knows 5 letters!!! We’ll see if he still knows them on Monday, but it was huge!! I gave him so many high fives on Friday he was grinning ear to ear right along with me 🙂
And that wasn’t our only big progress. I had 6 kids become Top Bananas on Friday – which is a reward system I use in my classroom for when kids are able to identify all their upper and lower-case letters and give me their sounds. Of those 6, only 2 knew all their letters when the school year started and none knew all the sounds. And I have several who are so close! We’re making big progress already and I’m so excited! We finish our ABC Bootcamp on Thursday with our ABC fashion show and I think the majority of my kids really will be ready to work on our Word Families 🙂
But of course, despite all our progress (for the fifth year running), I have to prove myself as a competent teacher with bucket loads of work. And this is the struggle – I love what I do for half my job, hate it the other half.
Blog News
All the above explains (I hope) why I have been pretty MIA lately. My main goal right now is to have a semi-presence until the end of the year and really get back on track in January. As in, I’m hoping to have some time to work on January now so that when it comes around I’ll be ahead and ready to go.
I haven’t even updated my goodreads in a while – I’m on way different books than it says I am :/
#FitReaders Update
I did not make it to the gym at all this week mainly because I was sick and just didn’t have the energy. I’ve basically just been resting this weekend though, so I hope to get back on schedule this week. I have done my daily yoga though and that’s been helping me feel good. I need to do a lot better about my water intake and tracking my food though. That’s a goal for this week for sure.
Last Week on the Blog
- [1 Oct] Michelle is officially joining Blog Ahead…..
- [4 Oct] Does price determine what type of book you buy?
- [6 Oct] October #MyTBRList Let’s Vote! 🙂 I’ll let you decided on these!
- [7 Oct] Anniversary, Blogging and Stupid Weather ~ WIR & SP
- [7 Oct] Sunday Post with Berls | Sick and Tired
Coming Next Week From Me
Monday
Just a Few Arc of a Scythe books I DEVOURED #review
Tuesday
Fraterfest Sign up
Thursday
Fraterfest mini-challenge
That is such amazing news about your students! Congrats to you and them!
Thank you Samantha! I get so excited seeing them grow 🙂
I hope you feel much better by the time I get to commenting. I look forward to meeting you next August around Book Bonanza I hope! Anne – Books of My Heart
You’re coming to Book Bonanza!?! Yay! We will definitely find a way to meet – I’m going too and it’s right here in my neck of the woods. Hope you had a great week.
I hope you’re feeling better. Being sick really sucks. That is very excited for your kids. You’re truly a great teacher. I see how much effort you put into them just way you talk about them. So much love for each and every child. We need more teachers like you. Keep up the great work and I hope you can find a new school to work at next year where you won’t be so micro managed. No one likes that.
Thank you Melanie 🙂 I’m still fighting the sniffles, but I do think I’m getting better. I really hope our new admin (that starts tomorrow!) will make things much better. I’d really love to be able to happily stay at my school next year.
You are an AWESOME teacher!! Fuck management and the microhorse they rode in on. Ok, maybe not the horse. It’s not the horse’s fault it’s carrying a jackass.
{{{posivibes}}} that your illness takes a quick hike and you can get back to kicking ass. Good job not pushing yourself too hard. You want to get better, not slide backwards. *two thumbs up*
LMAO! You always have the ability to make me laugh 🙂 And you’re so right, it’s not the horses fault. I’m really hopeful that things are about to get a lot better with our admin changing 🙂
*BIG HUGS* I’m so happy you have found some successes at school to buoy your spirit. I’m guessing there isn’t anyone to go to for help, like a superintendent or such? I really wish you didn’t have to deal with this crap. You are an amazing person and it makes me sad to hear of your frustrations.
Stay healthy – I’m glad you are able to keep doing your yoga in spite of the yuckies.
Thanks Jen. Technically, sure I could go to the superintendent. But in reality that would likely just lead to retaliation and an even worse work environment, since Superintendents aren’t in the practice of listening to teachers. They listen to administrators and sometimes parents. It’s the sad reality of our educational system 🙁 But hopefully things will get much better with our new admin!
That’s awesome, Berls — and this is why you are such a good teacher! I’m sorry the administrative paperwork and micromanagement is such a drain on your energy. We need to figure out better ways to support and encourage good teachers without all this extra workload.
I also hope you get over this illness soon. Being sick is no fun!
Thank you ! I’ve still got the sniffles, but I feel somewhat better 🙂 I do love my kiddos and hopefully things are looking up on the administrative end *fingers crossed*