WEEKS 21 & 22 - Finals and New Semester

This post covers 2 weeks of work since I was unable to write my post last weekend. The semester ended on Thursday the 17th, and then the students were off for a 4 day weekend. On Friday the 18th, teachers had to come to school for record-keeping, then we all had Monday off for MLK day.

Even though we had 8 hours set aside to grade and get everything up to date, as you can see with my hours, it took me far longer than 8 hours to complete my grades. That Friday I spent 10.5 hours at the school getting things done, then I went home and graded for another hour at my house. I took Saturday off, then I did 4.5 hours of grading on Sunday and almost 5 hours of grading and preparing on Monday. This is on top of the 2 hours I did during my prep hour Wednesday, and the 1.5 hours my TA (teacher's assistant...a senior named Maya) did for me on Thursday.

I definitely could have made a final that took less time to grade, but then that's the conundrum I faced: do I give the students a smaller, less comprehensive test just so I don't spend all weekend grading, or do I give an assessment that accurately reflects their abilities in all areas of language even though it will take me a long time to grade? I chose the latter, and I am glad that I did because I feel like I have a better picture of what my students are able to do.

This does not mean that teachers who didn't give finals are bad teachers. Many teachers chose to spread their finals out over the course of the week, or broke up the different parts of the exam so that students took many smaller assessments throughout the quarter rather than a very large one at the end. My preference was to give a large assessment at the end of the semester (in addition to some smaller assessments throughout the quarter), partly because I wanted the students to take it seriously, partly because I felt like I needed to fill the 2 hour block (we normally have 1 hour classes), and partly because it was just a natural time to have a test (our last exam was over a month ago).

As a sidenote, this is the first week I have worked roughly 40 hours (even though I was only in the classroom 3 days this past week). There were 3 other weeks that I worked about 30 hours, but those were Thanksgiving week, a week I was sick, and Christmas. Otherwise all of my other weeks have been above 50 hours, with 4 weeks landing above 60.


Week 21:

Sun	1/13/2013	7:30 PM	11:30 PM	4
M	1/14/2013	7:45 AM	5:30 PM	9.75
T	1/15/2013	7:45 AM	6:30 PM	10.75
W	1/16/2013	8:00 AM	6:15 PM	10.25
Th	1/17/2013	8:00 AM	4:00 PM	8
		5:30 PM	6:00 PM	0.5
		8:45 PM	10:45 PM	2
F	1/18/2013	8:00 AM	6:30 PM	10.5
		7:00 PM	8:00 PM	1
Sat	1/19/2013			0
	Total			56.75

Week 22:

Sun	1/20/2013	4:45 PM	6:45 PM	2
		7:45 PM	10:15 PM	2.5
		10:45 PM	11:30 PM	0.75
M	1/21/2013	2:45 PM	4:30 PM	1.75
		5:30 PM	7:30 PM	2
		9:45 PM	10:45 PM	1
T	1/22/2013	7:15 AM	5:15 PM	10
W	1/23/2013	7:45 AM	5:15 PM	9.5
		10:00 PM	10:45 PM	0.75
Th	1/24/2013	10:15 AM	1:15 PM	3
		2:30 PM	4:30 PM	2
F	1/25/2013	8:00 AM	4:00 PM	8
Sat	1/26/2013			0
	Total			43.25

WEEK 20 - Mentally Disconnecting

One of the hardest thing about being a teacher is knowing how to mentally disconnect from work after the workday is over. Technically, our duty day is 8am-4pm, but we all know that most teachers work well beyond the official duty day, taking work home or arriving to school earlier than required.

Yet what most people don't realize is that even if teachers are not actually preparing or grading, many teachers are at least thinking about preparing or grading. While this sounds ludicrous, I find that very often while I am doing something "relaxing," my mind will inadvertently wander back to work, and I'll be thinking about how I can make a lesson better, how I can organize things better in my classroom, or how I can reach out more to particular students. I rarely feel like my "work" is left at work. In fact, this is the most "homework" I've ever had in my life (and I was a great student back in the day), and the busiest I've ever been (busier than when I was going to college full time and working 3 jobs at the same time).

Even if a teacher does the minimum required of him/her, the fact is that many students won't do the minimum required of them, which means that the teacher has to find new and creative ways to try and engage those students to make them want to do the work. While this is stressful enough by itself, it is compounded by the pressure from the community when people start saying that teachers "aren't doing their jobs" when their students fail.

Because a lot of teachers are completely wrapped up in their jobs, it takes a lot of effort and determination to actually plan in some relaxing, "fun" time. Many teachers think that they'll relax during spring/winter/summer break, but those who are able to physically and mentally put their work aside and incorporate regular exercise and relaxation are happier and healthier.

Fun fact: We are now 20 weeks into the school year, and I average 17 hours of over time every week.

My hours for week 20:

Day	Date	Start	End	Total Hours
Sun	1/6/2013	9:30 PM	11:15 PM	1.75
M	1/7/2013	7:45 AM	5:45 PM	10
		10:00 PM	11:00 PM	1
T	1/8/2013	7:15 AM	5:15 PM	10
		9:15 PM	10:15 PM	1
W	1/9/2013	7:30 AM	4:15 PM	8.75
Th	1/10/2013	7:30 AM	5:00 PM	9.5
F	1/11/2013	7:45 AM	3:45 PM	8
Sat	1/12/2013	8:30 PM	10:45 PM	2.25
	Total			52.25

WEEK 19 - Students and Social Media

This week I wanted to talk about how students communicate on social media. Since I don't communicate with students online, I am in no way an expert. However, with just a few clicks, I was surprisingly enlightened by online student behavior. 

The day we returned from break, I explained the #26acts/@26acts movement in which each class would compete to do 26 random acts of kindness in order to honor the 26 Sandy Hook victims. When I told them that they could hashtag their acts on Twitter, a student asked me if I had a Twitter account. A bit hesitant, I said yes. Then after class I quickly made sure that my actual name wasn't attached to my account (by the way, my Twitter account is @ateacherslife13). As I was monitoring my account, I got curious...

A simple search later, and...

WOW. High school students don't use Facebook; Twitter is how students communicate these days. I didn't want to be creepy by looking up some of my students, but so many kids have their accounts completely public. And many of the things they say on Twitter are things that would never fly in class or at home. 

I used to think that Twitter was only great for celebrities and politicians since it's a way for people to communicate directly without having their message filtered through the media, but what I realized is that Twitter has allowed "popular" students to become mini-celebrities. And some of these kids take it seriously, tweeting over 50 times a day (and many times during class, as I also realized). 

We've all read the stories about people being fired from their jobs or being implicated in crimes because of things they've said online, but I don't think these kids realize how permanent the internet is, and how if they post something online, it's out there forever, somewhere. I know that I surely wouldn't want something I said when I was 15 to come back and bite me somehow.

Maybe we should be teaching netiquette in schools? Kudos to the parents who make their kids lock their Facebook and Twitter accounts. 

My hours for week 19 (keep in mind we only had class 3 days this week):

Day	Date	Start	End	Total Hours
Sat	12/29/2012	6:45 PM	9:00 PM	2.25
Sun	12/30/2012			0
M	12/31/2012	3:00 PM	5:30 PM	2.5
		6:45 PM	8:15 PM	1.5
T	1/1/2013			0
W	1/2/2013	7:15 AM	6:15 PM	11
Th	1/3/2013	7:45 AM	4:15 PM	8.5
F	1/4/2013	7:45 AM	4:00 PM	8.25
Sat	1/5/2013			0
	Total			34