Last weekend, I spent hours planning the lessons for this week’s English 8 inclusion classes. On Saturday, I lost track of how long I had been planning, and it was almost midnight when I called it quits for the night. Sunday, Valentine’s Day, my husband and I committed to serving on the production team, and then the afternoon looked like more hours of lesson planning. Yes, we did celebrate, but it ended up being the weekend prior. The point is, I spent a LONG time planning the lessons for this week.
My CT (cooperating teacher) encourages me to wait to plan for the week until closer to each day and only planning a couple days at a time, but I have found that it helps my sanity to have everything planned at the beginning of the week, including resources, even if I have to adjust based on where the classes are at. With both of my classes being inclusion classes, these kids need to work at a slower pace, so it can be a challenge trying to work at their pace but keeping up with the pacing guide for the school. After we had school off for President’s Day on Monday, Tuesday finally arrived. When the class began, I had the students complete a comma rules #1-3 quiz on NoRedInk. My CT wanted the kids to take this assessment, but I did not have access to the actual quiz. As a result, when I was planning, I had no idea how long the quiz would take. With only having this class for a couple weeks now, I still have a difficult time wrapping my head around how much time they need to complete notes, assessments, assignments, etc. Working pace aside, I had students who did not even start the quiz 20 minutes into class. With teaching virtually, it can sometimes be frustrating with how few students actually participate in the class and complete their work. By the time we reached a stopping point on the quiz, only 30 minutes of this 1 hour 15 minute class remained. Because of this, my plans somewhat went awry, and I had to adjust during class. Collaborating with my CT, I asked her if she thought it would be wise to cut the video I had planned along with some other items, and I adjusted that class and the rest of the week accordingly. Whilst some teachers may get annoyed at the slower pace of the classes, I actually appreciate taking more time to teach my kids material. I will admit, however, that sometimes it can be frustrating how long it takes these students to type notes or type anything on their computers. The reality is, though, that a lot of these kids were probably not taught how to type using the “home row” like I was as a kid. Virtual teaching is challenging, but the life I have lived moving from state to state has more than prepared me for the day-to-day adjustments of teaching.
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Last week, I officially took over on Friday as the teacher for my 8th grade English class, and this week was my first week of doing everything as the teacher. I’m going to be honest - this last week I have had some of the hardest days I have ever had in a long time. Wednesday, I had what I would call an “Alexander” day. Have you ever heard of “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day”? That was this Wednesday for me. How do I know this?
From the moment I first rushed to my car in the morning and proceeded to dump my cup of cranberry juice all over my car, keys, phone, breakfast, and lunch, I knew this was going to be a rough day. It didn’t help that I started my morning moving much slower than usual because there is something about virtual teaching that is just mentally and emotionally EXHAUSTING. From the kids being overwhelmed by the amount of work and the teachers not being able to change that much because of the tight pacing schedule with the pandemic, my kids and I are just tired. No joke, I went to bed one night at 9pm and slept until around 8am, since we did not start school until later that morning, and my body just crashed. Anyway, my morning only got crazier when I got to my school and my CT (cooperating teacher) asked for my lesson for the next day. My CT advised me the week prior to only plan through Wednesday because plans change constantly and to wait until Wednesday to plan for Thursday and Friday, so you can understand my confusion and internal panic when she asked about the lessons for the next day. After the fact, I realized the panic she probably felt was because our co-teacher was getting observed the next day and wanted to have more input on the lesson plan than was originally communicated. As the day went on, I only felt like a bigger failure as a teacher when I realized that I assigned way too much work in the amount of class time. I could tell from the moment I said, “If you don’t get this done” and “if you don’t finish this other assignment or this one, then you can just finish it for homework tonight”. Yikes. EPIC fail on my part. I gave these kids way too much work for one day, and I could tell by the silent treatment they were giving me. Not only did I frantically plan the rest of the week’s lesson on a piece of notebook paper, but I also felt like I failed my students for the day. Some people would argue that because I care so much about not failing my students that it is what makes me a good teacher. I am absolutely not a good teacher, but I do care. I am an imperfect human being who is trying to balance still being a fulltime college student to now being a fulltime teacher and a newlywed. Wednesday night, I ended up staying up until 11:30pm lesson planning for the next day because I had class after school at my university, and then I had dinner before I got to working. The next day, I had students wondering why their late work wasn’t graded yet and why I hadn’t responded to their messages; it was in that moment that I had a choice. I could lash out at my students and tell them to chill, or I could be real with my students. I decided to be real with my students and let them know that I am human too. I let them know something along the lines that I am also a student who ended up planning the lesson for Thursday late the night before, so I had to choose what I did. I would get to their assignments, but I had to prioritize what needed to get done while also making sure I got enough sleep to teach them the next day. I could go on and on about the other events that plagued my “Alexander” day - like the fact that our class got Zoom bombed TWICE, which essentially means we were dealing with hackers or maybe other students from the school getting into our class, impersonating students, and disrupting the class with inappropriate chats and annotations. Since then, we have had to put a lot of restrictions on the Zoom, and this makes it difficult for students to be able to do breakout rooms and such. What matters, though, is that there is some sense of safety back in the classroom again, despite me having to kick out impersonators every day this week now. There are not enough words in the English language to describe how truly exhausting and just HARD this week has been. At the end of the day, I still wouldn’t trade this job for the world. I may be paying my university to do student teaching, but I still call it my job. Sometimes this job drains me on every possible level, but that does not stop me from reaching out to students and messaging each student who gave me class feedback to get more of their suggestions to improve our classroom. In reality, this isn’t my classroom, and it isn’t my CT’s; this classroom belongs to the teachers AND the students. It is challenging to make the classroom fun while keeping up with the pace of this COVID school year, but I am going to do whatever it takes to help my students become better learners and better people. Since the transition into virtual learning, our district has decided to switch from A-day and B-day scheduling to every day classes but in a single term. In other words, students and teachers now have one semester to teach and learn a year’s worth of content; however, instead of having class every other day, students have class every day. Because of this novel concept brought to us by the COVID-19 pandemic, I just got a brand new class of students and had to experience my first goodbyes as a student teacher.
Honestly, I did not expect to connect so well with these kids in just two short works, let alone via Zoom, but you would be surprised how much students will open up over Zoom with an almost complete stranger. With this Term 1 group of students, I found students who shared a love for music, laughter, and learning. Whenever we as humans deal with the loss of a loved one or simply the loss of a relationship, our go-to phrase is that “we didn’t have enough time”. I definitely wish I got more time with my Term 1 students because the relationships that flourished in just two short weeks could have blossomed even more over the course of the year, but sometimes we are only a part of other people’s lives for a brief season. These kids, our kids, got to experience a home away from home and forget about whatever was going on at home, all while sitting in their actual residences. I say residences because not every child has a home within their house and feels like it is a safe place; that is a sad reality that comes with the territory of teaching. My last week with these kids was so incredible because I had the opportunity to teach them their SEL (Social and Emotional Learning) lessons all week, which my university refers to as morning meetings. I taught my kids how to inspire others by showing them you care, active listening first (setting the example and listening first if you want to be listened to), encouraging others, and sharing our gifts and talents with others. My kids communicated to me through my “Getting to Know You” Google Form that they wanted to learn valuable life lessons, and I feel like this was a special way to accomplish this and end our time together. By the end of each class on Friday, I felt like I could cry if I truly let myself, but I felt at peace knowing that my kids gained these life skills that they could take beyond the classroom. Maybe one day I will run into them at their jobs, and I will get to see the fruits of my labor. Even if I do not have that opportunity, I know this last week made my students think about their actions and helped them realize that teachers struggle too through my shared experiences. We are all human, and my job is to step alongside my students and push us to become better humans together. |
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AuthorKelsey Hayes is a student teacher finishing up her Senior year at Regent University. Through this blog, Kelsey Hayes will share the raw, honest truth about teaching and how both its joys and challenges motivate her to continue pursuing teaching. Archives
April 2021
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