After Thanksgiving the
Year is Over Right?
A Day in the Life
Post: November 26, 2016
6:00am: We arrive at the Wichita Airport and
catch our flight back home to Atlanta.
We have spent the week with my husband’s family for Thanksgiving. We opted to go this week instead of Christmas
because I was going to have a shortened Christmas break; well, that was when I
booked the tickets and before I resigned from teaching. Still, even though it was a shortened trip,
we enjoyed seeing the family, and I always love spoiling my little nieces! It is actually pretty relaxing at my in-law’s
house or rather, I make it so. I did get
two books read this week after all.
9:00am: We land in Atlanta. I am exhausted still even though I slept most
of the flight home. These early morning
flights kill me – it is hard enough to be up by 6am for school let alone on an
airplane. Hartsfield-Jackson airport is
dead, and we somehow make it from landing gate to our driveway up in the north
suburbs by 10:10am. Anyone reading who
lives in Atlanta knows that is a miracle within itself.
10:30am: I am at home and just made a cup of
coffee. I am trying to relax and catch
up on some fun reading and social media before getting back to the grind on
Sunday (tutoring lined up for students testing the first couple of days back
from Thanksgiving break). I am dreading
going back to school on Monday because I am still so exhausted from the
pre-thanksgiving push in the classroom as well as traveling. One of my colleagues from my former school
once said: “once you make it to
Thanksgiving the year is over.” Why
don’t I feel this way? Especially when
my year is truly over at the winter break?
There are 4 weeks left (finals included) before winter break, and I
literally do not know how I will get through them. I decide to take a nap; I am still so tired.
3:00pm: Wake up from nap on couch – apparently I was
snoring… I cannot believe I have slept
most of this day away already. I spend
the rest of the evening in my chair with my i-pad, scanning twitter, facebook,
and then streaming Netflix. I completely
went into vegetation mode. The one good
thing I did for myself the Friday before break was stay at school until 7pm to
get materials ready for both classes for the first week back. I knew that would relieve stress the weekend
before returning, and that certainly became a fact today. I am so glad I am ready to go for Monday in
my classes and can spend my 1st hour planning period to mentally get
back in the game.
8-10pm: I am wide awake and will not get to sleep
early tonight for sure. I decide to pick
and print my tutoring materials for the next day. Big Pre-Cal, AP Calculus, and Honors Algebra
2 tests coming up at the local schools I tutor for this week as well as
continued prep for some students for the Geometry EOC coming up before winter
break.
12:00am: I go to bed and hope to fall asleep soon as
my working world begins again in just over 12 hours. I realize I have not completely shut it off
this week, but I am not sure a teacher ever does. I think Thanksgiving break is about pulling
back for a few days and resting enough to have energy for the final push to
winter break.
Reflection
Questions
1) Teacher make a lot of decisions throughout the day. Sometimes we make so many it feels
overwhelming. When you think about
today, what is a decision/teacher mover you made that you are proud of? What is one you are worried about?
I have not made any daily decisions regarding teaching in
over a week, and that actually feels great!
I feel like this will give me the energy to face the daily decisions
again coming up again in a couple of days.
One decision I am worried about is that I chose to tutor tomorrow
instead of enjoying the last day of my break.
The kids need it though, and this is the work that will sustain me when
I am out of the classroom in a month. It
is hard for me to say no to my students whether they are in my classroom or my
tutoring students. This is what wears me
and so many teachers out. Caring about
their progress, their needs and what is best for them when they don’t realize
it themselves. It is both grueling and
rewarding –double edged sword sort of thing.
2) Every person’s
life is full of highs and lows. Share
with us some of what that is like as a teacher.
What are you looking forward to?
What has been a challenge for you lately?
It has been challenging to keep Algebra 1 students on track
in this long push to Thanksgiving break.
Our Unit 2 lasted through 6 assessments, and starting our 3rd
unit on Exponential Expressions and Equations has been hard to do so late in
the semester. I am looking forward to
the graphing portion of this unit because I am going to use my transformations
activity together with Desmos to push exploration of the asymptote and
transformations of exponential graphs.
This is just the spice we need after Thanksgiving break to keep it
interesting in these last weeks until winter break.
3) We are reminded
constantly of how relational teaching is.
As teachers we work to build relationships with teachers and
students. Describe a relational moment
you had with someone lately.
It is really about a relational past few weeks with a group
of students. I had mentioned in an
earlier blog about my 3rd period Accelerated Algebra class being the
toughest group of honors I have worked with.
In past weeks they have stepped out ahead in their pursuit of learning
and understanding in our current quadratics unit, which has been the hardest
unit so far this semester. A few weeks
ago, they were so reticent in experimenting and struggling with concepts. They have pulled back on that resistance
while also working with a more involved type of function in our toughest unit
so far this year. I feel we have brought
our communication and teacher-student interactions into a rhythm that works
better for all. It may have been easier to do because they are
a smaller class, but seeing them work hard and subsequently find more success
is so rewarding.
4) Teachers
are always working on improving, and are often have specific goals for things
to work on
Throughout the year. What have you been doing to work on your
goal? How are you doing?
I feel like I am working well with
spiraling homework within a given unit, but not as good with
spiraling homework for the semester; the
time factor beat me on that. I am still
pushing as much
as possible to keep integrating Desmos and
exploration of concepts in every chance I get, and that
part is a win; especially given that it is
on the front-loading part of instruction.
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