Wowzaa

I enjoyed my long weekend and was very sad that it was over.
Something I realized about being a teacher...you never have enough time. There is never enough time for class, enough time to explain homework, enough time to do a lesson and housekeeping with the students, enough time to just get to know the students, or enough time to actually make the lesson relevant enough for the students to understand the concepts fully. I like my job but I worry that maybe my approaches aren't effective. All the teachers at my school have been there for a much longer time than me so they have activities laid out for kids while I try to reinvent the wheel or make the lesson not as fun as I'd like. I feel people are constantly watching me-judging me-talking about me but never to me about how I teach and what I need to change. It's the whole confrontation thing..everyone tries to avoid it but its something that should be done. Although, there are certain things that I believe and no matter what other teachers tell me I will hold my ground and continue to do unless my job was on the line. One example of this would be timing the warm-ups during mental math. I give them 10-20 seconds each problem for seven problems and the Co-teacher I work with thinks this rushes the students and I shouldn't time them. Well, I believe she is in there for a reason. If she believes the students need to pulled out during that time so they don't have to be rushed then fine, but I will not hold the mainstream kids back. I feel these kids have been babied all throughout their school years and have led them to be extremely behind of where other districts' students are that I will push my kids to achieve higher than they are expected. One thing the students need to realize is that school is a serious thing. They need to take it seriously and its something that many students don't see. If I don't expect certain things out of my students then they will never perform to what I believe is their great potential. I always feel like I'm preaching, but there are so many things that I would love to do differently in a school that I think would make a world of a difference. Maybe I should open a charter school with my guidelines and expectations. I have to admit, I do no like to treat Special Ed students as SPED students. I think of them like everyone else and I think if I keep that expectation long enough they will start to perform to where I believe they should belong. I feel sometimes they have too many excuses to help them be lazy.

I honestly don't know how I feel about teaching yet. I think its a lot more work than I had expected and I'd probably get paid more if I was paid by hours than by salary for the amount of time I put into the classroom. The part that I really dislike is that I end up cleaning up my classroom for 45 minutes after school because no matter how much I talk about respect of property with my students they don't get it.

I just realized what I want to do for the rest of my life...and thats learn. I want to do so much, but none of it is work where I get paid...just work where I feed my brain and honestly, that thought makes me the happiest. On that note, its about bedtime. Good night and sweet dreams!