As soon as I walked in the building yesterday, I could tell something was off.  I heard murmurs in the hallway about a middle school girl, one of those kids whose name everyone in the school knows.  Walking out of the main office, I ran into another teacher who was crying and I knew it was bad news.  One of our 7th graders died in a house fire the night before, with three other family members.

I don’t know most of the middle school kids, but everyone knows this girl.  She was seventh grade aged, but she looked old enough to be a high school student.  Last year, she was one of the most challenging students in the building, but this year, she was all smiles 95% of the time.  She’s become somewhat of a mascot for our entire school.  I never taught her, but she said hello to me every time she passed me in the hallway.  She spent a lot of time on the 10th grade floor, because that’s where the middle school special ed rooms are located.  Also, her cousin is one of my students and basketball players.  Every no and then, she would ask me if he was turning his homework.  I’m worried about him because he has an extremely rough situation to begin with, and he’s already riding that edge between trying in school and dropping out.

Reading the news coverage of the tragedy, as it turns out my basketball player’s mother survived a deadly fire 15 years ago, in which she lost three of her other children.  It said she escaped with one child, who would presumably be my student.  But two nights ago, she lost her mother and her niece.

As this semester (finally) ends,  I’m facing the fear that I don’t have enough left in the tank for the next 5 months.  Already, I feel like I’m barely getting through my weeks, and this is January, which is arguably the softest month of school.  What in the world am I going to feel in the brutally long stretch until spring break?  My experience tells me is that it’s not gonna get much better.

I’ve had to man up continuously this past year and a half to keep renewing my commitment.  I really, really want to finish the job I started.  I don’t want to be a quitter.  I don’t want to be the one 2nd year who walked out mid-year.  And I especially don’t want to hang my school and my students out to dry.  But, I can feel my well-being decreasing, and it’s getting harder and harder to do just to do the same amount of work, let alone improve.  I know this job is hard on everyone, and I know I’d be a big-time punk for walking out, but I really don’t feel like people are understanding what’s going on in my head right now.  On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that there’s so many people in worse situations than me, so why should I feel so bad for myself?  After all, I joined the corps by choice.

I’ve been spending the past week or so marshaling my resources again, trying to find ways to keep going.  This time though, I think the only way that’s going to happen is if I can work something out with my school to get my workload down to a much more manageable level.  I’m trying to figure out what that might look like.  But business as usual is not going to get it done.  In the meantime, I’m swallowing my pride and asking for whatever assistance I can get, even though a big part of me says “dude, just let it go, finally”.  If I do walk, I want to know that I tried every avenue before I made my decision.  I just don’t know how much more I have left to give.

I feel a lot different from how I did this time last year.  There’s no doubt about it, I’m way more effective than before.  But I’ve also lost a lot of the sense of possibility that I used to have.  Deep down, I just don’t believe I’ll ever be much more successful with my students than I am now or that I’ll ever enjoy teaching.   We’ll see if this is really my last stand, or whether I’ll live to keep fighting, as I have somehow, so far.

I feel like that knight in the Monty Python movie that just won’t quit, despite having his limbs lopped off, one by one.  Big decisions are coming down the pipeline within the next week or so.

For whatever reason, I seem to find every break from school does the opposite of what it’s supposed to.  Much like during the days after Thanksgiving break, I have returned from winter break feeling more worn out than before.  And this time, I actually made a concerted effort to focus on recharging my batteries, not just cutting loose and running myself ragged.  But ultimately, I think returning from break is so depressing because my teaching life is just so far off from anything that’s healthy, happy, or sustainable.  For two weeks, I let myself forget, so that I could hopefully rejuvenate myself, but the chickens have come home to roost.

All I know is that with my feet back in the fire, my head is just not in the game right now, at all.  I think my confidence is just gone–my confidence that I really have the power to make a difference through my job.  I have got to find a way to break out of this, and I think some radical changes are going to have to be made.  I feel like I’m at the center of one huge mess that I’ve created, and it’s just too much to fix and there’s no time to fix it.  Everyone wants something from me, things I’m obligated to supply, but I’m completely overwhelmed.  And I’m mad, because I’m supposed to be better than this.

On a longer term note, I bounce back and forth between guarded optimism and fear.  On one hand, I think I’ve learned a lot about myself from the experience that will make me stronger as a person.  And I look forward to being a happy person next year.  But on the other hand, I fear that what’s really happened is that my faults have been exposed, and that I’m not only a fatally flawed teacher, but that I will be fatally flawed no matter what career I choose.  And I also fear that by the end of the year, I may have done lasting damage to my mind and body.  I experienced some concerning moments last summer that I hope were random things, not warning signs.

Tomorrow, my main directive is to figure out what I need to do to 1) survive the rest of the year (or month, for that matter) and 2) hopefully make a positive impact somehow on these kids.  Sadly, I think the most obvious first step is to resign as assistant coach, which is where I actually feel like I am making a positive impact.

Thanksgiving is a fake-out break.  Unless you stay put, you spend the whole 4-day weekend running around.  Mine was a blast, but when Sunday rolled around, I was hardly refreshed.

After two days back in the action, I am already exhausted.  I was up late on Sunday after spinning my wheels for hours, because I couldn’t get my mind in gear to plan.  Mentally, I just wasn’t ready to go back yet.  It must have shown, because I sure felt worn out as soon as I entered the building.  I bet the more deviant of my students could smell blood.

In one of my classes, I endured insults from about 6 kids about how they hate my f***ing class, how I don’t teach them anything, how all I care about is the uniform policy, how my class is gay, and so on.  It’s nothing new, but it was particularly vehement, for some reason.  What I don’t get is why kids even bother showing up to pick a fight?  They know what I’m about.  If you’re not going to try, why come at all?  I don’t let kids party in my room.  They know I’m going to sweat the small stuff.  I’d like to think it’s at the very least unpleasant to have to be hassled by me.  In any case, it was kind of a kick to the teeth.  I wasn’t sure if I could soldier up for the rest of my classes, but I managed to get by, thankfully with less antipathy as the day went on.

One of my students approached me at the end of the day with information that would require me by law, as a mandated reporter, to contact social services.  Without getting into any details, suffice to say that it was extremely unsettling.

After all this, I would have to dash across the city to district headquarters to pick up a retro-pay check issued to me because I discovered that I had been underpaid for a full year.  I would then have to dash back to school to run basketball practice, as the head coach had somewhere he had to be.  Thankfully, this went much better than the first time I ran practice.  It was probably due to some combination of the facts that Coach gave them hell for screwing around last time he was out, our most headstrong players didn’t show up, and the students are still humbled from getting routed last week.

Yet still, I would get no rest, because I still had to file my incident report and call social services.  Having never been confronted with such a grave situation, it took some time for me to research and consult to determine what best and most ethically correct course of action would be.

I was informed at some point during the day that my formal observation would be the following day, so as soon as I got home, it was time to make sure all my ducks were in order for that.  I made it to bed just before 2am.

Today was a crazy day as well.  My planning period (to prepare for my formal observation) was cut short by an IEP meeting.  I felt nearly panicked as I made it back to my room just in time to start class, operating on a razor-edged margin of error, as always.  Compounding my stress was the fact that my network connection is apparently malfunctioning, and my work printer (which I bought with my own money, by the way), is not currently working 100%.

I actually don’t know if I was formally observed today or not.  My assistant principal did not show up the period we had planned on, but she did show up two other times during the day.  Did one of those times count?  Who knows?

Before I left school, I spent an hour at coach class with a student who frustrates me on a nearly daily basis with childish, attention-seeking, self-destructive behavior.  She impressed me, as she does from time to time, with how quickly she was able to grasp information she missed while she was busy getting kicked out of class.  As she packed up, she thanked me, which were the kindest words she’s said to me in months (they didn’t involve me getting out of her face).  I took the opportunity to tell her how much I wished she was at a school that wasn’t 50% crazy people, because then the behavior she shows in my class would seem extremely weird and out of place, rather than normal.  But, unfortunately, that’s the situation she’s in.  I told her that I know it looks like a lot of fun to be a jackass, and I’m sure it is, but that road leads to nowhere.  She seemed to sincerely indicate that she understood, and I hope to God that her understanding holds up when, once again, she’s surrounded by people acting like maniacs.

I felt slightly more alert today than yesterday, and my lessons went better.  But I know that I’m my exhaustion is causing me to be more irritable and less on-point in my instruction.  I delivered a mathematically sound and fairly boring lesson today, but honestly, I really believe that it sometimes it needs to be that way.  Sometimes, they have to receive a dose of cold, hard, context-less algebra.  I can’t spoonfeed them every day, and it’s really not been helping.  These kids deserve to be taught like real high school students, so they can be prepared to be real-life professionals.  Otherwise, what the heck am I here for?

Thanksgiving has come and gone, marking off the first third of the year, or so.  Break has been relaxing, but entirely too short to energize me for the 3 1/2 weeks until Christmas.

The state of my classroom this so far is improved, but unsatisfactory.  I am breaking things down to the simplest possible steps, but still many of my students aren’t executing.  It’s frustrating to put energy into planning lessons that just aren’t going anywhere.  I really don’t know what it would take to get my students to exhibit the motivation to switch into a higher gear of performance.  I’m so tired of spoonfeeding kids Then there’s a small handful of students who throw the whole operation off when they show up.  At this point, this group is only about 10 percent of the kids I teach, but I’m out of patience with them.  I won’t tolerate them throwing off the marginal progress I’m making with the rest of the kids.  But this is all basically old news.

What’s new lately is that I am now an assistant coach for the JV basketball team.  This has been an interesting experience.  In general, it’s been a lot of fun, but I experience some of the same frustrations as I do on a daily basis in class.  Kids generally don’t believe that we adults know what we’re talking about, and they have no apparent concept of how hard they really need to work to be successful.  Fortunately, unlike in class, they will get the chance to see the fruits of their labor every few days when we play games against some pretty hardcore teams.  Hopefully, getting stomped by the staff in the student-faculty game last Wednesday has taught them a lesson.  I’m anxious to see who among the players is going to persevere as we demand more and who is going to lead.

I am quite grateful that we have Coach Mitchell as head coach.  I think he brings an intensity that I really just don’t have, and he seems really knowledgeable about coaching and city athletics.  Plus, I don’t have the time or energy for a lot of the work he has taken on.  Also, he seems to have a better natural authority over the players.  The one day he was out and I had to lead practice was a nightmare.  Much like in my own classroom, I have trouble asserting my authority on the court, which unsettles me.  It makes me feel like maybe there’s something flawed about me personally that makes me a weak leader.  I don’t know.

Anyway, it’s back to the grind.  Christmas break is a real break, and I’m looking forward to being able to forget about my job for a full week.  On the bright side, when I look back a year, the late-November/early-December was an absolutely horrible time for me.  This year, I’ve got a lot of basketball to look forward to, homecoming, and plenty of out of school activities with my friends and my fabulous girlfriend to look forward to.  On the whole, I am in way better shape!

I have been so exhausted this week that I took a two hour nap today, and because of that, and also because of my extreme frustration, I can’t get to sleep.

I have come to the conclusion today that a lot of the issues I have with behavior stem from the fact that many of my students simply don’t believe that what I have to say is important to them.  It’s not necessarily that they don’t like math, or that they think the work is boring.  Kids will be quiet, even when bored, if they think that the consequence of not being quiet outweighs the incentive to do whatever it is that’s on their mind at the moment.  Most of my students, even the well-intentioned ones, have no idea what sustained, rigorous academic work is.  Their bar for what constitutes reasonable effort and self-motivation is so low that it’s hard to get the vast majority of my students to do anything that’s not spoonfed to them.

I’m not hitting it out of the park with any of my classes, but I am having a hell of a time teaching my last period class, because about half of the kids in that class come to my room just to chill out all period.  Most of the other half want to learn, but will gladly join the fray of kids who are off-task, rather than standing up to them.  I gave them possibly the easiest quiz I have ever given on Friday, and the class managed to average barely 30%.  The past two periods with them, I have given up after a half an hour of trying to get them silent enough that I can instruct them, and told them, “fine, if what I have to teach you is not important enough for you to listen silently, then you can do the worksheet on your own.  It’s due at the end of the period.  Best of luck to you.”  Only a couple of kids can do it on their own, and everyone else is receiving failing grades each day.  The hope is that eventually, the kids who actually care about their grades will get tired of failing on account of the jackasses, and will stand up for themselves.  Unfortunately, I will probably have to find a different strategy, because only a handful of the kids in that class actually seem to care at all.

I wish I had a video camera so anyone–you, my adminstration, the students’ peers, their parents, or anyone else–could see the things these kids do and the vileness that comes out of their mouths.  It is unreal.  Honestly, I the chunk of students in that class that drives the insanity is comprised of individuals who are deeply miserable and don’t see a future for themselves.  So why would the bother trying?  In their heads, they won’t pass anyway, and even if they did put in the effort to pass, they don’t honestly see themselves going anywhere.  But in the meantime, before the hammer finally drops, they’re going to party like there’s no tomorrow.

I am at a complete loss as to what to do to motivate these kids, and they are ruining the education of the one’s who come wanting to learn.  I can’t kick all 10 unruly, disillusioned kids out on a daily basis, but when they’re in the room, they are absolute toxic, especially in combination.  It’s so sad though, because the kids who come wanting to learn show respect in little ways, like putting all the chairs up at the end of class.  It’s almost like they’re saying, “I know you’re trying Mr. Johnson.  I’m not learning anything, but at least I’ll respect the environment.”

Honestly, part of the problem is that it’s okay to show up to my school and do no work.  If I ran a school, rule number one would be that you work hard, always, no excuses.  Not working would be considered the a serious behavior infraction, and I think most of the more serious issues would be mitigated.

The most bizarre part about this whole experience is that I feel like in some twisted way, my experience mirrors those of my students.  To a large extent, almost every day, I feel like a failure and like my task is impossible, and it makes me want to give up.   I don’t think I can put in four years of effort pissed away.  I wonder how many of them can, who feel like their effort is misspent.  I guess the difference is that if I don’t come back, I’ve got other options.

I’m really not doing as good of a job of keeping this thing updated as I did last year 😦

I realize my last post was kind of a downer, and things are going somewhat better now.  But not before they got a bit worse.  I had an awful week two weeks ago.  Every day, it was a struggle to get out of bed and get to school.  I think a big part of it was the fact that I had been ill for a couple weeks, which was really sapping my energy, and I think my lack of energy made my mood so awful.  I was beginning to get concerned that if things didn’t change, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up.  Fortunately, this past last week went a lot more smoothly.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about TFA and education, in general and in the inner city.  I don’t think I’ve quite reached any conclusions, but I’ll probably start writing my thoughts down to really figure out what I’ve really learned from this whole experience.  I haven’t quite boiled it down to something concrete yet.

But one thing I feel pretty confident in saying is that I don’t see myself teaching as a career.  That probably seems painfully obvious if you’ve read anything I’ve previously posted.  But I have tried really, really hard to make this whole thing work out.  Last spring, I had all but decided not to come back, because I knew then that even if everything went more smoothly, just like everybody promised, I could still see that it wasn’t for me.  Well, everything generally is going better, but even on the best days, this job is a more-or-less joyless struggle.  But while I’m here I’ve still gotta try to do the best for the kids that I can do.

My TFA program director and my administration have been very supportive ever since I got put on my improvement plan.  In the City, at many schools, an improvement plan is nothing more than the first step toward booting your butt out the door, so I’ve got to hand it to them for actually putting in the effort toward literally trying to improve my skills.  And I’m trying, but I just feel bad that people are doing their jobs backing me up, but my heart’s really just not in it anymore.

It’s not that I don’t care about the kids, I just don’t believe that I could do a much better job even if I put more effort into it.  And I don’t think I have much reserve effort to put in.  Either my job’s not built with the framework for the students to ever possibly be successful, or I’m not built to do my job successfully.  I know I’m supposed to be framing my thoughts on what I can do for my students, increasing student achievement, building relationships, and so on.  And I really do try to do all of that.  Maybe I’m just selfish, but I have trouble seeing past my own unhappiness.

In any case, I’ve got two 5-day weeks until Thanksgiving.  Time to get my head back in the game.

Wow, it’s really been almost a month since I last posted.  This is bad because not only am I doing poor job of keeping people up to date, but I’m probably also losing thoughts I will wish I had written down to look back on in the future.  I had this crazy idea when I started journaling that maybe when I can see my whole TFA experience in perspective, there will be this “aha” moment when I see some radical insight that’s invisible to me in the moment.  Now mid-September through mid-October will be the missing piece that ruins my dream.  Oh well.

Seriously though, the last month has been pretty rough.  I’ve felt too bogged down and exhausted to keep up with most things outside of the day-to-day, much less journaling.  There’s a lot I’d like to write, if I had the time, but to make a long story short, I’m pretty frustrated and demoralized.   Sure, my room isn’t the circus it was last year.  But I’m frustrated for/with my students and I’m demoralized about my own performance.

I wrote this partial entry 10 days ago:

I am so frustrated right now.  We’re almost 6 weeks into the school year, and I’m still in Chapter 1 in my curriculum.  I have no idea what to do with these kids.  I feel like there is something going awfully wrong in my room.  I have spent 2 weeks on teaching students how to find the measure of angles in diagrams using angle relationships (like complementary and supplementary angles).

My first strategy was to give my Honors students packets with examples and definitions, and to have them read the packet and attempt the work.  Then, they were to come back to me with questions, which we would address as a group.  They, after all, should be capable of reading and interpreting examples.  The only difference is that I wouldn’t be reading it to them.  They threw an absolute fit, that I wasn’t going to go through examples first, yelling that I wasn’t teaching them.  After my administration witnessed a full-scale rebellion in my class against my strategy, they sat me down for an intervention concerning my methods.

So this week, I’ve brought the rigor waaaay down, and we’ve been talking about acute, right, and obtuse angles.  As it turns out, my kids are still struggling with the very basics.  But it almost seems as though I can’t possibly make class move slowly enough for everyone to succeed.  Today, we spent our second day on the very basics of complementary and supplementary angles with my regular geometry class (simply put—they  are pairs of angles that add up to 90 and 180 degrees, respectively).  I told them after reviewing the material that we were going to have a short, easy quiz.  I told them that the only 2 things they needed to know to score 100% on this quiz were that a) complementary angles add up to 90 degrees and that b) supplementary angles add up to 180 degrees.  I told them that if they had trouble remembering which was which, they could think of it this way:  90 comes before 180, C comes before S, and complementary comes before supplementary.  One of my classes just missed an 80% average, but my second regular geometry class averaged about a 65%.  My last class was so crazy that we didn’t even get to the quiz.

Well, today, 10 days later, we did a quiz today in class over complementary and supplementary angles, at a level of true high school rigor.  Frankly, they should have been ready for it.  At this point, we’ve spent more than 2 solid weeks on one concept.  The results were not encouraging.  My honors class averaged 63.5%.  My two regular geometry class that typically stay on task averaged 53.5% and 41.5%.  My last period class averaged an absolutely dismal 27.5%.

At the root of the problem, my students seem to be refusing to think critically.  I can slow down the material.  I can review.  I can reteach.  But eventually, the kids have to do it on their own.  And it’s not happening, and I don’t know what to do about that.

Which brings me to my second point.  I really don’t have any faith left in my ability to do my job successfully.  And by “my job”, I mean achieving the goal of providing expanded life opportunities for all of my students.  It’s not okay for me to have a lasting impact on just a couple students’ lives.  And that’s not just my own personal standard–it’s not okay by my administration, TFA, or many of my students’ parents.  But I am not reaching that standard, and I don’t know if I realistically can ever come even close.

I’m struggling just to achieve the awful results I’m achieving, and I’m drawing fire from every direction.  I’m not writing and delivering effective lessons and I’m not properly keeping up with my professional responsibilities.  Last week, the shoe finally dropped when I was put on an formal improvement plan.  I’m going to try with the little bit of reserve capacity for additional work I think I can put in to fulfill my improvement plan.  I’ve been working on new systems to help keep myself organized and to hold the students accountable.  But on the whole, I’m not going to lie, I just can’t visualize myself improving a whole lot.

There are people who do this job well, and there are fabulous teachers in some of the inner city schools.  I used to believe I could do most things that someone else out there is doing.  After a year and some change in teaching, it appears that teaching is not one of those things.  I feel like my efforts are severely misspent.  Hence the title of this post.

But, all of this is somewhat beside the point, because, dismal data and personal failure aside, at 7:50, I still need to be in school, ready to go again.  And it’s the prayers and encouragement of all y’all who are far away and the support of my ever-optimistic girlfriend that make it possible.  So I despite my dark mood, I do have plenty to be thankful for.

Week 4 of school started today, and I’m glad to report that I’ve been so quiet lately because things are generally running fairly smoothly.  It’s far from perfect, but things are going alright.

I have benefited greatly from having better management structures in place in my own room, and team-wide, although I know I still have work to do.  I need to be more consistent about giving immediate warnings.  Kids are getting too many chances to disrupt before receiving consequences.  Also, it’s tough to keep an eye on the little things like uniform issues, that slip my mind.

My main issue right now is investment.  The first couple weeks, I was really impressed by how motivated my students seem to be, but now I can barely keep them awake.  Sure, my lessons are dry, but even when I try to mix it up, I’ve got a lot of non-participators.  I think I might try to instate a daily points system again, although I am a bit leery of the additional paperwork that would involve.  Paperwork is my Achilles’ heel right now.  I am seriously lagging on my grades, and that is exacerbating the lack of student investment.

This year, I am trying to take a more active role in my school, and it’s going alright.  I feel like I’m producing more, as opposed to last year, where I felt like a drag on the system.  It definitely helps that the school day has is shorter and that I don’t have Hopkins class to worry about.  Still, I don’t feel I’ve escaped the grind, and I probably never will.  Back to work!

I’ll leave you with the speech I delivered at the TFA retreat yesterday.  I thought I’d be in front of 100+ people, but turnout was awful, and it ended up being more like 20.  Still, it was well received by the corps members and staff, dark humor and all.

Welcome Teach For America Baltimore Corps of 2008 and 2009.  I want to begin by expressing how extremely honored I am to have been chosen to address you today.

To the ‘09’s, if I calculated correctly, you have been in the classroom for only 14 days, but I bet it feels like a lot longer doesn’t it?

Even though it seems like forever ago, I still remember clearly driving up Pennsylvania Avenue for the first time to begin my TFA adventure at Coppin State during Induction.  I also remember how impressed I was with the rest of the ’08 corps and the energy you all brought that week.  It felt like if any group had the brains and drive to take on the achievement gap, it was us.  That Induction experience was also what motivated me to get so involved with Induction for the ’09 corps, and it was amazing to get to know you as well.  So once again, it’s a tremendous honor to stand in front of you.

Had the regional office wanted to pick a TFA cheerleader to speak to you today, they certainly would have picked somebody else.  I’m not going to name any names.  But the only reason I imagine they would pick me is because they know I’m not going to sugarcoat it.  It sure isn’t because I rocked the achievement gap my first year.

In fact, it’s no secret that I had all but decided not to come back for Year Two.  I know I didn’t have the worst placement or the most difficult administration, so I really can’t pass on the blame to anyone else.  I just got dominated by the challenges of the occupation day in and day out.  My first year of teaching required me to absorb more constant failure than I have ever experienced in my life and I didn’t think I could handle it for another year.

Like all of you, I sometimes get frustrated with teaching.  And I’m not just talking about the daily aspects of classroom management, planning and paperwork.  What I mean is that some days, I feel like the entire profession of teaching is faulty, and that I’ve been set up to fail.  I mean, anybody can show up every day and babysit, but my school and Teach For America expect me to be preparing kids for college.  And I take that charge completely seriously, because these students absolutely deserve every opportunity that the kids out in the top school districts have.  I feel that the occupation of being a successful classroom teacher is more than enough work for a small team of people, let alone one person.  And following that logic, if the game is rigged, then why play?

I am sorry to say that I really don’t have a canned story about Teaching For America for Little Timmy, who entered my Algebra class on a 2^nd grade math level and passed the HSA.  To be completely honest, Little Timmy doesn’t get me out of bed at 6am on a Monday morning.  No offense to Little Timmy.

I decided to come back for two reasons.  First, I knew I had signed up to do a job that needed to be done, and I knew I could do it better.  I also realized that there were changes I could make to my routine to make my lifestyle more sustainable.  And secondly, I came back because I’m still trying to find my role in changing the system.  The only way I can do this is by continuing to learn through experience.  I’m not sure I’ll ever be the teacher I would like to be, but I know that the students are systematically being shortchanged.  It’s clear to me that, despite the efforts of many hundreds of well-intentioned people, the system is completely messed up, and I want to be a part of the process of creating permanent change.

In the meantime, I am excited about a lot of things this year.  I am taking a more active role in getting involved in the lives of my students outside of class.  I am starting a computer programming club, coaching basketball, and tutoring students to get them ready to retake the Algebra HSA.

I don’t have much in the way of inspiration, but I can pass on what I have learned.

To be mentally able to return for year two, I had to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be completely in control of the job.  I’m going to drop the ball on a regular basis, but that’s okay.  It’s also okay for me to say that I’m doing the best I can do.  So my first piece of advice is that when you mess up, it is okay to tell students, parents and administrators that although you haven’t gotten everything figured out or finalized, you are doing the best you can, and that you will be glad to take their recommendations into account going forward.  Because, simply put, you are not going to get everything right the first time.  And if you’re like me, it’s going to be mostly wrong.  To try to be a superhuman is to set yourself up for failure.

My second, and more important, piece of advice is to never forget that your purpose is to provide these students with an excellent education.  You may fail to live up to this, but if your decisions are driven by this vision, you will always be moving in the right direction.  For example, when Little Tonya is in your face and maybe not saying the most complementary things about yourself you’ve ever heard, you will be tempted to “get smart” back at her.  And while doing so might actually make her back down, it will also permanently damage your relationship with her.  It may feel less satisfactory, but if your only response to her is that your expectations are in place so that she can get an excellent education, you will always preserve your own dignity.  The same advice goes for interactions with parents and other adults, in the face of difficult and complicated interactions.

Last, but not least, maintain your work-life balance.  I know I’m preaching to the choir, since you are here at North Bay on a school night.  But seriously, although there is always work to be done, unless you are well rested and healthy, mentally, physically and otherwise, you are not capable of doing your best work for your students, no matter how awesome of a lesson you planned at 2am.  So let’s have some fun!

Thank goodness for long weekends.  If I were in charge, every first week of school would be followed by a long weekend.

My first week went pretty well, but I was exhausted again already by the end of day 1.  Granted, it was a ridiculously long day 1.  Due to computer difficulties, the student schedules were all sorts of jacked up.  Kids were double scheduled for certain periods, or not at all for others.  It was madness.

Concerned for how long it would take to sort everything out, two of the tenth grade teachers and I volunteered to stay late to create a new master schedule.  I summoned some of my skills from my time interning in the corporate world to create a spreadsheet to track class sizes as we went.  I have to give a lot of credit to my AP and one of the teacher on my team for coming up with original and revised schedules that allowed us to successfully schedule all of the students in a way that allowed every student to get the honors sections they needed.  The way the school budgets work here in Baltimore, schools have to make due with just enough staff to be able to cover the number of students.  It took till 9:30pm to get it done, but we made it happen.

Then I went home and took another couple hours to create the mail merge template to generate individual student schedules.  And then, I was up another couple hours still finishing my lesson plan for day 2.  It was 1:45 when I finally went to sleep.  The rest of the week went pretty well, but residual tiredness from my long Monday did bring down my energy.

The biggest difference so far between this year and last year is that I feel a lot more confident, and that’s making a big difference in classroom management so far.  That’s not to say that there haven’t been issues already, but I’m a lot better equipped to deal with them.  There are a lot of kinks to work out, but so far, it’s an entirely different experience.