Sorry for the huge delay since my last post. So I've made it from my last break (fall break) to the next break. It's nice to know that after Thanksgiving I only have 3 more weeks until Christmas break and I'll be done with an entire semester. I'll be heading home to Atlanta tomorrow for the holiday and hopefully not thinking about teaching for at least a couple days.
A recent change since my last post has been my classroom's temperature. Apparently, the air conditioning system in my room is connected to a district-controlled switch that was turned off three weeks ago. Now this hasn't been a big deal for many of the other classrooms because if you just leave the heat off, it stays fairly cool. However, my room and the two rooms on either side are peculiarly placed in the building so that the sun beats through our windows the minute it rises until it sets. The heat is not on in my room, but by about noon the temperature rises to about 90 degrees when it's full with 25 students. And they made the windows so you can't open them to let any cool air in. This makes learning almost an impossibility. When it has been its worst, I've relocated my classes down the hall to the lecture hall or the library. But those rooms are poor substitutes for a science classroom. Not to say that my classroom is a science classroom either, but it has a bunch of stuff in it that I can't really transport on a day to day basis. So I came up with a research project for my students to do to get them out of my room and into the computer lab or library. They needed to research a wave on the electromagnetic spectrum and create a dodecahedron (12-sided polygon) containing the information. We were able to spend a few class periods doing that.
I was warned this was going to happen eventually, but I didn't know it was going to happen this early. I think since the sun is the reason for the heat, no matter how cold it gets outside it'll still be hot in my room until they turn the air conditioning back on in March. I've gone through everyone I can except the mayor to try to solve my problem, but they won't turn the air back on for the small number of rooms that are having problems. However, I do have my principal's sympathy and she said she would look into tinting my windows or finding another solution like that. In the meantime, I went out and bought two fans and 8 car windshield reflectors to put on my windows. Unfortunately, it maybe makes a 5 degree difference. A waste of money. The teacher next-door to me put up some poster paper with the glossy side facing the sun to reflect some of the light, and his room is a little cooler than mine so that may be the next thing I'll do, but it is still uncomfortably hot in his room. Maybe another 5 degree difference. Imagine a classroom where only about 20% of your students listen to you teach any given day, add in the heat, and you'll have a good idea of my current state.
Sorry for the long rant about my hot room, but it gives a good background to my thoughts and feelings.
I just finished taking a long survey today from TFA (they're huge on surveys by the way), and it got me thinking about some of the ways I thought my training could have been better. I mentioned on the survey that I was inundated with model classrooms during my training which was good because I didn't (and still don't) know a whole lot about what a good classroom should be like. But I don't think they did a good job at exposing us to some of the realities we may face in our first year and then giving us coping strategies to deal with them. I think it would have been beneficial to see more realistic first year teacher classrooms to have a better idea of what we'll have to deal with day in-day out. It's great to see those successful classrooms, but they're totally unrealistic for me right now. I've been told by my assistant principal that I don't have the "with-it-ness" yet, and I agree. It's tough to be an effective manager of a classroom when you can't consistently give out consequences for misbehavior throughout a lesson.
That brings me to my next thought. Every day I become more convinced that I'm teaching at most likely the most challenging school in the district/area. Challenges are expected at very low-performing schools, and extra challenges are expected with new principals. I love the new principal, but she is new to the job. Most recently, the district has mandated extra security to be placed at the school for hall monitoring. If students are not in the classroom when the tardy bell rings, the doors are locked and they're escorted to the auditorium where they're processed for discipline referrals and truancy records. If you ever visited my school before this started, you would be astounded at the number of students in the hallways during class time roaming around knocking on doors, pulling fire alarms, barging into classrooms just to get attention. It has been great to have the extra security to help students get serious about getting to class on time, and I feel like we need more people in the halls permanently to catch kids that skip class. But they'll only be at the school until Christmas break from what I hear. Hopefully, it'll be enough time to create a habit or a routine rather than a reversion back to what it was before the extra security.
The principal held a prayer meeting Saturday morning with community members, parents, and teachers for the school. I didn't really know when it was supposed to happen so I didn't get to go, and it was at 6am anyways so I may not have gone had I known. It seems though that people that have been in the community for a long time are noticing a continuous decline in their youth. There have been more fights and way more referrals this year than ever before. I think the worst part is the general attitude about the school itself amongst the students and the community. I was surprised to hear the opposite of school pride from the students on a daily basis. On a recent field trip, a student yelled out the bus window at a bunch of her fellow students walking on the sidewalk, "Look at those [school name] retards!" They perpetuate their own negative stereotype about their school instead of trying to prove it wrong. They seem to have accepted that they suck because they're at a school that supposedly sucks and the only alternative is to fool around and try not to learn anything, drop out, or try to transfer to another school. I've tried to talk with some students that they are a huge decider of how their school succeeds and that there a lot of great teachers at the school that really care and work hard to try to turn things around, but I only get scoffs and laughs at the thought that there are good things about the school.
On top of that, I've been struggling with my own effectiveness and ability. I knew I would be learning as I go, but I thought I would be better by now. This is where the title of this blog comes in. "Disillusionment" is a phase that most first year teachers go through around October through December where the initial motivations and ideals before the start of the year are challenged, and the teacher struggles with his ability to impact the students. I would probably admit I'm solidly in that phase now. I've been a pretty fast learner in most of the other things I've worked at, but I'm still struggling with the day to day planning for lessons. I've been trying to make my lessons more engaging for my students so they want to come to class more. But I have never been a good planner, and there's something about planning lessons that I don't really like. I think I get the feeling that I'm lost and don't know where to start, and I have a ton of resources floating around but I don't know where to look for the best ones. I generally don't find things like "this is how you should teach this concept and here's an explanation of this activity". Most nights I sit down the night before my lesson and I get this sinking feeling of pressure to get something ready for the next day. I eventually have some ideas, but then realize I don't have the materials or it's too late to run out and get the materials. I usually just fall back on a powerpoint I got from a second year corps member or alum, modify it, and at least these days I have some books to do some problems/activities out of. Because I hate this feeling from planning lessons, I've been putting off or avoiding it by watching TV (especially football) and trying to do anything to relax and de-stress. Part of it I'm sure is the exhaustion I feel at the end of the day too. God has been showing me a lot of my crutches for comfort that I use to try to make me feel better, and I've been trying to rely on them a lot lately. I'm thankful to have my church community and small group to help me see these things. I am sad that the TFA sunday prayer nights have taken a hiatus since early October because everyone has gotten too busy. But hopefully we'll do it again after Thanksgiving.
My confidence in my abilities has not been helped much by the evaluations I've had, which have mostly focused on what I need to do to make my management better and what more I can do. There hasn't been a lot of positive feedback and pats on the back. It doesn't help that I tend to focus on the negatives and don't give myself enough credit.
I've also been distracted by some family troubles since my dad was laid off. I've been worrying about his situation and trying to figure out how I could help. My dad does not take charity easily, so I told him I would buy his TV to help him out some. But he needed a lot more than that. I wan't sure what he was going to do since he hasn't found another job. Thankfully, though, I heard some good news today that a friend of my sister's came up with some money through a church to help him out for now, so praise God for that! I just hope he can find a job soon. Keep him in your prayers for that.
Talking about prayer requests, I contacted a student's mother a few days back because I noticed she had missed the past 2 weeks of school. So I called just to check what was going on, and if they needed any help from me. I got a call back from her mom today telling me that her car was busted in an accident way out of town, and she's been trying to get in contact with some kind of service agency to help her get back home. So she's been stranded in this place for 2 weeks and hasn't been able to work. She's gotten help from the guidance office, and she told me to keep her in my prayers so that her daughter can get back to school soon.
Pray for my school and my students.
