On Not Posting In Awhile

Geez! It's been awhile since I've posted, eh? One would assume, with the lack of posting that I've been doing, that I'm a busy little beaver (like the Canadian connotation there? I do)! Well, you'd be dead on! I've been running around like a chicken with my head cut off for the past little while. Mostly, I've been attending meeting after meeting after meeting, much to my discomfort (and physical pain, in some instances). In case you were wondering, the physical pain mostly came from wearing heels for a twelve hour day...but you could also factor in uncomfortable seating at uncomfortable meetings as well.

Anyways, I could bore you by going into detail about what I've been up to the past week and a bit, but I will spare you. I will give you a brief update, and then continue with today's issues (and yes, there are issues to discuss...it's been a rough week, and it's only Tuesday).

So....let me think back. Last week was the Open Evening. Basically, the school competes with a bunch of other secondary schools in the county/area, to get parents to send their children there. Competition is apparently pretty stiff, so they really try hard to impress. Interested parents of children currently in year 6 come out for the evening, get schmoozed by the Head Teacher, wander the building with preppy student guides, and watch entertaining presentations put on by the staff. Myself, I got tricked into helping run a giant game of scrabble. It was....interesting, to say the least. Just building the damn thing proved to be a challenge and a half. The string we were given to "map it out" was bloody awful, and the tape in which to stick it down was worse. It just would not stay. Rachel and I kept having to slap it down, as hard as we could, and it almost always bounded back. Eventually, we went to the Science department to get more string, and were magically given a much BETTER, and more co-operative, bundle of string. We ripped out the shit we had laying, and re-did the board with our new magically co-operative string. Then we went about setting out the board pieces, and arranging the letter tiles into piles of seven.

After we had the board set up, we had some time to kill. I wandered into the Orwell Office, and found a bunch of women cutting and pasting book photos and blurbs onto coloured paper. A new display was being constructed, and they asked for my help. I glady did so. I am rather glad I did, because it turned out to be quite funny! Ann, the second head of English, proved herself to be a very funny lady! She had us rolling on the floor laughing. Literally. Putting up the display proved to be a continuation of the good time. Before we knew it, however, it was time to get down to business.

Showtime (and I aptly call it that) approached, and I settled into "Game show host" mood. As children and their parents entered the room, I bombarded them with words of encouragement, trying to entice them into playing the game. A few refused, shyly hiding behind their parents, but most were quite eager to play. In fact, I quickly found that the parents were highly competitive, wanting their kids to get the best score etc. It was a bit daunting, to be honest! I felt bad for a few of the kids, whose parents really pushed them to find "better" words, or to exploit the letters they had. A bit weird to see, that's for sure.

No major problems arose. I met a few of my students parents, as they came in with their younger siblings. It was nice to put faces to names. I had a feeling some of them were rather shocked at my appearance though; I'm not sure if it's my age, or my nose ring, or what, but a few seemed a bit surprised to realize I was "the Miss Carson". "The" indeed. Legendary.

Anyways, the night went off alright. We didn't leave the building until around 9 though, which was a tad horrifying, considering I am there at ten to 8 every day. Ugh. Long long day. Rachel and I ended up joining the Geography boys (who are an hilarious and jovial bunch) for a pint in Fenstanton before going to bed. I slept well that night.

Not a whole lot worth writing about happened between then and now. Aside from the weekend, which started off slow (I went to bed early Friday night), and then ended up being probably the best weekend I've had here so far! I just had a wicked fun time, going out, seeing people, having some drinks, and sharing more than a few laughs.

Coming off that weekend, I was really hoping to have a good week. In fact, I kept thinking this week was going to be GREAT, because I have a nice break in the middle (a trip to Birmingham with the Science department on Wednesday). However, it's now only Tuesday, and I already want to shoot myself in the head.

You see, last week the year 9 reports went home. As you should be aware, my year 9 class is a total terror. They constantly push me, and make me question my desire, if not my ABILITY, to teach. In an effort to "shock" them into realizing I mean business, I wasn't exactly nice when I assessed them. In fact, I was tough as nails. I gave a lot of people really crap marks. In my defence, they totally deserved them. Their attitude towards learning (ATL) was total rubbish, and they're kidding themselves if they think otherwise. So I was brutally honest in my reporting, and I think the marks were indeed "shocking" to a number of students.

Yesterday, Leslie came to me at the end of the day, to let me know that three of my year 9 girls had come to see her about the grades I'd given then. I instantly knew exactly who the girls were. When I listed the names to Leslie, she nodded.
"I'm not going to apologize for the grades," I said. "They deserved them."
"I'm not asking you to apologize. I have no doubts they deserved them. I just wanted you to be aware that there is some discontent out there," she said. She smiled at me constantly, so I could tell she was trying not to seem threatening. It was clear she didn't want to scare me, or make me feel that I had been at fault.
We had a rather frank talk about what the problem was. She told me these girls had requested a class change. My heart sunk.
"Here we go," I thought, "My teaching ability is suddenly thrown into question because three stuck up girls are pissed I called them on their own laziness and stupidity".
However, Leslie tried to explain to me that my teaching wasn't being questioned, and that she understood I had a tough "group of characters".
We decided to allow someone to come observe the class in action, this Thursday, to try and figure out strategies. We also are going to work on picking ONE person, one truly disruptive person, to move out of the class. I can think of a few I wouldn't mind giving the ol' heave ho - but that'd be a cheap solution. One I can deal with. I have an idea of who I want switched out, but that too might be TOO easy. We'll leave it up to the moderator.
With that in the process of being resolved, I rested easy Monday night.

Today, I had my year 9s first period. As the students started their slow shuffle into the room, there were murmurs of discontent. This was the first period that I'd had with them, since the reports went home.
"Miss, why did I get a lever 3?" I heard.
Not looking up to acknowledge the speaker, I said, "If you want to discuss grades with me, see me after class."
"Miss, why did I get a level TWO?!" I heard a high pitched, and extremely whiny girl ask.
I turned, looked over her head at the clock, and said, "Come see me after class, to discuss your mark."
She huffed at me, and refused to move.
"No. I don't deserve this mark. My mum is going to go bananas when she sees this..." she started.
"Sit down. This is not the appropriate place to discuss this," I said calmly to her.
She scowled at me, then marked to her seat. The entire way there she was bitching and complain about how she'd been given an "unfair" mark.
I rolled my eyes.
Instantly, comments started being hurled around the room.
"Yah, well I got a 3."
"HE got a 3?!? THATS NOT FAIR!"
"Oh yah, well I got a two as well. I've NEVER got a two before...."
I could feel myself losing them, so I shouted at them to do the Word Challenge on the board, and to stop talking about grades.
"If you want to talk about grades, do so individually after class with me," I said.
I was met with grumbles. The hatred for me was very evident, throughout the entire classroom.
Bubbles of discontent quickly surfaced again, and before I could stop it, I was being bombarded with comments about how "unfair" I was, and how "we haven't done anything to warrant these marks".
The worst, however, was when one of the girls smugly shouted, "Yah, well I'M SWITCHING ENGLISH CLASSES!"
The rest of the class turned to look at her. She smiled, smug at having won the entire class over for the moment.
Eruptions of agreement spilled forth.
Devastated at the mob mentality that was being directed at me, I felt myself wilt a little. I must admit, I started to doubt my abilities to teach very much. With 28 eyes turned to me, watching for my next move, I knew that now was not the time to collapse.
Instead, I threw my shoulders back and calmly said, "No one will be switching classes. You can't run away from your problems that easily. If you got a bad mark, it's the mark you deserved to get. I don't give good or bad marks. You earn them."
This shut them up for a moment, as they pondered the meaning of what I'd said.
A few rumbles started up at the back, but with a cold stare, I quickly quieted those.
I prompted them back to the Word Challenge, and tried to carry on with the lesson.

We headed to the PC lab for the majority of the class, and kids seemed to be working fairly well.
There was still some animosity amongst some of the girls, but I tried to brush it off with a firm but fair touch. I felt the end of the period went relatively well, and I tried very hard not to let their stinging criticism of my teaching at the start of the lesson get to me. However, at the end, I was given a rather sound slap on the face, by one of the quieter girls in my class.

All the other students had left the room in a noisy mass of swirling chaos. This last girl was slowly and deliberately putting her books into her bag. As she walked past me on her way to the door, she half turned and said, "I'm going to get out of this class."
"Excuse me? Why?" I asked, genuinely shocked.
"Because I can't work with the people in this class. We never get anything done," she said coldly.
"Yes we do," I said. "And besides, if anyone moves, it won't be you...."
"We'll see about that," she said, haughtily, as she strolled out the door.

I stared looking after her for a good thirty seconds. Maybe it was a culmination of everyone else's badgering, or maybe it was something else...whatever it was, her comments to me, seemingly out of the blue (I'd given her a decent mark), struck me harder than anyone elses.

I could understand the "bad" ones wanting out. Students like that will never take responsibility for their actions. They will always blame someone else for their shortcomings. The easiest person to blame right now is me, and so they are. I can deal wit that. I can brush that off. But to have one of the "good" ones slam me....well that was something else entirely. It really made me question my own abilities. Can I handle this class? Is it THAT bad?! Some days I think it is, and others I don't. I do take responsibility for some of the things that happen (or fail to happen) in my class...but I refuse to take responsibility for everything. If you get a bad mix of kids, it's really hard to get them to perform the way you want them to. At least, it is when you are as green a teacher as me. I will always admit to my shortcomings, and my "newbness" is a very large one. I often have no idea what I am doing, and find that usually my instincts are right. However, with this class, I feel like it's hit and miss. They don't trust me. They don't respect me. They plain don't like me. I cannot, no matter how hard I try, get them to be the class I KNOW they can be. It's very frustrating.

I can only hope that the monitoring I get on Thursday will help me figure out what to do. I'd hate to think that I'm failing at teaching....but right now, it sometimes feels that way (at least with this ONE class).

That said, it IS only one of my six classes. I don't think I am doing bad with my other classes at all. It is just my 9s that are totally out of control, and I have no idea how to rein them in. But I'm willing and able to learn.

But anyways...I really don't want to bitch and moan all the time in here. That was never my intention.

Tomorrow I am going with the year 9s (the entire year) to Birmingham, to what is called the "Think Tank". It's some sort of science museum, or something, if I understand all the e-mails right. I am mighty excited to be able to visit a new part of England "on the company dime".

More to come on that later though. Counting down the days till the weekend!! (Which should, if all predictions come true, be even better than the last).

Cheers!