End of Year 2018
This year, the end of the school year went . . . slow . . . ly.
My seniors (four sections of them) all graduated the week after Memorial Day. This left me with a single section of freshmen to teach for two weeks and give exams to. Teach only one class for three weeks? Score!
I was looking forward to getting a lot of stuff done. Research new curriculum! Modify lesson plans that hadn't worked! Revamp old material!
And then, the first day, I got sick. A cold. A bad cold. I was miserable. And exhausted. I went in every day and slept in my classroom. I even brought in a pillow and a camping mattress I could roll up and stash in the cupboard for the hour I was teaching. It was awful. I couldn't call in sick--all my sick days went to hospital stays this last year. In fact, I spent the rest of the year paranoid about getting sick, because if I stayed home, I'd get docked. And when you get docked, it's for a LOT of money.
I suppose if I had to get sick, this was the perfect time for it. I only had to rouse myself enough to teach one class of very nice freshmen, and then I could go back to dozing. But it sucked because all the stuff I'd been planning to do went undone.
After a full week, the cold finally let up and I was feeling normal just in time for exam week. Exams are half days, with two exams per day. Afternoons, the students go home to study (ha!) while the teachers grade piles of papers. I had several days completely to myself here, since I had just one exam to give on Wednesday.
So I cleaned my classroom.
I mean, seriously cleaned it. I have three storage cabinets and a filing cabinet chock-full of the detritus of 24 years of teaching, and I hadn't gone through it all in decades.
The filing cabinet went first. I saw quickly that 90% of the stuff in there was either 1) outdated and useless or 2) already scanned to my computer network as a PDF. So almost all of it went into the recycling. I had five paper boxes worth! I also came across my file of thank-yous, little notes and cards from students I've gotten over the years. "You changed my life." "I'm so glad I had you for my teacher." "I hated English until I had you." Those I kept.
Next day, I tackled the storage cabinets. The fact that I had video and cassette tapes in there should tell you how long it's been! I tossed everything I hadn't used in three years. It took three trips to the dumpster! Then I rearranged everything so it was easier to find and access what I needed.
And then I washed down all the surfaces. The custodians never, ever dust. Nor do they wipe down the tables. A classroom gets dirty really fast when you have 160 students using it every day, but budget cuts have resulted in a tiny custodial staff that just empties the wastebaskets and cleans the floor. When I started teaching, custodians cleaned the desks and windowsill and washed the blackboards every day. If you wanted to keep something on the board, you had to write SAVE next to it, or it would be gone in the morning. No more. Now my room gets grimier and grimier. I cleaned everything, and the room smelled of bleach disinfectant when I was done.
I also cleaned out my desk drawers, tossing all the junk I wouldn't use. I have a warehouse-class pile of classroom supplies in my desk, and digging through it was a revelation. So many boxes of pencils! And look--two whole boxes of staples! This took considerable time to reorganize.
And then I was done with the cleaning. My freshmen arrived and took the exam, a single long essay. I graded them, sent out a final "Enjoy your summer!" message to them on Remind, and closed out my classroom. Friday morning, I turned in my keys at check-out, and I was done!
This was overall a nasty, shitty year, and I'm glad to see it end. This is solely because of the five months of on-off stress, misery, and pain from the kidney stones. My bank of sick days is gone, and I have to build it up again. I lived in a state of anxiety for weeks and weeks and weeks, and worked hard to hide it from my students.
But it was good year for students. My fourth hour was difficult, but far from the worst I've had. My media literacy class was small, and it was nice to have a quiet little group at the end of the school day. My freshmen were total sweeties and were fun to teach.
And now we have the long, empty summer days to rest!
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My seniors (four sections of them) all graduated the week after Memorial Day. This left me with a single section of freshmen to teach for two weeks and give exams to. Teach only one class for three weeks? Score!
I was looking forward to getting a lot of stuff done. Research new curriculum! Modify lesson plans that hadn't worked! Revamp old material!
And then, the first day, I got sick. A cold. A bad cold. I was miserable. And exhausted. I went in every day and slept in my classroom. I even brought in a pillow and a camping mattress I could roll up and stash in the cupboard for the hour I was teaching. It was awful. I couldn't call in sick--all my sick days went to hospital stays this last year. In fact, I spent the rest of the year paranoid about getting sick, because if I stayed home, I'd get docked. And when you get docked, it's for a LOT of money.
I suppose if I had to get sick, this was the perfect time for it. I only had to rouse myself enough to teach one class of very nice freshmen, and then I could go back to dozing. But it sucked because all the stuff I'd been planning to do went undone.
After a full week, the cold finally let up and I was feeling normal just in time for exam week. Exams are half days, with two exams per day. Afternoons, the students go home to study (ha!) while the teachers grade piles of papers. I had several days completely to myself here, since I had just one exam to give on Wednesday.
So I cleaned my classroom.
I mean, seriously cleaned it. I have three storage cabinets and a filing cabinet chock-full of the detritus of 24 years of teaching, and I hadn't gone through it all in decades.
The filing cabinet went first. I saw quickly that 90% of the stuff in there was either 1) outdated and useless or 2) already scanned to my computer network as a PDF. So almost all of it went into the recycling. I had five paper boxes worth! I also came across my file of thank-yous, little notes and cards from students I've gotten over the years. "You changed my life." "I'm so glad I had you for my teacher." "I hated English until I had you." Those I kept.
Next day, I tackled the storage cabinets. The fact that I had video and cassette tapes in there should tell you how long it's been! I tossed everything I hadn't used in three years. It took three trips to the dumpster! Then I rearranged everything so it was easier to find and access what I needed.
And then I washed down all the surfaces. The custodians never, ever dust. Nor do they wipe down the tables. A classroom gets dirty really fast when you have 160 students using it every day, but budget cuts have resulted in a tiny custodial staff that just empties the wastebaskets and cleans the floor. When I started teaching, custodians cleaned the desks and windowsill and washed the blackboards every day. If you wanted to keep something on the board, you had to write SAVE next to it, or it would be gone in the morning. No more. Now my room gets grimier and grimier. I cleaned everything, and the room smelled of bleach disinfectant when I was done.
I also cleaned out my desk drawers, tossing all the junk I wouldn't use. I have a warehouse-class pile of classroom supplies in my desk, and digging through it was a revelation. So many boxes of pencils! And look--two whole boxes of staples! This took considerable time to reorganize.
And then I was done with the cleaning. My freshmen arrived and took the exam, a single long essay. I graded them, sent out a final "Enjoy your summer!" message to them on Remind, and closed out my classroom. Friday morning, I turned in my keys at check-out, and I was done!
This was overall a nasty, shitty year, and I'm glad to see it end. This is solely because of the five months of on-off stress, misery, and pain from the kidney stones. My bank of sick days is gone, and I have to build it up again. I lived in a state of anxiety for weeks and weeks and weeks, and worked hard to hide it from my students.
But it was good year for students. My fourth hour was difficult, but far from the worst I've had. My media literacy class was small, and it was nice to have a quiet little group at the end of the school day. My freshmen were total sweeties and were fun to teach.
And now we have the long, empty summer days to rest!
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