And I'm still not sure I have anything to report now.
It's still January, finally nearing the end, and I'm boring myself. I'm in that rut that happens when spring hasn't come but everyone's kinda getting sick of winter. In the north, where I'm from, that happened in February, but here it seems to have happened already, with the weather being nice and cruelly awful in turns, and midterms coming only in two weeks even though we've had our 100th day of school last week.
I haven't given a real test all year, and I'm giving one for the midterm (at my director's request). Writing the review sheet is something I'm strangely dreading. I have about enough energy to sit during a free period and make smartboard slides for the next day, but that's about all the planning I've done since I came back, and I have a class for whom I don't even always do that.
I have half my students failing because of missing work I haven't chased them for, we had a meeting with the head of school about the negative school culture, and today I had to kick three kids out of my desk drawer because no, I don't let them rummage through my emergency snack (or pencil) supply.
I give free time at the end of lessons because I don't want to listen to myself talk, I gave a quiz just to stump kids and prove to them they have to take better notes, and in the deadness of January I feel myself becoming the monster of the teacher I most didn't want to be.
I can't remember when was the last time they even successfully worked in partners. And I was the queen of projects.
And I admitted in front of a class today that I don't actually think Mishna's all that important in teh grand scheme of life (though it was in a lecture about respecting others trumping all) because honestly, I'm not so sure right now that it is.
Because the most important thing right now, or the only thing that seems to matter, is hanging on to that lead-line and following it through without falling off until spring.
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