A long overdue update
Feb. 16th, 2005 10:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_vultureDecember was a very stressful month; the kids were getting very excited about the upcoming holidays and were exceptionally difficult to manage. To make a long story short, a couple of incidents wound up bringing about a lot of criticism of my classroom management skills. Granted, it was emphasized that, being a novice teacher newly arrived from another country to teach in a tough school, my biggest mistake was not making use of the available assistance and resources, but it was still a humbling experience. I went into the holidays feeling very low and uncertain about my ability to teach and cope in this school.
Fortunately, I pulled out of that funk and came into January much better prepared to deal with what this school had to dish out. I even had the first week and half of lessons planned out. This helped me deal with the arrival of Her Majesty's Inspectors in mid January. I even managed to score a few brownie points by going above and beyond with my preparations (especially in decorating the room of one of the English teachers that had left at the end of previous term). The only really down point of January was the realization that, courtesy of being so off balance the term before, I was hideously behind in my marking. The head of English seemed to take that relatively in stride, though, and we worked out a plan to help me catch up (very nearly there!). It was another hit to the professional ego, but I'm feeling more confident and optimistic about my ability to deal with the marking (among other things).
February was, for the most part, good, though a few issues with classroom management haunted me again (yes, the Hell nines once again). Still, I came into the midterm break much better off than I did going into the Christmas holidays. And, courtesy of the effort I put in this half-term, I don't have anywhere near as much work to do. As such, I've spent much of the weekend and the early part of the week out with a friend. Merriment even included a trip to London to do a little more sight seeing (though we got to the Tower of London too late to do the tour, dammit!).
Today, I spent a number of hours at school finishing the latest rearrangement of my room and catching up on a bit of marking. I am hoping to have finished off with the marking and the year nine reports prior to the weekend, leaving that free for a possible trip to Birmingham to meet up with a good friend.
To finish, allow me to describe a moment of smug satisfaction that occurred in one of my classes earlier this month:
Me: (to the last student talking after I had asked for silence) Excuse me! Could you please be quiet!
Student: Why are you picking on me? Everyone else is talking! Listen!
Everyone else: (silently staring at the offending student with amused expressions)
Fortunately, I pulled out of that funk and came into January much better prepared to deal with what this school had to dish out. I even had the first week and half of lessons planned out. This helped me deal with the arrival of Her Majesty's Inspectors in mid January. I even managed to score a few brownie points by going above and beyond with my preparations (especially in decorating the room of one of the English teachers that had left at the end of previous term). The only really down point of January was the realization that, courtesy of being so off balance the term before, I was hideously behind in my marking. The head of English seemed to take that relatively in stride, though, and we worked out a plan to help me catch up (very nearly there!). It was another hit to the professional ego, but I'm feeling more confident and optimistic about my ability to deal with the marking (among other things).
February was, for the most part, good, though a few issues with classroom management haunted me again (yes, the Hell nines once again). Still, I came into the midterm break much better off than I did going into the Christmas holidays. And, courtesy of the effort I put in this half-term, I don't have anywhere near as much work to do. As such, I've spent much of the weekend and the early part of the week out with a friend. Merriment even included a trip to London to do a little more sight seeing (though we got to the Tower of London too late to do the tour, dammit!).
Today, I spent a number of hours at school finishing the latest rearrangement of my room and catching up on a bit of marking. I am hoping to have finished off with the marking and the year nine reports prior to the weekend, leaving that free for a possible trip to Birmingham to meet up with a good friend.
To finish, allow me to describe a moment of smug satisfaction that occurred in one of my classes earlier this month:
Me: (to the last student talking after I had asked for silence) Excuse me! Could you please be quiet!
Student: Why are you picking on me? Everyone else is talking! Listen!
Everyone else: (silently staring at the offending student with amused expressions)
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no subject
Date: 2005-02-17 05:13 am (UTC)We don’t need no education.
We don’t need no thought control.
No dark sarcasm in the classroom.
Teachers, leave those kids alone.
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.
All in all you’re just another brick in the wall.
Just thought I'd pass that on. LOL.