Saturday, September 28, 2013

A Long, Long, Long Week

OK, so let me tell you about my work week.

There was the grading of the performance assessments.

There was getting my lesson plan ready for a pre-observation conference with the assistant principal.

There was the Regents prep work with the two junior classes taking the ELA Regents exam for the first time in January - lots of reading and grading #26's and #27's responses.

There was the Regents prep work with the remedial class of students who have failed the test three and four times - plus the outreach home to a handful of those students who have dropped out of sight already.

There was the college essay work with the two classes of seniors I teach.

There was the concurrent college counseling I do with seniors in those two classes  - meeting each and every student to talk over college lists, majors, financial aid, and ancillary college issues.

There was the student I taught last year who came by today to have that same conversation.

There was the handful of college recommendations requests I have already gotten and a preliminary writing of two of those.

There were copies that needed to be made for the Danielson observation happening next Monday.

There was the pre-observation conference with the assistant principal and the adjustment to the lesson plan that needed to be made to make sure I hit all those Danielson domains

(NOTE TO SELF: Every decision MUST be data-driven; every moment of the class MUST be scripted - you can leave NOTHING to chance in Danielson's world of obsessive compulsive control freakism...)

And there were the five classes a day I teach, plus the coverage I got this afternoon.

Oh - and the five to nine posts a day here at Perdido Street School blog.

This has been a long, long, long week.

8 comments:

  1. Hang in there Perdido!!! You da man! LOVE your work- I rely on it. You my teacher too. Get some rest. Peace.

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  2. That's incredibly busy. Several teachers and I agreed that it doesn't feel like September, (early school year), but November-ish in regards to the school year. The very beginning, Sept. 9, seems so long ago with lots of work in between.

    And, what especially helps me and many others deal with these new BS evaluations and reformer busy-work responsibilities is this blog of yours.

    Cheers and thanks.

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    1. Thanks for the kind words, Pogue. I must admit, it's good to have the forum to air my views and point things out to people. I am gratified to have that opportunity and gratified to have the readership I have.

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  3. My wife and I were talking about how exhausted we feel already. I don't think I can match your workload but hang in there.

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    1. Thanks, James - I'll tone it down once I get past the observation. The performance assessment grading is finally over, so that will help too.

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  4. Yes and all of it is busy work designed to wear you out. What happened to the agreement to cut out redundant paperwork?
    There are to be no additional work additions to the paperwork or any additional work until we get a new contract that not only claws back these givebacks but also provides us with a real raise.
    We should strike over the evaluation system and all this stupid bullshit busy work.
    All that crap lands in some asshole administrators file cabinet.
    Slowdown, sickout and strike during the regents.
    In short. Fuck them very much

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    1. It's true - I was joking that all these "artifacts" are going to go into one big "Artifact Building" down by Tweed. Only problem is, they're going to have to add a wing to the building every few years for the new artifacts. And nobody is ever going to look at these things - not ever.

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