Teachers/Educators Thread • Page 13

for your sake, i hope they waive it. student teaching was the worssst and that's even though i got along great with my mentor teacher

 

I would be more than happy to do student teaching by assisting with online/distance learning but I could use the experience for classroom management

 

I also got a job offer to be an after-school child care assistant in the district that I want to work in this year, so I am hoping that doesn't get canceled either!

 

My AP class did so well on their exam I’m so proud of them. Feels like one of the few successes I’ve had in my first three years

 

congrats! that's always so validating. we all know these tests are lame, but when the kids do well, it's definitely a feather in our cap and makes us feel a little better about them.

mine got crushed, so i'm glad someone did well!

 

I never post in this thread but I just needed somewhere to say I’ve completely lost all desire and passion for teaching. Watching how the world sees and talks about us during Covid has broken me. I knew we were undervalued. I’m fine with that. What I’ve woken up to is how much of society views us with active contempt.

So what’s the fucking point?

 

It's pretty rough out there, to say the least. I try to remind myself to, on facebook posts for example, look at the "likes" and "loves" on posts from the district or on news sites talking about keeping things virtual and see how much more they outnumber the negative commentors.

Our district just announced a few hours ago we're staying virtual through the entire first marking period and of course the loudest ones in the comments sections of various posts and groups are the dumbest ones.

 

I’m at a private school and we’re petrified of the loud, cranky parents who say they won’t pay tuition for distance learning. So even though pretty much all of our feeder towns and the town we’re IN are digital because of rising cases, we’re starting hybrid. And all because a bunch of parents think we’re on vacation when we’re teaching digitally

 

I took a break for a few years. If I hadn't done that, I think I'd be completely done right now.

 

the comments today are brutal.

lots of people seem to think teachers pushed for virtual for our own convenience and I don’t think they understand how much of a PITA it is to switch some of my stuff to better fit virtual learning.

 

Virtual is SO much harder than in person. But real, legitimate in person learning is impossible now. And hybrid is even worse.

If we had a competent country, we’d just do what Kenya is doing

 

As an administrator trying to plan for our gradual re-entry, this is a nightmare. The changes we need to make will render the experience unrecognizable to our students and families. When 70%+ responded to a survey saying they want to reopen in person, I don't think they were considering what they'd be sending their children back to. As a small school that has community and relationships at the center of everything we do, in-person is critical to achieving our mission, but I mean, not like this...

When you consider teacher anxiety surrounding just returning, morale is brutal. When you realize that we haven't even outlined to them what *additional* duties they will need to perform, it's going to be so much worse. The emotional load that everyone is entering the year with is going to make things awfule.

On my end, being an administrator means making hard decisions and having difficult conversations with colleagues. The thing is, usually you feel confident you are making these choices because inside you know it's the right thing for the right reason, even if it doesn't feel good. This is so much more difficult because I don't believe in the cause, it's just that I'm one of the ones that has to implement the order from on high. I'm hoping that our faculty revolt.

 

Sorry that you are in that position, that is rough. What kind of school is it? I’m at a small(ish) private Montessori school and we are 2.5 weeks into our in-person school year (with an online option, but I’m teaching in person). I was super not into it before we started, and I still don’t necessarily feel safe in this setting, but it’s humming along, and the experience for kids isn’t as different as we feared it might be. Feel free to PM me if you want to talk, but no worries if not.

 

Looks like our state -- possibly others -- have temporarily suspended edTPA requirements

 

i'm glad to hear that it's going better than expected for you. we had our opening faculty meetings today and things went smoothly. i have to do my meeting tomorrow, which is where we will dive a little deeper into the protocols and processes we will have in place. inevitably, they will ask questions that go down rabbit holes that we won't really know how to answer until we start living the day-to-day of this reality. i think that's where some frustration may bubble up.

meanwhile, 1-on-1, our upper level administration is all in agreement that they don't think we'll be coming back in person. ultimately this will end up being a lot of heartburn for a lot of people that could have been avoided if we just took the obvious step a month ago since we knew how things were going to play out.

on another note, edtpa suspension is $$$

 

As someone who has sat in on countless county-wide superintendent meetings with county health department officials this summer, it's staggering that almost everyone has no idea what they're getting themselves into (to no fault of their own). We can all plan until we are blue in the face, but once an outbreak occurs - which it will - all bets are off.

We put out a 28-page re-opening guide with health and safety protocols to follow for parents, staff and students for the upcoming school year, but it could all be meaningless after just one day.

Bets of luck to all educators trying to figure this thing out as we all enter uncharted territory.

 

How's everyone holding up? I assume that anyone who hasn't started yet will jump off the ledge next week...

We are having our orientation this week - homeroom groups of 7 or 8 coming in at designated shifts, no more than two groups on campus at once and mostly outdoors. Everything has gone extremely well on campus (thank goodness, because I'm the one who had to plan it). Off campus, things have kind of hit the fan as families are now having to report to school positive tests and exposures. Thankfully, none of those people have been on campus yet, so it's technically not our fault and won't make us look bad as a school, but hopefully it's enough to drive home to our board that next week being the only virtual week isn't a great idea and that should be extended.

 

Ive learned that my student teaching can be in whatever format my cooperating school is in, whether that’s distance learning or in person.

 

We haven't even had students come back yet, but staff started coming in over the course of the last week or so, and we've already had several instances where staff members (or their family members) have been exposed to COVID and we've had to tell them to quarantine for 14 days.

Staffing buildings this year is going to be a mess. It's been difficult to get subs for years before this year, and I imagine that will be even harder this year.

 

We're all virtual until early November at the earliest and student start was delayed until the 16th so it's been all PD and planning/prep so far.

The PD has bsiascally been showing us a massive amount of options to make digital learning better but TBH I wish tehy would have given us more PD on a smaller amount of apps and such so that we could be more efficient in them.

Luckily my class as it is built is already pretty chunked so, I don't think I'll have too many periods of time where I'm lecturing for too long. I'm gonna have to build in some movement breaks for the classes where my lectures do go beyond 20 minutes but that shouldn't be too hard.

Trying to plan my AP Gov has been the hardest just because I've never taught it before and, being a college course, it lends itself best to lecture and discussion which isn't ideal for virtual learning. I just don't want to fail at getting them prepared for taking the test.

 

When my principal said we're expecting more students to enroll in the next couple of weeks and I'm looking at my current class sizes wondering where they're gonna put these students:

 

We had to go in for at least part of a day this week so our work computers could get updates. Multiple custodians and construction workers not wearing masks and talking very loudly. A few teachers also not wearing masks even though the rules are pretty clear.

I had to use the bathroom while I was there too. Fuckin a.

gonna go get another test next week. Sigh.

 

Welp, I go in on Tuesday. Students start virtually on the 16th, start coming in person on the 21st. I’m starting to have nightmares of classes full of students with no masks.

 

Are masks not mandated? They are for us, and we are still doing so much buildup on rationale for families and students. Not that I think they are opposed, but more because we have made it clear we will send students home if they aren’t wearing them properly and we need to lay the groundwork for that.

 

No, they’re mandated. Just bad dreams haha. I think if a student has an issue wearing a mask, they’re forced to go remote.