2024 April 4 - We Didn't Win the Powerball

 We didn't win the Powerball. So I guess I'm going to work. 

This ticket was not a winner. 

Maybe it's the lost hope of the Powerball, or the waning moon, or the fact I have a new shiny job and two months left in something that just doesn't fit anymore, but here I am in a pretty dark place. I left work yesterday exhausted emotionally and mentally. Two of my eighth grade classes were combined, which was a surprise. I checked my email and my messages, but whoever made that decision didn't tell me. It's little things like that which just don't feel good. Also, I felt disheartened because parts of my eighth grade classes were gone on field trips for two days in a row, leaving me piecing lessons together so that we were just doing practice in class, not new concepts or assessments with partial classes.

When I took this job, I thought I was teaching 8th grade and I'd be part of the eighth grade team. I knew I'd have another grade level, but I didn't know I'd have 2 other grade levels. This meant that all year I had fourth grade classes while the eighth grade teachers planned together. This meant that I wouldn't be going on any field trips because I had to stay back with fourth or fifth grade classes. This meant that I have 230+ students on my roster. Numbers really matter. 

I left Special Education last year because the paperwork spread me too thin. To have useful data to report every month for 3 goals and three objectives each for 16-20 kids meant progress reports all day long, then an IEP for each of those kids which took about 3 hours minimum plus the time of contacting parents...it left no time to be in class actually helping the children succeed.

So here I am this year with 230+ kids. Let's do some math. If I spend only a minute per child on final grades, it takes four hours outside of class time. If I spend 30 seconds on each kid to grade formative assessments throughout the year, that's 2 hours outside of class time. Do these tasks take that long? No, they take longer. So grades were due over Spring Break. I got 8th and 4th grade done before break. Fifth grade, a once a week class, was a mess this quarter because of field trips, holidays, etc, so I had weird once a week assignments that maybe the whole fifth grade did not do. I honestly did not know how to give final grades for spotty work from 90 kids I see once a week. I gave up. 

A student yesterday said they'd do better if I gave them snacks. I told them I have 230 kids, so even if I spent 50 cents apiece, I'd be spending more than a hundred dollars. That's sad.

Let's also look at behaviors when we talk about numbers. When I have behavior issues, people (admin, other teachers, etc.) ask, "Well, did you call home?" I have 13 separate sets of students per week. Let's say in a *good* week 2 or 3 kids have concerning behaviors per class. That's 26-39 phone calls home. Parent phone calls are never short. In fact, parent phone calls home and emails this year have been extremely disheartening. I have been blamed for causing the child's behavior and told the child had a right to act the way they acted. I have been asked to now call the house MORE. Nope, I don't have time for that. 

A student in one crazy class yesterday asked if they were "the worst class". I took a moment to explain to them that I like them all individually. It's absolutely true. I genuinely know that I could be an effective teacher or mentor to each kid if it was a one-on-one situation. I do really like them. Do I like 13 groups of 16-25 kids? No. Am I sad they think I don't like them? Yeah, it really is sad. 

And then I spent the rest of the evening piecing together how things could have gone different...that maybe I should have taken a day out of my Spring Break to better grade the fifth graders...and just the fact that teachers were asked to send in grades at 7:30am the day we got back from "break"...

This is burnout. This is a very tiny piece of burnout.