teaching
So... it's been a while. I know. I've been so busy with life that i haven't had time to write about it. That, and i haven't had the inclination, either.
In recent news, I got engaged in March. We're planning a July 2011 wedding. The church and reception sites are nailed down, and i found a dress! Other details to come.
Also, I got a big-girl job! I'm teaching German and French at Triad High School. The kids are great and I love it most days, but I have some stresses, which is the purpose of this post.
"So what's going on? Not like teachers have stress, right? Pshh. Whatev."
....eh, well, yeah. we do. Which is why i'm writing.
My current situation at school is thus: I was hired as a part-time teacher because according to the Triad District class size reformations for this year, only classes with an enrollment of 20 will be considered a "class". [side note: I teach upper-level foreign language, which usually has low enrollment. It comes with the territory. You only get just a handful of students who progress to 3rd and 4th year, and i have to say i prefer it that way. It's more intimate and you can devote more time to each student, instead of the crowd control that comes with larger classes.] Because of this, and because i have upper-level classes with lower enrollment, the district decided to combine the 3rd and 4th years of German and French in to the same class hour. So instead of having 4 different hours (one for each class), i have 2 (German 3/4 and French 3/4). [okay technically i have 3 hours because i also have German 2.]
"So what's the big deal, eh? You have more kids in a class. Deal with it."
The big deal is that it sucks. The students are NOT getting the kind of instruction they deserve, because I have to divide my time between the two classes in one class period. That means that the students are essentially getting only 30 minutes of class time with me per day instead of the hour they are entitled to. I hate it. It's a huge source of stress for me, mostly because it's my responsibility to make sure these kids get a quality German and French education and I don't feel like I'm accomplishing that. During conferences this week, the parents of students in French 3 told me that their students complain at home that all they do in class is go over homework and then get more homework. Unfortunately this is true. With the split-class situation and the amount of crowd control I have to do with the French 3 class (because they like to talk), my instruction time is cut down even more. Therefore, they have a lot of independent work to do. But still, it's not fair to them, to any of them. They deserve a teacher who can devote the entire hour to teaching them and only them. And at this point I have to say that I really don't know what else to do.
One thing I wanted to avoid in this whole deal is to have French/German 4 essentially repeat their 3rd year. I didn't want to rely on French/German 4 to have a lot of instruction time with the 3rd years because then they don't get challenged with the 4th year curriculum. That happened to me in my senior year of high school; we were a combined class, and the 4s spent a lot of time "helping" the 3s instead of advancing through the year as much as we could have. I really wanted to avoid that in my classes, so I'm trying to teach 2 classes in 1 hour. But it's just not working. And I just don't know what to do anymore.
Does anybody have any suggestions or advice? This situation is stressing me out really bad and I could use the help!
In recent news, I got engaged in March. We're planning a July 2011 wedding. The church and reception sites are nailed down, and i found a dress! Other details to come.
Also, I got a big-girl job! I'm teaching German and French at Triad High School. The kids are great and I love it most days, but I have some stresses, which is the purpose of this post.
"So what's going on? Not like teachers have stress, right? Pshh. Whatev."
....eh, well, yeah. we do. Which is why i'm writing.
My current situation at school is thus: I was hired as a part-time teacher because according to the Triad District class size reformations for this year, only classes with an enrollment of 20 will be considered a "class". [side note: I teach upper-level foreign language, which usually has low enrollment. It comes with the territory. You only get just a handful of students who progress to 3rd and 4th year, and i have to say i prefer it that way. It's more intimate and you can devote more time to each student, instead of the crowd control that comes with larger classes.] Because of this, and because i have upper-level classes with lower enrollment, the district decided to combine the 3rd and 4th years of German and French in to the same class hour. So instead of having 4 different hours (one for each class), i have 2 (German 3/4 and French 3/4). [okay technically i have 3 hours because i also have German 2.]
"So what's the big deal, eh? You have more kids in a class. Deal with it."
The big deal is that it sucks. The students are NOT getting the kind of instruction they deserve, because I have to divide my time between the two classes in one class period. That means that the students are essentially getting only 30 minutes of class time with me per day instead of the hour they are entitled to. I hate it. It's a huge source of stress for me, mostly because it's my responsibility to make sure these kids get a quality German and French education and I don't feel like I'm accomplishing that. During conferences this week, the parents of students in French 3 told me that their students complain at home that all they do in class is go over homework and then get more homework. Unfortunately this is true. With the split-class situation and the amount of crowd control I have to do with the French 3 class (because they like to talk), my instruction time is cut down even more. Therefore, they have a lot of independent work to do. But still, it's not fair to them, to any of them. They deserve a teacher who can devote the entire hour to teaching them and only them. And at this point I have to say that I really don't know what else to do.
One thing I wanted to avoid in this whole deal is to have French/German 4 essentially repeat their 3rd year. I didn't want to rely on French/German 4 to have a lot of instruction time with the 3rd years because then they don't get challenged with the 4th year curriculum. That happened to me in my senior year of high school; we were a combined class, and the 4s spent a lot of time "helping" the 3s instead of advancing through the year as much as we could have. I really wanted to avoid that in my classes, so I'm trying to teach 2 classes in 1 hour. But it's just not working. And I just don't know what to do anymore.
Does anybody have any suggestions or advice? This situation is stressing me out really bad and I could use the help!