mentor from ... way down south
So I've been on a bit of a hiatus for the past however many weeks. I am incredibly stressed beyond flipping belief. For other people's sakes I am putting things behind cuts. Because I am sure that these will be extremely long before even writing them out.
I have two mentors. One is a really nice one that I only have for grade eleven history. The students in that class have no real behavioural problems except for sometimes not doing the work. Not bad AT ALL. The thing I need to improve for that class is my timing and trying to make things a little bit more ... well, a little bit more engaging. So I am doing that. That mentor has her observations written down, absolutely loves my lesson plans and will tell me what I did wrong in a way that is like 'well you did this, but you might want to try this ...'
The other mentor, on the other hand, is a good teacher for what she does but really should not have a prac student. Why? She is incredibly negative. And a pessimist. In the beginning, even before I would teach the lesson and she was taking a look at my lesson plans she would say 'I don't think this is going to work - but go ahead and try it'. I should have probably asked what she would do instead but I didn't think of that. She really knows how to handle her classes - and these are tough classes (even others say the year 10 boys I have are the toughest - she admits it). Her way of giving feedback is by saying everything I did wrong. And it is usually a really long list. Even when I have thought a lesson went fairly decently she pretty much cuts it down to it was terrible. Like one week a while ago I gave a lesson that was not engaging but there were zero behavioural problems (with the exception of them not really participating in the activities). I believe she spent about ten minutes berating me about how it went. That to her it was a terrible lesson. I was so shocked and distraught by it I ended up crying. I had been observing her Drama class for about the first three weeks then she goes to another teacher and asks if I can observe in his class. He says okay but all he students are doing is reading (grade 12 English). So I go and observer her classes that week. I have my History right before that class and was talking to Ms W about how the lesson went and didn't want to walk in late so I waited until lunch and spoke with him about how I was sorry that I had missed but I had gotten caught up with Ms W. He said not to worry and whatever. So I hadn't gone to observe any of that class until last week for a double and he wasn't teaching. They are working on drafts and he didn't introduce me (fine) but I felt uneasy and bored. I'll talk to him this morning and see if he still would like me to observe that class as I feel uneasy and I might as well be at home doing nothing or something - I think I got a few lines of notes of observations of a 70 minute class.
So I was fairly sure that something was brewing as the English HOD was sitting in on my year 10 lessons once a week. I asked one of the other prac students who has English if V was sitting in on a couple of his classes too. Nope, just mine. Right. Kind of strange.
Fast forward to last week. Wednesday comes around and I have the double in the morning with the year 10s. They have something assanine once a week called "My Journey". This week they were to go to the lecture hall because a guest lecturer was coming in about media (they are doing a media unit for English about critical media literacy). I spent the entire time making sure those boys were not doing anything horrible. Ms. W decided that she would do the History class that day (the rest of the periods are 35 minutes) and insisted I did not need to come (I was busy working on lesson plans and getting stuff together because the other one is away today and tomorrow and wants me to have everything done for her to look at). She has stuff to do and so I wait until 3pm to show her my stuff. She asks me to print my stuff of - my printer code is not working so I go back up and let her know that I am going to IT to get that looked at and she goes nevermind, we are going to look at it on your laptop. So I turn it on and load all my lessons (one for the next day, a few for Friday and a few for Tuesday). I have it opened to Friday by accident instead of Thursday and she just goes "WHY isn't Thursday's open? I don't care about Friday's" (I made a mistake, you know, people do that sometimes). And as I am finding the correct tab she goes "WHY is 8b_ open? We need to look at the year 10s" (you are making me uncomfortable and nervous which means I won't get to the correct window as quickly as I am flustered). She goes through it and cuts it down. This is after I made all the improvements she wanted - way more detail then there needs to be like putting in step-by-step of what I am doing as opposed to just the teaching approach. My lesson objective? Not good enough. Although I related the lesson to the assessment (something she's been harping on for a while) I didn't have EVERYTHING (which I thought I did). Then she asks me if I had my handouts and whatnot ready. No, I was making sure everything was okay. Then she asks me what I'd been doing all day since I hadn't gone to history or the observation class. I explain to her everything I'd been doing - choosing a better article for the boys to use in the lesson, getting all the lesson plans done (mainly the history one) and creating the handouts. Apparently that was not good enough and I should have had all my stuff ready by then. She asked me when I was going to have it done as it was already 3pm ... Well, today when I finished going over my stuff with her. Apparently my priorities are not straight and that was not good enough for her. And hen she goes into something about a file folder for the year 10 stuff. The previous day she suggests it would be a good idea to have a folder for that class. On Wednesday another teacher happens to give me some plastic sleeves which I organised my work into. So when she asks me about the folder I say sort of ... I have everything organised and ready to find. She ends up calling me a liar because she thought I said that I did have a folder. Things are going from bad to worse.
Oh, the crazy thing? She has told me she's not sure the amount of work I am doing is good enough. As in she doesn't think I am doing as many classes as I should be doing. I have 11 lessons per week. She does 14. I also attend every supervision (if another teacher is away a teacher is put into a class) as well as lunch duty. I attend meetings. And now I do the obervation. According to the QCT I am supposed to do a minimum of 70% teaching course load. When I calculated it I am doing a 78% so I am not sure where she is getting her numbers from. She said something about me only doing 10 and regular teachers do 20. I'm not sure what she is talking about.
I am not even going to mention the boys because they are just another matter and I am still learning to be able to connect with them - all I am going to say is low literacy, low self efficacy and most of them have no motivation. That and the fact that there are 17 15-year-old testosterone-filled boys. That right there is what I am trying to work with. So it hasn't been easy and it is definitely a learning curve. On Thursday the alpha male of the bunch decides that he is hot and the fans (on the ceiling) need to be changed. I tell him he needs to do his work, asking him questions as he had not done one question on the sheet. I tell him the fans are fine. He gets up and turns the fans off, then gets up onto a desk and goes to change something. I tell him to sit down when he ignores me and yeah. Not a good thing at all. I know that too well. Thursday evening comes and I have an email saying I am at risk from the liaison. Not her. No, she did not say a single word. The next day the liason watches one of my classes. I am so used to saying what a terrible job I am doing he goes it wasn't a disaster. Whenever someone else has observed a lesson they do not have half as much negative feedback to give as her. And now I am giving myself negative criticism no matter what and saying it before she does so I don't feel as bad. I feel that a lot of my confidence has been drained and I just want this all to be over, like a bad dream.
I absolutely know that I have things to work on. And I absolutely know what I need to work on - but someone telling me what these things are and not giving a positive (like the lesson I did not think went as badly) except for maybe two minor ones and not really giving me any ideas of how to do things differently is not going to help.
The liaison is sitting in on my history lesson today. I hope it is engaging enough for them.
And I am trying to change the way I am doing things - my lesson plans are way more detailed and to cover my butt for the last week I have created a new box which lists behaviour management strategies. I am keeping my fingers crossed that things go smoothly.The messed up thing is she is away today and tomorrow, I am supposedly at risk and marks need to be done up by Wednesday. Yeah. Okay.
Oh, and then I was apparently too emotional on Friday with the boys. I was flustered but I really don't think I was emotional. They were being bad. "oh the gluesticks have run out - there are only three" - says the boy (same one who did the fan thing) that took a glue stick out and proceeded to put it all over the outside of the stick. Two other boys decided to talk back to me as I was asking one what he thought he was doing throwing the glue stick back when I specifically said no one throw anymore glue sticks. Among other extremely extraordinary stupid behaviour. Yes, apparently I am emotional. It is extremely hard and tiring to try to get these boys to work. To even just get them through what work needs to be done as they have an oral in a week.
I have two mentors. One is a really nice one that I only have for grade eleven history. The students in that class have no real behavioural problems except for sometimes not doing the work. Not bad AT ALL. The thing I need to improve for that class is my timing and trying to make things a little bit more ... well, a little bit more engaging. So I am doing that. That mentor has her observations written down, absolutely loves my lesson plans and will tell me what I did wrong in a way that is like 'well you did this, but you might want to try this ...'
The other mentor, on the other hand, is a good teacher for what she does but really should not have a prac student. Why? She is incredibly negative. And a pessimist. In the beginning, even before I would teach the lesson and she was taking a look at my lesson plans she would say 'I don't think this is going to work - but go ahead and try it'. I should have probably asked what she would do instead but I didn't think of that. She really knows how to handle her classes - and these are tough classes (even others say the year 10 boys I have are the toughest - she admits it). Her way of giving feedback is by saying everything I did wrong. And it is usually a really long list. Even when I have thought a lesson went fairly decently she pretty much cuts it down to it was terrible. Like one week a while ago I gave a lesson that was not engaging but there were zero behavioural problems (with the exception of them not really participating in the activities). I believe she spent about ten minutes berating me about how it went. That to her it was a terrible lesson. I was so shocked and distraught by it I ended up crying. I had been observing her Drama class for about the first three weeks then she goes to another teacher and asks if I can observe in his class. He says okay but all he students are doing is reading (grade 12 English). So I go and observer her classes that week. I have my History right before that class and was talking to Ms W about how the lesson went and didn't want to walk in late so I waited until lunch and spoke with him about how I was sorry that I had missed but I had gotten caught up with Ms W. He said not to worry and whatever. So I hadn't gone to observe any of that class until last week for a double and he wasn't teaching. They are working on drafts and he didn't introduce me (fine) but I felt uneasy and bored. I'll talk to him this morning and see if he still would like me to observe that class as I feel uneasy and I might as well be at home doing nothing or something - I think I got a few lines of notes of observations of a 70 minute class.
So I was fairly sure that something was brewing as the English HOD was sitting in on my year 10 lessons once a week. I asked one of the other prac students who has English if V was sitting in on a couple of his classes too. Nope, just mine. Right. Kind of strange.
Fast forward to last week. Wednesday comes around and I have the double in the morning with the year 10s. They have something assanine once a week called "My Journey". This week they were to go to the lecture hall because a guest lecturer was coming in about media (they are doing a media unit for English about critical media literacy). I spent the entire time making sure those boys were not doing anything horrible. Ms. W decided that she would do the History class that day (the rest of the periods are 35 minutes) and insisted I did not need to come (I was busy working on lesson plans and getting stuff together because the other one is away today and tomorrow and wants me to have everything done for her to look at). She has stuff to do and so I wait until 3pm to show her my stuff. She asks me to print my stuff of - my printer code is not working so I go back up and let her know that I am going to IT to get that looked at and she goes nevermind, we are going to look at it on your laptop. So I turn it on and load all my lessons (one for the next day, a few for Friday and a few for Tuesday). I have it opened to Friday by accident instead of Thursday and she just goes "WHY isn't Thursday's open? I don't care about Friday's" (I made a mistake, you know, people do that sometimes). And as I am finding the correct tab she goes "WHY is 8b_ open? We need to look at the year 10s" (you are making me uncomfortable and nervous which means I won't get to the correct window as quickly as I am flustered). She goes through it and cuts it down. This is after I made all the improvements she wanted - way more detail then there needs to be like putting in step-by-step of what I am doing as opposed to just the teaching approach. My lesson objective? Not good enough. Although I related the lesson to the assessment (something she's been harping on for a while) I didn't have EVERYTHING (which I thought I did). Then she asks me if I had my handouts and whatnot ready. No, I was making sure everything was okay. Then she asks me what I'd been doing all day since I hadn't gone to history or the observation class. I explain to her everything I'd been doing - choosing a better article for the boys to use in the lesson, getting all the lesson plans done (mainly the history one) and creating the handouts. Apparently that was not good enough and I should have had all my stuff ready by then. She asked me when I was going to have it done as it was already 3pm ... Well, today when I finished going over my stuff with her. Apparently my priorities are not straight and that was not good enough for her. And hen she goes into something about a file folder for the year 10 stuff. The previous day she suggests it would be a good idea to have a folder for that class. On Wednesday another teacher happens to give me some plastic sleeves which I organised my work into. So when she asks me about the folder I say sort of ... I have everything organised and ready to find. She ends up calling me a liar because she thought I said that I did have a folder. Things are going from bad to worse.
Oh, the crazy thing? She has told me she's not sure the amount of work I am doing is good enough. As in she doesn't think I am doing as many classes as I should be doing. I have 11 lessons per week. She does 14. I also attend every supervision (if another teacher is away a teacher is put into a class) as well as lunch duty. I attend meetings. And now I do the obervation. According to the QCT I am supposed to do a minimum of 70% teaching course load. When I calculated it I am doing a 78% so I am not sure where she is getting her numbers from. She said something about me only doing 10 and regular teachers do 20. I'm not sure what she is talking about.
I am not even going to mention the boys because they are just another matter and I am still learning to be able to connect with them - all I am going to say is low literacy, low self efficacy and most of them have no motivation. That and the fact that there are 17 15-year-old testosterone-filled boys. That right there is what I am trying to work with. So it hasn't been easy and it is definitely a learning curve. On Thursday the alpha male of the bunch decides that he is hot and the fans (on the ceiling) need to be changed. I tell him he needs to do his work, asking him questions as he had not done one question on the sheet. I tell him the fans are fine. He gets up and turns the fans off, then gets up onto a desk and goes to change something. I tell him to sit down when he ignores me and yeah. Not a good thing at all. I know that too well. Thursday evening comes and I have an email saying I am at risk from the liaison. Not her. No, she did not say a single word. The next day the liason watches one of my classes. I am so used to saying what a terrible job I am doing he goes it wasn't a disaster. Whenever someone else has observed a lesson they do not have half as much negative feedback to give as her. And now I am giving myself negative criticism no matter what and saying it before she does so I don't feel as bad. I feel that a lot of my confidence has been drained and I just want this all to be over, like a bad dream.
I absolutely know that I have things to work on. And I absolutely know what I need to work on - but someone telling me what these things are and not giving a positive (like the lesson I did not think went as badly) except for maybe two minor ones and not really giving me any ideas of how to do things differently is not going to help.
The liaison is sitting in on my history lesson today. I hope it is engaging enough for them.
And I am trying to change the way I am doing things - my lesson plans are way more detailed and to cover my butt for the last week I have created a new box which lists behaviour management strategies. I am keeping my fingers crossed that things go smoothly.The messed up thing is she is away today and tomorrow, I am supposedly at risk and marks need to be done up by Wednesday. Yeah. Okay.
Oh, and then I was apparently too emotional on Friday with the boys. I was flustered but I really don't think I was emotional. They were being bad. "oh the gluesticks have run out - there are only three" - says the boy (same one who did the fan thing) that took a glue stick out and proceeded to put it all over the outside of the stick. Two other boys decided to talk back to me as I was asking one what he thought he was doing throwing the glue stick back when I specifically said no one throw anymore glue sticks. Among other extremely extraordinary stupid behaviour. Yes, apparently I am emotional. It is extremely hard and tiring to try to get these boys to work. To even just get them through what work needs to be done as they have an oral in a week.