I wanted to say at least it wasn't so bad, but lesson plans!
Lately I’ve been sleeping alright. Not too terribly. I find it funny in a sad sort of way. As I continue to study and learn about how to be an effective teacher, I realize a lot of thoughts and opinions have changed. I’ve been having a lot of dreams lately where I’m a teacher (that’s fantastic in and of itself).
For instance, last night, I dreamt I was teaching elementary. I loved my class and we were reading Snow White. My aide and I dressed up as Snow White and the Evil Queen and went into class one day. The students picked out the characters immediately and although they gave us trouble about it (as kids always will) they were happy. Unfortunately we also had parent and career day in which the parents came into share their careers and help students get a sense of different things. So my aide and I are dressed up like fairy tale characters and the parents are looking at us like we’re crazy. But our students come to our defense saying that the Evil Queen and Snow White are running the class for the day. The students could explain the importance of the characters to their parents. That’s fantastic from a teacher’s point of view because it means they’re retaining the things we’re teaching (plus we get to have fun while doing it).
Unfortunately about half way through class, we had some computer issues and the people that were fixing it were making a lot of noise. To the point we had to scream our lessons. In frustration we simply went to silent time where students could work on what they wanted. To fix the system they took the tower from the teacher’s desk - just shut off everything without asking and then “fixed” the other system. (Really they just took the broken system and made it the working system so nothing was solved.) Worse, my lesson plans and student portfolios had been up on the screen (unsaved) as I had been working on them in between lessons. (And not all were unsaved; some were just not backed up, which was a huge issue since they wiped everything off the hard drive.) So I lost “twenty lesson plans” and a bunch of other stuff. That later became my fault for not being more responsible. (Even though only two people were allowed to use that computer for anything.)
Then technical support expected me to simply be happy with the fact that 1) the noise was now gone, and 2) they’d fixed the problem. No, no they didn’t. They made it worse since I had to rewrite the lesson plans and student portfolios (which were done daily). My aide tried to reassure me with “You did it once you can do it again!” HAH. Yes, that is true but it’s so frustrating! I kicked them (tech support) out of my classroom and asked them never to come back. Then we had a lesson about how when we were frustrated we should handle our emotions. When I woke up, I had the feeling I was going to be in a lot of trouble with my superiors over it.
What I have I become that my nightmares include losing twenty lesson plans?! I think it’s funny and sad in the sense that lesson plans are clearly bothering me, I suppose however, I’d take lost lesson plans to some of the things that crawl used to crawl around.
Here’s what I (re)learned:
1. Save often (even if you think you’ll have time often).
2. Back up often; which reminds me I really ought to do that…
3. If you know what you’re doing, if you have to do it again it won’t be a problem.
4. Anything can be used in a lesson.
5. In case of computer issues, call someone who knows what they’re doing.
I think a lot of my frustration comes from the uncertainty of my project this week. I have no idea what I’m doing. (What’s new about that?) This week it seems even more frustrating for me than normal. However, next week I don’t have a project due, so I can get ahead in week 7 (benchmark, portfolio project which really just needs typed up). It’s done now, but I don’t know how confident I feel about it overall. I did my best, let’s hope that’s “good enough”.
For instance, last night, I dreamt I was teaching elementary. I loved my class and we were reading Snow White. My aide and I dressed up as Snow White and the Evil Queen and went into class one day. The students picked out the characters immediately and although they gave us trouble about it (as kids always will) they were happy. Unfortunately we also had parent and career day in which the parents came into share their careers and help students get a sense of different things. So my aide and I are dressed up like fairy tale characters and the parents are looking at us like we’re crazy. But our students come to our defense saying that the Evil Queen and Snow White are running the class for the day. The students could explain the importance of the characters to their parents. That’s fantastic from a teacher’s point of view because it means they’re retaining the things we’re teaching (plus we get to have fun while doing it).
Unfortunately about half way through class, we had some computer issues and the people that were fixing it were making a lot of noise. To the point we had to scream our lessons. In frustration we simply went to silent time where students could work on what they wanted. To fix the system they took the tower from the teacher’s desk - just shut off everything without asking and then “fixed” the other system. (Really they just took the broken system and made it the working system so nothing was solved.) Worse, my lesson plans and student portfolios had been up on the screen (unsaved) as I had been working on them in between lessons. (And not all were unsaved; some were just not backed up, which was a huge issue since they wiped everything off the hard drive.) So I lost “twenty lesson plans” and a bunch of other stuff. That later became my fault for not being more responsible. (Even though only two people were allowed to use that computer for anything.)
Then technical support expected me to simply be happy with the fact that 1) the noise was now gone, and 2) they’d fixed the problem. No, no they didn’t. They made it worse since I had to rewrite the lesson plans and student portfolios (which were done daily). My aide tried to reassure me with “You did it once you can do it again!” HAH. Yes, that is true but it’s so frustrating! I kicked them (tech support) out of my classroom and asked them never to come back. Then we had a lesson about how when we were frustrated we should handle our emotions. When I woke up, I had the feeling I was going to be in a lot of trouble with my superiors over it.
What I have I become that my nightmares include losing twenty lesson plans?! I think it’s funny and sad in the sense that lesson plans are clearly bothering me, I suppose however, I’d take lost lesson plans to some of the things that crawl used to crawl around.
Here’s what I (re)learned:
1. Save often (even if you think you’ll have time often).
2. Back up often; which reminds me I really ought to do that…
3. If you know what you’re doing, if you have to do it again it won’t be a problem.
4. Anything can be used in a lesson.
5. In case of computer issues, call someone who knows what they’re doing.
I think a lot of my frustration comes from the uncertainty of my project this week. I have no idea what I’m doing. (What’s new about that?) This week it seems even more frustrating for me than normal. However, next week I don’t have a project due, so I can get ahead in week 7 (benchmark, portfolio project which really just needs typed up). It’s done now, but I don’t know how confident I feel about it overall. I did my best, let’s hope that’s “good enough”.