Beyond the Surface

This week has been great.  Great in the sense that I have literally only had to teach two periods, and then the other two are my support classes where I adjust my lesson as necessary and don't really prepare anything.  But the other two periods I'm supposed to have a class?  Remember the insanity of Monday?  Well, they got my schedule figured out, and I'm supposed to start teaching two technology classes.  However, the classes won't actually get populated until next Tuesday, and since it's an elective, only the students I want to be in there, will be.  So I've essentially had two bonus periods with nothing to do all week in addition to my regular prep period.  I've loved it.

In my time without classes, I've taken to writing a couple blog posts (note the time stamp on this one), as well as do some things around the school.  Like visit the new teachers, check in with them to see how they're doing, see what they need in order to help them feel effective, and offer support where I can.  And I have absolutely loved it, I've loved being able to see my students in other classes, to talk with them, get a feel for the class, help clarify issues that they might be having in the class, and I've loved getting a feel for the other teachers. 

We have a lot of new teachers here, and they're each experiencing various levels of success.  But what's even more amazing to me is to realize how much I have grown in my own teaching abilities after just a year of teaching.  I can walk into their classrooms and quickly see things that are effective, things that could be improved, and areas for growth in instruction and clarification.  After one year... Last year at this time I was hanging on to dear life by the skin of my teeth.

In addition to having spent a lot of time observing other teachers, spending time with my kids has really enabled me to see how much I have come to love and respect them over the last year.  Yeah, this is kind of mushy, but it's so true.  I see some of these new teachers in the same shoes I was in last year, getting frustrated with the students, with the class, and with themselves, and I see how they treat the students, and recognize that they're doing so out of sheer frustration, and not individual rancor.  And I feel that I can often look back to the situation to realize the root of the conflict between the teacher and the student, and feel it a lot more from the eyes of the student. 

Granted, I have about 203979872352596781 issues that I'm still trying to tackle in my own classroom and things are far from perfect, but it truly is enlightening to be able to see that there is so much going on beyond the surface here with these kids here in this largely dysfunctional environment.  They really do grow on you.