This week HAS to be better

A grueling week, despite good advice about not staying late every week (thanks Jonathan/jd2718).

First of all,I got a new student on Tuesday from another school – one week before the ELA – and she is a beginner ELL who reads a level C, far below where any of my lowest ELLs are… and it’s January! How can she still be a C? I’m going to have to look and see if she has any interrupted schooling or an IEP. I know it’s quite possible she just has difficulty or was tossed in a corner by the teacher – but most of my kids who came in in September at level E moved to J and L in October. I have to really figure out a plan for her.

Then, due to some personal stresses and obstacles, I was highly stressed on Friday and not in the mindset for a long day (lunch third and prep last period). So, guess what happens on such a day – SNAPSHOT!

Yes, <shudder>….both my PRINCIPAL and AP came in to observe me by surprise. It was the first time for one as a classroom teacher, and the first time the Principal visited me this year while I was in the room. We’ll call her Ms. S (for Scares me)

When I opened the door to their knock, my heart stopped and the kids gasped. “Is that Ms. S they whispered?” (our school is big enough that kids can go a long time without ever seeing her in person.) We are supposed to just continue and ignore their presence when they come in, which is fine since I stumble and stutter when I speak to Ms. S, but it’s also disconcerting because you want to stare at everything they do and watch their reactions.

I have only recently gotten used to my AP coming to observe me, and that’s because I have a sense of who she is and what she wants but overall, I freak out inside when I’m being watched — it doesn’t matter if I’m speaking in front of a group of adults, being watched while I volunteer at a phone bank, etc — it all makes me terribly nervous.

It doesn’t help that Ms. S is incredibly hard to read outside the classroom too. She generally doesn’t smile and say good morning to me (and other new teachers have expressed similar experiences, so that at least made me stop thinking she hated me). And she can be quite gruff.

The first and last time she ever observed me went horribly, as did the post-observation, so this only adds to my performance anxiety terror. (Yes, I exaggerate a little since, if it had truly gone horribly, I wouldn’t be teaching here or I’ be getting a snapshot every day, but still).

So, here’s what we were doing:

I have been focusing on improving the kids’ writing as well as their ability to identify certain words as clues for the kinds of questions they might get asked on the ELA. For example: cause and effect words like therefore, consequently, so, as a result… and because and since. This is academic language we are encouraged to get them using.

I had introduced these words on Thursday, showing them how they work in one of the test books they use, but the book I was told to use didn’t actually use those words in the paragraphs. So I decided to return to these words the next day in a different book where the cause/effect was a little clearer and they could apply it themselves. It was a story they had to listen to, so it made it a little more challenging.

Things that make me cringe: I did not have a chart up (since I wanted to see if they’d use the words by memory and what kind of chart can you have for listening anyway?) and I did not have them working in small groups (since it was a whole class listening lesson). Which may or may not have been fine. It also may or may not have been fine that they were filling in a graphic organizer (a pet peeve of Ms. S’s). Worse yet: I was running from student to student like a headless chicken, suddenly aware she has feet she could lose too. I was feeling/acting this way because, now under their stare, I suddenly felt like what I was doing was wrong (since, actually, I’m not supposed to do what I was doing during Readers, which was on my schedule) and I didn’t know what they wanted me to do or what they were expecting, etc.

I rambled. I repeated kids’ answers instead of asking them to say it louder. I skipped past what may have been teachable moments. One boy who finished early took out a PERSONAL book to read that was NOT from our library. It was a chapter book. Ms. S asked him what level he reads. He is a G. He told her H – still eons away from being able to read chapter books. A HUGE deal in our school (all my kids see chapter books as the holy grail and it is a HUGE no-no for kids to even attempt something so far above their levels). So, I may hear about that.

Do snapshots get written up in your permanent file? How do most teachers find out? I think this one was in preparation for when she observes me next month formally. I wonder why she came in with my AP. I wonder what excruciating moments they recounted afterward to each other, and with what choice words.

Ugh.