End of First Quarter & Track-out

Well, I did it! I made it through my first quarter teaching!! :D The nine weeks ended on September 14th. That seems crazy early, but seeing as we started July 16th, it's so exciting! I loved every minute of my quarter - okay, maybe not *every* minute. There were some downs, but mainly this first quarter was great. I definitely have some growing to do as a teacher, but I am confident I will get there. I continue to have great support from all of my colleagues and I am going to visit a former teacher soon to get some sage advice from her. :)

The end of the quarter was relatively easy for me. I made sure to make all my papers due BEFORE then; otherwise I would have died under that grading! I gave two tests that week (one to 9th grade and one to 10th) and was able to have them graded in 24 hours. I updated RenWeb and had final grades in Thursday before the track-out date. I also was able to contact some parents to warn them about student grades. I will admit that was awkward for me; I didn't really know what to say and it felt weird calling home to tell them. However, that's part of the job. My test for ninth grade was easy. Or so I thought. Most of my students didn't study so out of 37 students, about 15-19 of them failed. That's almost one whole class. I was really upset that last Thursday. I wasn't mad at the students, just saddened that students cared that little. I talked with them about it Friday. A lot of them begged to do test corrections. I said no. I had to have grades in that afternoon (I would be out of town all weekend and the deadline was Sunday night), and if they had studied they would have done better. Then, track out began!!

Last week was great. I am definitely recharging from quarter one and am ready for quarter two!! I have already gotten the majority of my planning done for ninth grade. We will be starting some fiction and then reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I really want to look at stereotypes/bullying with this book. I'm hoping that works out. With the last book we read (Anthem), I could barely get the students past plot. Even then, most of them didn't know that either. Tenth grade is still a struggle for me (which is still strange because that's what I student taught!). However, we are having a writer-in-residence for the first week! It'll be very exciting. I even get to participate! I will definitely be blogging about that adventure. I got to meet the writer, and she was very nice. The whole program sounds very exciting!

Overall, I think year-round is the best way to go as a beginning teacher. Having this break is really good for me. I can relax and dedicate myself to planning. I can't imagine how I would get anything done if I didn't have this break. Of course, I may have said no to volleyball if I didn't have this break. Maybe. But I think that all first year teachers should try to get a job at a year-round school. It is a HUGE advantage to go straight into teaching (all fresh in your mind), and this break is really good. It'll help keep new teachers from burning out their first year...and maybe even help the retention rate! :D

Self - Doubt and Questioning

Despite the title of this post, I am not questioning my career choice. I love teaching and I love seeing my students every day. A student told me that they have never had a teacher care or take an interest in their well-being before like I do, and that just made me feel great. I am doing my best to show every student I care about them and that their success is my top priority.

This being said, I still struggle with feeling like I'm teaching anything. We have two weeks left of school before our three week break, and I'm wondering if I'm teaching my students anything. I feel like my ninth graders are learning something, mainly the parts of speech. I've also seen that they are starting to understand our weekly poems better. I have more participation in those discussions. They also all seemed to enjoy the nonfiction unit (though next time it will be much shorter!) and liked what I chose for them to read. Now we're looking at Anthem and I'm going to be able to talk about literary terms with them. My ninth graders have me feeling okay about what I'm doing. Then I look at my tenth graders.

We have had three test grades so far, and I'm wondering if I'm really teaching them. We've read a Greek play and talked about the origins of tragedy. But I feel like there is no growth going on. And maybe I'm just being crazy, but I do feel like I'm not teaching them anything. Right now we're looking at Julius Caesar by Shakespeare, and I've mainly been going over the plot with them. However, they have been struggling to understand Shakespeare, so I have to. But I don't want them to leave my class and have learned nothing. I hear about and see all these amazing lessons that others are doing, and I feel like mine are lacking. I am hoping that this upcoming break will give me time to sit down and really pound out some amazing lessons. I don't want to look back and be like "yea, my first year of teaching I really didn't make a big impact on my students' learning. But that's ok, I was still learning." I want to look back and be like "I made some mistakes, but in the end my students learned and grew."

It's only been seven weeks in the classroom, but already I'm wondering if I'm really doing enough.