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Sick today
Mar. 26th, 2019 10:26 amSore throat, no voice. It was bad earlier this year but this time it's worse; I actually can't talk at all, except in a painful whisper at worst need. This is not helpful when interacting with my kids, let alone with a whole class. So I'm at home.
This is awkward. There's a trip to the zoo planned on Thursday, and I currently doubt that I'll be well enough on Thursday to do that. (There's another teacher - my mentor - going, of course, but I'll feel bad either leaving him alone or forcing him to find a replacement on short notice!) We're also going on a class trip for three days next week, which means that my 5th graders are going to miss a lot of English lessons. And they NEED them. And now I'm sick on top of it all.
Meanwhile, the colleague who already forced three English classes (so it wasn't just me!) to rush through two units in order to catch up with his one class (which was somehow madly ahead -- I can only assumed that he "skipped" all the boring bits, like ordinal numbers, months and dates, reading the clock etc.) keeps ploughing on at speed. This is completely unnecessary - the book has 6 units, with Unit 6 being pretty much "just for fun". He's already halfway through Unit 5, so what is he going to do in May and June? Who knows. Probably start on the book for grade 6. :P Yesterday he announced that he'd write the second class test next week.
The problem is that all the 5th grades have to write the same tests. This is to ensure that we're all adhering to the same standards and to make their marks comparable. Now, as I said, he was already madly ahead for the last test, and the third English teacher (let's call her Colleague D.) and I had to rush our classes through The Simple Present, Do-Constructions, and Questions. Most of our students are struggling with one of these concepts, let alone three of them more less dropped upon them at once. Most of them are unable to tell a verb from a noun! Not just in English, but in their native German as well! So actually I would need more time to revise basic grammar, rather than less time to heap even more grammar on them! (Unit 5 covers the Present Progressive, and guess what? If the kids are already struggling with grammatical concepts that their native language shares with English - simple present and reversed word order in questions - they are NOT going to get along with a grammatical structure that is generally frowned upon in German and only appears in some disrespected dialects.)
The last test was already desastrous. We had to write it two weeks after - let's call him Colleague B. - 's class (which is why he wants to write the next one next week! the fuck!) just so we'd have (barely) enough time to at least explain and superficially practice negation and questions. This was completely unnecessary, incidentally, because last year's class test clearly shows that they'd only covered the Simple Present by this time, and Negation and Questions came in the next test. I really have no clue what Colleague B. was thinking, and neither does Colleague D. (And yes, we did tell him that our classes weren't up to that test, and yes, we told the head of department, but somehow he managed to ignore it all and push on ahead.)
Anyway, the test was desastrous.
It has to be admitted that my 5th graders are not the best of students. Most of them have next to no self-organisation skills (and we don't have the time to teach them >_>), and a lot of them are either easily distracted or happy to distract others. They will happily talk about whatever in the middle of your class, and when you call them out for it, they'll tell you that It Was Important. Yes, but even important private stuff has to wait until the break! I'm very sorry! -- The day after the exam, I actually exploded. There's a stupid rhyme we use in German when teaching the Simple Present - he, she, it: das S muss mit, meaning "he, she, it: you have to take the S along", referring to the -s added to verbs in (and ONLY in!) the 3rd person singular - and I must have used it about 20 times in the past three weeks. Then on that day, after revising how to conjugate verbs again, when I said he, she, it: das S muss mit, one student (who frequently chats about who-knows-what in class, and is always very blasé about it) said, "My MOM had to tell me that because YOU never did!"
I did, sweetheart, you just never listened. Which is a problem a lot of them have: They don't listen, and THEN they demand that I explain it again, and even WHILE I'm explaining it again, they occupy themselves with other things. Argh.
Nonetheless, grading their tests hurt. As a kid, I always thought that teachers must like handing out bad grades, but now, I know that a lot of teachers actively hate it. Even when it hits the "deserving" (in the sense of: kids that refuse to cooperate in class, kids who boss the other kids around, or kids who do everything except pay attention), it hurts. I have yet to meet a teacher in our teachers' lounge who'd say "Student L from grade XYZ has another fail grade! Boo yeah! Serves him right, the sucker!" - It's always "I've had to give Student L an F, and it's the second time, and I feel bad about it but what can I do when he refuses all offers I make?" We seem to see bad grades to our students, first and foremost, as a mark of our own failure because we somehow couldn't make that student understand (in some cases, couldn't even make that student try to learn). I am beginning to suspect that some students honestly can't be taught (and I'm not talking about kids with ADHD or dyslexia or the like! Many of those are genuinely trying!). There's no miraculous way of making them connect with the material and unlocking their hidden potential. At least, there isn't in a classroom scenario. Maybe there is in one-on-one coaching. (Which our school actually offers - well, it offers coaching in small groups - but of course the kids who need it most rarely take the offer.)
But even the kids who do try hard and who did pay attention didn't get above a C in this test (except for one, who just barely managed to get a B). So it genuinely was Too Much. And I refuse to push on in this manner. We'll see what comes out of that.
-- As it turns out, it was good that I was at home, because Felix behaved so aggressively during gym class that the school called me and asked me to take him home. Hurrah. My child has officially been suspended from school. It will be great fun to discuss the matter with him through my inflamed throat. Not. I expect we shall have to write each other letters. This is the last step in a series of problems he's caused at his school; his teacher has both the patience of an angel and the experience of many years, but even she is starting to be at a loss.
It is planned (TM) that I'll start my "proper" training as a teacher this summer, which would mean a full-time schedule + one day in college, which would be tough at the best of times, but with Felix' volatility? I have no idea how this is supposed to work. Right now it seems more likely that I'll have to stop working altogether just to cover damage control.
It's a great day to feel like an all-around failure.
This is awkward. There's a trip to the zoo planned on Thursday, and I currently doubt that I'll be well enough on Thursday to do that. (There's another teacher - my mentor - going, of course, but I'll feel bad either leaving him alone or forcing him to find a replacement on short notice!) We're also going on a class trip for three days next week, which means that my 5th graders are going to miss a lot of English lessons. And they NEED them. And now I'm sick on top of it all.
Meanwhile, the colleague who already forced three English classes (so it wasn't just me!) to rush through two units in order to catch up with his one class (which was somehow madly ahead -- I can only assumed that he "skipped" all the boring bits, like ordinal numbers, months and dates, reading the clock etc.) keeps ploughing on at speed. This is completely unnecessary - the book has 6 units, with Unit 6 being pretty much "just for fun". He's already halfway through Unit 5, so what is he going to do in May and June? Who knows. Probably start on the book for grade 6. :P Yesterday he announced that he'd write the second class test next week.
The problem is that all the 5th grades have to write the same tests. This is to ensure that we're all adhering to the same standards and to make their marks comparable. Now, as I said, he was already madly ahead for the last test, and the third English teacher (let's call her Colleague D.) and I had to rush our classes through The Simple Present, Do-Constructions, and Questions. Most of our students are struggling with one of these concepts, let alone three of them more less dropped upon them at once. Most of them are unable to tell a verb from a noun! Not just in English, but in their native German as well! So actually I would need more time to revise basic grammar, rather than less time to heap even more grammar on them! (Unit 5 covers the Present Progressive, and guess what? If the kids are already struggling with grammatical concepts that their native language shares with English - simple present and reversed word order in questions - they are NOT going to get along with a grammatical structure that is generally frowned upon in German and only appears in some disrespected dialects.)
The last test was already desastrous. We had to write it two weeks after - let's call him Colleague B. - 's class (which is why he wants to write the next one next week! the fuck!) just so we'd have (barely) enough time to at least explain and superficially practice negation and questions. This was completely unnecessary, incidentally, because last year's class test clearly shows that they'd only covered the Simple Present by this time, and Negation and Questions came in the next test. I really have no clue what Colleague B. was thinking, and neither does Colleague D. (And yes, we did tell him that our classes weren't up to that test, and yes, we told the head of department, but somehow he managed to ignore it all and push on ahead.)
Anyway, the test was desastrous.
It has to be admitted that my 5th graders are not the best of students. Most of them have next to no self-organisation skills (and we don't have the time to teach them >_>), and a lot of them are either easily distracted or happy to distract others. They will happily talk about whatever in the middle of your class, and when you call them out for it, they'll tell you that It Was Important. Yes, but even important private stuff has to wait until the break! I'm very sorry! -- The day after the exam, I actually exploded. There's a stupid rhyme we use in German when teaching the Simple Present - he, she, it: das S muss mit, meaning "he, she, it: you have to take the S along", referring to the -s added to verbs in (and ONLY in!) the 3rd person singular - and I must have used it about 20 times in the past three weeks. Then on that day, after revising how to conjugate verbs again, when I said he, she, it: das S muss mit, one student (who frequently chats about who-knows-what in class, and is always very blasé about it) said, "My MOM had to tell me that because YOU never did!"
I did, sweetheart, you just never listened. Which is a problem a lot of them have: They don't listen, and THEN they demand that I explain it again, and even WHILE I'm explaining it again, they occupy themselves with other things. Argh.
Nonetheless, grading their tests hurt. As a kid, I always thought that teachers must like handing out bad grades, but now, I know that a lot of teachers actively hate it. Even when it hits the "deserving" (in the sense of: kids that refuse to cooperate in class, kids who boss the other kids around, or kids who do everything except pay attention), it hurts. I have yet to meet a teacher in our teachers' lounge who'd say "Student L from grade XYZ has another fail grade! Boo yeah! Serves him right, the sucker!" - It's always "I've had to give Student L an F, and it's the second time, and I feel bad about it but what can I do when he refuses all offers I make?" We seem to see bad grades to our students, first and foremost, as a mark of our own failure because we somehow couldn't make that student understand (in some cases, couldn't even make that student try to learn). I am beginning to suspect that some students honestly can't be taught (and I'm not talking about kids with ADHD or dyslexia or the like! Many of those are genuinely trying!). There's no miraculous way of making them connect with the material and unlocking their hidden potential. At least, there isn't in a classroom scenario. Maybe there is in one-on-one coaching. (Which our school actually offers - well, it offers coaching in small groups - but of course the kids who need it most rarely take the offer.)
But even the kids who do try hard and who did pay attention didn't get above a C in this test (except for one, who just barely managed to get a B). So it genuinely was Too Much. And I refuse to push on in this manner. We'll see what comes out of that.
-- As it turns out, it was good that I was at home, because Felix behaved so aggressively during gym class that the school called me and asked me to take him home. Hurrah. My child has officially been suspended from school. It will be great fun to discuss the matter with him through my inflamed throat. Not. I expect we shall have to write each other letters. This is the last step in a series of problems he's caused at his school; his teacher has both the patience of an angel and the experience of many years, but even she is starting to be at a loss.
It is planned (TM) that I'll start my "proper" training as a teacher this summer, which would mean a full-time schedule + one day in college, which would be tough at the best of times, but with Felix' volatility? I have no idea how this is supposed to work. Right now it seems more likely that I'll have to stop working altogether just to cover damage control.
It's a great day to feel like an all-around failure.
