![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Three more days!
Dec. 17th, 2018 05:12 pmThree more days until Christmas break. Can't wait. The students can't wait either. They've been restless and overexcited for weeks now, and it was hard to get them to focus on anything. The older students are no longer all that excited by Christmas itself, but they certainly can't wait for the holidays, either. So it's been a challenge.
In the middle of that challenge, I had my first observation lesson. Like any trainee teacher, I spent three days agonising over the lesson and preparing an elaborate plan, only half of which I managed to realise in the end. But the kids managed to work along well (both their class teacher and I had informed them about the importance of the observation lesson) and, more to the point, keep from chatting or running around (which they usually do). They lost all self-control as soon as the auditors were out of the door, of course! And then in the debriefing the principal observed that "Obviously, the kids were doing you a favour". Crap! He saw straight through it! But fortunately he felt that this was also a good sign. "If you can get the kids to help you during observation, that means you're a teacher they care about." Well, as long as he sees it like that!
So it would appear that I'll continue teaching there for the time being. Stability! Or something vaguely like it, at least!
Not really, of course, because (duh) organising my work life, Jörg's work life, and the kids' life is not at all stable. Teaching gives me a more predictable schedule than working at the magazine did, but there are regular conferences. And unfortunately I let myself be elected into the directorate of Julian's kindergarten, so on top of normal work, there are regular meetings in the evening to sort out kindergarten stuff, which is... a lot. Especially recently. Crab mentality is strong among the teachers, so whenever one of them rises above the others (to, incidentally, the good of the whole team), the rest will drag her down and make her life hell for good measure. Then there's the aging manager who has to do both the work of a teacher and the work of a manager because it's a small kindergarten, resulting in burn-out but a sense of duty too strong to get the rest (or help) she needed. It's a hot mess and I wish I hadn't gotten into it. The other two directors have already resigned so we need to elect two new ones first thing next year, and now I feel duty-bound to stay on board so at least one person on board knows what went on this year. Graaaah.
Speaking of burnout, Jörg has now returned to work. I think I only ever alluded to that and I can't be bothered to write it all up now. Suffice it to say that in March - on the day of my grandfather's funeral, just to lighten the mood - he was hospitalised with what looked like a heart attack. Fortunately, his heart turned out to be absolutely fine, but the symptoms had to come from somewhere, and the doctors eventually decided that they must be physical symptoms caused by severe psychological distress. So they put Jörg on extended sick leave. Those who know him know that he has been suffering in his workplace for years (make that a decade, actually), so that definitely did him well. Then in October he got a place in rehab, and now that that's over, it was back to work. It went as (un)well as was to be expected. Let's see what the future brings. No renewed heart attack symptoms, psychosomatic or otherwise, one hopes.
Felix managed to catch laryngitis in school and has passed it on to me. He, being a student, got a week off school out of it (we managed to organise that). Me, being a teacher, has to continue going. Very few of my students take pity on a teacher with an extremely sore throat; they continue chatting in class like they always do. The 5th graders definitely need to be handled like 1st graders. Some of them either never learned school rules like not running around during lessons ("But I was only going to borrow a ruler!") or talking to their bffs during class ("But it was really important!") or, heaven help us, having all their material on their desk at the beginning of class ("I can't write it down! I don't have any paper left!") or forgot all about it. The time you waste on making sure that everyone has paper (and borrows a ruler from their neighbour, rather than someone at the other end of the room)! It's funny now that I write it down, but it's just frustrating while it's going on. At some point you start asking yourself whether they're genuinely unable to get it, or whether they're winding you up.
But! Only three days left until the vacations! And then I'll try to get into a seasonal mood so the kids get a festive Christmas. I just want to rest and recuperate, dammit! (I expect Julian will fall ill once the rest of us have recovered. There's always something. :P)
In the middle of that challenge, I had my first observation lesson. Like any trainee teacher, I spent three days agonising over the lesson and preparing an elaborate plan, only half of which I managed to realise in the end. But the kids managed to work along well (both their class teacher and I had informed them about the importance of the observation lesson) and, more to the point, keep from chatting or running around (which they usually do). They lost all self-control as soon as the auditors were out of the door, of course! And then in the debriefing the principal observed that "Obviously, the kids were doing you a favour". Crap! He saw straight through it! But fortunately he felt that this was also a good sign. "If you can get the kids to help you during observation, that means you're a teacher they care about." Well, as long as he sees it like that!
So it would appear that I'll continue teaching there for the time being. Stability! Or something vaguely like it, at least!
Not really, of course, because (duh) organising my work life, Jörg's work life, and the kids' life is not at all stable. Teaching gives me a more predictable schedule than working at the magazine did, but there are regular conferences. And unfortunately I let myself be elected into the directorate of Julian's kindergarten, so on top of normal work, there are regular meetings in the evening to sort out kindergarten stuff, which is... a lot. Especially recently. Crab mentality is strong among the teachers, so whenever one of them rises above the others (to, incidentally, the good of the whole team), the rest will drag her down and make her life hell for good measure. Then there's the aging manager who has to do both the work of a teacher and the work of a manager because it's a small kindergarten, resulting in burn-out but a sense of duty too strong to get the rest (or help) she needed. It's a hot mess and I wish I hadn't gotten into it. The other two directors have already resigned so we need to elect two new ones first thing next year, and now I feel duty-bound to stay on board so at least one person on board knows what went on this year. Graaaah.
Speaking of burnout, Jörg has now returned to work. I think I only ever alluded to that and I can't be bothered to write it all up now. Suffice it to say that in March - on the day of my grandfather's funeral, just to lighten the mood - he was hospitalised with what looked like a heart attack. Fortunately, his heart turned out to be absolutely fine, but the symptoms had to come from somewhere, and the doctors eventually decided that they must be physical symptoms caused by severe psychological distress. So they put Jörg on extended sick leave. Those who know him know that he has been suffering in his workplace for years (make that a decade, actually), so that definitely did him well. Then in October he got a place in rehab, and now that that's over, it was back to work. It went as (un)well as was to be expected. Let's see what the future brings. No renewed heart attack symptoms, psychosomatic or otherwise, one hopes.
Felix managed to catch laryngitis in school and has passed it on to me. He, being a student, got a week off school out of it (we managed to organise that). Me, being a teacher, has to continue going. Very few of my students take pity on a teacher with an extremely sore throat; they continue chatting in class like they always do. The 5th graders definitely need to be handled like 1st graders. Some of them either never learned school rules like not running around during lessons ("But I was only going to borrow a ruler!") or talking to their bffs during class ("But it was really important!") or, heaven help us, having all their material on their desk at the beginning of class ("I can't write it down! I don't have any paper left!") or forgot all about it. The time you waste on making sure that everyone has paper (and borrows a ruler from their neighbour, rather than someone at the other end of the room)! It's funny now that I write it down, but it's just frustrating while it's going on. At some point you start asking yourself whether they're genuinely unable to get it, or whether they're winding you up.
But! Only three days left until the vacations! And then I'll try to get into a seasonal mood so the kids get a festive Christmas. I just want to rest and recuperate, dammit! (I expect Julian will fall ill once the rest of us have recovered. There's always something. :P)
