From a disciplinary referral:

“Told student to put phone away… Student replied ‘I am on my phone 24-7.'”

Eduhonesty: He was trying to be on that phone 24-7 anyway. The student in question was failing all his classes. You can’t keep track of academics and have a full-time phone life. While I understand the desire to be able to reach kids at all times, I believe more parents should take these phones away. Why pay for a device that’s contributing to your child’s academic failure? We need to stop handing our children distractions. Kids seldom need those phones. I have a phone in the classroom. I have another phone in the small, taupe bag I carry over my shoulder. Students’ friends are carrying phones. In an emergency, no one needs to fear a sudden phone shortage.

Demanding a “B” average or higher to earn phone privileges makes perfect sense. Let’s seize those small metal boxes. Texting clobbers a small minority of students. These students need adults to parent them. Your son or daughter will be mad at you? I guarantee they will. They’ll be outraged. They’ll be so whiny you’ll be going nuts for awhile. If they know better grades are the price of phone privileges, though, they will start trying to earn those “B” grades when they realize that whining won’t work.

To all aspiring teachers: You get a great vacation schedule for this job, but don’t let anyone tell you it is a five day week. You will work nights. You will work weekends. Depending on what you teach, you may work almost all weekends and nights during the school year. Elementary school is easier. Core subjects such as math, English, social studies and science at the middle school and high school math can be rough. You must give regular homework. If you want the kids to do that homework, you need to grade and return the work reasonably quickly. (One complaint I have with the current heavily scripted regime at my school: I hardly ever have time to go over the homework. It’s not built into the obligatory lesson plan.) You have to prepare for the week’s classes, a process that may involve trips to Michael’s, The Learning Store or a local grocery store.

I suggest teaching gym classes to anyone who likes physical education, with the caveat that there are not many jobs for graduates in this area. You have to be willing to move. I envy those gym teachers sometimes, though. They give almost no homework, have to grade a rare badminton test or two, and often make more money than regular teachers because of coaching opportunities.

Eduhonesty: I don’t want to make teaching sound bad. Really, grading’s not that hard. I make my tea and toast, put on Law and Order or some other relatively mindless TV, and relax in my jammies while working through the papers. I enjoy Michael’s and the Learning Store. I am looking forward to this quiet Sunday of printing lesson plans and checking data.

Certain shows are perfect for grading. Cops works well. I look up every so often to take in the spectacle, but I never have to worry about what I missed. New Orleans PD doesn’t care if I am riveted to their bold attempts to control Mardi Gras, while snapshots of drunken people who pee in the street provide a little entertainment to break up my routine. Bar Rescue’s a win too. I don’t have to watch every dishonest bartender, but I like to tune in for the final salvation of Moe’s Honey Trap and Biker Bar.

Just making it real here for anyone who is thinking of entering this profession.

One of my administrators recently formally criticized me for doing activities not specifically in the whole-group lesson plan. The whole-group lesson plan refers to the plans for the week, supposedly the same for all classes whether they are regular, special education or bilingual classes. We are all supposed to be doing the same thing at the same time. This latest criticism is a perfect example of finding myself yet again in the garbage compactor, watching the walls close in. I find myself defending myself for activities that I have been told were acceptable by other people.

In bilingual group meetings, I was informed that I have about 20 minutes per day for remedial instruction. I use those “extra minutes” to go over diverse skills not specifically found in the whole-group lesson plan, such as vocabulary practice, division, or graph interpretation, for example, depending on student needs and interests. I also rearrange parts of the whole-group plan because the time-allotment will not always work for my students. If I am given 31 minutes to teach a class how to add integers with different signs, using an activity that will take a minimum of 10 minutes, such as making a human number line, I may have to change the plan a bit because we are absolutely for sure going to fall behind schedule. Enough of these 31 minutes blocks and I end up triaging, asking what matters most, what I can slight, and what I can take out entirely so I can somehow catch up. Since my students need to learn almost everything in the plans, this triaging almost never results in my catching up. We can’t drop any topics. Instead, we move on before we are ready. I try to catch students up with tutoring. This works for some students who go to tutoring. Other students who go to tutoring are not catching up, but they are at least making mathematical progress. Students who resist tutoring or who can’t go for transportation reasons… well, they are the truly triaged, the ones we are letting go.

Eduhonesty: Can’t win. Can’t not play. Feeling sick. Being blasted by admin for deviating from the plan last week contributed to or even caused this illness, I think. On my way to tutoring anyway. I love my kids. I love to help them figure out what they are doing. So I will tutor while I am able.

I wish my life felt less out of control, though.