It Was The BEST of Times, It was the WORST of Times

Yesterday I had a professional development meeting after school. At the meeting, the principal, who is new this year, brought up the issue of teacher evaluations. One of the major componentsof the teacher evaluation, of course, is the classroom visit. After 11 years in the classroom, I am pretty used to being observed by my superiors, but I have to admit, I still get a little nervous when they come in. At least they allow us to pick the date and time of our observation. I used to put on the big dog and pony show for the observation day, but I don't do that any more. I now just go with whatever lesson I had planned for the day. it is just more authentic this way.

The principal under whom I had worked for the 4 years previous to now epitomized the word "mellow." By contract, there is supposed to be a "pre-observation" meeting. This used to consist of us giving the guy the slip of paper telling him when we wanted him to visit. The "post-observation" meeting used to consist of our showing up in his office, signing the sheet he'd taken 30 seconds to fill out following his 5 minute classroom visit. Often times, the post observation meeting also included boisterous accolades of our "brilliant lessons."

A person can get used to this kind of environment.

Anyway, our new principal dropped a bomb on us yesterday in telling us that she wants copies of our exams (in order to be sure that they comply with district standards and MCAS prep standards), homework assignments, and the dreaded student portfolio. Of course I comply with the district-wide standard to have my kids complete one historical writing per academic quarter, but do you really think I rush over to get them photocopied and safely stored in hanging files, one per child? If you do think so, you're either delusional, or you do not know me at all. Paperwork is just not my thing.

I had to be sure to procure a very-late-in-the-month observation date in order to be able to pull my stuff together. I did manage today to get the portfolio hanging files in place, and stick the historical writings in each one. I have 75 kids a day, so that was a lot of work. I should admittedly do it as I go along rather than have to sort through all that crap after the fact.

The other shocker she threw in our face was that she wants to see our freakin' plan books! Plan books are sacred to a teacher. They are where we write out our loose plans in chicken scratch. I can't believe it. I am going to have to put in some major hours doctoring that thing up and making sure I write out, in detail, curriculum strands and standards, etc.

Jesus. I teach according to standards, of course, but still....do I really write pages upon pages of goals and strategies for each lesson I teach? Nope!!

I am pretty stressed about this, but at least I have some time to get myself straightened out before the observation, and at least I know what will be coming at me next year and in years to come!

I didn't sleep much last night. My mind was racing and churning out thoughts of how to organize all this crap and pull it together. I only take comfort in knowing that I am not the only teacher in my school shitting a brick right now. Far from it!


I will be staying in school late tomorrow (Friday) to make sure those portfolios are securely stashed in orderly hanging files. At least the files are free. Or at least I think they are. I kind of snuck into the supply room today and took a bunch. Imagine that. Free office supplies at work. I know this probably seems like small peanuts to most of you, but keep in mind the fact that I do not even have any books to teach my curriculum and you'll understand my delight at having free hanging files!!




I'm sure you can understand that after a stressful meeting yesterday, and a sleepless night, I was eager to get back to school to assess the damage and start getting organized. I just really wanted to get an early start, pull myself together, and get ahead of the day. I was ahead of schedule in the morning, ready to bound out the door and get a move on. But, of course, I could not find my keys. This crap held me back for over 25 minutes. I ended up dumping entire contents of several bags onto the floor, tearing apart my entire living room, bedroom, kitchen, bathroom...you name it. I was so annoyed and pissed off. I was on the brink of tears there for a minute. I eventually found them. They fell within the ripped liner of my bag. I did not realize that the liner was ripped, so I never even thought to dig around that deeply into the freakin bag! It sucked. It really was a terrible start to the day.

I never really felt like I started the day as well as I had wanted to.




Onto the best of times...

I have a friend, who shall remain nameless, who works as a programmer at Microsoft in Seattle. I had not seen him in years, but he was home during this past Christmas and we managed to get together for drinks. I jokingly apologized to him for being the proud owner of a Mac. His wife, a graphic designer, uses Macs exclusively, so he was completely understanding of my love of the competition. His wife told me that it was very helpful to have Microsoft Office on the Mac. I agreed as I have found it annoying to not have the capacity to open Word documents on my Mac, or to open AppleWorks documents on a PC. But, I was willing to avoid the expense and live with it.

My friend overheard the conversation I was having with his wife and offered to send me a free Microsoft Office Mac package. Who was I to refuse?

I emailed him a couple of weeks ago to remind him (as he had asked) and he assured me he would get right on it. I came home yesterday to find a UPS package. Not even thinking of the Microsoft thing, I curiously tore into the package and was delighted to find the thing there.

I loaded it into my Mac in about three seconds and was pretty pleased with the entire thing.

Out of curiosity, I logged into the Apple store to see how much this thing cost.

GULP.....

$399.00 Dollars!

You can see that the surprise was extremely pleasant! I can't believe, first of all, what a difference having Microsoft capacity has already made (for the better), or how expensive this stuff is!!!

SCORE!!

Shout out to my unnamed source at Microsoft!



And yes, this will be a "cabin weekend." I usually tend to shy away from the Cabin in the winter. Too cold. Too much roughing it. I love it in the summer, but I usually avoid winter jaunts to the cabin.

I have blown Stephen and gang off for the past few cabin weekends, though, and Stephen is a good egg, so I decided I would go this weekend.

It will be a good opportunity to get some plan book doctoring done. I also enjoy reading up there. Curling up in a ball close to the wood stove with a great book can be divine!

Have a great weekend!