jenniferh

Catching up: Friday, two of my “special” students decided to try to ruin the class effort to earn a free day for the day before Thanksgiving break. I called their parents Friday afternoon, then yesterday I told their class that I wasn’t going to let two people ruin it for them, that those two people were out of the game and would be taking an assessment the day before Thanksgiving out in the hallway with an AP to monitor them.The girl griped and moaned once or twice about snoopy, mean teachers calling parents, then I didn’t hear another peep out of her for the rest of the class. The boy, however, stayed after class to help clean up and pick up materials, and he asked, “What can I do to get back in the game?”YAY!

This is getting ridiculous.  I REALLY need to make time to eat breakfast in the morning - because even when I DO manage to pack a lunch, 9 times out of 10, the damned lunchbox is coming home just as full because I don’t have time to eat.  I spend my conference and planning time doing (duh!) conferencing and planning, and getting my room prepared for my 5th period class because it is a different format from the rest of my day -  and then at lunch I’m getting things ready for 6th period which is back on the regular format and  I usually have 3 or 4 students pop in for a quick tutorial or a sympathetic shoulder. 

 I rarely even have time to pee, so I have to admit that I’m not terribly sympathetic toward students asking to leave the room - they get 6 minutes between classes, lunchtimes off, and nobody asking for their time before and after school, and I’m having to “hold it” from 7 in the morning sometimes until 4 in the afternoon!  I will say this, though: On the rare occasion that I do have a quick 60 seconds to myself, I go on down three hallways to the faculty restroom, bypassing 2 girls’ restrooms on the way.  I just can’t take the level of filth in the girls’ restrooms anymore - teenagers are some really nasty creatures.

SO the plan: to eat breakfast and TRY to eat lunch every day.  To continue working up to 30 minutes of jogging (I’m at 21 minutes tomorrow morning!).  To drink water.  To hurry up and lose the next 5 pounds so I can take Rosa my clothes.

Ninth graders are monsters on Fridays when the weather is changing.  They were SOOOO bad today! And the worst one, the one who has an 8 average (yeah, E-I-G-H-T) refused to do the assessment again, today.  I emailed his AP and his counselor and the reply I got back was “Here’s his mom’s number.”

WTF?! 

I already called his mom and left messages, and she hasn’t answered me!  I emailed them AGAIN and said, “Yeah, I usually do talk to the parents as a first line of offense, but she won’t answer my calls.  So I’m talking to YOU.  I’ve tried talking to him and he’s like a brick wall.  His mom won’t answer my calls, and you’re his AP and his counselor, so YOU try to help him.” 

Then the answer was, “Oh, yah, his mom is aware of the problem. She says they’re changing his meds.”

His meds. 

Oh I see. 

Oh, gee, thanks for letting me know SIX WEEKS INTO THE YEAR that the reason he’s being such a colossal pain in my ass is because he’s got a reason to be.  Great job on the “heads up” there, administrative team.  Lets just leave the teacher hanging until the teacher pitches a fit that the kid won’t do a damned thing in class and seems pretty content with getting zero after zero.

On the upside, my kid’s toe ain’t broke.  It got slammed in a heavy metal gym door Monday before last - we took him to the urgent care people and they said, “See a podiatrist.”  So I made an appointment with the podiatrist  - and he said, “Why didn’t you come here sooner!?”

Um, because this was the soonest your receptionist would get us in.

He took the rest of the nail off, and we have to go back in two weeks - on Halloween at four in the afternoon. 

Sucks. 

I keep my eyes wide open all the time

I keep the ends out for the tie that binds

Because you’re mine

I walk the line

Hmmmmmmmmmm……. 

We’re “Walking the Line” in Algebra lab tomorrow to practice adding and subtracting integers.  They get confused about how it works when you “minus a negative” so I’m making a giant number line on the floor of the lab with tape, post-it’s and more tape, and they have to solve equations by walking them out on the number line, following these rules:

• Always begin by facing positive.
• Subtraction means “turn around”
• Positive numbers mean you walk forward (whether facing positive or negative)
• Negative numbers mean you step backwards (whether facing positive or negative)
• Face positive again after each operation.

 I’ll be playing Johnny Cash on a continuous loop, and video taping for posterity.  I figure I can cobble together a nice video the kids can watch on the one day off I’m allowing before Thanksgiving break.

Now about little ol’ me:  Slept in for an hour this morning because I’m baked - totally done - exhausted.  And I have evidence that I’m using more calories than I’m consuming: I’ve lost another pound!  And it makes me TIRED.  My two-year-old is being a clingy whiney-butt (HOW MANY TIMES IN ONE MINUTE CAN SOMEONE SHOUT “MINE!”?) My HMO says our PCP has to refer us to the podiatrist - NOT the emergency-room doctor - so yesterday we had to finagle a last-minute appointment with our doctor, a trip BACK to the hospital today for the x-rays she ordered, and much faxing of paperwork to keep the appointment I made for tomorrow at the podiatry clinic to get his possibly-broken big toe LOOKED at.  Rachel has band every night, Rebecca is practicing for district choir tryouts every night, Sean’s upset because he’s missing weeks of football because of his foot, my husband is working out of town and I’m being a single mom 5 days a week plus teaching some very challenging freshmen not only how to do Algebra, but how to do school and sometimes even life in general  (I just found out today that two of my freshmen… 14 or 15 years old… are about to be a mommy and a daddy together.  How the Hell are they going to do that when neither one of them is even old enough to work or drive or anything…  my heart hurts for them.)

And so I’m tired. 

But tomorrow I WILL get up before dawn and go for my jog.  It’s good for me.

I was SPECTACULARLY horrible this weekend.  We had cookies, enchiladas, sodas, chips, dip… football on the couch, movies in the dvd player - it was like a slumber party all weekend long.  I relished every moment of it.  And I don’t regret it at all - I needed the break, my husband needed the downtime, and my kids needed their parents to chill out for a couple of days.

No diet, no jogging.  Just chillin’.

Now I’m back to my routine, only I’m being a bit more strict with myself than I have  been, and I’m not jumping on the scale again until Friday morning.  I want to know, I just don’t want to KNOW.

Did well with the jogging after three days off - I ran for 13 minutes without stopping to walk!  Then I walked the rest of the way home.

Off to prepare for a brilliant day of teaching Algebra.  Maybe TODAY I’ll get my room organized with a plan to where the kids can find their work after they come back from an absence.

And it was frickin’ HILARIOUS.

This is the part where someone who thinks teachers sit behind a desk and read from a script should pucker up and kiss my ass.

Anyhow.  Musical chairs.  2 chairs fewer than students, set in 2 lines back to back.  Students walked around the chairs counterclockwise while I played some Bob Marley tunes (which made it even more funny, because they all started bobbing their heads and walking in time to the beat!) and scrambled to sit when the music stopped.

The two left standing had to answer any question I posed about our test review. 

I never took away any chairs, we just kept playing “round 1″ all period and two students at a time had to answer questions.  Yes.  Musical chairs for ninth graders.  THEY LOVED IT.

I owe them a treat - I had cool “Halloween” pencils and a package of candy - I’ll just give it to them tomorrow after they all finish their tests.

Okay - now about me.

I went to school with no caffeine this morning and it SUCKED for my labs because I completely forgot to do the review I had planned for them.  I put them on the computers and had them take a practice TAKS objective, instead.  I had a couple of cinnamon rolls (pillsbury) for breakfast, a single, solitary and lonely chicken tender for lunch, popcorn for a snack, and a turkey sandwich for dinner.    I did go jogging this morning (8 minutes before stopping to walk- yay me) but no walk this evening because I was stuck for too long waiting in my car for my kid to get out of band practice a half an hour late. 

I’ll go jogging again tomorrow, and the goal is 10 minutes - so I need to add to my route. 

I guess I lost my motivation once school started.  Honestly, I started getting serious about losing the weight late in the summer so I could at least be ten pounds lighter by the time I went back to work.  Well, I did that.  And then I stopped. 

 SO I’m floundering around trying to find some other motivation - setting goals, telling myself “I can buy music for every five pounds.”  But those things AREN’T WORKING.  I still hover, 2 pounds away from my mini-goal, and when I jump on the scale every day I think, “Hey, at least I haven’t gained any back.”

I’ve started jogging daily, hoping that I will better.  I’m eating more fiber because of a different challenge.  But what I really need is a REASON to drop another ten pounds.

I may have found it.

If I drop another ten pounds, there is no way my size 14 clothes will fit anymore.  I’m already sewing darts into the waistbands to keep my pants and skirts up, but when I lose 10 more pounds, there will be no quick fixes - I’ll have to either take the clothes apart and reconstruct them or just break down and buy size 12’s.

Could I also be subconsciously sabotaging myself because I had to spend SO MUCH money this summer to get Rachel into band that I don’t want to spend money on clothes for me?  Maybe. 

But now I have a reason to want to get out of those clothes and go ahead and buy new ones.  A teacher I work with is a single mom, with three kids, struggling to live in this economy on a single, teacher’s salary.  Let’s not get back into the debate over whether or not teachers make enough money - I’m just going to flat out tell you that a single woman CANNOT comfortably raise three children on a teacher’s pay.  She also cleans houses in the evenings to try to get her budget to stretch a little farther. 

Well, last week, someone stole her wallet.  Her bank said it could take up to 6 months to reimburse what was taken out of her checking account via a debit/credit card.

She was complaining this week that because of her recent financial difficulties, she hasn’t been eating.  She figures in another month she will need to buy new clothes because her 16s won’t fit anymore.

So here’s the plan.

I’m going to work my ass off to lose those ten pounds as fast as possible, and then I’m just going to park next to her one morning and have her open the trunk of her car.  Then I’m going to take all the size 14 clothes I can’t wear anymore and transfer them from my car to hers.

Pray for us both.  I want to do this for her so badly.

I joined the Phoenix weight loss challenge about getting enough fiber, and I’m starting my own personal fitness challenge.  Any of you who feel up to getting started jogging are MORE than welcome to come join me.  As you will see (Trick-or-Treat Jogging Challenge) I’m starting at the very beginning.  This is not a challenge for marathoners.  This is for people like me who can do the bare minimum and just want to get better. 

 I like the sound of that: getting better. 

Being this out of shape makes me feel ill.  I want to feel better. 

I’d like to share with my friends an argument I’m having on another website.  The people I’m arguing with believe teachers make too much money and whine too much, and are HAPPY that Dallas ISD is laying off 550 teachers. 

chechnya wrote:

Let’s force teachers to take a salary cut. Just enough to cover the 15 million dollars. If any of them disagree can their ass and hire on a teacher you just fired. People think teachers are underpaid. Is $60,000 underpaid for sitting in an air conditioned class reading from a lesson plan while taking a two month summer vacation? WHAT A HARD JOB!

So I replied:

chechnya. I make 42000 a year. Break that down into the 180 days I teach (which is about a 10 hour day when you include tutorials and time spent grading and preparing for the next day), plus the 2 weeks I spend in the summer preparing and attending professional development, plus the one Saturday from September through June in professional development which are all probably 6 hour days, and you find that I am paid about $22 an hour, which is about average for a person with a bachelor’s degree. I’m not complaining about not making enough money, because I’m pretty happy with $22 an hour. I just wish people would drop the assumption that teachers get a paid vacation every Christmas, Spring break, and Summer - because we are not paid for the time we are not working. That is why so many teachers have summer jobs doing something else entirely. I would also appreciate it if you would come in and try to manage my classroom that is packed wall to wall with hormonal 14 and 15 year old kids (a different batch every hour), and let me know how blissfully easy it was to try to teach those people whose minds are all over each other and nowhere near algebra. Let me know how well it goes if you try to hide behind your desk and read from a script.
That would be hilarious to watch.

 Then another person jumped in:

smah44 wrote:

“Break that down into the 180 days I teach (which is about a 10 hour day when you include tutorials and time spent grading and preparing for the next day), plus the 2 weeks I spend in the summer”
The key number here is 180 days. Most people in private sector work 2000 hours a year. You work 1520 hours a year and make the same amount for far less time. In my opinion that’s not too shabby. If you have to work a second job in the summer that’s your decision. Don’t whine because you don’t make enough money. You chose the profession. You only work nine moths a year. I applaud the layoffs. Public education is top heavy to begin with.

SO of course I had to retaliate with some hard math skills:

“No dear, the key here is how many hours.

180 days teaching at 10 hours a day, 20 days a year of professional development and preparation at 6 hours a day comes out to 1920 hours a year. So by that approximation I worked 80 hours less than “most people in the private sector” - if most people in the private sector work a 40 hour week, 50 weeks out of the year. But I left out the fact that I typically spend an extra 15 hours at school the week that grades are due for report cards…

Besides which, MOST people I know who work in the private sector and have a bachelors or higher degree actually work an average of 48 weeks out of the year because they take a week off for Christmas, 2 weeks off in the summer, and then various days off for Thanksgiving, Easter, Presidents’ day, Labor day, etc.

That means if you are comparing teachers to “most people in the private sector” with a bachelors or higher, teachers work roughly the same amount of hours - because they work a longer day. 50 hours a week is during a normal week. At the end of grading periods I will typically put in a 60 or 70 hour week because more students come in for tutorials and more students are turning in late work to be graded. That’s AT SCHOOL, mind you. Lets not forget the extra 10 hours a week (or so) that I spend working at home, grading papers, preparing lesson plans, contacting parents, researching activities and graphic organizers for the lab… That actually increases the number of hours I work to roughly 2370 a year - but people in the private sector who put in that kind of overtime are paid for it.

Let’s go with $22 an hour. I figure a 40 hour week to be standard time. So I work 1500 hours standard time a year (36 weeks of school, plus 6 hour days for 10 days in summer). I work 870 hours of overtime a year. If I were paid for overtime, I should actually make $61,710 a year. That’s at starting pay for someone with a bachelors degree.
Now let’s see what happens when we look at a person with 20 years in the industry - like my brother in a private sector job, making $38 an hour. With my hours of regular and overtime work, which are typical, a 20 year veteran teacher SHOULD be making roughly $106,590 a year. I don’t see any teacher making that much.

Still think teachers are getting paid too much?

I have tutorials open in the afternoons if you’d like to come in and brush up on your math and logic skills.”

Okay, so the big question is:

Am I wrong in getting riled about up about this?  Should I just let it slide that people have this perception that teachers are all sitting behind a desk in a cushy air-conditioned room doing absolutely nothing useful all day…  Or should I continue my crusade to educate people about what is a hard (sometimes impossible) and frequently a thankless job: educating a body of people who 9 times out of 10 don’t have a CLUE that the stuff I’m trying to teach them is WORTHWHILE, and their parents usually don’t give a crap, either. 

What would you do if you were in my place?

Please don’t say  “I’d get the hell out of teaching.”   

Hmm. just a thought: If I make 42000 a year, 1500 hours regular time and 870 hours overtime, I’m really only making $14.97 an hour.  That’s with a bachelors of science in mathematics.  I could do so much better.

OH TODAY WAS BRILLIANT! 

 I’m exhausted and going to bed by 9.  I was up half the night waiting for Rachel to get back from an out-of-town football game (yes, on a school night - lingering repercussions of hurricane Ike). 

 In the lab today, I had the kids working on the laptops on a program about understanding graphing with and without a scale.  I walked around with my seating chart in hand, slid into a plastic page protector, with a dry-erase marker.  I told the kids they could ask their neighbor for help if they got stuck, and if their neighbor couldn’t help them, to raise their hands to ask me.  As I was walking around helping, I would announce a spot-check every ten minutes or so.  I told the kids at the beginning: “I know EXACTLY how far along you should be every time I walk behind you, so there will be no chit-chat with your pals, no closing this program to try to download “Halo 3,” no looking up videos on you-tube, no checking email.  I will check on your progress exactly FOUR TIMES this hour, and if you are where I KNOW you should be, you get a check mark on the seating chart.  Four checks is a 100 for the day.  Do the math, guys: three checks is a 75, two is a 50, one is a 25, and of course if you don’t participate, you get a big ol’ ZERO.”

Halfway through my 6th period class, the principal, my fearless leader, comes walking in with a couple of math teachers who were off just to “see what’s going on in here.”

Well.  We had music playing kind of loud, but EVERYBODY WAS ON TASK!

YES.  In a FRESHMAN MATH LAB.  EVERY-FREAKIN’-BODY! 

And when she asked the nearest kid what he was working on, he explained it to her and earned a polano (Spartan money - paper, signed by a teacher or administrator, tradeable for supplies, goodies, drawings for chick-filet gift cards…) because he knew his stuff well enough to confidently teach the principal.

  happy tears!  I’m so proud of my students!