Struggling for Balance
It's been a long, cold silence here.
Entering the teaching profession, I was well warned about the lightning-speed pace at which the school year flies by. As a result, I have taken a hiatus from writing about my teaching process as it unfolds. Though I regret not having documentation of the learning events that have taken place this year, I commend myself for resisting the temptation to spend even more time at my computer.
I may have a handle on teaching my students a thing or two about adding "dress-ups" to their writing, or how to make a prediction using text-based evidence, but I'm certainly a long way from mastering the art of BALANCE between my personal life and my professional life.
So far, every waking hour of my life is somewhat consumed by teaching. During the school year, my house is filled with cluttered piles. I look at mounds of dog hair piling up under the couch, and I just don't have the energy to get out the vacuum cleaner as often as I'd like. My family gets less of me than they should too. I keep telling my own 5-year-old project-based learner, "We'll have time to do projects like that in the summer." Although my motivation is currently driven by my ideas for how to further engage my students, my heart still hurts with guilt knowing I am often prioritizing my students' learning over over my daughter's.
Working with students who have limited success in literacy is truly a challenge and a treasure. After a year and a half of doing this, I am positive about one thing- my love of teaching these children. It's not their struggles that frustrate me, but rather, the limited freedom I have with time and curriculum. I love helping my students become readers and deep thinkers. I love watching their pride when they can answer tough questions. I love it when they have their own ah-ha moments as they realize they do have a lot to say about what they are reading.
I spend so much time thinking about different ways to teach specific skills that it just doesn't seem to be clear. In addition to the multiple grade levels I work with daily, and the exceedingly binding time constraints, our school has faced some unexpected changes. Due to a teacher leaving mid-year, our reading teachers have absorbed several more remedial students into our classrooms, causing combined grade levels, curricular and an several inconvenient classroom shifts.
It's only been two weeks of instruction with my new schedule, so it's early to say, but the challenges I've faced so far have just reinforced my feelings about the difficulties of my reading teacher position:
Meshing Teaching Styles: I work with teachers who couldn’t be more different in their teaching styles. Every teacher is different. Some teachers are much more relaxed and embrace a degree of chaos while others are very structured and don’t allow for a lot of “embrace the moment” within the classrooms. The classroom teachers tend to fall all over this spectrum. It’s challenging to work with students coming from all different teachers where the expectations and atmospheres are so different. Because I work with so many people daily, I have to constantly adjust my instructional methods and materials to not only meet the needs of the students but also the expectations of the teachers I work with.
Deep-seated Connection: I dream of having a core group of students that I can work with all day. When you have a class for the whole day, your teaching doesn't stop. You are not just teaching a subject, you are working with the whole child. It comes from being with them all day, connecting on a deeper level, and having the ability to guide and teach in all aspects of the day. Now, I sometimes feel as if the impact I could have has been diluted by seeing my students only a period or two a day rather than being with them all day.
Not Being the Decision Maker: I can offer suggestions, but ultimately what happens with the students with is up to their homeroom teacher. I may spend time developing lessons to teach something, but if the homeroom teacher doesn’t agree it isn’t going to happen. If I were co-teaching with one teacher all day long, I am sure this would not be a problem. In those situations, it is your (plural!) class. You are truly co-teaching. However, when you work with students from a classroom for a period here and there each day, you just don’t have the say. My colleagues are great at doing all they can to make me feel valued, but ultimately I am working with their students, and I respect that. Nevertheless, it can be frustrating at times. I would even say that the overall loss of control of what I do has been the hardest of all for me.
Being Tied to a Strict Schedule: Since I see students for such short blocks of time, my mind wanders through my to-do lists constantly, so I can only imagine how the students feel! I have a schedule that demands me to be prepared for a new group of students every hour. There’s no room to extend a lesson because we are having a teachable moment. I can only plan lessons that can be done in a certain amount of time. I long for more flexibility in my schedule. Nevertheless, come testing time, or should a sub fail to arrive for the day, my strict schedule and structured lessons are out the window since my classes are the first to be canceled, so I can be called to duty. Of course, this is all understandable, and expected in a support position, but it remains a frustration of the job worth reflecting upon.
Teaching All Subjects: During my student teaching, I loved the variety in our days of learning together. I enjoyed teaching all subjects. This position offers limited variety within my day and an overwhelming amount of restrictions for teaching extremely subjective concepts of language arts. I love teaching reading and writing and would love to do it all day long if I had more control over how I do it. Nevertheless, I was surprised at how much I miss teaching all the subjects in the day. One of the things I miss is being able to integrate subjects and do cross-curricular projects.
The Bright Side
Entering the teaching profession, I was well warned about the lightning-speed pace at which the school year flies by. As a result, I have taken a hiatus from writing about my teaching process as it unfolds. Though I regret not having documentation of the learning events that have taken place this year, I commend myself for resisting the temptation to spend even more time at my computer.
I may have a handle on teaching my students a thing or two about adding "dress-ups" to their writing, or how to make a prediction using text-based evidence, but I'm certainly a long way from mastering the art of BALANCE between my personal life and my professional life.
So far, every waking hour of my life is somewhat consumed by teaching. During the school year, my house is filled with cluttered piles. I look at mounds of dog hair piling up under the couch, and I just don't have the energy to get out the vacuum cleaner as often as I'd like. My family gets less of me than they should too. I keep telling my own 5-year-old project-based learner, "We'll have time to do projects like that in the summer." Although my motivation is currently driven by my ideas for how to further engage my students, my heart still hurts with guilt knowing I am often prioritizing my students' learning over over my daughter's.
It is now March and the past seven months have been a bit
of a roller coaster ride for me. As a reading and language arts support teacher, I work with students from several grade levels teaching remedial instruction using a pull-out model.
Working with students who have limited success in literacy is truly a challenge and a treasure. After a year and a half of doing this, I am positive about one thing- my love of teaching these children. It's not their struggles that frustrate me, but rather, the limited freedom I have with time and curriculum. I love helping my students become readers and deep thinkers. I love watching their pride when they can answer tough questions. I love it when they have their own ah-ha moments as they realize they do have a lot to say about what they are reading.
I spend so much time thinking about different ways to teach specific skills that it just doesn't seem to be clear. In addition to the multiple grade levels I work with daily, and the exceedingly binding time constraints, our school has faced some unexpected changes. Due to a teacher leaving mid-year, our reading teachers have absorbed several more remedial students into our classrooms, causing combined grade levels, curricular and an several inconvenient classroom shifts.
I have always been one to
embrace change. Change brings growth. With less than two weeks to prepare, I accepted my duties, looking forward to growing into my new position. Still, I had reservations about the effects on our students. For many of them, school is the place where they feel safe. School provides structure and order. Our students know what to expect, and what is expected of them. This is not to say that they don't challenge these restrictions (some more than others), but in general, boundaries remain constant. Despite the many shortcomings our public schools offer students, they can still feel a sense of comfort knowing there is a place for them at school. They have desks with their names on them, and a place to store their belongings. They have teachers who keep extra supplies of granola bars in their classrooms and know them well enough to help them find their just-right books.
It's only been two weeks of instruction with my new schedule, so it's early to say, but the challenges I've faced so far have just reinforced my feelings about the difficulties of my reading teacher position:
Multiple Teachers =
Multiple Lessons: I teach across several grade levels. Each hour, I am teaching
a different lesson for every group. Because the learning goals for each group of students vary so greatly, my classes rarely do the same thing on the same
day. To fully engage students in each literacy lesson, quite a bit of preparation is required, but there is very little time between
the classes, and it makes it difficult to switch gears so quickly.
Meshing Teaching Styles: I work with teachers who couldn’t be more different in their teaching styles. Every teacher is different. Some teachers are much more relaxed and embrace a degree of chaos while others are very structured and don’t allow for a lot of “embrace the moment” within the classrooms. The classroom teachers tend to fall all over this spectrum. It’s challenging to work with students coming from all different teachers where the expectations and atmospheres are so different. Because I work with so many people daily, I have to constantly adjust my instructional methods and materials to not only meet the needs of the students but also the expectations of the teachers I work with.
Deep-seated Connection: I dream of having a core group of students that I can work with all day. When you have a class for the whole day, your teaching doesn't stop. You are not just teaching a subject, you are working with the whole child. It comes from being with them all day, connecting on a deeper level, and having the ability to guide and teach in all aspects of the day. Now, I sometimes feel as if the impact I could have has been diluted by seeing my students only a period or two a day rather than being with them all day.
Not Being the Decision Maker: I can offer suggestions, but ultimately what happens with the students with is up to their homeroom teacher. I may spend time developing lessons to teach something, but if the homeroom teacher doesn’t agree it isn’t going to happen. If I were co-teaching with one teacher all day long, I am sure this would not be a problem. In those situations, it is your (plural!) class. You are truly co-teaching. However, when you work with students from a classroom for a period here and there each day, you just don’t have the say. My colleagues are great at doing all they can to make me feel valued, but ultimately I am working with their students, and I respect that. Nevertheless, it can be frustrating at times. I would even say that the overall loss of control of what I do has been the hardest of all for me.
Being Tied to a Strict Schedule: Since I see students for such short blocks of time, my mind wanders through my to-do lists constantly, so I can only imagine how the students feel! I have a schedule that demands me to be prepared for a new group of students every hour. There’s no room to extend a lesson because we are having a teachable moment. I can only plan lessons that can be done in a certain amount of time. I long for more flexibility in my schedule. Nevertheless, come testing time, or should a sub fail to arrive for the day, my strict schedule and structured lessons are out the window since my classes are the first to be canceled, so I can be called to duty. Of course, this is all understandable, and expected in a support position, but it remains a frustration of the job worth reflecting upon.
Teaching All Subjects: During my student teaching, I loved the variety in our days of learning together. I enjoyed teaching all subjects. This position offers limited variety within my day and an overwhelming amount of restrictions for teaching extremely subjective concepts of language arts. I love teaching reading and writing and would love to do it all day long if I had more control over how I do it. Nevertheless, I was surprised at how much I miss teaching all the subjects in the day. One of the things I miss is being able to integrate subjects and do cross-curricular projects.
The Bright Side
I'd like to end this reflection with a focus on the positive. As with anything in life, my job is most successful when I simply focus on
what I can control and what is going
well. My work with my students
continues to be the best part of my day despite all the constraints. I
am lucky to work with great teachers who do
all they can to make me feel valued.
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