Working Smarter, Not Harder

I did it. I got a job.

And so far, I love it! I love my school, and I love my department. I feel very blessed to be where I am.

Week 1, consisting of 3 days, is done. And it was a success. I say this to remind myself as much to tell you. My first day was great. My second was just fine (I only had one class), and I went home that night with a great lesson idea for the following day. It wasn't until that night that I realized that the lesson wouldn't work.

I scrambled for new ideas. 45 minutes later, I had an even better plan in the works. This plan was perfect, brilliant, and I loved it until I realized that it wouldn't work either. Panic rising slowly, I formulated a third plan for a few anxious minutes before realizing that I didn't have the materials I would need. Defeated, I simplified some ideas that I had and stumbled to bed too late with an acceptable plan.

That next day, the lesson went just fine. It worked. But, throughout the day, I couldn't shake the feeling that I had failed. You see, I had seen, as if in vision, those other plans, each more perfect than the last, each tantalizing out of reach. I looked upon my acceptable work for the day, and all I saw was shambles in the shadows of my previous ideas, now mocking me in my defeat.

I went home determined to work harder. The shadow of shame followed me home. "Can I keep it?" I asked myself. Like the little child with a wandering dog, I wasn't fully aware of the responsibilities inherent in keeping such an animal. Fortunately, I got to see a few friends that evening who talked some sense into me. "You won't have any time to feed or take care of this new pet if you want to continue to work your big-boy job." They figuratively said. "Besides, you like your new job. You're good at it too, you just need to allow yourself to have a few bad days." Wise words. Kind friends.

The trick, I think, is not what I have always tried: working harder. When I feel defeated, "working harder" just becomes another unattainable goal, mocking my efforts as I grow more weary and more deadened to life. Instead, I need to work smarter. I need to figure out how to balance all that I need to do. Thus, plan "Work Smarter" was born.


Daily lesson planning will be done daily during prep periods. I will try to plan a week ahead of time at all times, whenever possible.

Reflection and emails will be done after class ends and before I go home. I will reflect on how to improve each day's lessons, make some notes for next year, and then leave those worries in my files at work before heading home.

Larger scale "big picture" planning for upcoming units will be done on Saturdays. I need to feel free of deadline induced stressed for this more conceptual planning to be effective, so I will reserve it for Saturdays when I have no other work responsibilities.

Grading, thanks to my team's innovated and heaven blessed checklist system, will mostly be taken care of in class, but I am no fool. I plan on doing whatever other grading I need to do in the evenings, with the assurance that my other responsibilities are being taken care of at school. I will try to keep these graded assignments to a workable, manageable level, for my and my students' sake.


Well, that's plan "Work Smarter," and I think that she will treat me much nicer than my temporary stint with "Work Harder," that shaming sneak.

The End of the Beginning: Finding a Job

I always considered myself luckier than my other undergraduate friends; whenever they were worrying about what they would do after they graduate, that question for me was answered simply: teach! As spring break wears on (and what a glorious thing to be a BYU student and have a spring break), graduation is fast approaching, and I remain, for the time, jobless.

I never really worried about getting a job, trusting that I was being properly prepared. I planned on crossing that bridge when I came to it. Well, here it is, a rickety rope ladder on its side, spanning a wide gap between graduation and my first "big-boy" job. Every position I apply for is getting between 60 and 90 applicants, and somehow I need to stand out.

Standing out in person has never been a problem for me (being 6'8" has its advantages), but I'm still learning the knack of standing out when my potential employers can only view my resume and a few letters of recommendation. Fortunately, I feel that my paper work is in order and that it highlights my skills and personality reasonably well. I plan on improving them as much as possible as well. Unfortunately, these employers don't get the full "Mr. Jones" experience without meeting me in person.

Which brings me to my two-part plan: receive professional advice on resumes and the like from BYU's career services, and visit every school that I have applied to; if I can meet a principal from these schools, then I have a great shot at standing out.

After I tidy up my resume a little bit and get a few more professional tips, I plan on flooding the valley with my resume. I will apply online of course, but brief, personal visits are, in my opinion, what are going to really help me in the job market.

That being said, I need to take a moment to address you, my casual reader.

This blog will continue to be updated, as writing is important and helps me learn. This will continue to be a place for me to reflect on what I am learning as a new teacher. Tune in if you like, don't if you don't.

Mr. Jones

Planning and Adjustments

Finishing off my Teacher Work Sample this afternoon, I was able to look back at my student teaching experience as a whole, and, luckily, I learned a few things.

The first thing that I learned was that planning day-to-day is HARD! There is so much to do on a daily basis with grading and instruction that having to plan an entire curriculum from day to day becomes WAY too much to deal with.

That's why I plan on planning ahead of time as much as possible. The sooner I can find out what I'm supposed to teach next year, the sooner I will be able to get a head start this summer. I want to talk to my new department at the end of this year to learn when they are teaching what, and to steal their best ideas.

The second thing that I learned, was that grading a final assessment where the majority of the students did very poorly is EXTREMELY discouraging. I don't like going through that. In order to prevent that, I'm going to plan some good formative assessments, and adjust my teaching as the unit is in progress; reteaching, adjusting deadlines, and providing intervention and help in a directive way towards my students needs.

When I know how they're struggling, then I can help them overcome their struggles, when I help them overcome their struggles, then they preform better on their final assessments, and when they perform better on their final assessments, they are happier, and I am happier (how's this for a run-on sentence?).

If you know me, then you know that keeping things short can be hard for me (pun intended), but here goes: I've learned from my mistakes to plan ahead as much as possible and to use formative assessments.

Late Work

Somehow, I managed to grade all of the late work in the mad rush of papers that came in at the end of the term. I had a few students that gave only perfunctory effort, but many of them cracked down to get things done, mostly out of fear. After grading everything and reflecting with my mentor teacher, I realized that some of the kids who had (I'm being honest here) a bad grade in the class ended up with quite a good grade in the end.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about that. I like that the students were able to obtain a good grade, but I also feel that by letting them turn in everything late, with minimal points docked, that I am teaching them that consequences don't really matter. Or perhaps I'm teaching them that the consequences don't add up to what I say they will. "You can be lazy all term long and still end up with a good grade by putting in a burst of effort at the very end." Even though this may sometimes be true, is this a perspective that I want to be teaching and training my kids to adopt?

My mentor teacher suggested working out a late-work policy that I like, one that I would use if given the directive to do as I wish in this regard. As with so many things in student teaching, this has been hard to conceptualize because I simply don't have the experience. I don't really know how things would pan out. Regardless, here is my current plan for late work:

• Any assignments where the deadline has been previously given must be turned in on the assigned date regardless of absences, excused or otherwise.

• If a student has an excused absence, then they have a week to make up any in-class assignments for that day before it is considered late.

• Late assignments turned in within a week of the original due date will receive a 10% dock in credit.

• Any assignment more than a week late will receive half credit.

• No assignments may be turned in more that 2 weeks late.

• Extenuating circumstances may allow a special contract to made on a case by case basis, according to my judgement.

Contacting Parents

While the rest of the school was celebrating Pi day. I had a few Parent Day activities. I'd been meaning to contact a few parents for a while now - and the right opportunities finally came.

First, as I greeted students while they walked in, I had one of them greet me back with a pleasant "It's nice to see you too, Mr. Jones." This student was usually very quiet, and I was glad to hear that she enjoyed the class enough to be glad to be there. During that period I checked her grade and found that she was doing fairly well, and thought - "hey, here is an opportunity to have positive contact with a parent!" I wrote a little note to her parents, explaining how she is doing well in the class and how she is always respectful. I hoped that writing it in her parents' native language would be helpful as well, and provide good rapport. I then thanked the student for her attitude in class and asked her to hand the note to her parents. She seemed glad to do so.

My other experience with a parent was a little more nerve-racking. I have one student that has continually been giving me trouble. His attitude in the class can be perfectly described as flippant. His disruptions in class are consistently distracting and, frankly, highly annoying. Even the other students have mentioned this. I have called him out several times, with varying degrees of effectiveness. A week or so ago I gave him an official warning, mentioning that I would call his parents if he persisted. His behavior temporarily subsided, but began to ebb towards obnoxiousness again today. He called another student stupid in front of the entire class. I had him move to the back of the class and write a note of apology. His note apologized for him making fun of her "dumb, blonde comment." He did not participate in group work that day and had to read alone. I spoke with him and told him I would be calling his parents that afternoon.

After school, I was pretty nervous about calling his parents. I didn't know how they would react. I sat down and planned out what I would say, opening with the positive (he is doing well in the class) and how I would transition to the negative and explain the exact nature of his "crimes" and how I had dealt with it. It didn't help my nerves that no one answered the first two numbers I tried, but his father finally picked up. His father was actually rather pleasant. I explained how his son's attitude has had a negative effect on the learning and on other students. He seemed to take the news well, and the only question he had for me was how he could reach me if need be. Luckily my mentor teacher was there to give me the school's phone number, and we were on my way. I don't anticipate any major problems from the student in the future. Wow. My first phone call to a parent!

On another note, the student whose parent sent me the angry email the other day told me that his dad had found the questions I had used on the study guide online and was helping him complete them. I said I was glad that his father was helping him. Huh.

Reading!

We're beginning reading! Writing was a little rough, but I learned how to help them understand the concepts better and will do a better job on it next time. Reading, though, is going to be more fun, IMAO (in my arrogant opinion - let's be honest: if I have an opinion about it, then I feel fairly strongly about it).

I've already started setting the stage this week for the context and setting of To Kill a Mockingbird, and I feel that the students have really responded to it. It has been fun to see them thinking about segregation and what life was like in the Jim Crow South. Some of them even seem interested in this mysterious Boo Radley character, and that makes me glad.

My honors class is doing really well and I have a unit plan, a variation on lit circles, that I'm really excited about planned for them. I really like it, but I'm going to need to do something a little different for my regular English 9 classes. I'm still deciding how I want to do it, though...

Why do I want to teach?

I have realized recently that student teaching has been getting me rather cynical. I don't like that change that has been happening. After grading all those essays, and seeing how poorly my students had done, I started to lose hope that I could help them learn. This past week has been hard because, without the hope that I can help these students learn the material, I haven't seen the point. It's been a whole lot of hard work, and it was just to get things done.

I don't want to become the teacher who does things just because they need to be done. There is too much hard work for me to put up with without my real passion coming into play. So I asked myself, why do I want to teach?

Today, during intervention, I was able to work with some students and help them make some real progress on their projects. It was very rewarding to see them learn, no, to be able to help them learn. Why do I want to teach? Because I want to take part in helping students learn. I love that feeling of connection that comes when a student reaches a new understanding, when they finally get how to complete an assignment, or a new concept enlightens their mind.

That's why I teach. For the personal connection that comes from helping and learning.

Lately, I haven't been getting much of that. Partially because I shut myself off to it - I stopped believing in these students (they did so poorly on the essay), and I began to stop believing in myself. I stopped believing that I was capable of this.

But, that is simply not true.

I need to be the kind of teacher that believes that he truly can help his students, or all the work of teaching is too much for me. I can do a lot of hard work if I feel that I am making a difference. When I don't feel that, it's nose-to-the-grindstone, purposeless, grueling, pointless work. I can't live that way. I cannot teach that way.

I need to find ways to remind myself that these students can learn, and that I can help them. I need to hope in their potential and in mine. Without that, I simply cannot teach.

With that in mind, planning and teaching becomes easier and more effective as well. All I ask myself is: what do I want them to learn? and how can I assess that they are learning that? Anything else can and must go.

I will teach to help students truly learn, and I need to focus on that, and cut away anything that doesn't help with that. If I don't get that personal connection, it's not worth it for me, and it's not worth it for my students.