What is it all about?
A wonderful Art teacher at our school has a funny way of beginning his stories, so a shout out to him as I begin this tale:
So no shit, there I was, up for my annual review.
(It's hard to believe I have been teaching at this school for almost five years now, but there it is. Five years! This is longer than I've ever stayed anywhere, being the daughter of a military family; we tend to be migratory, and get antsy after about two or three years in the same place, kind of like Canadian Geese. ) But I love my job, and I know I'll never get such a wonderful opportunity again, and somehow I've just sort of...well, squatted. The school is a private boarding school on a gorgeous tract of land, with enormous gray-stone buildings and a lake from which fog rises on cold, early mornings, and the settings alone feed my soul. Then, there's the work - as it is a new school, and I came on at the beginning, and it's a private school, so we don't have to contend with the ridiculous state standards, I have had the distinct honor, privilege and joy of building my curriculum from scratch. This is an opportunity teachers never get in the modern world, and I am not one to take my fortunes lightly. As the new buildings on campus go up one by one, so do my new syllabi come out of the laser printer. What I love about this is the challenge of meeting the needs of the students while balancing their needs with my passions. Allow me to share with you how I go about building my classes for this college-preparatory institution.
I begin with an idea - "Wouldn't it be cool to teach a class on Russian Literature?" Then, I make a short list of the works I would like to include in this class. Then, the real work begins. I download and print out every available college syllabus I can find online pertaining to the subject. I go through these with a highlighter and mark the works that show up repeatedly on the college syllabi. Then I compile a list of these and compare it to my own, which leads to final cuts and a book list for the class in question.
Next, I build my syllabus - a midterm and final exam must be scheduled, weekly reading quizzes and response papers, two in-class timed essays (practice for the SAT), three formal essays, and discussion circles each week. I organize and order the works we are reading
according to some plan of my devising - sometimes it's chronological, sometimes thematic,
sometimes it's according to length - ease them into longer works by starting with shorter ones,
or alternately, get the big works out of the way and make it easier for them later in the term.
Finally, I proofread the syllabus, finalize it, and print it out. Syllabus in hand, I then visit local
bookstores and libraries to start researching background materials for lectures and papers. The
entire process for any given course I teach can take about 100 hours. I teach 30 separate classes, all of which were created in this fashion. We are talking a lot of elbow grease here, and we haven't even begun the actual teaching and grading and evaluating. But I love doing it, because I truly feel that my kids are getting a college prep class, that they are seeing what they will see again at the college level - and this is something I never really believed when I was teaching public school.
The classes I teach are grouped into categories for easy transcripts and scheduling. They are as follows:
American Lit: Early American Writing, 1865-1900, 1900-1945, 1945-1975, and Contemporary.
British Lit: Middle Ages-17th c., The Victorians and Moderns, the Romantics, C.S. Lews & J. R.R. Tolkein, and Arthuriana.
World Lit.: Nonwestern survey, Asian Lit., Epic Lit., Indian Lit., and French Lit.
Writing/Performance: Classical-17th century drama, 19th & 20th c. drama, Shakespeare, Creative Writing, and Special Topics
Minorit Lit.: Jewish-American, African-American, lit. of Genocide, Women Writers, and Hispanic-American
Art History: Greek and Roman, Medieval/Renaissance, 17th-19th c., Nonwestern, and Modern/20th c.
This is a LOT of research and syllabus writing over the past four years!
(I also teach the SAT verbal prep classes and write a mean rec for college, BTW.)
Back to the original story. So no shit, there I was, going in for my annual review, in which I get to look at the course evaluations our students complete at the end of each term. I know not to expect a lot - I mean, these are teenagers, and no matter how hard you work to please them and to help them, they're...well, they're teenagers!
But I was in for a rude shock, and I do mean rude. And genuinely bizarre, frankly.
In the plus column, every class included several students commenting as follows: she's passionate, driven, enthusiastic, likes the subject matter, explains well, cares about the students. One kid wrote, "She's brilliant" (I blush) and one enthusiastic little darling wrote, "I LOVE HER!!!" (bless the child.)
In the negative column, again for every class, I received the following: "Arrogant, too hard, yells at the kids, talks off-topic, gives too much work, impatient."
OUCH. But that wasn't too bad, I mean I'm the teacher, they aren't supposed to loooove me as the authority in the classroom. No, what hurt was the few but stinging comments that stood out: "She's an evil wench." (OK, that was kind of funny, actually.) "She hates the students." (What?!?!) " "I hate her." (Hate? Wow.) And worst of all, "She's a liar." (Did the kid research that first?)
Anyway, the point is, the review went very, very well, I got all sorts of kudos and plaudits from my boss, a raise, love and pats on the back, admonitions to stay the course, and so on and so forth. So why do these naysayers' comments stand out in my head so much? I think it is because they seem so unfair. I am actually not arrogant - that would be my classroom demeanor. I have a hard time in large groups. I get insecure and very uncomfortable, and I am actually very shy. So the comedy and song-and-dance routine I employ is actually a cover up for these things, all of which are terrible attributes for the classroom teacher to possess at the high school level. It hurt my feelings that the kids took it (or said they did) as an arrogance. Evil wench - well, hey, I must have failed that kid. But hates the students? Where did they get that idea from? After everything I went through to get this job and everything I went through to do the job to the best of my ability, all of those hours and hours I spent creating curriculum that would get them where they needed to be, grading and evaluating, talking and talking and talking some more, listening, commenting, loving my babies, they think I hate them?! They have no idea how much heart and soul I put into this work and into them. The really rotten students don't know that I cherish their faults and foibles,
even as I'm trying to correct them. They don't know that I take them home with me at night and wonder about them on weekends. They don't get it. They never will. This is, I think, the crux of the hurt I feel. How can they not know? Duh - because they are self-absorbed teenagers and it's all about them!
It IS all about them. That's why I'm here. In former positions, I never really got the feeling we were there for the kids. At this job, I relish the fact that my whole job starts and ends with my darling babies. Maybe if they knew that, they would see where I'm coming from and get what I am doing.
Then again - passionate, driven, enthusiastic - maybe they do get it, after all.
My boss gets it, at any rate. I can now put gas in my car again!
So no shit, there I was, up for my annual review.
(It's hard to believe I have been teaching at this school for almost five years now, but there it is. Five years! This is longer than I've ever stayed anywhere, being the daughter of a military family; we tend to be migratory, and get antsy after about two or three years in the same place, kind of like Canadian Geese. ) But I love my job, and I know I'll never get such a wonderful opportunity again, and somehow I've just sort of...well, squatted. The school is a private boarding school on a gorgeous tract of land, with enormous gray-stone buildings and a lake from which fog rises on cold, early mornings, and the settings alone feed my soul. Then, there's the work - as it is a new school, and I came on at the beginning, and it's a private school, so we don't have to contend with the ridiculous state standards, I have had the distinct honor, privilege and joy of building my curriculum from scratch. This is an opportunity teachers never get in the modern world, and I am not one to take my fortunes lightly. As the new buildings on campus go up one by one, so do my new syllabi come out of the laser printer. What I love about this is the challenge of meeting the needs of the students while balancing their needs with my passions. Allow me to share with you how I go about building my classes for this college-preparatory institution.
I begin with an idea - "Wouldn't it be cool to teach a class on Russian Literature?" Then, I make a short list of the works I would like to include in this class. Then, the real work begins. I download and print out every available college syllabus I can find online pertaining to the subject. I go through these with a highlighter and mark the works that show up repeatedly on the college syllabi. Then I compile a list of these and compare it to my own, which leads to final cuts and a book list for the class in question.
Next, I build my syllabus - a midterm and final exam must be scheduled, weekly reading quizzes and response papers, two in-class timed essays (practice for the SAT), three formal essays, and discussion circles each week. I organize and order the works we are reading
according to some plan of my devising - sometimes it's chronological, sometimes thematic,
sometimes it's according to length - ease them into longer works by starting with shorter ones,
or alternately, get the big works out of the way and make it easier for them later in the term.
Finally, I proofread the syllabus, finalize it, and print it out. Syllabus in hand, I then visit local
bookstores and libraries to start researching background materials for lectures and papers. The
entire process for any given course I teach can take about 100 hours. I teach 30 separate classes, all of which were created in this fashion. We are talking a lot of elbow grease here, and we haven't even begun the actual teaching and grading and evaluating. But I love doing it, because I truly feel that my kids are getting a college prep class, that they are seeing what they will see again at the college level - and this is something I never really believed when I was teaching public school.
The classes I teach are grouped into categories for easy transcripts and scheduling. They are as follows:
American Lit: Early American Writing, 1865-1900, 1900-1945, 1945-1975, and Contemporary.
British Lit: Middle Ages-17th c., The Victorians and Moderns, the Romantics, C.S. Lews & J. R.R. Tolkein, and Arthuriana.
World Lit.: Nonwestern survey, Asian Lit., Epic Lit., Indian Lit., and French Lit.
Writing/Performance: Classical-17th century drama, 19th & 20th c. drama, Shakespeare, Creative Writing, and Special Topics
Minorit Lit.: Jewish-American, African-American, lit. of Genocide, Women Writers, and Hispanic-American
Art History: Greek and Roman, Medieval/Renaissance, 17th-19th c., Nonwestern, and Modern/20th c.
This is a LOT of research and syllabus writing over the past four years!
(I also teach the SAT verbal prep classes and write a mean rec for college, BTW.)
Back to the original story. So no shit, there I was, going in for my annual review, in which I get to look at the course evaluations our students complete at the end of each term. I know not to expect a lot - I mean, these are teenagers, and no matter how hard you work to please them and to help them, they're...well, they're teenagers!
But I was in for a rude shock, and I do mean rude. And genuinely bizarre, frankly.
In the plus column, every class included several students commenting as follows: she's passionate, driven, enthusiastic, likes the subject matter, explains well, cares about the students. One kid wrote, "She's brilliant" (I blush) and one enthusiastic little darling wrote, "I LOVE HER!!!" (bless the child.)
In the negative column, again for every class, I received the following: "Arrogant, too hard, yells at the kids, talks off-topic, gives too much work, impatient."
OUCH. But that wasn't too bad, I mean I'm the teacher, they aren't supposed to loooove me as the authority in the classroom. No, what hurt was the few but stinging comments that stood out: "She's an evil wench." (OK, that was kind of funny, actually.) "She hates the students." (What?!?!) " "I hate her." (Hate? Wow.) And worst of all, "She's a liar." (Did the kid research that first?)
Anyway, the point is, the review went very, very well, I got all sorts of kudos and plaudits from my boss, a raise, love and pats on the back, admonitions to stay the course, and so on and so forth. So why do these naysayers' comments stand out in my head so much? I think it is because they seem so unfair. I am actually not arrogant - that would be my classroom demeanor. I have a hard time in large groups. I get insecure and very uncomfortable, and I am actually very shy. So the comedy and song-and-dance routine I employ is actually a cover up for these things, all of which are terrible attributes for the classroom teacher to possess at the high school level. It hurt my feelings that the kids took it (or said they did) as an arrogance. Evil wench - well, hey, I must have failed that kid. But hates the students? Where did they get that idea from? After everything I went through to get this job and everything I went through to do the job to the best of my ability, all of those hours and hours I spent creating curriculum that would get them where they needed to be, grading and evaluating, talking and talking and talking some more, listening, commenting, loving my babies, they think I hate them?! They have no idea how much heart and soul I put into this work and into them. The really rotten students don't know that I cherish their faults and foibles,
even as I'm trying to correct them. They don't know that I take them home with me at night and wonder about them on weekends. They don't get it. They never will. This is, I think, the crux of the hurt I feel. How can they not know? Duh - because they are self-absorbed teenagers and it's all about them!
It IS all about them. That's why I'm here. In former positions, I never really got the feeling we were there for the kids. At this job, I relish the fact that my whole job starts and ends with my darling babies. Maybe if they knew that, they would see where I'm coming from and get what I am doing.
Then again - passionate, driven, enthusiastic - maybe they do get it, after all.
My boss gets it, at any rate. I can now put gas in my car again!
posted by Melle | 11:20 AM
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