The Longest Week: Teacher Snapshots

[Fact: essays breed like rabbits] 

For some reason parent-teacher conference week is always insane. I don't feel obligated to have everything graded (I am not a magician), as I always have plenty of grades in my grade book to show how my kids are doing (as of right now, for about ten weeks of school, I have thirty in for each kid). It usually ends up that we're finishing one book and starting another, so the onslaught of end-of-the-book essays, tests, and assignments is ridiculous. At the same time I'm also prepping to start a new work, so the workload intensifies. We always have book club the day of conferences, since we can actually go out to lunch (typically we get just thirty-five minutes, which makes leaving campus is impossible), so I'm usually rushing to finish the book up to, and this week was no exception. 

I think there are many, many people out there that simply don't realize what it takes to be a teacher (although there are plenty who do). While we're at work our mental and emotional capacities are stretched so thin, needing to tend to several things and people at once from the moment we get there to the moment we can get out the door. While we're at home we have our own lives, but we also have to wrestle with the silent expectations that we will get done everything we didn't get to while actually at work. My contractual day is 7.5 hours, but I put in many, many more hours than that, on the low end eight extra, on a harder week nearly twenty (as do all of my colleagues). I'm not trying to complain, because I really do love my job and would walk on fire for my students. But the idea that it's all summer vacations, leisurely afternoons at home before those with 9-5s, and that we can "just give them all Bs" is just so totally wrong and frustrating. 

Motivated by some contractual issues we have right now with our union and district, and by my own love of seeing the daily lives of others, I decided to take some really boring, but really accurate pictures of what a crazy week looks like for an English teacher. 

[I start every single morning with a to-do list]

[that new Keurig is hard hard at work]

[afternoon meeting on things I already know]

[re-doing bulletin boards]

[when I swear at work]

[every single night for the past 10 or so days]

[it's always nice to meet with families, as much
as the lead up can be rough]

[trying to get it allll done before Thanksgiving break]

[we get to leave 2.5 hours early the day after
conferences so I took myself to lunch]