Greetings BET’s!
Well, we are about eight weeks into the semester and I am
ready for a break. This “balanced”
calendar thing really has me bamboozled.
It is September 22, and we are eight weeks in! Are you kidding me????
 |
| Ahhhh! Making me lose my hair! |
Oh well, at least we are not alone. Many of the schools in our area joined this
effort to simplify schedules for various reasons. I’m sure it does simplify some things. One thing I am sure it does not, would be the
lack of a summer respite. Many of you
I’m sure are saying, “Eight weeks off isn’t enough?” Coming from the outside and now looking out
from the inside, I understand your comment.
For the world of people out there who are not in the teaching
profession, let me break down my summer for you.
So, school ended on June 3rd for us, but we had
to make a day so we came back in the next Monday. Now, I get my grades in promptly, so I was
pretty much done for the year at that point.
I spent a day or two getting my room cleaned up and organized, and then
I left for “summer” break. I spent a
week or two enjoying my family and traveling a bit, not really anything too
exciting.
Now before we left for break, I had new computers added to
my classroom. I would be teaching the
same software, but a newer version…five years newer, so there were some rather
big changes. So, around June 29th, I was back in the classroom,
working up about thirty projects that my students complete during a
semester. I have to create them using
the new version of software, so I know that what I am asking of the students,
can actually be done by the students.
I also picked up a new course that I would be teaching so I
needed to get some ideas together for how that would look in the
classroom. That didn’t go too well, as I
am on my third different text, eight weeks in.
But, nonetheless, I did spend the better part of two weeks of my summer
break, creating new material and lessons.
I also am the leader of the Freshmen Orientation program
that we have here, so I had been working on the scheduling of that for those
first two weeks as well. We had our
first training day for Mentors on the 13th of July. After that, I was in and out of my classroom
daily until August 1st, when we started back.
Don’t get me wrong…I am not trying to be the patron saint of
hard working teachers. I know we get the extra three day in the fall and the
extra week of spring break. Frankly, I
found one week of spring break a good enough time to recharge and I really
can’t afford to vacation for two weeks anyway.
I am just pointing out, that while this calendar may look balanced to
some, I find it to be something that tends to make me lose my balance more
often than not.
Conceptually, it may look good. But do we really need to keep the kids in the
classroom from August 1st to June 1st? And who says this is where it ends. Soon we may find ourselves starting school in
Mid-July and ending in mid-June. Twenty years ago, who thought we would be looking
at the schedule we are today? Just my
two cents.
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