Monday, September 29, 2008
Better Late Than Never is still LATE
Seriously, why didn't you yell at me sooner?
It was another day of go-to-work-but-don't-teach-thanks so I brought my laptop and spent the entire morning amusing myself in the English room where grey skies, damp weather and lower temperatures left me positively shivering. I started typing a longer post but - surprise! - it's not done yet. We'll see when I can manage to wrap that up. After lunch with the students I thought I could just do a little reading in the staff room without retreating to the now-frosty English room. This turned out to be a mistake, or possibly a blessing. I haven't decided which best encapsulates what happened.
The vice-principal noticed that I wasn't working and he decided to talk me about it, suggesting to me that I could better spend my time at work improving the English room and making it my own. While my initial reaction was "oh crap, he's upset that I'm not working when I'm not teaching" I took some comfort from his totally calm and straight forward suggestions as to how I could accomplish these things. If he wanted to scold me, he could have made his points and walked away in a huff. Rather, he elaborated and encouraged me to consider how I could increase the appeal of the English classroom, possibly by making it not feel like a classroom at all.
While I'm still not sure if he was reproving me or merely offering me genuine ideas, one thing is for sure: this notion of decorating the English room never occurred to me before and hearing it now is about three months too late. At the other schools which have English classrooms, they handle everything. They created them on their own initiative (it was not my request - this school included) and they designed them as they saw fit. At no time has anyone even implied that I should (or could) set about putting my own touches on the decor. I simply never thought of sprucing up a classroom I only use one day a week, and while I can't complain about tardy suggestions that are absolutely good ones, I am slightly miffed that he saw me sit around all summer doing nothing and only put this out there today. The timing couldn't be more "perfect" as I go into teaching overdrive starting tomorrow. I won't spend a single idle day at this school until December.
Meanwhile, in yet another episode of Don't Trust Anyone, I discovered that some of the flash cards I need to use tomorrow were still unlaminated and sitting in an envelope with some unrelated paperwork. Luckily, somebody somewhere ordered more laminating sheets, so I just sealed them myself and that was that. The lesson of the day (in both cases, really) is that I have to extremely proactive in dealing with this school. I have to assume that all English-related tasks will be ignored and apparently I must try to anticipate future responsibilities that I might assume on my own, because no one's going to ask me to help out until it's too late.
Why this particular school puts me in this position time after time, I can't say. Somehow the hardest school to teach in is also the hardest work environment to navigate - that is, the place where I feel like I need the most help offers me the least. Hey, at least it's only one out of five! It could be much, much worse.
It was another day of go-to-work-but-don't-teach-thanks so I brought my laptop and spent the entire morning amusing myself in the English room where grey skies, damp weather and lower temperatures left me positively shivering. I started typing a longer post but - surprise! - it's not done yet. We'll see when I can manage to wrap that up. After lunch with the students I thought I could just do a little reading in the staff room without retreating to the now-frosty English room. This turned out to be a mistake, or possibly a blessing. I haven't decided which best encapsulates what happened.
The vice-principal noticed that I wasn't working and he decided to talk me about it, suggesting to me that I could better spend my time at work improving the English room and making it my own. While my initial reaction was "oh crap, he's upset that I'm not working when I'm not teaching" I took some comfort from his totally calm and straight forward suggestions as to how I could accomplish these things. If he wanted to scold me, he could have made his points and walked away in a huff. Rather, he elaborated and encouraged me to consider how I could increase the appeal of the English classroom, possibly by making it not feel like a classroom at all.
While I'm still not sure if he was reproving me or merely offering me genuine ideas, one thing is for sure: this notion of decorating the English room never occurred to me before and hearing it now is about three months too late. At the other schools which have English classrooms, they handle everything. They created them on their own initiative (it was not my request - this school included) and they designed them as they saw fit. At no time has anyone even implied that I should (or could) set about putting my own touches on the decor. I simply never thought of sprucing up a classroom I only use one day a week, and while I can't complain about tardy suggestions that are absolutely good ones, I am slightly miffed that he saw me sit around all summer doing nothing and only put this out there today. The timing couldn't be more "perfect" as I go into teaching overdrive starting tomorrow. I won't spend a single idle day at this school until December.
Meanwhile, in yet another episode of Don't Trust Anyone, I discovered that some of the flash cards I need to use tomorrow were still unlaminated and sitting in an envelope with some unrelated paperwork. Luckily, somebody somewhere ordered more laminating sheets, so I just sealed them myself and that was that. The lesson of the day (in both cases, really) is that I have to extremely proactive in dealing with this school. I have to assume that all English-related tasks will be ignored and apparently I must try to anticipate future responsibilities that I might assume on my own, because no one's going to ask me to help out until it's too late.
Why this particular school puts me in this position time after time, I can't say. Somehow the hardest school to teach in is also the hardest work environment to navigate - that is, the place where I feel like I need the most help offers me the least. Hey, at least it's only one out of five! It could be much, much worse.
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It depends on the school. At this point, three schools have an "English Room" (although they also use it for meetings and stuff) and the others just send me around to the classrooms. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages.
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