I'ma updote my dreamwidth!
Oct. 29th, 2020 01:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyressSo, right before the realest first1 school day of the year, I started myself a little spreadsheet to find out just how long I do work, anyways. This means dedicated active work time --prepping lessons, delivering lessons, grading lessons, answering emails, attending meetings, talking to or reaching out to students, following up, collaborating with my peers, etc etc etc.
But the important thing to note is that I am scrupulous about not "cheating". If I have a long lunch or a moment where "my code's compiling", I note those times and don't count them. It's a very bitter thing, to think about just how many of my computer-folk friends have plenty of time to hang out on social media in the middle of the workday.
The numbers are largely what you'd expect --on weeks where I do >40 active hours of work, I feel like I am just barely managing to keep up. On weeks when I am doing 30-40 active hours of work, I feel like I'm falling desperately behind. It's worth noting that at no point this school year have I actually felt like I've managed to do everything that needs doing, and that's not in a "oh, I could always polish my lessons more" way, that's in a "literally, the school wants us to do an impossible amount of student tracking work this year, in addition to re-prepping all our lessons to be an online format and a different length".
Anyways, my spreadsheet quickly became a place where I could keep notes to myself, because any piece of paper owned by me for long enough will turn into a notebook. And given that I worked nearly 14 hours today, I thought it might be interesting to see today's!
Author's notes: ML is "MultiLingual", NEST is "Newcomers to English Success Team", mentor is footnoted because too complicated2, Dep is math department, WR is Wednesday Review3, Insights is the student-info website, SEI/CP are Sheltered English Immersion/College Prep Algebra.
In answer to the wonderings, "almost 14" and "no"
Author's notes: I round all times to the nearest 15 minutes, because I'm a dweeb but not *that* much of a dweeb and also that would make it too hard to calculate the hours. Which is why the text says 2220 but the header says 2215 for end time.
Also dessert was lovely, Ezri cooked a taro pie!
Author's notes: 3B is my Advanced Math class --all my other classes are Algebra 1. It's seniors/juniors who don't want to take math but also need to in order to graduate, and also aren't ready for pre-Calc. Lots of like...trying to get kids to be enough math literate to function as adults. It's my first time teaching the class. I have a lot of feelings about how it is close but not close enough to my extremely beloved Discrete Math/Data Analysis duo that has disappeared, in all liklihood forever because things got taken away for pandemic and getting them back is gonna be way fucking harder.
Conferences/tiering is IDing students who need some sort of action because they are not currently passing. We have this whole "tier one support guide" full of very dry and exhausting steps for if a student is absent or fails an assignment or whatever. There are many things within it that could be automated by someone who is very slightly clever with computers, or hell, someone who is not at all clever but actually has access to all the permissions on our student database site.
And there you have it! Note what _didn't_ happen in those 14 hours yesterday --I did absolutely zero work for preparing tomorrow's classes. And it's not like last year when I had the lesson mostly put together from the previous year and could just pull it out and tweak it for five minutes at the start of class. I have finally gotten to a point where I'm mostly managing to get my lessons prepped in an hour, which I technically have since contractually school starts at 8 and first class is at 9 but I am speaking from experience when I say that's pretty tight and it would be really good if I can start earlier.
I also did not go through my emails --there are a lot of things I need to work on in there! I did not do any "fun" school work, which is to say I didn't make progress on the board game club stuff that needs doing, or on the "how to pronouns" PD I'm helping run next week. Oh, or finishing up the "district queer shit" website I'm helping make for a PD I'm taking4. I still haven't made the Hyperdoc for one of my classes this week (this is extremely shameful, it's supposed to be the one-stop-shop for students to find links to ALL work and everything they need for the week) and I'm a day behind on the other two.
Oh shit, and my goals are due VERY SOON. I think they're not actually due Friday-as-claimed, but that's the important first step in the ~evaluation process~ what I commonly call evidence and have A LOT OF STRESS AROUND. Although I have my professional status now, it's harder to fire me, maybe I just don't give a fuck about doing evidence this year. Haha, RSD says that is a literal impossibility, cool cool cool.
And I have talked to a grand total of zero parents so far this school year, which honestly suits *me* just fine (If I wanted to work with adults, I would have a different job) but is really not a great look for like, accomplishing shit reasons.
ANYways, my life is very very, as you'd probably expect from someone daft enough to try and teach during a pandemic. GO HOME AND STAY THERE. TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. BE SOFT AND SOOTHED. GET PAID LOTS OF MONEY BY THE GOVERNMENT SO WE CAN ALL STAY HOME AND REST. Like, I know my shouting doesn't bring this into existence but damn, why the fuck are we playacting normal anyways?
Hope you're well. Thanks for reading a few thousand words of aaaaahhhh. Despite what it may sound like, this is a _good_ post, this is _good_ energy coming through. It is, of course, also completely unsustainable, but that's how things go.
Ta
~Sor
MOOP!
1: School this year was weird, because there was September 2nd, which was the first day for teachers and we had 12 days of professional development for the ~new~ school year format. Then there was September 18th, which was first day for students, but you only saw one class and had to teach them about orientation whole-school stuff, not your actual class. And then there was September 21st, which was a special schedule week where we saw our week A classes on Mon/Tues and our week B classes on Thu/Fri and all the classes were only 45 minutes and it was really just first chance to meet people.
And finally was September 28th, which was probably the "realest" day of school, since it was the first normally scheduled day and the start of the first A week. So that's what I count as Week 1(a), the special schedule before it was week 0, and everything before THAT was "this pandemic hell year is indeed that"
2: Mentors -- every teacher has been assigned a caseload of 10-15 students who they are responsible for doing extra check-ins and reach out and helping and all that. I have eight students which sounds really keen and lucky until I point out that none of them speak English fluently, and at least three of them speak English _not at all_. So me communicating with them about nuanced school shit is an enjoyable dance of begging the translators to come hang with me and-or do all my work. Nobody likes this.
3: The schedule this year is asynchronous work for students on Wednesdays. This means no zoom class or traditional virtual school (is there such a thing yet?) but yes we do have to give the kids work and they do have to do the work. For _teachers_ it is...well, a lot of all of that.
4: We are required to take 12 hours a year. Running a 12 hour PD doesn't count for any of it, so I'm spending a lot of time working on white educators' anti-racist book club which is valuable and important and absolutely not earning me my hours. Luckily, there was a six hours "queer shit workspace" that I did the past two weeks, and hopefully I'll find some other stuff.
(Doing more than 12 hours is great because a) I actually believe in the efficacy of professional development and b) certainly even if it's bullshit, it's bullshit that tends to revitalize and re-inspire me about my job, plus I get to meet other teachers from all over the district and there are some cool people out here. Oh and c) any extra hours you do climb you up the payment scale, so until I get my ass into grad school, this is how I earn raises.)
But the important thing to note is that I am scrupulous about not "cheating". If I have a long lunch or a moment where "my code's compiling", I note those times and don't count them. It's a very bitter thing, to think about just how many of my computer-folk friends have plenty of time to hang out on social media in the middle of the workday.
The numbers are largely what you'd expect --on weeks where I do >40 active hours of work, I feel like I am just barely managing to keep up. On weeks when I am doing 30-40 active hours of work, I feel like I'm falling desperately behind. It's worth noting that at no point this school year have I actually felt like I've managed to do everything that needs doing, and that's not in a "oh, I could always polish my lessons more" way, that's in a "literally, the school wants us to do an impossible amount of student tracking work this year, in addition to re-prepping all our lessons to be an online format and a different length".
Anyways, my spreadsheet quickly became a place where I could keep notes to myself, because any piece of paper owned by me for long enough will turn into a notebook. And given that I worked nearly 14 hours today, I thought it might be interesting to see today's!
0800 - 1800
Meeting with Clayton and then Raul for Alg1 (we talked about assessment scores)
Meeting with ML math team (also valuable clean-up-Drive time)
NEST meeting wooo!
Time for quick mentor grading and then meetings?
Had one meeting. Am trying to do grading stuff. There's a lot of it. Got the quizzes in, at least. Sigh
Ate lunch in two point six seconds, essentially while doing my Dep Meeting. Also did some WR grading. The meeting was, by the way, a shitshow and we did not have extra time to do stuff like planned. I wonder how many hours I can work today and whether it will catch me up all the way.
It is 2:30! I finished the IEP meeting and grading all the 2A week 2 WRs and now I can start student hours and grade more WRs!
Oh wait, conference stuff first.
That was quick. 1521-1614 was doing conduct referrals for absences. Until 1644 was mentor updates on Insights. Now I'ma read Insights. Then more grading I hope!
Reading Insights took until 1732. I'm not done for the day, but maybe I should go to the other room and also maybe I should eat something
Okay, 1800, ten straight hours, finished the SEI WedsRev, now on to CP and then all the other grading and then and then and then *sobs*
Author's notes: ML is "MultiLingual", NEST is "Newcomers to English Success Team", mentor is footnoted because too complicated2, Dep is math department, WR is Wednesday Review3, Insights is the student-info website, SEI/CP are Sheltered English Immersion/College Prep Algebra.
In answer to the wonderings, "almost 14" and "no"
2030 - 2215
Delicious long break. Grading time! More than an hour later, I am done the 1A WR. Whee!
At about 2145 I could start the 3A. I'm taking a break at 2220 to wash a pan for dessert
Author's notes: I round all times to the nearest 15 minutes, because I'm a dweeb but not *that* much of a dweeb and also that would make it too hard to calculate the hours. Which is why the text says 2220 but the header says 2215 for end time.
Also dessert was lovely, Ezri cooked a taro pie!
2230 - 0030
Back to it! Gotta finish them WRs! Everything else will go fast after that, except when I get to the 3B stuff sigh Wooo done with WR by 2300 wooo!
Done with everything else except the group classwork at 2335, woooo*thump*
Okay, I lied, I had some stuff left for 1B and now it's 2352 and I am *done* grading the SEI stuff, and just have that classwork for CP algebra and then I have the AdvMath and aieeee! Plus all the things where recommending kids for conferences and tiering and stuff. I suppose I could rec the SEI kids right away? It is fucking midnight, after all?
OKAY IT IS 12:15 AT NIGHT BUT I HAVE FINISHED ALL THE FUCKING GRADING! I THINK I AM DONE NOW! I CAN DO THE CONDUCT NONSENSE TOMORROW OKAY?
Also, I still need to do all the grading for 3B. Also at some point I should ~prep my fucking classes~ but yanno, that may or may not ever actually happen.
Okay, for fucking real, stop puttering and go the fuck to sleep. I know you're hyperfocused. But like...sleep. And then other things tomorrow, that aren't just full work full time
Author's notes: 3B is my Advanced Math class --all my other classes are Algebra 1. It's seniors/juniors who don't want to take math but also need to in order to graduate, and also aren't ready for pre-Calc. Lots of like...trying to get kids to be enough math literate to function as adults. It's my first time teaching the class. I have a lot of feelings about how it is close but not close enough to my extremely beloved Discrete Math/Data Analysis duo that has disappeared, in all liklihood forever because things got taken away for pandemic and getting them back is gonna be way fucking harder.
Conferences/tiering is IDing students who need some sort of action because they are not currently passing. We have this whole "tier one support guide" full of very dry and exhausting steps for if a student is absent or fails an assignment or whatever. There are many things within it that could be automated by someone who is very slightly clever with computers, or hell, someone who is not at all clever but actually has access to all the permissions on our student database site.
And there you have it! Note what _didn't_ happen in those 14 hours yesterday --I did absolutely zero work for preparing tomorrow's classes. And it's not like last year when I had the lesson mostly put together from the previous year and could just pull it out and tweak it for five minutes at the start of class. I have finally gotten to a point where I'm mostly managing to get my lessons prepped in an hour, which I technically have since contractually school starts at 8 and first class is at 9 but I am speaking from experience when I say that's pretty tight and it would be really good if I can start earlier.
I also did not go through my emails --there are a lot of things I need to work on in there! I did not do any "fun" school work, which is to say I didn't make progress on the board game club stuff that needs doing, or on the "how to pronouns" PD I'm helping run next week. Oh, or finishing up the "district queer shit" website I'm helping make for a PD I'm taking4. I still haven't made the Hyperdoc for one of my classes this week (this is extremely shameful, it's supposed to be the one-stop-shop for students to find links to ALL work and everything they need for the week) and I'm a day behind on the other two.
Oh shit, and my goals are due VERY SOON. I think they're not actually due Friday-as-claimed, but that's the important first step in the ~evaluation process~ what I commonly call evidence and have A LOT OF STRESS AROUND. Although I have my professional status now, it's harder to fire me, maybe I just don't give a fuck about doing evidence this year. Haha, RSD says that is a literal impossibility, cool cool cool.
And I have talked to a grand total of zero parents so far this school year, which honestly suits *me* just fine (If I wanted to work with adults, I would have a different job) but is really not a great look for like, accomplishing shit reasons.
ANYways, my life is very very, as you'd probably expect from someone daft enough to try and teach during a pandemic. GO HOME AND STAY THERE. TAKE CARE OF EACH OTHER. BE SOFT AND SOOTHED. GET PAID LOTS OF MONEY BY THE GOVERNMENT SO WE CAN ALL STAY HOME AND REST. Like, I know my shouting doesn't bring this into existence but damn, why the fuck are we playacting normal anyways?
Hope you're well. Thanks for reading a few thousand words of aaaaahhhh. Despite what it may sound like, this is a _good_ post, this is _good_ energy coming through. It is, of course, also completely unsustainable, but that's how things go.
Ta
~Sor
MOOP!
1: School this year was weird, because there was September 2nd, which was the first day for teachers and we had 12 days of professional development for the ~new~ school year format. Then there was September 18th, which was first day for students, but you only saw one class and had to teach them about orientation whole-school stuff, not your actual class. And then there was September 21st, which was a special schedule week where we saw our week A classes on Mon/Tues and our week B classes on Thu/Fri and all the classes were only 45 minutes and it was really just first chance to meet people.
And finally was September 28th, which was probably the "realest" day of school, since it was the first normally scheduled day and the start of the first A week. So that's what I count as Week 1(a), the special schedule before it was week 0, and everything before THAT was "this pandemic hell year is indeed that"
2: Mentors -- every teacher has been assigned a caseload of 10-15 students who they are responsible for doing extra check-ins and reach out and helping and all that. I have eight students which sounds really keen and lucky until I point out that none of them speak English fluently, and at least three of them speak English _not at all_. So me communicating with them about nuanced school shit is an enjoyable dance of begging the translators to come hang with me and-or do all my work. Nobody likes this.
3: The schedule this year is asynchronous work for students on Wednesdays. This means no zoom class or traditional virtual school (is there such a thing yet?) but yes we do have to give the kids work and they do have to do the work. For _teachers_ it is...well, a lot of all of that.
4: We are required to take 12 hours a year. Running a 12 hour PD doesn't count for any of it, so I'm spending a lot of time working on white educators' anti-racist book club which is valuable and important and absolutely not earning me my hours. Luckily, there was a six hours "queer shit workspace" that I did the past two weeks, and hopefully I'll find some other stuff.
(Doing more than 12 hours is great because a) I actually believe in the efficacy of professional development and b) certainly even if it's bullshit, it's bullshit that tends to revitalize and re-inspire me about my job, plus I get to meet other teachers from all over the district and there are some cool people out here. Oh and c) any extra hours you do climb you up the payment scale, so until I get my ass into grad school, this is how I earn raises.)
no subject
on 2020-10-29 02:40 pm (UTC)(I didn't originally mean to capslock, but then I decided it made sense.)
Gtfts
on 2020-10-30 12:06 am (UTC)Samuel L Jackson did a recent filk, so to speak, called stay the f at home
Also in terms of my mind having tangents, there is a small series of these, unrelated to sleeping, but starting with the same letters
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1W8kJ4S7c10
no subject
on 2020-11-03 06:40 pm (UTC)Yow -- I'm impressed, although a bit concerned: the only time I've worked quite that hard was my days in the game industry, and that burned me out pretty hard. I hope it eases off some...