Being a teacher makes you tired.
Now, working any full time job will make you tired. Especially when you are hourly and trying to get as many hours as you can per week.
But as many jobs as I've worked, teaching leaves me the most tired. Everyone tells me it is a first year teacher thing, but I see the dark circles under everyone's eyes.
You get used to looking like the Grim Reaper
And I am tired of people thinking the work we do after school is "grading papers". Yes, grading papers takes a long time. But it becomes mindless, you can just sit down and get it done. I actually don't mind grading papers most of the time, you just sit down and get it done.
It is EVERYTHING ELSE.
Everything you see on TV and Pinterest that you would love to do for your kids, mixed with everything the state needs, mixed with everything the district needs. And these unit plans and evaluations. It's not the evaluation that gets you. I love people coming in to my room, and I am a new teacher so I want feedback.
All I need is cute construction paper, some wood to build the outside, and a bunch of specifically sized boxes!
It's the pre evaluation work, the post evaluation meeting, and then the post evaluation paperwork.
But DON'T WORRY: Because of new standards for teachers, we have to attend Professional Development Trainings during our Tuesday Planning Periods. And because research has shown that block scheduling is both good and bad, we have decided to create a schedule that is 7 periods on Monday, Tuesday, and Friday. Wednesday will be block schedule for 2,4, and 6, and Thursday will be block schedule for 1,3, 5, and 7. So while you get one long planning one day, you do not get a planning the next.
So you get 3 days of planning periods a week.
On top of grading, evaluations, and the 16 page unit plans we must now create, teachers must also have a Deliberate Practice Plan. That you must create and follow, even though no one will remind you about it and after October you completely forget about it until you get an email that it is due next week.
And all of this paperwork must be turned in or you will lose your job.
And ON TOP OF ALL OF THAT: You have to give a 40 question multiple choice standardized End of Course Exam. If not enough of your students pass, you do not get paid as well next year. This creates "incentive" to teach well. Or it creates EOC related nightmares for first year teachers.
So even though this is a performanced based band class, students must take a multple choice test. It does not matter that they read in different clefs, or that they are not all in the same key. Let me tell you, trying to explain concert pitch vs. written pitch was confusing to college students in my conducting class.
My 6th graders did not do much better.
So I am tired.
I have my concert band evaluation in March, I am behind on typing up unit plans (my lessons are all well thought out but scribbled down in shorthand), and I have not started on my DP evidence.
And in my engagement pictures, I have giant baggy circles under my eyes.
But I sill think it is worth it, to see those kids laugh and bond together. To see them learn songs outside of class, like when they secretly learned Happy Birthday for their mom and played it on her birthday and she cried.
Moments like can warm your heart.
I suppose I really just needed to explain it is not just "grading papers". There is so much we do to be able to teach your kids. So when your son or daughter's teacher is a day late responding to an email, or they forget to send the permission slips home the same day as another teacher, just know they are not lazy.
They are just TIRED.
