Image by purplemattfish via Flickr
There is no other way to explain it. Our school year starts on Monday that is two days away. As I sit here in the dark writing, its midnight on Friday night and I can’t sleep. I can’t sleep because I have never, ever, EVER felt so unprepared for Day One in my teaching life. I have been teaching for seven years and with the exception of last year (where I was on maternity leave for the first six weeks of Term One) I have never not had Term One planned to at least to Week Five. This year I am rushed. I am rushed because everyone is rushed. I am stressed because everyone around me seems to be stressing.
This year I’m doing my ELF role AND taking on an academic class and not just any academic class its a Year 12 IB Economics. Our PD days like every other year have been planned down to the minute. Usually this hasn’t phased me because I am planned and calm but this year I’m pushing my luck. This year preperation week seems to have just disappeared.
Day 1 – your general intro to the year and this is the direction we want to take includes a bit on our new e-learning environment and time management (this is funny!!)
Day 2 – Habits of Mind – something we so desperately needed – was a brilliant session and I learned a whole heap of things to take into the classroom
Day 3 – Public Holiday (yes a breather) – spent… you guessed it… working!!!
Day 4 – Understanding by Design and Differentiation – again a great session and I have a good tool kit to go into the classroom with
Day 5 – Department Planning, E-Learning Environments, and various meetings depending on what you teach. – today
This was the hardest day of all. As one of the E-Learning Facilitators I spent the day going from planning session to planning session assisting staff with their E-Learning Environments. This was great however as the day wore on and more and more things went wrong and patience was tested. It got harder. So now I need to write my to-do list and try and get some sleep so that tomorrow (well today now!!) I can try and plan at least my first lesson and hope that I find the time to complete the tasks on my ELF to-do list (132), my classroom teacher to-do list (62) and my parent to-do list (44).
And this just about sums it up….
Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
