Category Archives: Work

Slowly or All at Once or the Devil’s Workshop

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Every now and then I remind the department head at the school where I work that I’d gladly work extra hours if I could have them all in the morning.

This is because I prefer having my classes in one lump without any long breaks between them. For example, on Friday’s I have three classes in a row, lunch and then a fourth class. It’s intense, but it’s less exhausting than having a lighter schedule with lots of breaks. If you have a bad class there’s no time to fret over it as you have to get to the next one. You can even warn the next class about the bad class you just had and explain what bad things will happen if they don’t stay in line.

One of the quirks of my schedule, though, is that on other days it provides frequent and long breaks between actual working hours. The problem with this is that there’s not always enough time to actually leave the school and do things like go to the bank and pay bills. Instead, I’m stuck in the school doing “planning”.

Usually, this isn’t a problem, but every now and then I have only first period and sixth period classes. That means I have five hours to fill (four periods and lunch). This seems like a consummation devoutly to be wished: I can do whatever I want and that’s awesome, but the actual progression is more like:

1st Hour: Hard working, diligent, lots accomplished.
2nd Hour: Still working, some lag, maybe I need to get up and stretch. I’ll eat lunch early.
3rd Hour: There is no God so I’ll just surf the internet.
4th Hour: I wonder what that person there would look like if I killed them and ate their skin.
5th Hour: I am the God of Hellfire and I bring you: fire.

Then I go teach a class and go home.

The five hour cycle could be avoided if I was more able to work in the office or if I had an actual cubicle to call my own. If I can get away from people, it’s easier for me to focus and to work and I only go through the stages for hours 1-3.

Now though, I just sit and wait and let my idle hands become the Devil’s Workshop or I become a God. Something like that.

Losing Track of Days by Day

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I sent a text today that I soon regretted but it wasn’t technically my fault.

My schedule sent me home at an unusual time and because it was raining I wasn’t in a good mood. I got home and was surprised to see She Who Must Be Obeyed was not at home as it was her day off. I figured she was out getting groceries and I immediately, and diligently, set about to wasting time and accomplishing little.

Around lunch time, it dawned on me she hadn’t yet returned from where ever it was that she was. I quickly texted her and asked if she was at work as sometimes she will pick up an extra day, especially if our girls are going to be at school late.

About a half hour after sending the text it suddenly dawned on me what the problem was. It was Thursday, not Wednesday as I thought it was or Friday as I hoped it was. Thursday is one of her usual work days.

This phenomenon happens at certain times of year at the school where I work when the schedule is full of gaps caused by exams and sporting events. In January and February during entrance exam time, not only do we have a number of odd days off, but we also have different grades finishing at different times. At one point we’re passing back exams for one grade whilst we are still teaching another and waiting for their exams to begin.

During those months a typical response is to wake up and suddenly doubt yourself. You think “Holy crap! Am I really off today?” and you check and recheck your schedule–the paper and the electronic version–several times. It’s also common to get an email from another teacher along the lines of “Holy crap! Are we really off today?” In the past more than one teacher has missed a final class by losing track of the days.

What worries me is that the real crazy times don’t start until October. If I’m already having trouble, I’d better keep good notes about my schedule and start tattooing key information on my body so that I don’t forget where I’m supposed to be.

Speeches Come With Problems

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Thanks to a student, I didn’t have a lunch date today but I might have one tomorrow and on Friday.

I’ve mentioned before how the start of the autumn term involves speech contest speeches. For junior high school the topics, like the high school ones, have been set in stone for over a decade. The 1st year (7th grade) junior high students do a self-introduction, the 2nd year (8th graders) do show-and-tell and the 3rd year (9th graders) do a comparison/contrast/occasionally persuasive speech.

This year I have 2nd year junior high and the speech contest has a couple unique problems. First, because they’ve been through one speech contest, everyone already has a good idea who is going to win. In my lower level classes, they know that they are unlikely to win so they plan accordingly by doing very little work on their speeches. The first couple classes are spent wrangling students and speeches. If students don’t finish, they get to meet me during lunch time and finish while I watch and sigh. (Today, a student finished at the last minute cancelling our lunch date.)

Second, because the topic is show-and-tell it requires that they actually have an item to show. I also have several rules about that, the main one being “no pens, pencils, erasers or, for that matter, anything in your desk or pencil case”. There are exceptions made, but only if the students see me first.  Inevitably, though, one student will choose eraser because, out of all the things in the world, his dollar store eraser is the most important thing in the world. (Two students actually did have interesting “my eraser is my treasure” speeches and I gave them permission to continue.) One student this year, though, started with eraser and I sent him back to rewrite it. He returned with a speech about his mechanical pencil.

He has until Friday to finish rewriting it.

Third, because the show part of show-and-tell is kind of important, the students are expected to actually bring something to show. Usually, half the class forgets which means half the class has to do their speeches twice. In the past I’ve had students change the description of their tennis rackets so they could use their friend’s racket. I don’t mind this as much–even when three people have the same treasure–but it depends on what mood I’m in.

Tomorrow I have a class where only three students out of 14 turned in a speech. Luckily, their class meets right before lunch and I have time to eat before class.

I may be watching and sighing, but at least I’ll be fed.

Where Laziness Meets Work

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One of the things that happens in Autumn at the school where I work is that the first few classes are filled with speeches and summer vacation.

Students in junior high have to finish their speech contest speeches. This involves a day of finishing and checking; a day of last minute finishes and practice; and a day of actual performances. The performance day is then followed by weeks of chasing down speeches from the winners and, in some cases weeks of fielding long explanations of why the winner totally cannot go the speech contest. There are usually no good excuses for not going, but every now and then the student recruits the homeroom teacher and comes up with a good explanation. I then tell them it’s their job to tell the next person in line they have to go.

High school students spend the first few classes doing some variation of “What I did on my summer vacation.” Some do a speech, others have to make a conversation. They hate it but it lets us see how well they do at past tense before we enter the actual lessons. It also lets us see if they remember any English and any class rules from the previous term.

These early days serve as a kind of transition period for both us and the students. The students arrive with a “why the hell are we doing this again?” attitude and we arrive with a “how the hell do we do this again?” attitude. A couple weeks of being lazy and making the students do all the work lets us stall until we get our legs back under us and gives us a chance to remember how to do this teaching thing.

Unfortunately, this term, we have a classes with huge differences in total lessons. This means we have to start teaching a lot sooner. I’m not sure we’re actually ready for that.

Dumbfounded by Birds of a Feather Huddling Together at the Back

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After Almost 26 years of teaching in various forms I’m rarely surprised. Today, though, my worst bad class surprised me for the better and the dumbfounded.

Traditionally, at the school where I work, the first two classes of the year for second and third year junior high school (8th and 9th grade) are spent chasing down and checking speeches for the annual speech contest. It is also a tradition for the foreign staff to guess how many students will actually 1) have a speech ready on the first day 2) be able to finish a speech on the first day and 3) actually have the worksheet for the speech.

(Note: I always declare on day one that if they are not finished it is okay. If they claim their dog ate their paper, I say “I hope your dog is okay”. If they don’t have their speech for the second class, I say I hope their dog died.”)

Being the optimist that I am not, I predicted that only two students would have finished speeches. The more optimistic of my colleagues predicted three and two.

The problems started when I arrived in class: the name calling started, although with less energy than usual and two students had decided to give themselves new seats at the back. I let them sit there as they were more interested in talking to each other than disrupting class.

After that start, though, things got better. Five students brought up finished and actually usable speeches. (One, if the author speaks well, has a chance to win it all.) By the end of the class, all but two students (guess which two) had finished their speeches and some had given me the rewritten draft I’d told them to write.

With a couple minutes left I called up the students at the back and told them to show me their speeches. The one that actually came up–who also happens to be one of the name callers–handed me a finished, surprisingly good speech. I was dumbfounded. Since he hadn’t even taken out a pencil or pen all class, he must have finished it at home. If he’d given it to me earlier, he wouldn’t have lost points. In fact, he’d have earned bonus points. (Instead the talking all class earned him a 0.)

I still don’t understand the logic behind not showing  me the speech. Actually, now that I think about it, I do understand: teenager.

As for the other student, he gave me attitude and showed me a blank paper. I told him he had to show me his finished speech next week or he’d have to come in at lunch and finish.

Knowing him, I just made a lunch date for next week. But I’ve already lost one bet this year.

 

End of Summer Rituals and Wretched Refuse

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Today is the last day before the last weekend before the autumn term starts. This means I have several rituals to perform and lots of crap to clean.

The first ritual is to go to the school where I work and start counting days off until the end of the term. This ritual is important because the most important part of any job is figuring out when you have days off. At the beginning of the school year I go through the annual schedule, totally unofficially of course, and figure out when exams and school trips are and try to work out how many classes I have with each section. After that, at the beginning of each term, I double check, usually with the hope that I missed a day off.

Unfortunately, this term that backfired. I found a cancelled class that makes my life more difficult because it means sections in the same grade meet 23, 22 and 17 times. That right, the others get around a third more class time or about three weeks’ worth of additional classes. Since I’m in charge of this grade, I’m the one responsible for planning for the short class whilst trying to figure out how to entertain the long classes. This leads me to seriously considering keeping a couple bottles of bourbon in the bottom drawer of my desk.

(Note: For about five years, in the old building, one teacher had an unopened bottle of wine sitting above his desk in plain sight of the room and students visiting the office; therefore having bourbon around might not be so odd. I’m not saying it’s a good idea, yet, just that it’s not that odd.)  

The second ritual is writing the days on folded sheets of A3 paper. These “folders” go inside clear files and as I carry the “folders” to each class, they serve as my official notes and log for each class. I record the term and, in case of trouble, the homeroom teachers’ names. Although I also have an electronic schedule, there’s nothing as satisfying as seeing the days on the front page get crossed out, especially once we cross the halfway point. (It’s also a great chance to test pens on regular copy paper.)

There’s also satisfaction in tearing them apart at the end of the term and saving the blank half as scratch paper and shredding the front half.

The third ritual happens both at the office and at home: the cleaning of last term’s refuse. As a teacher, paper tends to accumulate both slowly and all at once. I have my notes and rough drafts and leftover handouts that never got used and mistakes that should never have been printed. Those get sorted and tossed in the recycle box. At home I’ve got more of that and all the stuff not related to school that got acquired over the summer.

For about two weeks the desks both at home and at the office are clean and well organized. Then they start getting messy again and stay that way until the next ritual.

You Got to Obey the Rules to Break the Rules

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I was both mistaken and misled today, I also did some misleading.

First, my supervisor at the school where I work chastised me very slightly for having mucked up a pretty good plan. Without going in too much detail about the plan and the task behind it, let’s just say I was asked to agree to do something I thought was a bad idea because doing the way they wanted it didn’t actually help me out. Unfortunately, my supervisor didn’t hear my teeth sucking and heavy sigh and thought we had an agreement. This was my fault for not speaking up more clearly.

Instead, because I thought the usual “yeah it’s okay for you to do your job” process had already started, I waited for a phone call or a very rare email (the company I work for likes to leave a light paper trail) that never came. Instead I contacted the company I work for who went “Huh, what, really?” and that started a series of phone calls that led to my supervisor at the school where I work getting some extra work. I apologized for the trouble. If I’d know my supervisor at the school where I work hadn’t contacted the company I work for I wouldn’t have contacted them.

That said, the solution to all these layers of I contact A who contacts B who contacts D to tell D to contact me and explain what I’m supposed to do would go away if the school would just hire direct. If they don’t, then I don’t really mind causing a little extra work every now and then by simply following the rules.

Second, I went in today to proctor a make-up exam for a student who’d failed. I had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t be there. As predicted, at exam time, I was the only one in the room. I planned to stay the entire 50 minutes, but the teacher in the room next to me also didn’t have any students so he came over to my room to say hello. When he saw the room was empty he told me I had to stay 30 minutes and then could leave.

I stayed 30 minutes and left, and then 15 minutes later came back when I found out I’d been misled. It turns out the 30 minute rule only applies to end-of-term exams but for make-up exams the students can come in at any time, although they only have the authorized time to do the test. (For example, if they come in with five minutes left in the period, they have five minutes to finish the test.) Mind you, at no point did anyone tell me this and the only person who told me anything misled me.

I didn’t complain, though, because I’d already caused some trouble.

Paper Work for Me and for Thee

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Today I was confused about what I was supposed to do and where I was supposed to be so I just did what I wanted and then did some paperwork. I also sent an email that created work for other people.

I blame them for that, not me.

I’ve mentioned before the odd things the company I work for has done with my days off. This year was more confusing than usual because rather than talk to the department head to get my schedule, the powers what are spoke to the school admin. Unfortunately, the school admin doesn’t know that much. All it knows is “These are the days Dwayne is teaching. These are the days he is not.” Those are then broken down as “School Days” and “‘Work’ Days”. On school days I’m actually working and on “work” days I’m not actually working just doing busy work and have to fill out a couple forms and send stuff in to different email addresses.

The problem is, on some of the “work” days, I’m actually doing stuff at the school to get ready for the school days. The problem with that is that I’m not supposed to be at the school without “permission” because “hiding from government” or something like that. The problem with that is not really my problem, but it could become a pain in the rear.

However, sometime this past year the company I work for actually spoke to the department head who gave them an “earful” if “earful” is defined as “loud unholy hell”. It is possible, therefore, that today and the next three days are school days and not “work” days.

I sent in today’s “work” day forms and the emailed the person in charge of my schedule. I knew what would happen and about how long it would take. She would contact someone above her who would freak out. That person would contact my immediate handler (he’s not a supervisor because supervisor’s actually have authority to make decisions) and my immediate handler would contact me to get more information. After talking to me my immediate handler would contact my actual boss who would contact the school.

I’m predicting the school will not understand the problem and say “we sent you the schedule” and this will start a few more processes rolling. (If you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of layers above the layers above me.)

I have no idea how it will all work out. My immediate handler will call me with some BS explanation that doesn’t actually solve the problem. The only good thing about all this is I’m not the only one doing extra work and paper work.

What’s Good for Thee You Can Do Not Me

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One of my maxims of politics is “Everyone is for something as long as it doesn’t effect them personally” (aka the Do it to Julia Theory of Altruism.) This is also true of the company I work for.

Because of this, I was ready to throw a small fit at the meeting I had to attend last Monday.

A couple years ago, when the “work” day nonsense started and the powers what are decided I needed to stay in my house all summer because, well, because I am their property I guess, we also got word we were going to  have to fill out a bimonthly form I quickly dubbed “the useless form”.

The useless form amounted to us copying the schedule we were given at the beginning of the year onto a different form and answering two questions and then attaching that form to an email and sending it on. There are lots of political, satiate the government reasons for having us do this but there were some problems. The main problem was that, because we work for the company we work for, most people couldn’t afford a copy of MS Word to use to open and edit the useless form and tried to use Open Office and Libre Office instead. This caused problems that were only resolved recently when the company I work for started putting the forms on line.

About the time the useless form arrived, we were also informed we’d have to fill out a monthly “reflection” in which we were to reflect about our work that month and our goals and our relationships with our Team Teaching partners.

This caused a problem: I don’t have  a team teaching partner. In fact, to the best of my knowledge, none of the private school teachers have teaching partners. This made the reflection part of the useless form as useless as the rest of the form.

Then, early this year, we lost our head teacher to more meaningful and gainful employment and no one wanted to be head teacher. Because the work of managing the useless forms would fall to our immediate supervisors, the all-important monthly reflection suddenly became less important. In fact, we didn’t have to do it at all.

At the last meeting, though, I knew some sucker had been persuaded to become head teacher. I therefore expected that the useless monthly reflection would suddenly be active again and I was ready to throw a “you @$$holes” fit. Instead, the reflections were left in the ash heap of history.

I expect, however, they’ll be back next year.

 

 

X Marks the Spot Unless Y is Necessary

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At the school where I work we are, on occasion, “encouraged” to help students pass. This can get kind of complicated.

In a nutshell, the school where I work is connected to a major private university. Students who graduate the high school with high enough marks (and, quite frankly, those “high enough marks” are pretty low) get automatic recommendation to the university without having to take the university entrance exam.

Those who fail have to take the exam. Because of this, the marks the students get in their third year of high school (US 12th grade) can make or break their university entrance. Because the university needs more boys (long story) the university encourages the high school to send more boys.

(Note: My suggestion is to advertise the university as “overrun by beautiful women” and the problem will take care of itself. Hell, even I might go back to school. If, ahem, of course, I were not married I would. Of course.)

In my case, I’ve only had pressure to pass one student and that was resolved by math and illness.  One of the ways a student can fail is to miss 30% or more of the total classes. I had a student do that and suddenly found myself in a meeting with lots of school brass who told me sad stories about the boy. They had the saddest, most serious faces you’ve ever seen. Finally, someone asked me when the student had been absent. It turned out that one batch of absences coincided with him having the flu. Students with the flu are banned from school for several days which means their absences don’t count.

You’ll rarely see a happier group of men unless alcohol is involved. I told them if he handed in his final assignment they could go ahead and change the score. He did and they did. At no point, I might add, did I ever get a chance to talk to the student. It was all done through proxies. Even when he turned in his final assignment.

The worst ever pressurization (so to speak), and in many ways the most ridiculous, happened to a friend and former colleague. She failed a student who’d only shown up to the first two classes and then never came back again. It’s no joke to say she couldn’t have picked him out of a police line up. She would have said “the empty space at the end of the line of boys looks like him” and that would have been about as well as she could have done.

However, the then brass approached her and asked her to pass him. She quite reasonably pointed out it wouldn’t be fair to the students who’d actually attended class and actually done work for her to pass a guy who resembled negative space.  After more pressure she agreed to pass him if he did the assignments.

A couple days later she was told that it was too difficult for him. She explained something along the lines of “that’s what happens when you are negative space and not a student”. After more pressure she offered samples of other students’ work as examples.

A few days after that she got the assignments back and, well, lets just say there’s angry and then there’s “I’m going to nuke the whole f@#king world and laugh while it burns” angry.

She was angrier than that.

The student had not only copied the sample assignments word for word, he’d also copied her comments. In the end she threw the marks form at the people pressuring her and said something along the lines of you write what you think he deserves. In the end, the student passed.

I don’t know if, during this process, she actually met the student.

I just hope they gave him a perfect score. That would have been the perfect end to all that.