Pre service week

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hopefully they cancel all ice breakers

SDTs love to break the ice. Wish they would treat us as professionals. 🧊

Do you think that professionals in every other office job *don't* have to do ice breaker activities at least once a year?

Teaching is a second career for me. No, we never had ice breakers at my other jobs. Maybe a quick “my name is Larla, I’ve been working in the field for x years, and before this job I focused on blah blah blah with that other firm.” Now I have to talk about what super hero I am and what is my why. I have to fill out exit tickets at the end of meetings to share how I will use the information presented.

I also have to engage regularly with coworkers about my cultural background during cultural competency trainings. Trainings are important. Discussing my family traditions and times I have been discriminated against, on the fly with coworkers I’ve never met, when I have a pile of legally mandated paperwork that I’d really like to complete is not the best use of anyone’s time.

To answer the question, I DO look forward to meeting the kids and getting to know them. I DO look forward to collaborating with a few of my very creative and talented coworkers.

1-2 ice breakers a year at preservice really isn’t that big of a deal to me. They’re all of 10 minutes and I think it’s disliked because of collective grumbling—like in college my friend hated a particular word and then suddenly all my friends talked about hating that word when they didn’t care before—maybe ice breakers only feel annoying because so many people complain about them.

I’ll be honest that I think the cultural
competency trainings are incredibly important. That teachers have the negative attitude towards it is part of why we need this training. Having been a first generation American myself, being an “other” is actually more isolating than you can imagine if that wasn’t you’re upbringing. And I am white and speak English well, so I didn’t even have as much discrimination as others. But teachers aren’t as culturally competent as they think they are and I’ve seen it over and over again. I wish teachers would take the cultural competency trainings more seriously, it might help them understand their students and help them learn better.

I wish it was just 1-2. At my school, it’s one at the start of each session. Some days, we have 3 sessions in the morning alone: Grade level team, department, course alike PLC or some other configuration. Last year, nine of us met after the duty day to learn about an incoming student with litigious parents. We had an icebreaker!

[Anonymous]

I usually set up pretty quickly and use the rest of the time for planning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

My admin calls you down if you don't do it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

My admin calls you down if you don't do it

Ugh. So trivial. Never had an admin do that. Reason #1000343 staff aren’t treated as professionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

Exactly! Why insist I swipe even if someone else is holding the door if I have to walk across the building to sign in on a piece of paper?

It’s stupid game to play with adults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

I have never once signed in or out when entering or leaving the building. Not that I leave during the school day very often, but if I have to pop out during my lunch, we let our teammates know. If we have to leave "early" but after students leave, we don't usually have to get permission or anything, unless it's going to be a regular event. One year I had to leave right after dismissal (so about 20 minutes early) once a week to get my kid to an appointment. I told my admin and they didn't give any pushback. They treat us like professionals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At new teacher orientation at my school today, i learned that we have to sign in and out in the main office every day at my school so they know exactly when everyone is in the building. I think its a good thing but i am sure some teachers hate it.

The sign out sheet usually is in just one place that’s not convenient to classrooms so it doesn’t get done. They have our badge card swipes worst case.

My admin calls you down if you don't do it

Ugh. So trivial. Never had an admin do that. Reason #1000343 staff aren’t treated as professionals.

I worked for an admin team that would pull the book at a certain time. If you weren’t signed in. You were written up.

Happened to me several times. I was often in my room providing morning tutoring sessions. I would have signed in before the sessions started, but that office was always locked on the days I arrived early. (I did swipe in at the main door, so they already knew I was there and when I arrived.)

So I got used to being penalized for doing more. I also realized rather quickly that being written up didn’t mean anything, so I stopped worrying about it.

Getting my job done was more important than playing admin games.

[Anonymous]

I look forward to being done setting up my classroom because it's kind of overwhelming and I have to think through a lot. I had to move classrooms so I have a lot to unpack, I teach special education in a self-contained classroom and have to be strategic about the placement of everything and I need to put up appropriate but also carefully placed and also as unremovable as possible visuals. It's a lot!

So, I'm looking forward to being on the other side of all that work.

[Anonymous]

Exciting time of year

[Anonymous]

Did you survive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did you survive?

The extra half day was very helpful. My room was fully set up by Thursday afternoon.

However, MCPS didn’t fix the Canvas issue until Thursday.

Now, I’ll spend 3 hours this weekend setting up my courses instead of sneaking into the building to finish setting up my classroom.

Let’s do this next year, but make sure that the technology is ready on the first day of preservice.