An Adventure in Teaching

This week was my first week with distance learning due to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

It has been an... interesting adventure...

This week started off rough. The kids were not ready and I quickly realized, I wasn't either. I should probably give you some background on the school that I work at. This is my first year teaching in an intermediate district. (AKA it's an alternative school setting.) Most of my students have been through the wringer and struggled with substance abuse. They are great kids, just have some tough lives.

Anyway, we have been doing well together this year. My struggles have come from my co-wokers and administration. There are twenty-six teachers in my field. Within that field, my school specifically has three teachers. One is a first year teacher and the other is new to the setting. Both are roughly two to three decades older than me. This really doesn't bother me, but I think it bothers the first year teacher. She has a tendency to offer a lot of "advise". For the most part, I have managed to find ways to work with this. However, since she is not a traditional classroom teacher, she has not been teaching during our distance learning. Instead, she has taken up the wonderful position of observing my classes and offering me tips. Today she asked one of the heads of the school we work at to thank someone for printing of MY worksheets. Monday she texted me, "The students are clearly check out of your lesson. They all have their hoods up." I love it so much...

For these twenty-six teachers, we have three administrators, which is a lot. On top of this we have three "coaches" who are supposed to also observe me. The three coaches are not my "bosses"... but they're not not my  bosses. For example, our literacy specialist, controls the purse strings I have in my classroom. Meaning she gets to pick the books I teach. There is also a condescending tone that they have a tendency to use because they have done more research than I have. I wanted to teach a novel study unit that I had created with the help of a senior teacher. She told me that she was going to, "encourage me to teach nature essays." I told her I was unfamiliar with nature essays and asked for some examples. She didn't respond for two weeks and when she finally did, so told me I would have to find some. She then proceeded to "forget" to order my books until after the orders were due. Meaning I wouldn't get my books for four months instead of two.

Did I mention that I also don't have a curriculum?

Honestly, I'm struggling. I've reached out for support from my admin and the help I received was disappointing. Basically more meetings for based around how I can do better. I also haven't been informed if my contracting is going to be renewed or not. Legally, from what I understand, they were supposed to let me know by April 1st. But at this point, I really don't even care about the job aspect of it. I care about my students and am dedicated to them. I think in all, I'll give teaching one to two more years, but then that's it. I'm done being treated like I'm stupid or incompetent. I'm worth more than that.