Teachers' hours

On Saturday Sam and I took Daniel and his best friend Emily to the fire station open house in Inverness. We did some crafts (wholly unrelated to fires) and saw the different "booths" that had information ranging from fire safety to insurance to train safety and saying no to cigarettes and tobacco. The kids understood most of the booths and some they completely bypassed. What was I doing? Filling up the tote bag that Nicor was handing out with resources for my students about bullying and fire safety.

People always say it must be nice to be a teacher...you only work as long as the school day and you get summers and weekends off. As a student teacher, and even before that, I knew all those "hours off" people were talking about were truly unrealistic. Lesson plans, grading, assessments, just to name a few, are just a few of the reasons why teaching is a difficult job. I would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to spend every second not in school with my son and husband but I can't.

Yesterday I tried to balance getting household chores done - laundry, dishes, cleaning - while trying to get my assessments scored (not an easy task). I hadn't even touched what I'm going to be doing with my kids today! I know that we'll be working on spelling, reading and writing...in what order I'm not sure. I'm just glad I have a brain warm-up to start. And math homework packets. UGH! Why did I promise those?! Because, I reason, some kids really need the extra practice and some kids wanted homework. Wait a second, who ever really WANTS homework? I digress.

Let's put it this way, there are no teachers who get paid overtime for working their weekends away so that their students can benefit from a schedule where they are fully immersed in the learning process. I'm working toward being able to hang out with my family in the next few months; but let's face it, we have mid trimester coming up, curriculum night is this Wednesday, and I have three more students coming into my classroom during literacy because they are too bright (read: would get bored) for the first grade reading curriculum!! This first year of teaching may not allow me to see my family longer than dinner on weeknights and meals on weekends but I sure will try!
Happy Monday!