My adventures as a new teacher

I know I haven’t posted in a while but I’ve been crazy busy.  It really is amazing how much time teaching takes up.  There is the actual time in front of the class but then there’s the hours of preparing before that happens and the hours after analyzing and grading.   Teaching is not for wusses, that’s for sure.

Right now I’m on a 2 week break. With the modified year round schedule my school uses we get 2 weeks in fall, 3 weeks at Christmas, 2 weeks in spring, and 6 weeks of summer. Not too shabby.

So far I’ve been working on my school work.  I have to have a unit plan, for a unit I’ll be teaching at the end of the semester, completed and submitted by next Wednesday. Originally it was due yesterday but the professor extended the deadline.  Whew!!  Anyway, it’s a huge project that I feel totally unprepared for and like I’m struggling through.  One of the hardest parts I seem to be having in teaching is the pacing.  I’m not sure if I’m going too fast or too slow, I try to move at a pace that feels right to me, that allows me to cover the material but not beat a dead horse.  I don’t know.  Anyway, to have to plan a unit at the end of the semester when I’m not sure of my pacing is just killing me.  Plus, since science is a building process, I’m writing this unit plan and I keep stopping wondering if I will have covered this concept already or do I need to teach it.  Have I discussed this subject or not yet??  It’s very annoying. So I’m really struggling with it.  I would imagine that English or Social Studies would be a little easier because you build on what you learned previously but not to the extent of math and science.  Oh well, I’ll get through it.

Also do next week is part of our portfolio.  That’s not too bad , we have to address the INTASC standards by writing about our understanding of them, attaching artifacts to show we’ve met them, and discussing the psychological theory behind what we did or what we think.  Have I mentioned how much I hate psychology??  I don’t understand how they can make the study of humans a “science.”  One of the tenants of science to prove something is that the results can be reproducible.  You can’t reproduce anything when you use humans.  Humans are insane and totally unpredictable.  Also, as a scientist, I can look at all angles of a problem or situation so prescribing certain motivations to human behavior makes no sense to me because there could be a thousand other motivations.  Ugh!!

My mantra is that I just need to get through this semester.  Just get through this semester.  Just get through this semester…..