I’m Back… but for how long no one can tell!

Despite the fact that I thought that nobody even read my blogs, my friends have drawn my attention to the fact that my blogging has been sadly lacking of late. There are many reasons for this. Around the time of my last blog (just after returning from the central trip) I broke up with my fiancée. It was my decision after I came to the realisation that I loved him, but was not in love with him (something I think that is an important distinction to make). We lived in our unit together for 3 weeks (me in the spare room) until I found a place to live and I have now been in my new unit (renting) with my 19-year-old brother for nearly 3 weeks and I am settling in nicely.

I guess for the first 5 weeks of this term I felt like I was simply surviving through each day, going through the motions, sitting at my desk but getting nothing done and avoiding going back to the unit that I was still sharing with my now-ex-fiancée. I did not have the head-space for half of the things that school expects of me and that I expect of myself and I found myself in survival mode. Unfortunately I don’t really think that school is the sort of environment that is necessarily conducive to survival mode. Don’t get me wrong – I did survive, and everything is relatively back on track now, but looking back on the last 5 weeks, I wonder how I did survive. My year 12’s were what really stressed me out. Teaching the creation of the new society in Russia after the revolution for the first time having lost a week of my holidays on Central and then the second week breaking up with my fiancée meant that I had not planned my classes to the level where I felt confident and competent. And when you wake up in the morning feeling ill-prepared and stressing about the day to come, it really takes its toll on you. Because I was also still dealing with the issues that come with a break-up, trying to concentrate at work or on work in order to learn the content myself proved almost impossible. Some days all I needed was to talk to people and so when I wasn’t teaching that is what I did. Despite my overriding desire to soldier on, sometimes you also need to take time out for yourself and I did that too whenever I could.

This week though I feel like I am getting my life (and my brain!) back. I have done my Year 7 correction and this weekend will work on my Year 12 Sacs and the first ½ of my Year 11 Macbeth essays before the second class finish and then the two classes do their exams. To top it all off it is report writing season at our school and the stress for everyone is not writing the reports but getting 10 weeks of assessment done in 6 ½ weeks in order to have it corrected in time to go on the reports in week 7. This season at school really brings out the whingeing too and so to combat the incessant sooking that is going on at my school I have taken to plugging into my i-pod before school, after school and at any other moment when I am sitting at my desk and likely to hear the complaints. The only downside to this anti-social behaviour is that I cannot hear when there is a student at the door of our office, even when someone calls out to me! The student that spent 5 minutes standing at the door waiting for me yesterday when I had no idea he was there was less than impressed with my i-pod excuse! We are only up to week 6 and counting though so the complaining is sure to be combined shortly with the devastation that ensues when some gammy who cannot use the report program saves over their reports with another class, or somehow performs some other strange function which deletes their reports. Was that really bitchy! Oh well! The drama of it all! There is something to be said for those people who just shut their trap and get the hell on with it! The serenity!

Central Australia- The good, the bad & the ugly

Many people would not think that 2 weeks on a bus touring SA and the NT with 92 students would be a fun way to spend 1/2 of your school holidays. I however, disagree! Despite the hours of bus travel (including the 22 hour express trip home from Coober Pedy!) the Central Trip was fantastic. We saw some amazing sites, walked some gruelling tracks (stay away from Wilpena Pound!) and got to know some fantastic students, none of which I had met before we left. I also had the chance to consolidate new friendships and old ones, and got to know all of the staff better than I previously had. This is probably one of the few perks of teaching - a free trip interstate and as I had never been before, I had a fantastic trip and was amazed at the sights.
We travelled the Oodnadatta track, saw Wilpena Pound, Standley Chasm, Alice Springs, Royal Flying Doctors, School of the Air, Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock, The Olgas, Coober Pedy and lots more - none of which I can remember without getting up to get the itinerary and I can't be bothered doing that!
Early on in the trip the other bus (we were a 2 bus convoy) was run off the road by a ute driver who had fallen asleep at the wheel and was heading straight toward the bus. Driver had to make the decision to run off the road and onto an embankment in order to narrowly miss the ute. Although the ute driver woke up just as he was level with the bus and swerved, he only just missed the back of the bus and trailer. Could easily have been a fatality - and made me more vigilant with my seatbelt for the rest of the trip.
Apart from that no real dramas.
Highlight: Kings Canyon - easy walk, amazing views and landscape and brilliant company - thanks Bec!
Lowlight: A certain staff member who was an embarrassment the whole trip, and me missing out on seeing Ayers Rock due to an unscheduled trip to the Flying Doctors for a student who had cut her toe and needed 3 stitches. Whilst the other 91 students and staff visited the rock, we were visiting the flying doctors! All the way to Central Australia and the closest I get to the rock is one of the lookouts at Yulara! Oh well, for me there is always next year- the student who missed out doesn't get the second chance.
22 hour bus trip home was an ordeal. I have never had to sleep on a bus before and frankly, I am not good at it! Got home and slept for 6 hours then slept that night from 9.30 to 7 in the morning and am feeling better for it!
Might write more later - for now, essays call and I only have 5 days left to correct them and get my planning organised!

Central bound!

Just a short blog as already my eyes are hanging out of my head (did I just have 5 days off?) and tomorrow we leave for Central Australia. Left our holiday destination at 1.30 today for what should have been a 3.5 hour trip. Due to an ill-placed booze bus that slowed public holiday long weekend traffic to a crawl, we didnt get home until 6.30 meaning that all of my last minute central preparations (including doing washing from the weekend and having it dry by tomorrow) were pushed back later than I would have liked. However - all I need to focus on now is two weeks of fun in the sun (and near 40 degree heat) of central australia with 92 year 10's. Despite the sarcasm I am actually looking forward to it! I will try to keep a diary whilst I am there and then post it here when I get back but I won't have much internet access as I am going.
signing out for two weeks...

A new excitement

Well exciting things are happening at school at the moment! Apart from the fact that tomorrow I teach my last class for the term (I am leaving after Easter for Central Australia with the year 10s for 2 weeks) we had a meeting last night about the Leading Schools Funding that our school has received and it sounds like a fantastic thing to be involved in.
The school has been provided with substantial funding, for new purpose-built wings to be added to the school that contain ICT rich environments and open learning spaces to trial a new program with the Year 9's involving rich tasks that are cross-curricular and student focussed. As the use of ICT in schools has been an interest of mine (thanks IS) I thought it would be a fantastic project to be involved in, and so wrote an expression of interest, which was taken up, and a team of around 20 of us had a meeting last night with the principals and talked about the possibilities and about what we invisioned.
It seems like most of us were on the same page in terms of what we would like to see in terms of facilities, and programs, and as the program will be aimed at year 9, we looked at all of the things that we are doing well at year 9 as well as all of the things we could be doing better.
In terms of my own professional growth and learning this project is a fantastic thing to be involved in, and I am hoping to be taking on as big a role as they are prepared to give me. At the moment nothing is concrete, but from what i heard at the meeting last night I am really excited about the possibilities of working in teams designing interesting and innovative curriculum that incorporates ICT in an authentic way into the learning process.
I am also thinking of the possibilities of somehow using my involvement in this project as a basis for an honours thesis or something, because I have been thinking about going back to uni part time in the next couple of years, and the authentic use of ICT in the classroom is one of the things I have been interested in researching and discussing. This might be the perfect opportunity for me to combine what I am doing at school with what I hope to be doing at uni because I think that study is more relevant if it is related to your every day working life. So I am going to email some of my uni contacts to see what they think and what the possibilities might be for study next year. Maybe that way I can get some reading done early. But I don't really know if and how that will work at this stage so I had better keep myself thinking small until I am given the go-ahead to think big.
At this stage I am really excited about the possibilities to be exciting and innovative. If this is done well, and if we take risks and are daring with what we do, then the possibilities are endless. I am concerned that some people might be too conservative when it comes to making changes, but we can wait and see I guess. For now, I will contain my excitement to my blog!

Perhaps I have been too harsh?

I have been thinking since the last time I blogged that perhaps I have been whingeing just a little too much about history and how difficult it is to work with someone who is very different to you. I guess that part of the reason that I complain about it so much and that it effects me so much is because of the fact that I feel like I don't know as much as I should. I feel like I should be the expert, and for this year I won't be, I am just learning as I go too. But that makes things hard. Because I don't feel that the other teacher I am working with is 100% up on the new course outline, I feel uncertain about everything, and this compounds the problems that I have with working with said person. I feel like I have to be totally up with everything so that I can keep her on the 'straight-and-narrow' when she should be acting as a mentor to me, teaching me how she does things and what she knows. Unfortunately that is not the way that the relationship works at all, which makes it harder for me because I have to go elsewhere to get my advice. Networking is a wonderful thing though!
I also have spent more time with said history teacher and have found out that really she is as unsure of things at school as I am about things with History. She worries about whether or not she will have a job next year, and is trying to adjust to a very different expectation and work ethic at this school compared to what she was used to last year. All of these things mean that I really need to be more understanding and less judgemental so that is my aim for now.

Enough about that. Getting very excited! I have only 2 classes left with my Year 12's, 3 with my Year 7s and a similar number with my year 11's before the end of the term! With easter this next weekend, school finishes on Wednesday for the students and Thursday for us, with a lovely long weekend ahead of me of sailing, knee-boarding and fun in the sun. Then I get home from the easter weekend away on Monday night, only to leave at 6.30 the next morning for a 2 week year 10 central australia trip! Can't wait, but I have so much to do between now and then, including getting my packing done. I have just organised my holiday homework for the 7s and 12s and I am a bit excited about having a holiday (well two actually!) It should be great fun!
Anyway I am not really talking about anything exciting at the moment so I will go and get ready for my Sunday history lecture at melb uni! Yay!

Trying not to be so slack!

Well here I am trying to lift my average blog from once a month to something a bit more regular. I am actually sitting in my Year 11 English class and the students are doing an essay on Lord of the Flies so I have some time up my sleeve. Have been thinking about the Early Career Teachers conference on Friday - trying to work out what I was going to talk about in my role as a panel member, and it got me in a reflective mood (but sorry Scott, I still haven't finished writing out my notes).
School at the moment is all of these things: interesting, exhausting, difficult and new. My year 12's have their first SAC tonight after school and I think that there is a strong possibility that I am more nervous than them. The shoes of the history teacher who I took over from this year are big shoes to fill, and I am concerned that our marks will not be good enough. Last year there were several perfect study scores in History, but I think that this year the result might not be so good. But then we all know what I am like with trying to be perfect and worrying when I think my efforts fall short. I know that in the end all I can do is teach them what they need to know and point them in the right direction and that it is up to them to make the most of the year.
I am also finding it difficult to find a balanced way to work with the other history teacher. It is important that we are in close contact about what we are teaching and the sources we are using, but we are very opposite in both our teaching styles and in the way we go about things, and so it is difficult for us to reach a common middle ground. This SAC that we are giving them tonight was not written early enough for my liking, and so I am feeling like we are all under-prepared, and I can't work like that. So even though it is another 7 weeks until the next SAC is due to be done, I will be insisting that it is written much earlier, so that there is not the type of rush that there has been this time around. It is just very difficult to get my colleague on task and organised to get things finished. But in a lot of ways this colleague is dealing with a lot; new school, new subjects and a whole new culture, so in a lot of ways I understand, but it does not make it any easier to get things done with her!
That is one of the things that is difficult about this year - dealing and working closely with new staff members who do not necessarily share the same ideas as you, or the same work ethic and with who you are writing assessment, planning curriculum and cross-marking. I am finding it very hard to feel on top of things when a lot of my time is spent waiting on things. I guess that some of that comes from my anally organised nature - I like to be able to plan ahead, but when I am relying on another teacher to be able to do that then that is a bit of a problem.
Anyway, enough of the whingeing. My double is coming to a close and some of the students have finished off their writing task and are getting restless so I better sign off here.
Off to the SAC I go - so so nervous!

Such a slacker!

After much procrastination, here I am again, back in the bloggers chair. It's not that I don't want to blog - I think about it a couple of times a week. But the reality of my life at the moment is that I don't know what my desk looks like (other than to say that it is a total mess) because I get to sit at it for around 30mins a day if I am lucky. That sounds pretty normal, you say? It might be normal if I was only at school from 8.30 till 3.30, but my school day at the moment starts at 7.30 and ends at 5.30. I am getting very little work done at school other than some photocopying and it seems that my days consist largely of me teaching, running around like a chook with my head cut off and sitting in meetings. Add to that a large dose of wedding planning (have finally set a date and booked a venue) and I am pretty tired and pretty pinched for spare time.
But, having said that, life at the moment (school included) is good. My Year 7's are adorable (and we are at week five so normally their cuteness would have started to wear off by now!), I adore both of my year 11 classes and my year 12's (despite seriously keeping me on my toes) also seem to be doing the work that I am asking of them and so should do well on thier first sac in a week and a half. My english classes (7's and 11's) are just fantastic in terms of me knowing the content and having taught it all before which makes it so easy. This is leaving time for me to worry about my year 12's. Teaching year 12 for the first time, I am putting so much pressure on myself to help my students achieve. I know that only they can learn the content and do the work but you really wish as a teacher that you could ensure the success of all of your students, because you take it as almost a personal defeat if they fail (and despite knowing that is a ridiculous way to think), you do feel like the eyes of the school are on you checking if you are doing a good job.
Because I had the double trouble of having to learn the content myself, I feel like I am only now coming to grips with the course and the content. It seems though, that when you are down or worried, things can go one of two ways - your class will flop, making you feel infinitely worse about the situation and yourself, or your class will be a big success, restoring your faith in the fact that the year 12's are doing the work you are setting and that they are listening to the things you say. The latter happened to me in my double with the 12's on friday afternoon so for the weekend I feel renewed, relieved and maybe even rejuvenated somewhat.
But I will go back to school on Monday, with my head so full of the classes i will be teaching for the day and the memos that I need to write and the emails that I should be sending that I will forget about the meeting that I have on until 2 minutes before hand or I will forget about the dinner that I am organising for Saturday night with my friends (even if we plan it on Friday). I need to get some sort of diary organised because at the moment I can't remember anything for longer than 2 minutes and I am concerned that I will start offending my friends by forgetting to turn up to the functions they have organised. Is this normal or am I a headless (brainless) freak!?
On life outside of school, I actually had some time today to do some gardening which is great because the weeds were literally bigger than some of the plants and I was beginning to think that they had taken over for good. I am also managing to keep up some semblance of an exercise routine which has really been great for my bad back and my sanity! Spent last weekend looking at wedding venues, cooked dinner for the mothers (mine and future-mother-in-law) on Wednesday night to discuss venues and plans, drove back to Arthurs Seat on Thursday in between school and a school function starting at 7 to show said mums the venue and have booked, which means the procrastinating is over and the wedding will happen in March next year! Crazy times ahead!
I am sensing a theme with me and procrastination. Maybe I should do something to make myself more decisive? Maybe I will just think about it for a little bit...