Observations

I finally am done with all of my required observations (my department head coming in to observe my class) and best of all have all of the write -ups completed and approved. It's not that I'm against being observed, in fact when implemented well I think its one of the best methods for improving my own teacher skills. I look forward to being given a specific thing to think about and try to adjust to. Its where I first became aware of trying to make sure I space my questions out around the room, and how the need to get kids up to the board has been reinforced. Sadly though, it's not always useful feedback. My entire feedback to my write up this time: "This looks great. I have nothing to add except that you are a very effective teacher..." That's great. Thanks for the compliment, but what can I do to get better?

Instead I've taken to using the write ups as a way to highlight some of the problems with the system at our school. My focus this time - the fact that I only had 9 out of 18 kids at the end of the lesson (after starting with 5). An excerpt:

The bell rang to start class and I looked around at a mostly empty classroom. Okay, there’s an extra five minutes built into the schedule, I’ll give my students a bit more time to filter into class. I’m supposed to have 18 in this section, and frankly it hardly seems worth starting up with just 5 of them present. About 10 minutes into the lesson I finally got up to start working with the 7 students who had shown up. I started class by completing another example of what we had done in the previous lesson, important I thought because the variations we were to explore today followed a similar procedure and depended on understanding what we had already done. Turns out that was a very good choice, since when the problem was first put on the board they were all staring blankly. Was it just because they tend not to be very awake at 8, or do they really remember that little from Tuesday (only 2 days ago)? I guess it doesn’t matter, what does matter is working them through the process in a way that will trigger their memory so that we can then expand the method for finding area to new situations.

Why oh why are they allowed to miss so much class? 45 days total (out of only 180 school days) are permissible. Frankly, it's ridiculous. I understand some of it, and it's relation to the external nation wide testing system here - but come on. It's okay to miss 1/4 of the total days of school? Give me a break! At least we only have 4 more days until exams begin. Funny how they all show up for the days they assume will be set aside for review. As long as I'm not expected to reteach the material 20 times I guess that is okay with me.