Day in the life of the teacher

Outside Smart
They often show no interest, but perform highly if they do.
Nowhere	They are learners who are quite slow and clueless. However, they are earnest when they catch the gist.
Ghost	They are the students who are physically present but mentally absent.

Several of my friends suggested that I write about a typical day at school. Typical? Any teacher reading this is probably chuckling right now. Is there ever such a day? On a calm day, classes occur without incident; those days are few and far between. Something simple like a change in weather will ignite restlessness in students. And then there are the days when they are volatile for any number of reasons ranging from homecoming activities to a gang fight in the neighborhood. So, I decided to approach this one from the perspective of “a day in the life” description.

It is Tuesday and the weather has finally cooled a little, giving us a break from the oppressive Kansas summer heat. Since the first hard freeze is still months away, everyone’s allergies are acting up. Class is taught with the background cacophony of sniffles coughs, and sneezes.
Our school’s schedule is a rotating block schedule. This means that we have four class periods a day, each meeting for ninety minutes every other day. On this day, my first period is my plan period. My goal is to grade a set of personal narrative essays, but before that, I need to contact parents of seniors who have been absent. With my first phone call, I actually reach a parent. Unfortunately, Jordan’s mother tells me that they kicked him out of the house and could care less if he was in school or not. I call the attendance center to inform them of Jordan’s status and see if they can find someone to locate him.
My next phone call reaches the student herself. Veronica tells me that she’s been sick but hopes to be back before the end of the week. I make arrangements to leave her assignments in the office for her sister to pick up after school. Three more phone calls and I leave messages.

I type up letters for six more students who I’ve not been able to reach by phone. These are seniors who have missed four or five days of class and are in danger of failing – which ultimately means they won’t graduate in the spring. I take the letters to the attendance center to be mailed, check my office mailbox for messages and head back to my classroom.

I have ten minutes left – no grading today. I write the agenda for my first class on the board and get the literature books on the tables for students. The bell rings and I head to the hall for hall duty; I prefer to think of this as the time to welcome my students to class. This class is English Composition College Reading (ECCR), and the senior students’ abilities run the gamut of those who struggle with English as a second language to those who should have enrolled in the Advanced Placement class but for a variety of reasons chose ECCR instead. The challenge is teaching to all levels.
Today, we are having a Socratic Seminar over a story and an article about the status of women in Afghanistan under the Taliban rule. Students were to have written three questions for discussion. This will be our first Socratic seminar, so I ask for 15 volunteers. After some prodding, I have my volunteers. We arrange the classroom so that we have two circles; those in the middle will be discussing the readings and those on the outside will be taking notes on content and process. For the first time, the discussion was not too stilted – some talk interspersed with moments of silence. I know from past experience that these will get better as students become more comfortable with the strategy and each other. I like to use the Socratic Seminars because the strategy encourages students to think, to voice their thoughts, and to accept the ideas of others. And when I’m lucky I discover that they truly connected to the text that was chosen. We spend the final part of the period reflecting on the process and then reading a handout on tips for writing a critical analysis. That will be their second essay for me – the first analysis for the year and usually a monster piece of writing for them to conquer.
My next class is my Advanced Placement English Literature class – another group of seniors. We started the year with a unit on poetry and have been practicing various active reading strategies. Currently they are working on a packet of poems written about poetry. The previous class period they worked in “expert” groups, in which the entire group focused on one poem and read for literal, interpretive and critical understanding. Today, they will go to their original group and each student will lead a discussion of his/her poem. I am always excited on these days because my students amaze me – their perception and insight is apparent in the small group discussions. I rotate between groups, listening and perhaps adding a comment. This takes the entire ninety minutes of the period, and students finish with pages of notes and annotations.
Lunch next. Four to six other teachers join me in my room for about 30 minutes. Sometimes students come into my room to work, but since this is early in the year, not too many have started yet.
The final period for the day is a seminar class for test prep and extended study for other classes. My 31 AVID sophomores are in this class. We spend the first half of the period pre-bubbling in the test booklets for the PLAN test (a pre-ACT type test) that they will take in another week. The last part of the period, students leave to work with other teachers or to attend tutoring. I have several seniors come to my room to talk about their senior projects.
The bell rings to signal the end of the day, I stand in the hall for our required ten minutes of hall duty as students leave the building. Since I have to pick up my two youngest children from school, I don’t stay and work like a number of teachers do. Instead, I pack up that stack of personal narratives from this morning. I can’t usually grade in the evenings because of my own children’s activities and by the time they are in bed, I am too tired. So I usually rise sometime between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. and grade before I go to school. And if I’m lucky, the next day will be as smooth as today. And if it isn’t, then I hope I have the energy to meet the challenge.
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