Category: Teaching Diary/Blog

This school year, I have the good fortune of being at the best school I have taught at in my 5 years of being a full-time teacher. The admin is incredible, my co-workers are fabulous, I love my partner teacher, and kids are always kids – fun and challenging.

I’m coming to the 2023 holidays with a happy and fulfilled spirit. So… thank you to everyone who has made the first half of this year so great. I look forward to working with you in 2024!

I was all set: Two years of teacher certification – done. Monthly observations and reflections for those two years – done. Passed the CSET. Passed the TPAs. I started this year as a fully credentialed teacher at a small charter in the San Fernando Valley. I loved my job, so why did I quit after only 3 months?

Teaching is a famously difficult profession. As teachers, we are asked to balance and manage an inordinate number of difficult tasks daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. You can work beyond your max, give up your personal life entirely, and yet there is always more to be done. This year, though, is when I believe things have gotten out of hand.

In the post- Distance Learning school, children are showing up grade levels behind even where they were before – which was typically below grade level. Add to that the fact that they have lost all of their social skills, don’t know how to relate to each other or how to behave in public after a year and a half at home, and you’ve got a storm brewing. The last time my 7th graders had a normal year, they were in 4th grade! They have new hormones, new concerns, new needs – and most have not been able to acheive the developmental milestones to bring them safely to this already challenging year.

Administrators, meanwhile, are behaving like this is a normal year. At least, they are attempting to manage the school and it’s teachers as if they are functioning under normal conditions. We have all been traumatized, and are all trying to adjust to new ways of being and doing. Yet the focus of schools continues to be on test results, and teachers are being reprimanded for their students lack of social know-how. School is supposed to be a safe place, and everyone’s home away from home. What we need is time and programming to re-adjust to being in the classroom and process what we’ve been through. We’re not getting it, not in the least.

Holding teachers to an impossible standard has never happened to such a degree. That is to say, administrators continue to hold teachers to the same impossible standards they did before COVID, but now, the circumstances are immeasurably more difficult. This is the reason teachers are quitting en masse. What we need is support, cooperation, and understanding. What we are facing is constance criticism in the face of an impossibly challenging situation.

After I quit my job in October, I began substitute teaching. I can take a day off when I need to, but I work just about every day. Working every day, I make the same salary I did when I was working a permanent job, but I don’t have to take any of the work or problems home. My weekends are mine again, and if I happen to be up at 5 am, it’s because I’m doing yoga, not frantically filling in plans for my day before my paid worktime has even begun.

The school system needs to be more fair to teachers. Too often, they are considered low-level and expendable. When really, they are the driving force in education, the ones who know the students, and plan, instruct, manage, and assess all of their work. I have never understood why “teachers are undervalued” so much that it is common knowledge. And maybe that will take time to change. What can change immediately is the school administrations attitude towards the people who do all the work of making learning happen.

Spring break is upon us. I know I am not alone in saying I couldn’t need the rest time more.

I am wrapped up in completing my Cycle 1 CalTPA, to be submitted by April 1st. This is a painstaking process involving planning a lesson, filming and editing a video of my lesson, and writing a ridiculously detailed report analyzing the lesson and video. I have been involved in this work for over a month now and can’t wait to be done with it. Almost there!

I was planning on jumping right into Cycle 2 next month, which promises even more difficult work, but considering I have literally developed stress-related eczema – which means uncontrollable itching any time I get the least bit worried – I have decided to put Cycle 2 off until next spring.

So, I really, really, really mean it when I say how much I am looking forward to two whole weeks of doing absolutely N-O-T-H-I-N-G. If I’m lucky, I may manage to squeeze in plenty of yoga time. And music time on my Sonos. And taking Juniper to the “p-a-r-k.”

At our last staff meeting, the Principal of my middle school encouraged all teachers and staff members to take personal wellness days off from work to rest and recover. We are all stressed/tired/overworked, she said. Make sure you take care of yourself. I could not believe my ears.

Last year, I’m pretty sure I lost my job for taking wellness days. I am someone who is very into self-care and wellness. I try to check in with myself often and do my best to make sure I am meeting my own needs before I become sick or run down. How can I hope to function in that shape? How can I possibly do a job?

My supervisor did not agree, last year, and consistently questioned me when I took time off. I ended up having to get a doctor’s note confirming that I required the time off that I was taking. They no longer said anything about it — they just didn’t renew my position at the end of the year!

So, this year, it is more than a welcome relief to see my colleagues take “personal days” when they need to. And to be outright encouraged to spend a day just taking care of my needs! More administrators should be this reasonable! We are human beings and we need rest, peace, and positivity!

After I requested my day off this week, I realized it would be Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. As a Jewish person, I look forward to this solemn day of reflection that comes once a year. Many people would not think of it as “fun” or “rest,” but I know I will feel truly revived come Tuesday, the start of the Jewish new year.

So, I guess, it worked out nicely for me. I will have a nice day, and a nice week because of it. I wish all the teachers out there a peaceful fall season. Give yourself permission to take the day off!

One interesting, education-related development in all this civil unrest has been the potential addition of Ethnic Studies curriculum to CA public schools. Though I am not considered an ethnic minority, I made the choice to major in Ethnic Studies as an undergraduate at UC-Berkeley. To this day, people look at me crooked when I try to explain that choice. Perhaps now more people will be able to stretch their imaginations to understand what I was seeking to understand: What is racism? How/why am I/am I not racist? How can I help to fix things?

My choice of major ended up leading me down a path to a career in public education, where I felt I could make a huge difference in the world. And I would like to note that even though I studied these issues in college, I don’t really consider myself the number one choice of staff member to teach a hypothetical Ethnic Studies course. In my opinion, it is a subject best led by an instructor who has a lived experience that informs their knowledge of what is, ultimately, an “alternative” history class. I am half Yemini, which I do feel allows me to reflect and relate to certain issues on a deeper level. But since I am not part of a colonized group, my family has not been discriminated against and held back in the same way as the groups that Ethnic Studies focuses on.

For me, the Ethnic Studies major was majorly eye opening on a lot of issues. Issues that extended beyond social studies/colonialism and into questions about what literature we study and consider “classic” in English class. Questions of what kind of information is presented throughout the curriculum. Where does it come from? What other voices and perspectives are out there, not being heard?

I think I could write a short pamphlet on this, but to sum it all up:

An Ethnic Studies class for all public school students is definitely a GOOD idea. It would help people understand how we got “here.”

And while we’re at it, lets make Ethnic Studies training mandatory for all staff, who didn’t get to benefit from this requirement while they were still in school.