DOCUMENT IDEAS

• Liscence: Keep Copies


• Contract: Keep Copies


• Attendance


• Tardies


• Behavioral Patterns: Sleepy, Sad, Upset, Depressed (The students’ – not yours). If you notice something weird about a student, make a note of it. That way, if it continues, you can call home and let them know when it started. I had a student who began to fall asleep every day in class. When I finally called home, I found out that he was on a basketball team that traveled to Jackson for games at nights, and that he was not getting any sleep on the bus-rides home. His mother took care of it.


• Write-ups/Office Referrals: : If you wait to call home for a recurring problem, you will want to be able to tell exactly how many instances a child was written up for.


• Detentions/Suspensions: If you wait to call home for a recurring problem, you will want to be able to tell exactly how many instances a child was written up for.


• Textbook Designation: I just passed out a math book to each student and told them to write their name in it. Come the end of the year, over 100 books were missing, and I had no one to blame for it. Keep track of this!


• Homework Assignment/Homework Due Date: I constantly forgot to collect homework, so have a good system for turning in, grading, etc.


• Work Turned in: on-time/late/never


• Students’ Personal Information: Full name, Birthday, Telephone number, Parents’/Guardians’ names, relationship to student, workplace, phone number, etc.


• School Paper-Work: Intervention forms, Discipline Reports, Grading Sheets, Attendance Sheets, etc. There is so much that a district has to keep track of, and if they lose anything, chances are that they will not apologize and will fault you for not having an extra – so, make copies.


• Gradeboook: I never knew when to expect it, but my principal asked for my updated gradebook at the weirdest times. Sometimes I had it, sometimes I didn’t. If you use GRADEKEEPER or some other online grading system, make printouts and have them available and as up-to-date as possible.


• Extra Credit: whether you announced it as extra credit or not, if a student earns it, keep a note of it.


• Personality: It’s fun to make silly awards for end-of the-quarter/end-of-the-year awards (example: The walk-it-out award, Best-Bling, Sleeping Beauty, etc.). If a student has a funny moment, or repetitive action that you want to highlight, make a note of it. Also, some students are very sensitive to certain aspects of their personality, so if there is something you notice that a student does not like to be commented on about, make a mental or written note of it.


• Sample Work: Have some for each student, for each benchmark. At the end of the year some students will not pass, and the district might need to meet and “discuss” whether these particular students should pass or not. They will ask some teachers for examples of student work. Other times, parents will ask a teacher for examples at conferences (or even durin

Everyone will face some form of frustration with their administration, especially during their first year of teaching. Often, though, the administration is hardly the one to blame – but, they’re such an easy target. Of course, I’m not saying that they’re excused; from everything I’ve heard and experienced this year, school districts are professional “screw-ups.” Are there little tricks to help a person avoid or deal with the stress caused by his/her district and/or administration? I’m inclined to say, “to each his own.” People have different ways of reacting and dealing with difficulties. The biggest piece of advice I would have to offer to anyone is BE POLITE. Regardless of the situation, I have never heard of a person benefiting from being rude. Be forward, be direct, be honest, be serious – but, keep it professional. Across the board, politeness and professionalism seem to be a given. Of course, these terms mean different things to different people (hence, all the frustration between a teacher and a district). My personal policy was the simple “smile-and-nod” technique. If a principal, fellow teacher, or administrator was pissing me off, or doing something to induce stress, I would immediately smile, be overly nice, and get outta there. The more condescendingly sweet to a person a can be (provided that the person is stressing me out), the better I feel. It may seem horrible to some, but like I said earlier, “to each his own.” Here are a few other tricks that I and others have used to deal with the frustrations brought on from our “superiors”:

• Have someone to vent to: If someone is willing to listen, talk to them. Many times family and friends have difficulty relating to how shitty things can get during your first year of teaching – but, our particular program just so happens to place you, every-other weekend, with a group of people in your exact same shoes, very willing (usually) to listen and - more often than not – laugh.

• Write a letter: Doesn’t matter who its to, or whether you even end up sending it, sometimes its just plain nice to write it all down. I guess some people call this a “diary” or “journal”, but it can be cool to address something to your principal, and let them know EXACTLY what you are thinking about their new “grading policy.”

• Post a flyer to your school building…or not

• Call the media… or not

• Get away: Don’t think about school, Don’t think about your district – just go! Take a day trip to the Delta (or out of the Delta). Go to Memphis. Go to New Orleans for the weekend. Just get your mind off of school.

• Edit something on pbwiki or googlemaps…or not

• BLOG

• Join an angry girl band

• Get involved in something productive outside of school (church, volunteering, library book drives, etc.)

• Take a cooking class

• Go to a restaurant

• Go for a run

• Go for a drive

• DEAL WITH IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!