We have now been back in school with students for two weeks, and while I have not personally heard serious, down right frustrating griping, I sense it. I know it is happening. My co-worker has heard it. I can read people's faces, feel the stress in the air, and just know that teachers are stressed, frustrated and more.
Part of me is grateful teachers don't gripe around me, and I am glad I don't know what they are specifically saying about me.
My role has changed this year. It is finally what I thought it was going to be when I took the job two years ago. Don't get me wrong, I have gained experiences and enjoyed parts of what I did the last two years, but it wasn't the day-to-day job I thought I was getting. Now, I attend planning meetings for all content areas. I get to go back to my ELAR and History roots and recall concepts, topics, and ideas to help those teachers. I attend Team meetings to assist teams with tasks focused on the 130 students assigned to each of them. I am working with teachers who need a few ideas, support, or assistance. I am observing students to help teachers come up with ideas to get students back on task or under control so everyone in the room can learn. I am supporting new teachers who might otherwise be on their own (like I was my first two years of teaching). I do walkthroughs, which will assist teachers instructionally, which will help our students be successful.
While I have not heard with my own two ears any griping about what I am or am not doing, I know that this role bothers people. I believe they are questioning why I am in and out of their rooms, and they are probably worried I am taking all I see and hear straight back to our Administrators. Well, all I can say is that they should come talk to me.
My main goal: Help teachers be the best they can be so our students can learn and be successful. The first week, I went in and out of classrooms just checking on teachers. Not checking up on them, just checking on them. It is rough starting a year, especially with the changes they are experiencing, so I was just checking to see if they had questions or needed anything. Now that the year is moving along, I am seeing if anyone needs help with things I know our Administrators are looking for when they are doing walkthroughs. I can help with the expectations posted on the board. I can help make a lesson more engaging. I can help with content a teacher may not quite understand. I can help with a disruptive student. I can find a new strategy to use. I can support a struggling teacher. Again, my role is not to get teachers in trouble or to be negative; it is to help and support.
My role is to help however I can, but I do not give bathroom breaks or cover classes for teachers to make copies, run errands, or do things they need to do before or after school or during lunch or Conference time. It is not my job to clean out and straighten storage areas that I did not mess up.
The griping, stress, and negativity I know is spreading through the campus is not good for instruction or students. I remember there was a point in my 4th year of teaching that I had to make a choice. I was struggling with a situation in my class and I was in a new grade level. I was negative all the time. I remember the very moment that I said to myself that I had to make a change and be more positive--even if I didn't feel like it. From that moment on, I had to find the positive in the day, the moment, the child, the situation. It changed my life and my teaching. Whenever I start feeling overwhelmed or negative, I have to stop and make myself think positively.
There are changes taking place on my campus, and if some of the teachers do not make a purposeful change in their attitudes and become more positive, their year is only going to get worse.
The changes taking place are not any different than any great campus would do normally. The expectations and procedures being put into place this year are what most teachers think of as normal, and those teachers probably wouldn't understand why teachers on my campus are struggling or griping. I am so grateful to have had wonderful administrators while I was in the classroom. The Principals and Assistant Principals were strong, had high expectations, and could lead teachers and students to do and be their best. I may have been a pain or immature, but I learned from each of them. Eva McKinney, Treva Franklin, Becky Reidling, Daron Aston, Valerie Nelson, Jeni Piepenbrink, and Leigh Kovalcik put up with me, led me, and molded me into the educator I am today. It took me leaving the classroom and working with other amazing, strong administrators for me to see and understand what I do now.
I will continue with my positive attitude and assisting teachers. Our students deserve it.
