why teachers quit after only 3 years...

I'm sitting here grading massive amounts of stuff (mainly tests, but many other things too that I haven't kept up with), and pondering where I've gone wrong.

Don't get me wrong--I still love what I do, but I'm just so overwhelmed this year.  Part of it has to do with issues with my younger son with sp. ed issues.  But part of it is doing too much--the very thing I warned against in my article "Twice a First Year Teacher."  I should listen to my own advice.

Every time you switch schools and teach new grade levels and topics it's like becoming a new teacher again.  You don't have file drawers full of stuff to just pull out.  Everything must be planned in advance, designed in advance, etc.  Latin 1 I could teach in my sleep.  I could wing on a moment's notice.  No worries there.

Latin 2 with CLC I now have a few things for having taught it for the 1st time last year.  BUT  Latin 3 and 4/AP I do NOT have things for. 

Top it off, instead of taking my own advice from my article about borrowing and stealing instead of driving myself into the ground, I'm making everything to suit my needs.  Well, part of the problem is that I just do not like what others have.  I have, over the last 8 years or more, developed my philosophy and approach towards teaching Latin that I think is a good approach.  I have my emphasis on reading both silently and orally, on learning how to read in word order, etc.  Yeah, yeah, we could use the workbooks more. 

My biggest problem, I suppose, is my addiction to making quia.com materials.  Students really find the stuff I design useful/helpful.  I'm always interested in what my students who have taken Spanish or French think--whether certain concepts are made clearer than how they are taught in the modern language.  The only problem is that quia stuff takes TIME to make.

And I'm kicking myself right now because I have FAILED to bring home the Vergil Workbook....eheu.  I needed that to make some stuff, I'm sure, for the AP students.

I don't have an answer.  I'm overwhelmed with work and yet while I'm grading these tests I'm thinking about WHAT ELSE I could do to help the strugglers.  As if I don't have enough to do.  A specialized tutorial schedule?  (Tues a.m., verbs, Weds a.m. nouns, Thurs a.m. vocab??)  Or, specialized tutorial topics made in quia?  UGH.  Like I have time.

I have *got* to get another Latin teacher next year out here.  I'd like to shed Latin 3 and AP--not because I don't want to teach those levels, but because I just canNOT do it all.  But how could we possibly make two full time jobs out of what is only 1 now?  Can't.  Well, I could pick up a class or two at the middle school.  The problem with volunteering too much is ending up creating more preps again.  Stupid stupid stupid.

The thing is, it will get better.  It WILL get better, esp when I have tons of quia.com stuff made for each level and a file drawer full of material.  So, new/future teachers, just remember that.  OF COURSE it's hard work at first....but once all the stuff is made, it gets easier.  I know it does.  I remember what it was like when I taught middle school. It was MUCH easier the 3rd year and after....

I just would really like it to be like that NOW.  RIGHT NOW.

I can't keep taking sick days just to catch up.

teaching academic skills / my extra credit

I've been grading tests for the last 24 hours and I'm now recording them/posting them to my gradebook.  I can observe on main thing among those with low grades: they are not "showing their work."

I bribe my students with extra credit.  I do.  I admit it.  I teach them via warm-ups and other things HOW to slow down and see the details and get the RIGHT answers.  For instance, for reading comprehension questions, I teach them to look for context clues in the question to be sure they are finding the right answer in the story.  I encourage them to mark off WHERE they are in the site passage on the test, and to do their "thinking" right there on the page.

On sentence completion sections, such as (on the Latin 1 test) deciding whether you need a nominative or an accusative to complete the sentence, I encourage students to be sure to identify what they already have and to think about sentence patterns.  On subject/verb agreement, I encourage students to circle verb endings and think about what is needed as a subject or vice versa.

Any mnemonic device that they use I *want* to see in the margins.  I want to see them using it. 

Every now and then when a student does badly AND has notes, I can see where they went wrong.  For instance, one girl just made a chart up wrong and because of that kept choosing the wrong answer.  I'm going to encourage her to retake that particular portion of the test.  But almost everyone else who did poorly did NOT show their work so I canNOT see where they went wrong.

In all likelihood they had no test-taking strategy but were randomly choosing answers.

I see bright kids who *can* do well who don't seem to realize it because they won't help themselves.   So right now as I'm recording these grades I'm trying to think of HOW to get some of these strugglers to do what I'm teaching them to do.

It's not about the extra points, though that helps a bit (usually 3-6 points or so for those who do it).  I really and truly think that their grades are raised a letter grade by just the act of showing their thinking.

Sometimes people as whether my grades are inflated.  Some.  Sure, I'll be honest about that.  They are inflated a bit on the top end.  On the other hand, I have students scraping by HONESTLY and actually learning enough to get through a second year--and maybe even a 3rd.  I'm not passing students with stupid fluff for extra credit--I'm trying to teach skills with my extra credit.  I'm trying to get MORE students to HIGHER levels of Latin by teaching them the skills that come naturally to other students.

After all, AP wants us to have more diverse students in our classes--but how can we get them there if we don't teach them the skills they need early on? 

The one thing I'm sure of--I never want MY Latin courses to be a weed-out course.

back to my grading