I work with four other teachers in the sixth grade. Two are wonderful, and have taught lower grades recently. They communicate well, cooperate, share information, ask how things are going, everything you would expect from co-workers.
The other two are the opposite, and they are really beginning to bother/worry me. The first taught math until I was hired. Now she teaches "reinforcement" - which is essentially kids using a computer program to boost their reading and language arts. The only kids who get math reinforcement are those who don't get the language arts, which is two. This class assigns no grades, so the teacher reviews the scores from the computer program to make sure they did what they were supposed to. She also does tutoring in the mornings, but I rarely see more than 1 or 2 students in there. I get the feeling she is compensated for this tutoring. She also used to run a snack concession from her room, bringing in boxes of individual chips and pouch drinks from Sam's Club and selling them to the kids. Her manner is gruff, loud, aggressive - all the things I have been told I have to change.
The second is our grade level leader - except she constantly says she isn't and doesn't want to be. I don't get emails from her about meetings or information about things that I might not know about, this being my first year at the school. A couple of examples: When we did our first computer test, I didn't know what I needed to do (sign up for the computer lab, get laptops, find codes for the kids, etc.) so I asked her, in the presence of the other teacher. They laughed. They didn't offer to show me, just made light of it as if it will be fun to watch you learn it. Yesterday they both popped in at the end of the day to tell me that I should be using the calculators all the time in the classroom. This message "comes from the top" and I shouldn't worry about teaching them math concepts, but to make sure they know which buttons to push, since test scores are down and they need to go up. And since we need to do another computer test (and this "leader" holds the 6th grade computer cart and told me the days she plans to use it) that I should get time in the computer lab, since the cart can be "unreliable" with connections.
Even better, when I asked this "leader" what to do about the potential failure list we were to generate - whether I was responsible for my homeroom or math for the whole grade, she responded that she didn't know - she never fails kids because she doesn't want to be bothered with that kind of paperwork.
I feel like I am being set up, or slowly sabotaged by these two. Our leader took sick days to attend the Super Bowl, and the students knew it and talked about it. I heard from another teacher on the grade hall. These two just recently treated a teacher in the building, whose son we teach, like dirt when she asked for a conference before school started. They acted as if "how dare somebody (who is a friend and colleague) dare to try to schedule something outside of our window of planning time.
And while these two teachers can seem to do no wrong - yelling at kids when I am advised to speak softly to correct, grabbing and wrestling kids or smacking them, or chasing them in the halls or in the classroom to loud delight from onlookers, when I am told to never EVER touch a child, it really bugs me. I don't feel comfortable going to my principal, as these two seem to have his ear, but it seems to be common knowledge that these two are not typical, and not in a good way. Just another hurdle in an endless stream of people to please, appease or get along with, despite what they do in return.
It never ceases to amaze me the number of things we must juggle and juggle well as teachers. Kids & their parents are only the tip of the iceberg. Then we must figure out how to get along with other teachers, guess what our administrators really want from us, and try to teach as well. And for all this our profession is often complained about, degraded and disregarded. We are must be crazy!
ReplyDelete