I feel the need to purge.

Tomorrow is Friday and I'm very, extremely thankful. This has been a hellacious week and it seemed to creep by at a snail's pace. It started on Monday with my principal visiting my room more in one day than she had visited most of the year. The next day was the same. This whole experience was taxing, simply because I began to doubt that I was doing a good job. This being my first year teaching math, I kinda felt (at the beginning mainly) like a fish out of water. But as the year has progressed I've grown more comfortable with the curriculum. Anyway, the visiting actually started on Friday and built to a fever pitch on Tuesday. I knew I had a meeting on Wednesday (grade level planning) so I figured I'd talk to my principal about it that morning.

I knew what was coming when my teaching partner and I got into the principal's office and the principal told my teaching partner that we were going to meet separately. "Okay, here it comes," was my thinking. "Bring it on." Of course, she doesn't come right out and say anything. She just asks, "So, how's sixth grade math going?" "Okay," I thought. "Let's get to the point." I said, "Do you mean how do I think I'm doing teaching it, or how are the kids doing?" I asked. "Let's start with the first one," was her response. So I told her. I felt really good about my teaching until she came and visited my room more in two days than she had all year long. I was beginning to doubt myself. She assured me that I was a very good 6th grade math teacher. I knew the curriculum and I could analyze the data. But there seemed to be a disconnect between myself and knowing where my students were struggling and then being able to help them. "Say what?" was my thinking. "A disconnect?" She continued to ask me what we could do to fix that, and totally stunned I just sat there. There wasn't any kind of elaboration other than I seemed to be able to teach the ideas, but wasn't seeing that my some of the kids were struggling. "Um, yes, I do know that some are struggling and I know how to work with them," was my thinking. But if you know my principal, you know that that's not always the best way to handle things with her. I've talked to Jason about how to handle it diplomatically, because when I defend myself sometimes it sounds like I'm making excuses. For example, one thing she said was that I needed to get off my computer during class time. I was somewhat shocked by this because the times she came into my room one of the following situations was occurring: a) I was changing the song on the iTunes (I use this as a motivation for getting things done - turning in papers, sitting down and getting out homework, etc); b) researching how many copies of the next intervention books we had available so I could know how many to order for my group; c) checking email before tutoring for the sole purpose of knowing who I needed to respond to after tutoring but before I hauled butt out of the building to make it my in-service by 4:30 p.m. on the other side of town; or d) seeing exactly what the dress code said about Gothic dress when it disturbed the class {We're talking black clothing all the way, black eye-shadow, black lipstick}. I thought about bringing this up, but decided to document those cases and have them available in case the issue is brought up again. I kinda felt like she was complimenting me, but not. You know? Oh yeah. And the other comment that made think, "Excuse me?" was when she said my kids needed to know that I cared. "Um, I think they know that I care. I mean, instead of slapping them with a demerit or detention when they roll their eyes, blatantly disturb class for the sole purpose of bringing attention to themselves, talking back or just plain being a teenager I walk them through it. I bring attention to the fact that they are acting that way and that it comes across as being snotty. Many times, they don't know they're doing it. They just do it with their friends and it becomes second nature. I understand, I did that when I was getting ready for junior high. Heck, I'm there every day. I think they know I care. It's actually been okay since then. I'm not sure if it's because 3rd and 5th grades are getting ready to take the first administration of Reading, and 4th grade is getting ready for writing, but she's not in there as much now.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day.