surprise!

Last Saturday was the FLL robotics tournament, and we went in with expectations.  The big-kid team would do great at the robot game, and therefore had a good chance of advancing to the state-level competition.  The little-kid team, who had never once practiced an actual competition round, had never practiced their presentation, and literally had never heard about FLL's Core Values?  They would learn a lot from the experience, hopefully having some fun along the way.  All in all, my co-coach and I went into the day thinking there was a decent chance we'd be done for the season.

That pleasant dream was not to be.  It was an excellent tournament: the big kids won the Robot Performance award for having the best scores at the robot games.  The little kids won the Core Values award for being the living embodiment of innovation, cooperation, and fun.  After their first competition round, they came off the stage so pumped up it was adorable; if you could bottle that feeling  and sell it, you'd be a zillionaire.  For the subsequent judge meetings, I just advised the team to remember the feeling they had coming off the stage, and take that into their meetings with the judges.  Apparently they listened to me, because the judges loved them so much that they are advancing to State!  

When they were announced as the 7th and final team to move on from the tournament, my co-coach and I turned to each other with identical expressions of What just happened?!?!?  We were sure the big kids' team would advance, especially after doing so well in the robot game.  But the big kids weren't having any fun and have a tendency to snipe at each other a bit, which is an affront to the Core Values.  But the biggest reason is probably that the judges knew the team didn't build the robot and write the code, or that they didn't do it alone:  too much parent work on display. There were a lot of other factors involved as well, but it still came as a surprise.  The big kids were definitely disappointed but they seemed to get over it pretty quickly.  The little kids, of course, are jumping out of their skins with excitement.  Fortunately, the state tournament isn't until the third weekend in January, so we have some time to prepare a little better.

I wish those were the only surprises from last Saturday, but they weren't.  I headed over to the tournament about 7:15am, and was surprised to have a text from one of my junior high team-mates by the time I arrived on campus just 15 minutes later: Read your email.  So I log into my work email and there's a message from our assistant principal, reviving the issue of junior high teachers teaching elective classes.  We went through this last spring and we all pitched a fit about it, and administration backed off.  But now it has reared its ugly head again, only this time admin is requiring all the junior high teachers to teach one elective class per trimester, in addition to study hall (or perhaps replacing it, that wasn't clear.)

Of course this has thrown three of the four of us into utter turmoil.  One of our team is a nun and she has taken a vow of obedience so she doesn't have a choice.  Our team lead, who has been at the school for 27 years now, is similarly "stuck," because a host of her grandchildren attend the school and she doesn't want to leave them, or the school.  Our math teacher is the hardest hit because while she has 3 of her 4 children on campus with her, her 2-year-old is still at home.  She has already sacrificed a lot to be with us, teaching three different math subjects plus religion.  She and I completely agree: we barely have enough time now to do our jobs properly, and you want to take some of our prep time away, while giving us more work to do?  

In what universe does that make sense?  Here is more work, and you'll have less time to do it in!  

We are all very upset by this in many different ways.  First, the way it was announced -- a 6:30am email on a Saturday morning! -- was simply horrible.  The level of disrespect is off the charts. Second, that it was conveyed as a requirement, no discussion allowed, is just unacceptable.  Third, of course, is that the demand itself is ridiculous, serving no legitimate purpose and having a very negative impact on the quality of the teaching we will be able to deliver.  

I've spent countless hours on this since first reading that email, and it has cast a pall over my days.  I responded Sunday afternoon, saying the current system respects our need for time to do our jobs properly and have work/life balance, and I requested a meeting to discuss the situation.  To date, I still haven't received a reply to the concerns I raised in the email, but admin did set a meeting for Monday after school.  Every time I think about it, my stomach drops. 

I don't want to leave my school (and my church, and my parish...)  This is not a bridge I can burn!  This is more than just a job to me.  It is my church, my community, my extended family, and that's what makes it hurt so much to be treated with such a lack of consideration and respect.  I know from recent, painful experience that I can teach more classes than I am now, but I also know that the quality of my teaching suffers tremendously, and I have no home life whatsoever.  

The last time I worked like a crazy person, DD was still living at home and helped nearly every night, putting dinner on the table.  She was just a high school student then, and wasn't working outside of school.  But all three of the men here now are working long hours and DS2 will be back in school soon, so they don't have the availability to cook that DD had.  Cooking for my family isn't just about nutrition: having dinner together is how we stay connected to one another. It's too important for me to sacrifice!  

I'm going to spend some time writing up my thoughts in preparation for Monday's meeting, but then I have to stop thinking about it.  Tomorrow's a grading day... once again, I'm completely swamped, mostly because so much energy has been burnt over this electives dictate.  (We're supposed to tell admin what class(es) we want to teach when we get back from Christmas break!  So I'm supposed to spend my break finding something else to teach next year?!)  But also... I lost my prep time on Thursday because of the special mass and procession for the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe.  It was lovely, and I enjoyed it, but I really have a lot of grading to do! I graded my most recent Religion quiz through our brief staff meeting yesterday, even though we have been specifically told not to do that.  Since it was just a discussion of how our tuition is being restructured, I didn't think it would be too bad if I graded.  Also, if the principal saw me grading during the meeting, maybe she'd realize I already don't have enough time to do the work I have, so why is she 1) taking time away from me while 2) giving me work to do?!

I read back through the blog here to find what I wrote about the elective kerfuffle last spring, and the single common thread (during school time) was I am constantly overwhelmed with work.  I just am.  I can do a pretty good job of keeping up, but then extraordinary circumstances occur like losing all but one day of my prep hours for the week because of various special events, followed by losing the entire Saturday to the robotics tournament.  That meant Sunday I had to do both housework and grading and other prep for the week, so of course I was up ridiculously late finishing all the grading; I had to enter the grades themselves early in the week when I finally had a prep hour again. But then this week we burned so much time with many discussions going round and around about what we're going to do about this situation, because none of us is happy about it.   I'm estimating I have somewhere between 9 and 12 hours of grading (not joking).  It's probably closer to 12: revised analysis paragraphs, and new conclusion paragraphs, for both 7th and 8th (that's at least 4 hours by itself); an 8th grade engineering design challenge -- and I left the actual devices in the classroom, so I can't compare the sketches to what they actually built -- models for both 7th (rock cycle) and 8th (states of matter and changing states) grades; 8th's Dry Ice observations lab worksheets; and at least one set of notes (there may be more).  That's just what I have at home: back in the classroom, I need to grade my students' Religion notebooks for the chapter 8 work... I'm thinking I can do that while they're studying for the unit test (chapter 9 is a review chapter, thank God.) Fortunately I have graded all but 2 of the student's quizzes, but the grades aren't recorded yet!   Did I mention grades have to be in by Tuesday morning because progress reports are being printed Tuesday to go home Wednesday?! 

This is what I mean, and it's like this whenever something disrupts the schedule, which happens at least 2 or 3 times a month.  I'm praying a lot. We'll see what happens.