My time as a school teacher Part 4
What follows is an account of the beginning of the pain of teaching. The school where I taught started with Kindergarten and students knew each other well. Newcomers (and I certainly was one) are put through a trial by fire by the student body, rightfully so. Adults come in and out of their lives and those who are not sincere should be driven off. Also if you teach in the inner city because you pity the students, or you want to "save" them, you need to move on. I was completely unaware of that when I started teaching and in hindsight could have done a much better job. Lesson learned.
The school year started with a set back before the first student came into my classroom. The principal who hired me had accepted the Director’s position of the corporate side of Anonymous and would no longer be involved in the day-to-day operation of the school. I took solace in the fact that the Assistant Principal remained. Additionally, my certification program ran into the first part of the year round schedule, so a substitute had to be hired to cover my classes. I was too inexperienced to realize the future problems this would create.
After my certification classes were done, I started teaching. I was the only educator teaching 6th grade history. Consequently, I was on my own to design my lesson plans and curriculum. I used the state framework and took many of their suggested activities, modifying them for my student population. Like many new teachers, I was struggling to maintain order in my classroom but I remained optimistic. In early September, the Assistant Principal was promoted to a Principal position in another school system. A former elementary school administrator replaced him.
Two days after her arrival, she called me into her office prior to the start of the school day. During our conversation, she told me that she had fired every “military guy” who had ever worked for her. I was taken aback; her comment came out of the blue and was unexpected. I went back to my classroom shaken. That evening I had a long discussion with my fiancé’s father, a former school administrator. He suggested I write her a letter explaining how I felt about our interaction. I followed his advice. No comment was made about the letter until months after the fact and then it was a denial, I was told I must have misunderstood what she said. In October I had a formal observation. My performance was poor and my review was scathing. I was asked to submit daily lesson plans to the Assistant Principal. I asked my mentor and department chair to help me improve my lesson plans and classroom delivery. They both came in and observed me regularly and helped me with my lesson plans. In spite of their help, all of my lesson plans were returned as poorly written and not meeting the lesson objectives.
I was reading as many books as I could about teaching inner city students and was using every available resource. By December, I was spending twelve hours a day in my classroom trying to improve my performance. My students were unruly and I knew that any discipline referral I wrote would be ignored. I started talking to parents instead of relying on administrators to help me with behavioral issues.