One of the great things about fifth graders is they speak their minds.
More than once last year, I got called out for having a clean desk. When my desk was clean, they knew one of the following things would be happening soon:
1) I would be out and they'd have a guest teacher.
2) I was going to be observed by my administration.
3) We'd have visitors from another school.
If one of those things was happening, my desk was spotless.
Any other day, it was a different story.
I don't start out with the intention of a cluttered desk. But as the day progresses, students place extra copies of papers there, notes are turned in, and by the time I notice, it's covered in papers.
I don't spend my time with my students cleaning or tidying. I spend my time being in the moment, immersed in their learning opportunities. I won't apologize for that.
I try to tidy it before/after school, but I have an open door policy and usually some other teacher is in my room venting/problem solving/chatting. Again, I won't apologize for being there for others. In the scope of my responsibilities as a teacher, having a spotless desk is quite low on my to do list, ranking right above filing student nurse pass slips in alphabetical order.
Growing up, I had a desk in my room. I had grand ideas of how it would be decorated and that I'd sit there, every night, doing my homework.
That's not what happened. It became a dumping ground for things and I'd do my work in a chair, in bed, or laying on the floor.
That's simply not the case. I'm not a desk person. That didn't change when I became a teacher.
Don't get me wrong, I love the look of this:
Or this:
But that's not my reality.
I will sit at my desk to input grades...and that's about it.
I don't sit there to take attendance. I don't sit there and teach from my seat. I don't even sit there and grade. Instead, my desk is a catch-all spot for paperwork and holds up my computer. If I had the option to get rid of it, I would, but that's not in the cards...yet.
So instead of snapping at my students over their mess, I provide opportunities to clean and practice organization. Being tidy and organized is not something that comes naturally to everyone, so why would I expect it naturally from all of my students?
It's one of my goals to be more organized this year. I think a change in grade levels will mean people won't just bring me papers in the middle of the day. I'm hopeful that less copies (28 of everything instead of 40) will also make a difference. I'm hopeful that more notebooks will mean less copies of papers.
Stay tuned for how operation #cleandesk will unfold!
Besides,
I'm having a bit of a rough time finding positive things. We are under a lot of pressure at work from a lot of different angles. Granted, it's no where near the tear-inducing chaos of last year, but still.
We are under pressure to perform well on Reading Rangers. My students are reading independently and quiz frequently. However, there's a few boys that aren't following my expectations and do poorly. They are lower readers and need to read books several times. They need to conference with a peer about the book. However, they'll sneak out to the pod or sneak an iPad to quiz and often score 60% or 80%, which brings down our class average. I am then talked to about why I'm doing so poorly and it's really not fair. I've had a few times I've been called out for the lowest scores and while some find it motivating, I'm mortified.
I don't like coming in last and I certainly don't like that publicly announced.
My students have between 45 and 60 minutes a day of silent independent reading time with our Reading Rangers program. During that time I'm pulling small groups or individual conferences, they are writing about what they're reading, conferencing with a peer, taking an AR test, or silently reading.
Other teachers will sometimes skip other subject areas to allow for extra reading time to inflate their scores. I'm not sorry that I refuse to skip math, writing, or whole group reading to give them silent reading time. They need instruction in all subjects.
We've started some new positive reinforcements and it's helped. We are in a race to 100 100%s with another class and it's quite motivating for them. I also started using classroom dojo to reward them whenever they score 90%, 100%, or complete a badge. They are quite excited about that.
We're all overwhelmed at work and it's showing. The amount of effort and care I put into my portion of planning is not necessarily being matched by others and that's difficult. Things aren't getting done in a timely manner. There's been some miscommunication and that's difficult.
I think we're all just ready for a break and luckily, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I am thankful for that!
My pinterest feed is flooded with back to school ideas. Friends in other states have already started their school year. I know I have to set my classroom up soon but am already facing classroom shaming.
On my facebook feed, one of our district's other performance zones highlighted a new teacher's classroom that is completely done. Yes, completely done...on August 6th. We don't start in-service until the 21st and get students until the 25th. Yet, this one teacher was completely ready. While I hope the intention was to celebrate this new teacher, the overall effect was classroom shaming. Shame to those teachers who haven't meticulously decorated their classrooms yet. To be fair, I'm not even allowed to get keys until next Wednesday. Still, the message was shame to those teachers who aren't done yet.
I say enough.
Enough to the classroom shaming.
My classroom will not be perfect. It's not supposed to be. In a few weeks, it will be filled with fifth graders. Perfection is not possible.
I have a few weeks of summer left and I'm going to enjoy it. I don't need to be shamed about my classroom and all the unopened boxes. I didn't spend my entire summer preparing for next year and that's okay.
Yes, I will do my best to make my classroom a colorful, organized, and fun place to be. However, I will not spend hundreds of dollars doing so. Like most of the world, I'm on a budget. Everything won't be meticulously perfect and that's okay.
I'm not going to spend hours on bulletin boards and cleaning. I'm going to spend that time on planning lessons, not decorating.
Enough with the shaming and pressure to make every classroom look like those on pinterest. It's not going to happen. It's unrealistic. I love craft projects as much as the next person, but I also like sleep.
Every teacher is different. I'm going in on the earliest possible day and don't want to go in on weekends. That's okay. Other teachers won't go in until their contract days and that's perfectly okay too. Some won't have their classrooms finalized until the students are finishing up their first week and that's okay too (as long as students are able to learn and move around safely). Stop with the classroom shaming and holding all teachers to absurd pinterest/done three weeks early standards. My classroom won't be perfect. Stop the shaming.
