Friday, March 13, 2009

Someone thought this was a good idea... why?

It's a new semester her at BM (yes those are the initials of my school) Elementary. With it I got a new schedule, new co teachers and new students. As much as I respect and like my principal her latest idea is a bit of a train wreck at the moment. I have sixteen (yeah, you read that right SIXTEEN) co teachers now. That's the main English teacher, plus three 3rd grade teachers, three 5th grade teachers, two 4th grade teachers, two 1st grade teachers, two 2nd grade teachers, and three 6th grade teachers. I respect that every teacher has a different style of teaching, a different level of comfortableness with English, and every class is different. But to juggle that many different styles of teaching is a bit insane. This is the first full week of trying this schedule out. I'm thinking it needs to get a little work done on it. Like can we get one contact person for each grade... so I can do some co teaching and get some sort of plans set up?
So far I've had teachers sit with the students and take the class, hide in another part of my classroom, walk out of the room, attempt to co teach, and actually co teach. The last two are my favorite groups of teachers... well that and the ones who sit with the class and try to learn too. I can handle a class if I know they will at least help out with a few translations and the management.
Old Miss Kim and I had a heart to heart this morning about how I'd really like a contact person on each team... someone who is willing to meet with me once a week to go over plans and talk about how the class is going to run. I'm willing to meet with people after school and practice English with them so they feel more comfortable. Who knows if any of this will happen. I have a feeling that if the principal figures out how unhappy I am things will change a little. I don't want to kill her idea... just let me tweak it a little to make it work. I'm going to give it another week then I have a bad feeling I'm going to have to sit down and talk with my main co teachers Sunny and Miss Kim and maybe the principal about how we can make this work for everyone.
So far my ideas are one contact person per grade.. trying to track down 6 or maybe 7 teachers is a lot easier than 16. After school small group (each grade level even) short English lessons for the teachers. Focus these on whatever dialog is coming up and plans for the next class so we are all on the same page and they feel more confident with what we are doing.
I'm not sure what else I can do but I figure if I give it a real try they can't get too mad at me when I make my decisions about next year in May.

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