On Writing Research Papers and Feeling Lost

My dissertation is written.  Finally — it definitely took long enough.  I’ve sent it to a few people to read and give me feedback.

One problem is that the dissertation is in Spanish, so my pool of potential readers is rather limited.  Mainly, it’s my family, which generally are a terrible group from whom to get objective feedback.

Another problem is that my master’s is through a university in Spain… so I can’t really pop in to my professor’s office hours to get her opinion, now can I?

Another problem is I hate research papers.  And, not counting the ones I wrote in middle school, I’ve done a grand total of three research papers in my entire life.  No, I didn’t pay someone to write them for me in college; only one class required them.  And we just wrote three.

Okay, maybe I wrote one in high school.  Which would bring my grand total up to FOUR.

You might think to yourself, “Duh, Señora, you work at a high school.  Can’t you ask any of your Spanish-teaching colleagues to read the paper for you?  Can’t you go ask any one of the bazillion English teachers on your campus to help you with the research paper aspect of it?”

Ah, there’s the rub.

Asking my colleagues is laughably out of the question.  The idea of “helping” is not a concept with which they are familiar.  Not only are they not available AT ALL after school (one coaches, the other rushes off to his second job the milisecond our contract time is up), it has been made clear to me that any extra time spent at school or with colleagues is time spent in this manner under duress, and they would not be open to this idea in the least.

I wish I were exaggerating, but I am not.

Given how kind and inviting my colleagues are, the people in my very department, why would I possibly think people at the other end of the building would want to help me out?

Yes, I know it’s likely I could get an English teacher to help me.  But I don’t even want to ask, because I feel I would be asking too much.

This attitude, being made to feel that asking a favor is a huge intrusion, is one of the reasons I am done with teaching.

Sadly, to be done with it, I need to get my bloody master’s degree so I can get a decent job outside of education.

To be honest, I don’t think the university cares that much about these dissertations.  I read some of the samples they had of past works, and I know mine is better than most of that stuff.  I don’t know about the content, but definitely the language.  So maybe it doesn’t matter than I don’t have the perfect research paper format/framework/etc… but still.  I don’t want to sent it in, and have them send it back.

Then again, they might send it back because the statute of limitations on my coursework has run out, it’s been so bloody long since I took the bloody classes…

Like Whitesnake, “Here I Go Again”…

Regardless of how I feel about things now, in January, I have to finish the semester through June.  As much as I may dislike my job — and myself at my job — right now, I’m not going to quit mid-year.*

Since I have to stay, I might as well give it one more shot; try to do things more my way and perhaps be that little seed of change (instead of spending the rest of the semester reading from the textbook and passing out worksheets, as the rest of the Spanish department at my school does).  See if I get over this slump, if that’s what it is, and I can stay beyond June.**

It’s scary, though.  Daunting.  Can I cut it?  (Right now, all signs point to NO.)  Can I outwit, outplay, outlast the students for the next five months?

Should I plan everything out?  Plans are good, but they are also clear markers of failure.  If I plan, I’m stating what needs to be done, how, and by when.  This aids in success: a clear goal toward which to strive.  However, when the plan backfires or fizzles out, there is now documented proof of that failure.  Should I just wing it?

Teaching is full of fresh starts.  Had a crappy first period?  Second period is a whole new batch of students with whom to start over — IF you can let go of first period’s baggage.  Had a bad day?  Next day is a chance to start over (kids have short attention spans and poor memory retention, for the most part) — IF you can let yesterday’s baggage go.  Each Monday, each new grading period, each new semester, you can start over fresh — IF you can let everything before that moment roll off your back.

I’m notoriously not good at that.

*I have thought about applying for other jobs starting now, so if I happen to be offered my dream job, I could see myself quitting teaching to take it.  But that’s a very big IF.

**Yes, fine, I admit it: I like the time off.  I like summers, and a week at Thanksgiving, and two weeks at Christmas.  Also, if I’m going to write YA, what better place to do research than a high school?  (And who can forget, in this economy, the job security of teaching?)

On Bi-Polar Thinking

Sometimes I wonder if I just barely made “sane.”  As in, you need a 70 or above to score medication, and I got a 68.

I’m hating my job right now.  And I’m doing a terrible job at it — the students have been working on their semester exam reviews, so I’ve just sat at my computer NOT working.  A lot of time is spent on Twitter, Google Reader and personal email.

But then again, part of that time is spent looking into new technology (stuff like Moodle) that I discover through Twitter, or activities like the RPM Challenge or February Album Writing Month.  Part of me is getting ready to attack next semester, and incorporate outside-the-box stuff like teaching Spanish by having my students record songs, but when I’m at school, face to face with the students, I can’t stand them.  I’m done with them.  I don’t want to bother trying, because they stopped bothering so long ago.

I have all these lofty plans, but my bubble is so thin looking at it pops it.

Because I’m insane, I’m also trying to start an after-school writing group.  Is this just one more task I’m adding to my plate, adding to my burn-out?  Or is this the little ray of light that will help me get through the week?

If The Teacher Refuses To Do It, Why Should The Student Bother?

We expect our students to follow the rules imposed by us, the teachers and administration.  We expect them to respect and obey authority.  We also expect them to grow each and every day; we expect them to learn what we teach them and to assimilate and apply that knowledge daily, constantly, continuously.

Why do we the teachers refuse to do the same?

Our principal (new this year) asked us to sign in and out daily.  Our district wants us to incorporate technology into our lessons; to help us reach this goal our principal has asked the faculty to attend a 45-minute technology training session once a six-weeks.  A new technology lesson is presented every week, we get to choose which session we attend, out of the six different sessions presented each six weeks.  (I usually go to every one they offer, even though the ITs tell me I already know the stuff they’re going to present.  You know why I go?  Because I learn cool stuff.)

Several teachers on my campus (most in my department) have whined about these “demands” from admin.  Yes, because it kills you to stop by the front desk and sign your name.  The list is up all day long — you can sign in (and out, especially since the people whining about this leave at 3:59 on the dot every day) during your conference period, if it is truly that much of a hassle to sign in when you arrive in the morning.

The district, aware of the huge role technology plays in the Real World and how important technological literacy is in the current job market, has asked us to incorporate more of this new-fangled “technology” into our lessons, so we can prepare the students for the big, scary Real World.  (Isn’t that what we should be all about?  Helping the students prepare for Life?  For the big, scary Real World?  In case you haven’t noticed, the Real World revolves around technology.  We teachers happen to live in little bubbles that we create – we call them Classrooms.  We control everything that happens inside that bubble.  But while we the teachers remain in our individual bubbles year after year, the students move through the bubbles and eventually will arrive at that Real World.  Our job is to get them ready for that moment.  Isn’t it?)  In order to help us reach the “technology” goal, the administration is actually giving us the tools we need to do the job we’re being asked to do.  AND WE’RE WHINING ABOUT IT?

I have sat in department meetings where my colleagues have researched and found legal loopholes to avoid being held accountable for skirting these duties.  And my department chair was happy that she legally did not have to follow those rules and do what her boss asked her to do.

How can we expect our students to obey our rules when we tell them no cell phones in class, no food or drink in the classroom, follow our dress code, when we the teachers (remember that whole “modeling behavior” thing?) can’t do the same with the rules our figures of authority are asking us to follow?

How can we ask students to learn new skills and incorporate them into their lives when we the teachers refuse to learn new tricks?  How can we ask our students to grow, improve, strive for excellence, when we the teachers refuse to do so, and settle for the mediocrity of “this is the way I’ve always done it”?

I know not all teachers are like that.  But these are my coworkers.

No wonder I’m ready to leave.

On Tutoring and Availability

I tend to spend too much time at school, before and after my contract time.  Since I’m likely to be there anyway, why not make myself available to my students?

My tutoring hours are every day, before and after school, unless I have a meeting.  Great!  Kids can come see me anytime!

You have sports after school?  No problem, I’m here BEFORE school, too!

You can’t meet on Mondays?  No problem, I’m here EVERY DAY!

Being a servant of (free) public education, I should have clued in to this sooner.  Things that are available are not as cool or “valuable” as things that are exclusive and hard to acquire.  My tutoring must not be worth much, since it’s available all the time.  If I were to limit my availability, then my time would be percieved as more valuable.

If they want it, they’d better come get it NOW, because it won’t be available later!

We’ll try that this next semester.  See how it works.  I will actually have tutoring hours, it won’t be the free-for-all I’ve offered so far, I’ll make them make time for me, instead of me bending over backwards to accomodate them.

Back to the trenches…

Back to school tomorrow.

Guess how UNMOTIVATED I am about it?

Yeah.

I figured out a loose gameplan for the final exam (week after this one), but other than that I have no lesson plan.  I guess just a lot of review, huh?

Tonight, the wheels started turning about a potential connection I may have for a college-level job… in case this whole public-school thing doesn’t work out for me.  (The utter lack of motivation after a two-week break seems to be a pretty good indicator that I may be in the wrong job…)

I found the copy of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff for Women I took from my mom’s house.  I haven’t gone back to reading it, but I will.  Maybe not sweating this semester will help change my outlook, and I’ll decide to stay where I am.  We’ll see.

Now, off to bed.  I have to be up before dawn tomorrow.

On Financial Freedom

My sister has slowly converted our family to Dave Ramsey’s way of thinking.  My parents gave me their copy of Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover, and I sat down today to start reading it.

This evening, I stubled across this post on the So You Want To Teach blog.  He’s giving away a copy of the book, so if you want it, check out the post!  The video is good, too – I hadn’t heard Dave Ramsey speak before (I just took my sister’s word for it), but after watching the video, I like him.  (The video’s long, but worth it!)

(I’d post the video here directly, but I don’t know exactly how to do it — it’s not your average GoogleVideo or YouTube…)

On Technology: Have we actually “improved”?

Today I came across this post from Scobberlotch.  Brian Williams brings up some good points:

I like technology.  I like how it makes my life simpler – I have given my life over to Google, using their calendar instead of a paper agenda/dayplanner.  I’m using a GoogleDoc spreadsheet to keep track of friends’ and family’s addresses, instead of a paper address book (I created a form in GoogleDocs, which I will email to friends and family and make them input their own info… GoogleDocs puts it all in a nice, neat little spreadsheet for me!)  I keep all my documents on GoogleDocs, since I’ve lost two flashdrives in the last few months.

I like technology in the classroom.  My students are going to need to know how to make spreadsheets and presentations and how to manipulate a word document to fit everything in that memo/press release on one, easy-to-read page.  They’re going to need to know how to write an email, and how to use the shift key (it  does actually serve a purpose other than typing the @ sign, you know).  They need to be competent and comfortable with a computer.

This is why I like my district – we have a laptop in every kid’s hands.  Some  – okay, many of the teachers on my campus (I’m sure the other campuses in the district suffer the same affliction) are complaining about the district asking teachers to use technology in the classroom, but I’m okay with it.  That’s what these kids need; also, the fact that my paper use has been reduced by a bazillion this school year makes me very happy.

I do agree with Brian Williams that we are getting all giddy about technology that really… does something we can just as easily do the non-tech way.  It’s like we’ve forgotten that we have radio and libraries – for free!  No $100+ equipment required!

While there are several online programs and websites that allow me to do things in the classroom I could not do before (GoAnimate, Audacity [which saves me tons of time because they can record their oral presentations without taking up two whole class periods], LiveMocha), it does seem that sometimes we use technology just to use it – I’ve found programs or activities for my kids to do on their laptops that they could easily do on paper (and they often ask me if they can just do it on paper… and I say no).

I agree with the points Brian Williams makes in the video, but we can’t scoff at technology.  Radio has limits – the stuff on the radio has to appeal to the masses, so I’ll never hear a podcast on the history of flamenco dancing on the radio.  But I will find it on iTunes (as much as I distrust Apple… but that’s another blog post).

Although some of these technological advances may seem silly, they are improvements (most of them).  And the world is moving faster and faster in that direction (my public library already allows me to download adiobooks straight from their website onto my computer and then my MP3 player — how long before they’ll offer to download ebooks onto my eReader?)  We need to make sure our students are ready for that workforce.

Signs that I need a break (if not a new job)

I’m out of DFW this week, visiting my mom and the rest of the family, also in town for the holidays.  My sister  lives in another state, so whenever she comes home (about 2-3 times a year) she has a small get-together to see all her in-town friends.  One of these friends happens to teach in the DFW area, as do I.  So my sister introduced us to each other.

The poor girl barely got to say “peep” before I launched into a bile-spitting tirade against parents, students, administrators, and pretty much anything and everything that may have accidentally crossed the path of  “working in education.”  This was a cute, soft-spoken middle-school special ed teacher.  I think I scared her.

I need some sort of massive overhaul – the question is if the problem is my attutide or my career choice.

On New Year’s Resolutions, the sequel

One of the nice things about teaching is that we get to make New Year’s Resolutions twice a year.  I’m not going to analyze whether or not I’ve achived the goals I set for myself in August, because that would just stress me out.  I’m on a low-stress campaign.

Starting over is good.  I like starting over.  Because I feel I screw up a lot, and need “borrón y cuenta nueva,” as we say in Spanish (clean slate, but “borrón” implies a big, messy, smudgy erase mark, and I like the imperfcect-ness of the word).  new semester, new start.

This year (school year that started in August, not 2008) was supposed to be the year I was on top of it.  And I have been – much more than before.  I’ve been arriving at school 30 minutes to an hour before I’m scheduled to be there, so I can get all my ducks in a row.  I’ve been productively using my after-school time, instead of wasting it talking to other teachers or doing nothing useful online (pretending to “look for lessons”).

The result of this, sadly, is that I’m regularly spending 10-11 hours at school, and I’m still not getting everything done.  I’m still behind, even though I’m commiting all this time to it.

I hadn’t quite realized this until I had a conversation with my department chair, where she asked me what was going on because I seemed angry.  She asked if there was something going on at home, and that’s when I realized that at home, everything was fine.  School was the part that was sucking, and what sucked the most was that I was actually doing everything I was supposed to be doing that I always told myself would make stuff stop sucking.

Hubby and I have had conversations about children, and having one of our own.  Time is running out for both of us, really, so we need to get crakin’.  But how in earth am I going to handle the time and energy committment of a baby, when my job demands so much?

I’ve also noticed a severe lack of patience on my part in the classroom.  Maybe I’m not cut out for this after all.  And I complain a lot.  So did I have it right the first time, when I decided to quit the profession two years ago?

While debating all this, I came across a blog post from someone in a different field, addressing the complaints against her industry by someone else in her field.  Pretty much, this blogger told the person if she had so many complaints about the industry, then she should get out of it – the problem was with her, not with the industry.  If she wasn’t enjoying it, then she should quit and look for another job.  “Shut up and get out.”

Every word in the post could have been addressed to me, had the blogger just substituted “education” for her industry.

I took this as a sign.  Maybe it was time to get out.  To look for something else.  Yes, this would be a huge pain, but it could be done.

Then came Christmas, and my dad gave me two bookmarks and a little sign, which he told me I needed tohang up in my house, to remind me.  The first bookmark is in the shape of a ruler and says, “Teacher, you help me mesure up;” the other one says, “Teacher, for all you do I won’t forget you!”  The sign says, “Teachers bring dreams to life.”

So, first, I got a sign from God to quit my profession.  Then, He sends me a message to stay with it?  Why is He messing with my head like this?

Last night I found Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff For Women in my sister’s room.  I’m going to steal it (this is her room at my mom’s house, in which she hasn’t lived in years, so I doubt she’ll miss it) and see if it helps me out.  (Yes, the books are cheesy, but they do have good advice in them.)

This is the Semester of Truth.  We’ll see how it works.  If I can find a way to balance work and personal life.  If I can find that elusive happy medium, where I feel successful but I’m not giving up my life to do so.  Where I can get home by 5:30 without a to-do list hanging over my head.

Or if I need to apply for the IT job that might be opening up on my campus next year,