Sunday Scaries - A Teachers Worst Nightmare

Have you ever gotten the feeling of impending doom around 5pm on a Sunday night?

I seem to be feeing this way more and more this school year. I am a morning person through and through; this never seemed to be a problem for me before this year. I always look forward to going to school and seeing my students. If you ask any teacher they will tell you, "This school year is just different."

What is is about this school year that is making us feel this way? Is it teaching students with major learning gaps due to pandemic learning regressions? How about the new state testing that is breathing down our necks with new standards and shiny new curriculum? Or the new curriculum that doesn't quite match the expectations that we are given from the state, but we aren't allowed to share texts with other grade levels? I feel like I am reinventing the wheel every single day in my classroom.

I teach Reading in the High School setting. This means that I am working with students that have large learning gaps and trying to prepare them for success in all of their academic classes; teaching them strategies for texts that are far more complex than their current reading level will allow them to understand. I feel like my students are moving at a pace that is slower than I have ever seen before. We are expecting them to be able to grasp something quickly, since we are building upon skills they were expected to learn in years previous, but what happens when they haven't learned that skill? This culture of students is exceedingly different from the learners that were in my classroom just two years ago and each day I am learning to create and present things in a multitude of ways to get to my learners in anyway possible.

4 years ago, in 2019, my classroom was completely student centered. You would see students coming in and getting to work with their center work and working in their individualized reading programs. Now, here in 2023, I am having to walk my students through everything and centers are nary a thought or possibility. Their confidence in themselves is not there and their need for me to detail every single question and step is the focus. Growth Mindset is EVERYTHING and I must keep this in mind. However, when I give my students any sense of independent work they completely shut down. This seems to be getting worse as the year goes on and they are getting more and more complex activities in their other classes.

I always make it a point to make Friday's "Finish Up Friday" where they can use class time as study hall. Students are allowed to work on missing assignments for my class, or any other class that they have. This helps many of my students keep their heads above water and feel comfortable asking questions that they might not feel comfortable asking their other teachers.

It is all a balance - A give and take. I have to remind myself that this is a year that is throwing us many challenges and I am not the only one feeling like they are drowning in extra work and stress. I have to keep in mind that my students are also feeling it, and there is a lot of pressure for them to also succeed in areas that they are struggling in. I have to remind myself that it is ok to take a different approach sometimes and that it is perfectly ok to have a little chaos in the classroom. If it weren't for the mistakes that we made this year, we will not know how to grow and change for next year.

Am I crazy for signing up to teach SUMMER SCHOOL this year.... probably!