Not because I'm lazy, but because a first year teacher's got to prioritize.
And, up to this point, planning what I'm going to teach the next day has taken precedence over less pressing issues… like grading.
Only now it's becoming a pressing issue.
For a couple of reasons:
a) Report cards will be issued for the first quarter of school in a mere three weeks.
b) My students each have a hanging file in which they place their completed work for all subjects. A few days ago, one of my students very politely asked me if I could please take some papers out of the files because she can't fit anymore work in her folder…….
Now, in my district our grade book is live online. Parents can access their child's grades at any time simply by logging in to a website. I imagine most parents wouldn't be too thrilled if they could see that their child's teacher has yet to enter a single assignment thus far...
One perk about working in a low-income school: most of our parents don't have access to the internet. (cha-ching)
And the ones who do likely won't take the time to go to the administration building to get a login ID. (cha-ching)
I realize from a certain angle this is a sad reality… But for me it's a small victory! If my students' parents were faithfully checking for postings online, I'd probably be receiving some preeetty unpleasant phone calls.
This is quite certainly the first time I've thought that something about working in a low-income school actually makes my life easier. Weird.
I'd like to leave you with a "short story" one of my students wrote today in class.
I am a big fan of laminating colored copies of center activities and letting students work using dry-erase markers. This way the pages are reusable, and it saves TONS of paper (maybe literally). So, in an effort to keep my kids accountable for actually doing work during the writing center, I asked them to show me the stories they wrote before they could erase them. This one was my favorite of the day:
You think I could get this wizard to do some grading for me?
I remember us once having a conversation about never letting a memo or "to-do" or any type of paper pass our desks/emails/FB without notice or response. Guessing that didn't stick for long? Not for me either!
ReplyDeleteNo worries. Procrastinators are the best types of people. I say this because every single person that holds weight in my heart procrastinates terribly. Except Wes. But he doesn't count....romantic relationships are about sacrifice right?
Love you! You'll get through it. Get that red pen out, pour yourself a glass of wine, turn on some tunes and get to it.
Great idea about laminating writing and having them show you for proof. I'll be starting to save tons of paper now too! I love stealing ideas from other teachers! :)
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