The Teacher Diaries

I may be a bit selfish, but I am also extremely reasonable. Our school district is pretty generous when it comes to the number of sick days that are given to the staff. When some teachers retire, they have as many as 200 days because if they don’t use their days during a school year, they rollover to the next year. Some school districts even compensate retiring teachers for their unused sick days for a portion of their daily value. With that being said, teachers take sick days each year for mental health, to rest or recover when sick, to take care of a sick family member, and many other personal reasons. I am fortunate to have days left over each year. Again, I can be compensated for these days when I retire, or If necessary, I can use these days should I ever need to take FMLA. In my school district, we are allowed to donate our unused sick days to other staff members who have exhausted their own so that they can continue to receive pay while on FMLA. Our district does ...

Since my school district administers final exams two weeks before the last day of school, it’s pretty safe to assume that there’s not much teaching occurring for those last ten days at the high schools. You would think that high school students would opt to stay home, but the demographic that I serve continue to come to school. Some because they come from troubled homes. Others want to hang out with their friends for a little while longer because they don’t live near each other. Some of the kids date each other and their parents don’t know, so coming to school is the only way they’ll see their boyfriend or girlfriend. Some parents won’t allow their children to stay home. Some don’t want to be there anyway. Others come for the breakfast and lunch. Our school has faculty volunteers who make the students hot breakfast that’s much more appetizing than the school’s standard offerings. Also, the culinary arts class cooks lunch for them. So, they get to eat all day and hang out. W...

I am only one teacher. What do I know about what every other teacher does during the summer? I don’t. But, I do know what my colleagues and I do and it’s definitely not as elaborate as many think. Here is a list of the 12 real things that teachers do during summer vacation. Teachers have major surgeries and other non-emergency procedures that they postpone during the school year so that they don’t miss too many days of instruction. Teachers work summer school because they are 10-month employees and don’t get paid during the summer months. If they do receive pay, it is because their 10-month salary is divided into 12 months making their biweekly checks even smaller. Teachers work at summer camps to supplement their salary. (Oh yeah, and they tutor during the school year too.) Teachers officially become full-time chauffeurs for all the activities that they’ve signed their children up for so that they are not cooped up in the house for two months. And they are home instruct...

Have you ever met the parent(s) of one of your students and left the meeting thinking “Now I know where they get it from” or were reaffirmed that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree? Well, I had another enlightening experience yesterday when observing the behaviors of the parents at graduation. Having taught the seniors for the past ten months, I’d like to think that I can confidently conclude about the temperaments and personalities of the students who sat in front of me on an almost daily basis. Presumably, you’d think that I would have had plenty of opportunities to match those personalities to their parents and their level of involvement and corrective actions for negative behaviors. But, ah no. That has not been the case. Out of about 80 students, I have only met maybe 15 parents or guardians. I won’t go on another rant about the lack of parental involvement when it comes to academic progress. Today, I just wanted to share my observations while attending the graduati...

While scrolling through Twitter, I noticed that someone had a strong reaction to an article titled “To My Student, on the Death of Her Grandmother(s).” This person shared the article with the comment that the professor should leave academia if they hate students that much. After seeing this, my interest was certainly piqued. So, I read the article and what I read, to me, wasn’t offensive at all or suggested that the author hated her students. I got the impression that she was just tired of excuses. In the article, the author speaks to an unnamed student whose grandmothers died six weeks apart. One during midterms and the other (conveniently) during finals. The student was requesting permission to turn the final project in late. The author’s response to this request was a list of ridiculous steps to prove that indeed her grandmother(s) passed away and proof of mourning since the student couldn’t complete the project by the due date. I thought that it was hilarious. However, the ...