Updating

So right now most of those shelves are filled with student textbooks, and there are some books for reading on the bookshelf closest to the door. I have some rules posted on the green board next to the shelves, and a few things on the blackboard, but that's about it.

I have yet to use the IWB, but I want to figure it out ASAP because I think it will be a real help-- even if it's just projecting the student book on the screen. I can also use it for a "morning message" type thing, which had me kind of stumped since they don't have big pads of chart paper and I don't have time to write much on the board in the morning.

It has been quite a challenging week-- I have had some good moments, but lots of really hard ones. Aside from the ordinary issue of getting into a groove with the textbooks (Wednesdays they have the whole morning with me, doing Language Arts, Math, and Science/Social Studies, mostly via exercises in the book-- deadly!) it is also a difficult group for a number of reasons I won't share here. (Incidentally, I never did set up a password-protected blog-- I just don't think I will have the time to write much. I do need to keep anecdotal records and class diaries etc. on paper, but online, probably won't get to it.)  Anyway, today after classes finished I went over to the teacher who had this group for the past two years to see if she had any suggestions, and she and her grade level partner offered support and said I was in for a really tough year. Oh joy.  Let's see if I can get through it okay (and hopefully Inspection won't come until things are a bit more under control...)

Budget cuts have meant that not only is the school down one teacher from what they had last year, but also when someone is absent no subs are called until the absence has gone on for more than ten school days. In the meantime, we have to sub for each other in our "free" periods (which aren't really free, because in October we start up with tutoring small groups of struggling students in that time.)  I only have two per week, and the first week of school I already had to sub for a small-group alternative to religion class of 3rd graders. I was going to have to do a 4th grade science class another day, but that day I had to leave early to get some paperwork done so I didn't do it.  I suppose it could be a good way to get experience with different grade levels. I know my grade level partner will be out tomorrow, so I may end up subbing for one of her classes (either with her students or with one of the other classes she teaches-- like me, she also teaches two sections of 2nd grade English and one English for 5-year olds.)

And now I should be preparing for tomorrow, rather than blogging!  TGIF (or, TGIAlmostF!)

ETA: But of course I had to check the teaching forum, and yet another budget measure was confirmed. If we miss work due to a medically-justified absence, we lose 50% of our daily pay for each of the first three consecutive days out. From day 4 to day 20, we get paid 75%, and after that, we get full pay for subsequent consecutive days.  However, the money they are saving due to our illness/accident/etc will not be used to pay subs who can adequately attend our students-- since, as I mentioned earlier, subs will not be sent until ten consecutive days of absence. 

My classroom

Well, between meetings and other things, I wasn't able to decorate my classroom this morning, and they kicked us out at 1 for cleaning so I won't be able to do anything before classes start on Monday. However, most classes are pretty bare at the moment so I'm not the only one.  Here are a few photos:

This one (above) was taken from my desk, which is in the back corner. The door you see is not the one we will be using, which is at the other end of the green shelves.

 Here you can see the Interactive Whiteboard next to the chalkboard.  There is also one in the computer room and one in the music room, but mine is the only classroom that has one. I don't know how to use it yet, but I will definitely learn!  I think most teachers don't use it, but I do want to once I can get some time to figure out how it's done.

 This is the view from that unused door looking back at my desk.

We have to go to the village for the weekend to take MIL back and because it's the fiestas this weekend, but I'm bringing a big bag of work!

Today is also the kids' (my kids-- not my students) first day of school, but they don't get out until 5. MIL reports that they all went off happily this morning, so hopefully they had a good day!

My schedule

So I finally got my schedule. I will be teaching two sessions of English per week to two different groups of second graders and one group of five-year-olds, and three sessions to my own group. I have two non-teaching hours which will be used for substituting for other teachers who are out sick, or for giving extra help to struggling students.  The classes for other groups were all filled in for me (my class has specials during those times), and the rest of the sessions for my own students I was free to plan schedule as I wished, respecting a set of guidelines about hour many hours per week each subject had to be. I could err by 15 minutes in either direction, and some of the class sessions are an hour and some are 45 minutes. It was quite a challenge, to say the least-- especially considering that I had to work around their specials, and also I wanted to keep in mind other factors such as not having math at the end of the day, for example. Class-scheduling is even better than sudoku!

In the end I was quite happy with how it ended up. I have the first hour every day with my own group and I will use that for Language Arts (in Spanish...), and I was able to plan 3 sessions of English instead of two, only going over by 15 minutes.  Unfortunately, all the English classes are last period of the day, but I will make the best of that.  I also gained 15 minutes for Math, and didn't lose any time from any of my subjects. Here's my class's schedule (I don't teach the things in red-- that's when I'm in other classes. Notice that I don't have any sort of break during the day (unless there's a day I don't have recess duty-- I'll find out about that next week.)

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
60 min	Lengua	Lengua	Lengua	Lengua	Lengua
60 min	Art	Gym	Sci/Soc Stud	Math
45 min	Math	Math	Math	Gym	Art
30 min	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess	Recess
60 min	Sci/Soc Stud	Sci/Soc Stud	Gym	Religion/Alt	Math
45 min	Religion/Alt	English	English	Sci/Soc Stud	English

 
So actually I have 9 sessions of English all together. Still not what I was expecting, but better than 6...

I will try to take some pictures of my classroom tomorrow-- right now it is completely bare (undecorated) but I hope to put up a poster or two. Between all the meetings this week and the fact that they kick us out at 1pm tomorrow for cleaning, it probably won't be much more than a poster or two!  It's a good thing no one expects us to have "themes" for our classrooms or make everything cutsey or super-coordinated.

On the other hand, if I took a picture of the books we have available in the class library, you would probably cry.

Oh well. I'm going to introduce my class to the idea of the "read-aloud" and also, once things get rolling, to "Morning Message." Baby steps...

Just thinking

It is going to be so weird to spend most of my day teaching in Spanish. I did use some Spanish with my students last year, but I had a full schedule of English classes so most of it was in English. This year I don't know what my schedule will be like, but since it's a non-bilingual school, I won't even be teaching my own students English every day-- I just checked and legally they only have to have English twice a week.   I assume I will also teach English to another group or maybe even two-- but that would still be a maximum of 6 hours of English class a week, and 19 hours of other stuff. Hmm. Kind of hard to get my head around. I do feel confident about teaching in Spanish, but there will definitely be a learning curve associated with teaching the different subjects, since I've never had to do it before. Luckily my grade level partner seems very nice-- I hope she doesn't get sick of me badgering her with all sorts of questions!

I also know that I will have one already-identified special-needs student (with an IEP) but I haven't seen a class list yet so I don't know how many students I will have or anything else about them.

You might be wondering how exactly I spent my first day of work, since I only got a brief peek at my classroom, I don't know my schedule, and haven't seen a class roster or any curriculum. Well, I was the first to arrive at a few minutes before nine, and the principal gave me a brief tour of the school. Then the other teachers began trickling in and for the next hour I hung out in the hallway greeting my new workmates, listening to them chat to each other about their summers, and trying to participate in the occasional conversation.

At about a quarter after ten, we had a school-wide staff meeting where we clarified who would be teaching which group (this was at the end, almost an afterthought) and the fact that our school, like many others, has had a teaching position eliminated for this year. This led to a somewhat tense discussion about how the extra workload would be distributed (though I gathered that it was not a surprise to anyone.) Mention was also made about more of the budget cuts and how they will affect us, and we covered some other administrative issues.

The meeting lasted about an hour and a half, I think, and then we all (including the principal) ambled over to the nearest cafetería and had a coffee/soft drink and tapa until a little after 1pm. Then we trouped back to school to pick up room keys or drop stuff off, and people started heading home. Yep. Pretty laid back. I myself went over to the district office to hand in my paperwork, and then walked home.

I did download teacher guides this afternoon for the textbooks I'll be using, but was too tired to actually look at them. Now, however, I have a second wind. Bad timing-- almost midnight, but that's jet lag for you.   I've created a file folder on my desktop for school, and inside it separate files for each subject and one for planning and one for legislation. But I think I'll just quit while I'm ahead and get to bed. Last night it took me forever to get to sleep; I hope tonight is better.

And I will have to think about how much it is prudent to disclose on here about work-- obviously no personal details or rants, but I'm not yet sure where to draw the line.  If I decide to use a password-protected blog, and you would like to be invited to read it, let me know in the comments!

First Grade!!!!

Well, I have been neglecting this blog forever, but now I have news. Today teachers reported to their schools, and I found out that I will be teaching first grade this year.  Yikes!  I got a glimpse of what will be my classroom, but they were cleaning it so I couldn't go in. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get copies of the teacher's editions of the textbooks we will be using. I will be teaching Language Arts (in Spanish), Math, Science/Social Studies, and Art, as well as English. What a lot of responsibility!  I was hoping to just be teaching English, but I guess this will be a learning experience.

I don't yet know how many students I will have, or anything else about them. I'm starting to freak out a little bit (also I'm still really jet-lagged, so it's hard to stay awake right about now. Last night I had the opposite problem...)

I really can't be coherent any longer, so I'll end here for now...

What we're reading

We are on a reduced schedule this month in the public schools-- the kids get out at 1 instead of 2pm or split schedule, and we teachers get out at 2. I had all sorts of plans for how I would use this bonanza of time, but would you be surprised to hear that I have done almost nothing useful in my extra 2 hours? Mostly it goes like this: have lunch, go online a bit, and have a 30 min. nap before picking up my kids (who are still on a split schedule.) Sigh.  I have read a book I wholeheartedly recommend, The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney (I discovered her after reading-- and loving-- The Invisible Ones on my Kindle.)  Speaking of Amazon, they insist on sending me book recommendations on a regular basis, and in the most recent batch was the complete set of Fablehaven books (which I had never heard of, but ended up purchasing in a bundle for the Kindle.) Pedro has started reading the first one and declares that it is his favorite book ever so far-- high praise.

His Language Arts (Spanish) teacher recommended that he read some books in Spanish, not only in English all the time.  I agree that this would be a good idea (not least because his spelling in Spanish is atrocious-- and English is supposed to be the difficult-to-spell language!) But also because he needs to be able to write (not just spell) in Spanish, and because he should be exposed to the cultural riches of his home (native) country. Frankly, most of the YA books here are translated from English, and I have been underwhelmed (greatly) by the Spanish children's/YA literature (books) they have read for school. But, I had heard about a series involving dragons, Memorias de Idhún, and looked for it at a local bookstore. The first one in the series wasn't available there, but I did look at some of her other stuff, and ended up with El coleccionista de relojes extraordinarios, which Pedro assures me was REALLY good. I don't know where our copy of it is at the moment, but I think that's going to be my next TBR-- probably a quick read. (I am also partway through Kingsolver's The Lacuna on the Kindle...)  Anyway, I will look for more from this author-- she seems to have written quite a lot.

And I have been re-reading a book I was sent for review back in September, The Good School: How Smart Parents Get Their Kids the Education They Deserve by Peg Tyre.  This was back when the teaching exam was supposed to be done by late autumn, though in fact the process only finished in late May. So I have been busy-- neglecting the blog, my own reading, and rather ironically, my own kids' education (an unfortuante error which I will not make again next year.)  I do want to write a review, and I figure that it would be easiest to break it up into a few different posts.  Soon. (I would promise to use far fewer parentheses in the review than I have in this post, but I fear that my writing ability has plummeted precipitously over the past few months, and that may be too ambitious... I'll try, though. And fewer ellipses and m-dashes and.... never mind.)

And I will leave you with a fine example of  "Spanish cultural riches" that I heard on the radio this morning (sorry, I don't know how to embed videos, but if you know Spanish, it's worth a click.)

Time for an update

Or past time, is more like it.  Where to begin?  Hmmm....

*A 3,3% salary cut for public sector workers (including teachers)  in Madrid was just announced. There had already been a nationwide cut of 5% right after I started working two years ago, and yet another nationwide cut is in the works, so who knows where that will leave us...

*Update on class size. We still don't know whether any teachers will be cut from our school (I am thinking not, yet, but don't know for sure.) We do know that the incoming first grade classes will both have 28 students, which means that they have added three new students to each group of 25 that is moving up from pre-Primary. I don't know about other grades, but I assume that if there have been applications, they will accept new students up to a total of 28 (with the possibility of adding more once the school year begins, if necessary.)  I will not be at this school again next year, but I imagine that this will be the new standard in general.

*As I mentioned, I will not be back at that school. This year there was a different process for choosing the school for the "probationary year" after passing the exam (technically we are only under observation/evaluation for the first four months, but in any case we will stay in the same post all year.) We had to fill out a list of 80 schools in order of preference, without knowing where potential openings might be, and will be assigned based on how many points we have relative to other people.  I listed most of the schools in my city, then moved out to other areas, getting progressively further away. You have 80 spots to list a preference, but in each spot you can list either an individual school or a town/city, and I started with individual schools but then moved on to nearby cities/towns. I am hopeful that I will be able to be placed either within my city or nearby, certainly closer than where I have been working. (I won't find out where until late July, and won't know what classes I will be teaching until the week before school starts.) For subsequent years it is a different process, and harder to get a spot nearby, but I am still hopeful even for that (we'll see, though!) 

*The last day of classes is June 26th, but we have to keep going in through the end of the month for meetings and end-of-year stuff, not to mention packing up our classrooms, etc.

*The village is lovely this time of year-- everything is green and blooming! Much nicer than the dry yellows and browns of summer, though that is pretty, too, in its own way.  I meant to take pictures this weekend but didn't have a chance. I really wanted to get some shots of the green and the mountains and some amazing hand-built stone walls with no mortar, just stones jammed into all the spaces and stacked and arranged. The particular ones I am thinking of are much more densely-packed (with smaller stones) than others I have taken pictures of, so i hope I remember to bring my camera next weekend.

*There it was actually chilly (and rainy) today, but here it is hot. Or should I say HOT. Oh well.

Okay, that's enough for the moment. I wonder if I will ever be able to go back to writing real posts, and not just bullet points. Oh well. Thanks for reading anyway!

News

Okay, so the grades are out for the exam. I passed, and apparently they passed fewer candidates than there are spots available for English, so it looks like everyone who passed in English will be getting a teaching post (to be formalized after a 4-month internship period.) The definitive lists come out May 17th, but I'm not expecting many changes, and my grade will stay the same, so it looks like I made it!

 Of course, a couple of days after grades were posted, the government announced huge cuts in Health and Education, which were going to be passed today. We don't yet know all of the details, but among the measures are:

--Increase in class size. In Primary (and pre-Primary) we were at a maximum of 25 per class, with the possibility of increasing to 27. Now the maximum will be set at 30, with the possibility of increasing to a few more. In practice this will probably mean consolidating groups and losing teachers. (If the "extra" teachers are all funcionarios, or tenured, they will have to move to a different school-- otherwise, vacancies just won't be filled.

 --No subs will be contracted for teacher absences of fewer than two weeks. Other teachers at the school will be expected to fill in for their colleagues in their non-teaching hours.

 --The minimum teaching load for each teacher will now be "25 teaching hours" per week. On the surface this doesn't seem like much of a change, since there are already 25 class periods in the week, and officially we are not allowed to have free periods or preps-- if we are not teaching our own class we are expected to be assisting in another class or subbing. So right now the maximum teaching load is 25 class periods, and many teachers already teach for 22 or more of these, leaving 3 for subbing and assisting other classes. (Though there are teachers with fewer hours as well.) However, there are a couple of issues here-- for one thing, there are 25 class periods per week, but not 25 teaching hours. Of the 25 hours per week that kids are in school, 30 minutes per day (2.5 hours per week) is recess time, which is not considered "teaching hours." So while the idea of lengthening the school day has not been brought up in public discourse (and though while it may have its own merits--or not-- it hardly qualifies as a cost-saving measure), it now may become a reality, depending on how the new law is interpreted. In fact, rumours have already begun that the new plan involves a 30-minute increase in class time per day. It is clear that the intention with increasing teacher workload is to reduce the total number of teachers working at any given school-- so, for example, where once a teacher might have had subbing/support while their class is at gym or English class, now this teacher may be asked to teach Math to a different group during those hours. By combining schedules in this way, each school will be able to (or, forced to, which is more to the point) eliminate a few (or several) teachers. This means that not only are teachers more overloaded, but also there are fewer people available to give extra help to these 30-student classes, or to provide pull-out smaller-group instruction to struggling learners. Though the Education Minister has already assured us all that these changes should not significantly affect the quality of education received by the students, and that in fact larger class size will provide them with more opportunities for socialization. Um, right.

At this point, teachers who are already in the system (by having passed the exam and having enough experience and merit points to actually land a job) will not be laid off, but may be displaced. It really affects the large body of "interinos"-- people who have passed the exam, maybe multiple times, but did not have enough points and/or a high enough grade to get a spot. These teachers do all the long-term substituitions and also take over positions on a year-to-year basis when these positions are available but not officially filled by a tenured teacher. Many of the interinos have years of experience. Well, now many of the spots that otherwise would have been filled by them, will now just be eliminated. I will post again when more specifics are available, in case anyone is interested...