I don’t miss…

I won’t lie, I still have my moments of missing teaching. Like I have said before though, last year there were so many times where I thought to myself “Ugh, I can’t wait to not have to deal with this anymore.” On the tough days I try to remind myself of these things. And to be honest, the “I want to teach” bug is getting easier and easier to deal with all because I don’t miss any of these things. 1. Last minute district changes. Every. Darn. Year. There is always huge changes to either curriculum or our everyday way of tackling tasks and we find out about it last minute. We have begged each year to have them let us know these changes at the end of the year so we can prep for the upcoming year. They never listen. So most of our usual summer prep is thrown out the window because we can’t use it due to the new changes. We have to spend our ONE teacher workday scrambling to try and fit in these new changes. We then spend half the year trying to get used to them and by the time we do, there is another change. Ugh, it irritates me right now just typing about it. 2.THIS: Insane curriculum for FIVE YEAR OLDS that causes nothing but confusion and behavior problems. Enough said. 3. Posting objectives. Am I the only one that hated this with a passion? I am sorry but my kinders never got the hang of it nor cared. It was about 20 minutes of time completely wasted because they had to be up, reviewed, and “displayed proudly.” Give me a break. I kind of think it is just for walkthroughs because someone decided they were too lazy to read our freaking lesson plans that we worked hours on that tells them EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE TEACHING. Somehow this madness became a trend. 4. Speaking of lesson plans: LESSON PLANS. In our district, we all have to teach the same thing at the same time. It makes lesson planning together in a PLC time consuming. We spend about an hour and a half each week planning together. Then we spend another 2+ hours during the weekend writing it in the way we are going to teach it in our classroom. THEN we have to spend time copying them to a website we use, upload them, and copy them to the school USB we need to turn in at the end of the year. The lesson planning process we were required to do was terribly redundant but of course requests for change were also…. ignored.   5. The new evaluation system. So I haven’t actually experienced this but my teacher friends keep telling me “Thank God you don’t have to deal with this.” While I never really minded PDAS and getting evaluated, I am perfectly happy not having to adapt to this new system. This teacher ended her career with “Exceeds Expectations” and THAT is all I care about…. apparently it is impossible to get that with this new one. Phew! 6. Professional Development. I can probably count on one hand the workshops I have been to that were truly inspiring. The rest were spent fantasizing about all of the amazing things I could get done for my students if I were actually in my classroom. 7.  Difficult parents. I have said since my first year that difficult parents are the hardest part of this job. You can deal with behavior and whatever else your kiddos throw at you. There is just something about the way a parent can talk to you in a demeaning way that can crush you like a bug. I hated it and I always let it get the best of me. I experienced my last bit of it yesterday in fact. I was forced to attend a court hearing as a witness for a child I had last year. It was horrible and the dad surely took advantage of the opportunity to try and knock me down. Little did he know that I didn’t have a job to worry about anymore and told him exactly how I felt about him being rude to me the previous year. Terror flooded his face. Sorry, not sorry! 8. Spending at least $600 of my own money per year. We got close to nothing so a LOT of it came from our own pockets. I would also have a few kiddos that came with nothing so I had to purchase all of their supplies. Not to mention clothes, shoes, and jackets for those who needed them if our parent liaison couldn’t get them. 9.  Stress. 10. Not having enough time. This goes for everything. Getting lesson plans done, completing the multitude of new items added to our plate daily, testing, and getting our classroom organized before school starts. Only ONE year out of five did I feel completely organized and ready for the school year.  It was the best ever. More time does wonders. 11. Tests. This is through all grade levels. We do standardized testing in KINDERGARTEN and it is disgusting. Testing can help, I know. But we literally have to test one-on-one once a month which takes a week to get through the whole test. We almost test more than we teach. Same for the upper grades. It makes me soooo angry.   What would be the things you wouldn’t miss about teaching?