I wish I were talking about some great movie sequel, but I am referring, of course, to our assessments. As you know, loyal readers, I spent the majority of November working like a dog to administer and grade these assessments, despite the fact that we had neither entered nor analyzed nor utilized the data from the last round of assessments. And, against all odds, I prevailed!
Or, so I thought. This morning we had a meeting at which we were told we would have to re-enter each student's individual results onto a class summary sheet. Had we, in fact, already done this? Yes! But when we asked what happened to the last summary sheet, we were dismissed with a curt, "I don't know."
Um. So okay, let's review. As part of my job, I did the following:
1. Administered the assessment to each individual student.
2. Graded the assessment of each individual student.
3. Entered the assessment of each individual student onto a class composite summary sheet.
4. Handed off the data to people who are supposed to be in charge of entering it into the computer.
And those people, as part of their jobs, did the following:
1. Lost my data.
Now, I would say that I learned An Important Lesson from this, the lesson being Always Make a Copy of Important Things Before You Hand Them In, but my school has an even more important lesson for me, this lesson being The Copy Machine Is Always Broken.
Immediately after this meeting, as if the universe knew I was already having such a fabulous day, the wheel fell off my easel. Now, you may remember that I already experienced this problem earlier in the year, and you are right -- but that was a different easel. At this point, all the easels are broken. They are lined up in the hallway, all sad and crooked and tipped to one side. I do not know what I am going to do without my easel. I don't even want to turn to DonorsChoose.org for a new one, because the truth is that I hate that stupid easel. It just barely fits through doorways, so when it goes awry, as it frequently does, I usually end up smashing my hand against the doorway. Today, when the wheel fell off, the whole easel tipped to the side and came down on my foot. Did it hurt? Yes. Did I manage to keep from exclaiming an unsavory word in front of my students? Yes! Thank goodness for small victories.
3 comments:
This post brings to mind something I always say, "If only I were allowed to be so incompetent." But alas, we as teachers have to bear the burden of making up for others' mistakes and we're not allowed to miss one beat. I too had the problem of the broken copier when it was time to turn in my summary sheets (which were all handwritten due to lack of technology). I ended up getting the secretary to do it for me on the office coper (which we are not allowed to touch) because it is an official document. I also scanned one into my home computer (never can be too sure!). As a funny side note, as our literacy coach was entering the data, she could not find mine even though I had put it in her mailbox weeks before. Luckily, I did have another copy.
First, I did the exact same thing recently- I did an insane amount of testing, which consisted of administering at least 5 separate tests to each child (which we expected to do without a sub in our rooms, as if all the children can just work independently all day) and had to turn it in immediately, and was then informed that I will not get a copy of any of the results until late spring, if ever at all. Thanks, PALS testing. Lesson learned. Make copies.
Second, I had a horribly shit day today at work (over 30 hours in 3 days...ugh) and reading your post about the easel literally made me laugh so hard I was crying. I have a horrible easel too, and I can't imagine lugging it around the school! But thank you for writing about it- you made me laugh my ass off.
I admire your perseverance! NYC schools have to be one of the hardest places to work, and definitely to teach. Reading your experiences reminds me of why I'm not there anymore. But through your writing you seem to be able to put a humorous spin on things, which I love. Hang in there. It's really all about the smiles on those little faces!
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