It's been a few years

So much for my attempt at blogging. One post, then nothing for four years, one would think I don't have much to say. On the contrary.....

I spent four years teaching virtual school and never had time to blog about it! The number of preps was unmanageable. The Content Management System was riddled with bugs and glitches. Each "update" only made it worse instead of better. I was working 12-16 hour days, 7 days a week. I tried to explain to those at higher pay grades what was being expected of me and how unrealistic it was. They listened politely and then did nothing to change the situation. I finally came to the realization that I needed to change where I was working, so I took a position teaching for a different school.

In less than a month I will be 60 years old. This has caused me to reflect on what I want to do with my life. While I do love teaching, I am frustrated by politicians telling me how to teach, what to teach, and when to teach it. To add insult to injury, I am rated as a teacher based on the scores of  teenagers, the most mercurial beings on this planet, and some voodoo math calculation nobody can quite explain.

The joy is being legislated not just out of teaching, but out of learning.

Endings and Beginnings

I am a teacher. For the past 7 years I have taught middle school science to students in both a drop-out prevention program and a gifted program; although not at the same time. I am now going to be working as a virtual teacher. I am trading in the bricks and mortar of the school building for the world of bits, bytes, and zooming electrons. I am excited and petrified about this new endeavor. It will be interesting to see where it goes.

This is the start of my summer vacation and I am ruminating on this past school year. I find that I spent countless hours working on weekends trying to find new and different activities to challenge my students and help them understand the content. I wonder if I work too much? Sometimes it feels like it, but most of the time I can't think of anything else I'd rather be doing. I schedule time with hubby on the weekends (so I make sure I don't ignore him and more importantly he doesn't feel neglected.) This blog is called "Too busy to clean," however I hate house cleaning. Preparing lessons and activities takes time; I could just teach from the text, but textbooks are so "old school." They're good as a reference, but I'd rather not have my students reading a chapter and answering the questions at the end. I guess the price I pay for not using canned lessons is my time. I can't help wondering how this will change next year with virtual teaching.

I guess I won't know until the school year starts again. In the meantime I've got some books to catch up reading and a house to finally clean!