I took the day off today due to increasing sore throatiness and some pretty hefty levels of exhaustion. This has allowed to enjoy some of the finer things in life such as not be summoned into a zombie-like woken state by a screeching alarm clock a good hour or two before I would like. The joys of sleeping in. Bliss. Especially on cold days. With a warm, purring cat. Sigh. I guess I should have felt guilty that Matt still had to haul himself off to work and I should have maybe gotten up to make him breakfast or out of solidarity or something but I didn't. It is pretty easy to remain sprawled out in a semi-conscious state whilst wrapped up in the warm comforts of a bed when the morning is a slightly nippy one.
It seems that it is a remarkably long time since I have been able to actually sleep in and feel rested. Last week was the stresserific week of being EROed at school and have the school production on. That sentence in no way conveys the hectic horrors or frantic panic-inducing ordeal that it was. Firstly, ERO. At first, I wasn't really all that concerned about being reviewed. After two years of being a Professionally Registered Teacher I was pretty used to experienced teachers wandering in to observe my teaching and handing off pages of feedback*. I'm pretty good at making apparently perfect unit plans with all my links to the curriculum and differentiated learning activities neatly laid out - sometimes the unit plans are so seemingly good on paper, I wish my lessons actually resembled them. You see that is the problem with perfect units or lessons - they work only so long as no student comes anywhere near them. Many a time in my first year did I spend hours cutting out strips of paper, making question dice and creating flashcards. However, after a few experiences where your perfectly made resources are eaten/vandalised/stolen you give up. Sure you can punish the student/s responsible for damaging your precious work of teaching art but that is not going to get you back the hours of your life. The chances are in any one class there is going to be at least one fruitloop who just can't resist eating the gluestick the second your back is turned.
Anyway, the point is my third year has in many ways become my slobby and slightly embittered year of teaching. I don't bother spending hours creating fun and interesting lessons. I plan for the basic and then juise it up a bit in more relaxed ways. You have a review game of connect four or bingo at the end of the lesson or an end of unit quiz or game show. Fun but very little work for me. If I'm going to put heaps of my time into teaching, I'd prefer to spend it in marking and giving useful feedback. Not that it's as much fun as doing artsy-crafty stuff but at least students are less likely to destroy your efforts when its red pen on their essay.
However, ERO actually kind of intimidated me when it came to being my observed lesson. For one thing the ERO chap that came to my class was a pretty intimidating guy. He was in his late fifties and was huge. Probably about 6 foot 3 or 4 and very solidly built. He worn a severe navy blue suit and starched tie. His clothes gave the impression of a cold and stern English gentleman from the late thirties who has risen to a high rank in World War One and although he had fascist sympathies, was eager for Britain to go to war but doubtful of the abilities of the younger generation to cut the mustard in a real conflict. His voice boomed at me "Where should I sit?" as he appeared, instantly yet without any signs of haste on his part, in the door as I was about to close it. My stomach fell to the floor and I worried that he must be able to hear the Poe-esque pounding of my terrified and tormented heart. It was my worse class. The alternate sixth form English class or as I sometimes think or it 'get the level 2 literacy requirements so that you can do a tertiary qualification as part of some rehabilitation in prisons programme in the future' class. I fumbled around as students continuously strolled in late from their previous class and made less-than-surreptitious 'Westside' and crips gestures at each other in greeting. The ERO juggernaut after sitting for a few minutes after the students had started behaving in a state vaguely approximately working* started to stalk his way around the classroom and pounced on the most stoned-looking students folder to examine their year's work. He then preceded, in a predatory fashion, to advance on me.
"May I have your planned and unit plans?" he commanded more than requested.
Trembling I handed them over. Nervously, I wondered if I had doddled on any of this term's pages or left that free wine voucher from the local café still in the front of my planner. The minutes of the lesson continued and he didn't leave. Finally my suffering was over. 5 minutes before the end of the lesson he placed my planner back on my desk and with a curt 'thank you' he left.
We, the teachers of alternate classes, had to hand in folders of assessed and formatively marked work. The whole process felt kind of clinical yet uncomfortably personal. I was surprised how invasive I found it because we normally yet other teachers see our students' work, our marking and resources all the time. My class weren't horrendous and statistically they aren't doing too bad in terms of achievement. I guess I just wasn't comfortable with an external body coming in purely with the purpose of assessing are you doing a good enough job or not.
Anyway, this was only a small amount of time and a sliver of the stress of last week. Unfortunate timing really as it all went on at the same time as the school production. It was probably the stress and exhaustion that make me freak out so much.
Our production started last Monday and finished on Saturday. There were morning showings, mostly for the local primary schools, and then 8pm showing in the evening. This meant being at school early and not getting home until close to 11pm at night. Every day. For a week.
I was in charge of money this year which added to the stress. When we had one primary school decide they weren't coming at a couple of days notice (losing about 150 seats) - I felt pretty worried. I never thought of myself as a hugely money-loving person but the idea of having to tell the Principal that our show lost money overall didn't exactly help me get to sleep at night. I was surprised at how soothing I found counting the money from candy bar and door sales every night.
It was great seeing the shows get better each night and noting how the audience really change the whole atmosphere. On the nights where the audience were laughing heaps and getting the jokes, it created a palpable sense of energy - I ended up some nights buzzing too much to get to sleep when I did get home. Matt and I set up cameras to record Friday night's performances and the footage came out really well thanks to Matt setting up 3 cameras around the hall and the sound was pretty nice for handicam recording. It is a fun editing task to cut between the 3 cameras but still have sound synced nicely. Also after editing a lot of short films it is interesting to edit a 1 1/2 hour show.
The whole bonding experience of a production is always fantastic and makes the whole exhaustion worthwhile. Although I didn't feel as much part of the creative team this year as last year's play, I still learnt a lot**
* OK, sitting at their desks with their work out doesn't necessarily resemble working but maybe it might from behind.
** Although mostly what I learnt is that I'll never direct/produce any show with a large cast or a musical. Having said that I did immediately agree to 2IC next year's Stage Challenge. Glutton for punishment…
