All The Things We Do

Today after eating with Kim and Ana and talking about reader’s workshop and writing conferences, I fell into a deep “I’m a terrible teacher” mindset.

“I haven’t conferenced. I’ve sucked at reading their work,” I texted Ana. “And now I feel bad that they’re not reading daily, but we can’t change the routine again this year.”

She grabbed me as we passed in the cafeteria: “I was literally having the same thoughts yesterday in the shower.”

Then she suggested making a list of everything we are doing, so we can see where there’s wiggle room. What can we knock off our plates so we can do this?

“But I also like my work-life balance this year,” I told her. “And I don’t want that to change.”

I walked over to Kim and opened a new document on my computer.

“I want to make this list, but also so we can see that we’re actually doing a lot.”

“We do SO much. I love this idea,” Kim agreed enthusiastically. “I used to do this for parenting, too.”

I appreciate Kim’s enthusiasm for all the things.

So I started typing as we both shouted things out:

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ALL THE THINGS WE DO

• Prep the materials we need for that day (copies, manipulatives, charts, post-its)
• Plan lessons and units (writing, reading, read aloud, math, investigations, SEL, word study, sentence study, morning meetings, closing circles, integrated projects)
• Create anchor charts for various lessons and units
• Check and give feedback to their math work
• Check and give feedback to HW
• Email parents
• Attend meetings during and after school hours (Hiring Committee, Literacy Committee, Tuesday PD, parent meetings)
• Support students when they need help during independent work
• Manage social emotional needs — conflict resolution, redirections, etc.
• Transition them all over the school
• Do mindful moments and brain breaks
• Take them to snack and recess and lunch
• Plan and execute field trips
• Plan and rehearse for graduation / end of year things (middle school panel, blast off week, graduation rehearsals, etc.)
• Write, direct, and produce a 5th grade show, which included rehearsals daily for the weeks leading up to it
• Give kids band-aids (physical and emotional) when they need and clean poop off their shoes after recess sometimes
• Collaborate with coworkers to do integrated learning
• Do mentorship ALL THE TIME (sometimes formal meetings, sometimes informal, always happening constantly)
• Take our own mental breaks (at our lunch and recess)
• Brainstorm together constantly
• Put out fires as they come up
• Meet every other week with Male
• Make each other laugh so hard we cry
• Create partnerships and groups for collaborative work
• Shepherd the children like wayward sheep at the end of the day
• Manage time all the time (it’s like I have a TimeTimer living inside of me)
• Manage arrival and dismissal (20 mins in the morning + 20 mins in the afternoon)
• Take verbal punches from the children daily #FifthGrade
• Get and give hugs (and a little bit of lice)
• Document everything! (photos, videos, audio recordings, transcribing, creating wall documentation – printing, cutting, putting it up)
• Work with small groups
• Check in with students one-on-one during independent work
• Create and modify assessments
• Create rubrics for assessments
• Grade assessments and projects
• Grade writing (unit work + on-demands)
• Hold celebrations for writing that often include other teachers and students
• Write positive compliment post-its for each kid, almost every week
• Find games and other early finishers activities
• Complete progress reports (cumulative grades, comments/narratives, inputting them into Google Slides, saving them as a PDF and schedule sending to parents)
• Hold parent teacher conferences
• Do F&Ps three times a year
• Complete middle school recommendations
• Administer MAP exams, then download and send the results to parents
• Reevaluate and reassess how our teaching is going, then adjust and shift based on what we think is best (sometimes involving whole new planning and prep, such as for read aloud, reading stations, etc.)

WHAT WE’RE NOT DOING

• Writing conferences and small groups
• Reading their writing notebooks / using them as much
• Protecting indie reading time
• Aligning our investigations to the social studies and science standards explicitly (general topics, but not the nitty gritty)

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I shared the document with Ana.

“OMG YESSS. This is your slice today :)” was her reply.

I may still be ending this day feeling like a worse writing teacher than I was last year. But I do recognize that I’m doing SO much. And I hope that anyone else who ever feels this way realizes that they are, too.