Work

Today was our last day with kids and boy was I ready! The last two days I have been in a super funk. The kind that is really hard to get yourself out of. A bunch of changes are coming my way next year and I am just not okay with any of them.

1. A ton of my friends are leaving me so this will be a big change. A total of 6 people are leaving this year and we had 4 leave last year.

2. We have added Library as a special. Now instead of seeing my kids roughly 60 times a year, I will see them about 35. In the times that we aren't teaching our specialty area we will be teaching Communication Arts. This will be in addition to the Math groups we worked with this year. So I will be teaching 8 totally different things a day and have 20-25 minutes to plan for them every day. Scary....and possibly not legal.....

3. We have added common assessments to our curriculum. While I do think this is a good thing, now that we are going to see our students less, it makes me worry how much time I will have to actually teach my specialty. I am thinking instead of doing about 20-30 projects a year, I will maybe get to do 10 at the most. Half the time, half the projects. I just hope Art is still fun and not all about tests.

I am ultimately worried about them phasing out specials all together. Already we are considered "Extra Adults" by our peers and administrators. That is one of the things that really irks us too. Extra, as if we are not needed. What happened to the "whole child"? So much of Art is about problem solving and analyzing which is very similar to math. Don't even get me started on comprehension!

With so much uncertainty about next year, I am really looking forward to my summer break. Even if I am doing summer school.