Observation Day!

That was today.....and also tomorrow. One of the drawbacks of changing districts has been that I'm basically considered a brand new teacher again and therefore have to go through twice the observations of most teachers.

I'll be glad when tomorrow is over. It's not that I hate getting observed — anyone is welcome to wander into my classroom at any time and I really don't care — BUT I hate the pressure of formal observations. Admin tells us the class period they want to observe and the week they want to come, and then we're told to pick the day. And it's that choice that I hate! It's like an unofficial command that says: "Be sure you pick your best lesson!"

For instance, tomorrow. It's a reading workshop day. What my kids need is another follow-up lesson on tracking thinking and responding to literature, because the recent reading responses I graded are still suffering horribly from an overload of summary and very little reflection. However, my plans (which I had to submit over a week ago) don't have that as the planned lesson for tomorrow. Not to mention, knowing that my administration is always looking for us to teach a lesson that involves #1) us directly teaching and #2) some new content, such a review day wouldn't really fit what they want to see anyways.

So here I am working on perfecting a lesson plan for a "good" lesson, but one that really isn't targeting what my kids most need right now. Is it still helpful knowledge? Yes. Is it something my students still need to know? Yes. But when it doesn't fit with their current needs, as a teacher I'm left questioning this whole observation show.

The only good part is that today has at least passed and I lived to tell about it. My kids were remarkably good too. The extra stress of having the admin come to observe during the final period of the day (yes, my most challenging class!) has lessened some knowing that my kids proved today that they can behave. Now I'm just hoping for two golden days in a row.....(is that even possible??)....well, I guess come tomorrow, I'll see...