Just some thoughts on last week …

Last week (Hopefully everyone came through it okay) was a good example of how quickly a “week in the life of a teacher” can change. The school where I am assigned, Cedar Crest High School, was closed on Monday and Tuesday because of the hurricane. Friday was an in-service day. Therefore, my co-op teacher had his students in his classroom Wednesday and Thursday—except for those who attended a field trip on Thursday, which eliminated most of the students in two of his classes that day. Adding to all of this the semester was supposed to have ended on Friday. The administration changed it to this Monday.

My co-op, along with two other teachers I have had the opportunity to observe during my field service experience, had plans for unit reviews and tests—one teacher had a final paper due for her students. Amazingly—or should I say they had no choice , because the marking period was closing in, ready or not—they all three managed to get in their reviews and get in the summative assessment for their students for the period end on Monday.

In order to do this they all made some type of adjustment. After all, it wasn’t just a typical week where they could just keep rolling through their lesson plans cutting an activity here or there. This was crunch time. This was the end of the marking period time. In the eyes of their students they did so without skipping a beat and without putting  any added pressure on their students; in discussing it with me they revealed that for them they’ve learned to overcome the pressures of this type of situation and roll with it.