Bleh, May is busy.

My life these days has been consumed with five things, most of which culminate to a crescendo in May:

1. Teaching my three classes
2. Being a department head
3. Being a union rep
4. Coaching a baseball team
5. Organazing a field trip from hell

Here's how each of those is going.

1. Teaching

Well, my afternoon classes are great. My morning class is crazy, and getting crazier by the day; I spend 70% of my time during the day that I spend on my classes thinking about them, dealing with their bullshit, talking to the VPs about them, calling parents, and so on. I just hope I can steer them through the next 18 classes without me murdering anyone.

2. Department head

I think the other people in the department are noticing the state I'm in these days; as part of our weekly Friday Treats, the lady who did it this past week (a.) baked us a rhubarb pie, (b.) from scratch, (c.) with rhubarb from her garden. Possibly the best pie I've had in a decade. And she said she did it because she thought I'd appreciate it, because I've been stressed out like crazy lately. Ain't that nice?

3. Union rep

We're in the thick of the staffing process, and new information is coming at us all the time (including this past Friday at 4:30ish). So, I have to hold the VP's hand and make sure all the staffing rules are followed; seniority and qualifications, ahoy. Plus, I have to deal with assorted boneheaded bullshitty things that teachers do that might get them in trouble. Honestly, folks, stop doing stupid stuff.

4. Coaching

There comes a point in almost every teacher-coach's season where you start rooting against your own team, so maybe, just maybe the season can be mercifully over and you can have your life back. But this year was different; I wanted the fellas to win the regional title. We would've had a good shot too, but we lost in the semifinal in a tight 7-5 thriller.

5. Field Trip

Since I started teaching, we've taken physics classes to Canada's Wonderland to do experiments on the roller coasters; kids ask me on the first day of class if we're going. But the board is scared shitless of turning kids loose in an amusement park, even if what they're doing is curriculum-related. So, working with the other VP, we figured out a way to change things so (a.) it's slightly shittier for the kids, but (b.) it was to get approved by our superintendent (i.e., above our principal). We finally did, and we go tomorrow, and holy hell was that a lot of work.

Naturally, when I get home, I'm a tired boy. So, pesky stuff like marking and a lot of good, forward-thinking planning? Heh, that just gets pushed off to later -- and I feel like my classes are suffering because of it. But, as soon as I stop getting pulled five different ways every day, I'll just get right on that.

(I like to joke that when I enter my department office and the first words I hear are someone saying, "Oh, there he is" -- which inevitably means that someone's been looking for me to go do something else, probably urgently -- that's the worst thing I can hear. Because it usually ends up with me dropping whatever three things I was already doing, and going somewhere else to put out some fucking fire that popped up out of nowhere.)

SUMMER, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU?

I'm an ironman.

No, I'm not talking about my blog-writing prowess -- although, y'know, I've had a blog stretching all the way back to late 2004 -- I'm talking about my record of sick days at work.

I started teaching in the fall of 2000. I took a sick day about 3 years ago. And I took another one Tuesday. (Oh, there have been days I've been away -- workshops, field trips, funerals, weddings, master's thesis stuff -- but we're talking about actual sick days here.) Boy-howdy, did I need it.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that, at 3:15am on Tuesday, working up the strength to type up lesson plans for my classes, and email them into the school, was no small feat. I lucked-out because all three of 'em could do something fairly independently, which is actually kind of a rare thing in my subject area. So yeah, I didn't feel quite so bad about that.

Here's the thing, though. When you're not there for the day, you don't really know who you're going to get in your place. You assume they're going to be about 30% competent, for a variety of reasons:

• There have been times when you neatly copy handouts, sticky-note the hell out of stuff, leaving detailed directions... and when you come back, you find the same neat piles of stuff, sticky-noted, with directions... exactly where you left them. The dope didn't come and get your stuff, and your kids sat there and dicked-around the whole class.
• The person who came in was just flat-out crazy. You've heard rumours that such-and-such a person was a little off their rocker, and you know kids exaggerate whenever possible, but the stories they tell when you get back can't possibly be made up by them.
• Maybe they saw the stuff the kids were looking at and thought, "Hey, I can teach that!" So they go off and try to teach the kids, usually with one of the following outcomes:
• they do it in a totally different way than you would, and/or they do it entirely wrong and screw up the kids and you have to spend the next two days undoing all the damage
• the kids see a supply teacher and immediately flip their brains into, "pff, it's not the regular guy, I ain't learnin' shit" mode

Now, don't get me wrong. It's a tough gig, coming in for someone who has routines all set up, knows their personalities and knows who should NEVER be sitting beside who, and has a general idea about where the class is going.

But, having supplied for a bit on the tail-end of my leave a few years ago, a lot of it has to do with how you approach the students. I found a good attitude to take was something along the lines of, "Look, this isn't optimal, and I know I'm not who you were expecting. But, we've got some work to do; I'll help you get it done, and if we get finished, we'll have some time to chill out at the end."

Busy, fun, weird times down at the ol' schoolhouse.

I have a new crop of kids this semester, which started on January 31, and yes, that was a Friday, and yes, that means I saw my kiddies once and then we split for the weekend.

This semester I have one Grade 9 Applied Science, one Grade 11 University Prep Physics, and one Grade 11 IB Physics. Let's go through 'em, shall we?

* * * * *

1. Grade 9 Applied Science

To those of you not familiar with Ontario's education system these days, there's essentially two levels of courses in grades 9 and 10: Applied is a little less demanding, and Academic is, well, more academic. I've taught 'em all over my career, and each stream has its benefits and its drawbacks... and yes, I'm generalizing quite a bit.

Criterion	Applied	Academic
Attitude towards academics	not so good	you can usually get nice and nerdy
Memory skills	"What? We learned that?"	"Yeah, we learned that."
Craziness level	lower	higher
Class size	smaller, usually 20-ish	bigger, usually 30-ish
Marking load	lower	bigger
Parent engagement	usually lower	usually higher

Some of my best classes have been Applied, and some of my most-insane have been Academic. It's all dependent on the mix of kids, what other classes are running in that period, the chemistry between you and them, the time of day, the phase of the moon, who beat who in the NHL last night, and of course a coin-toss.

These kids are alright so far. I have one who's high-functioning Autistic who has very little filter on what he says, and another kid who's about five-feet-nothing and enjoys setting him off. (I've already moved them to opposite sides of the classroom. Also, they've been friends forever.) I have two girls beside each other who barely speak English, but speak different first-languages (Slovak and Hungarian, and no, they're not similar at all); it's funny to listen to them try and converse in broken English, but it's also not so funny when they don't understand a word I'm saying. One of my kids is obsessed with the idea of radiation. Another two are, oddly enough, from England (although one has an accent and the other's is gone). One is diabetic and wears an insulin pump. Another comes from clear across the city and is seldom on time. Another never says anything in class, but will speak in a low whisper to me afterward.

"Teaching: It's easy, right? Two months off in the summer, baby."

2. Grade 11 Uni Physics

It's been a while since I've taught this course, frankly... but it's an old friend, for sure. Kids get their first taste of an entire physics course here, after they have to put up with the "mix four different strands into the grade 9 and 10 courses" business. I remember thinking when I was in grade 10 science, "Oh man, I can't wait to have an entire course where I don't have to deal with this biology bullshit." (Full disclosure: I took two entire biology bullshit courses in high school.) (More disclosure: they were actually kinda useful, all in all, although not terribly pleasant.)

This class is always an interesting mix of fear and unabashed enthusiasm. On the fear side, you have kids who are told since they're little, "You are going to be an engineer," and naturally they have to take this course... regardless of how well they did in science up to that point. So, I get a fair number of kids who are in totally over their heads, but if they switched out of the course, their parents would (very possibly) murder them. They'll usually get dragged through by either me or their friends, end up with a 53, and they'll never take the subject again.

On the other hand, you have the enthusiastic lot. They, like I was, in the scenario described above, totally nerdy for physics, and this is their first chance to put the pedal to the metal. It might work out, it might not work out, but they're gonna give it their all and have fun doing labs and such.

This class is a mix of that, and more. Good vibe.

3. Grade 11 IB Physics

We have the IB program, which is for kids in grade 11 and 12; they apply for it during grade 8, take special versions of their 9/10 courses, and hit it for real in 11. Needless to say, for kids to have survived 9/10 in that competitive environment, plus having been motivated (and good) enough to apply (and get in) a few years back... it creates a very interesting environment.

I bet you had no idea that IB (and pre-IB 9/10) classes are, by far, the loudest ones I teach. They're social little monsters, these IBs; since they have so many classes together, they know each other extremely well. And, since they already have a lot in common, they're very friendly to each other. They may be chatting up a storm about what you're trying to teach them -- probably while you're trying to teach them, too -- but yeah, there it is.

That being said, IB/pre-IB classes are always a real treat to teach. Who wouldn't want a room full of certified nerds? Near-zero behaviour issues, parents are always engaged (and that's usually positive, although not always), and their memories are insanely-good; you'll mention something off-handedly once in class as an example of some idea, and on a test a month later, they'll give it back to you. Pretty nuts.

I'll tell you one drawback of IB, though. Since the final exam isn't written by us, and it's worth 76% of the course's final grade, that sets up some weird pressures. First off, we always feel like Big Brother is watching over our shoulders (because they are, actually) -- they write up the exam, and they don't trust how we mark labs so we have to send them random samples so they can check us. (Are we soft markers? Hard markers? Did the labs we do fulfill their nebulous and always-changing criteria? The answer is always, without fail, "You're a fucking terrible teacher, and we're docking all your kids marks.")

But, because the exam is worth so much -- and for other, more inside-baseball details I don't need to describe here -- there's a ton of pressure on these kids, and that comes out in weird ways. We had one a few years ago who started losing her hair in clumps because of the stress. There have been cheating issues (not on the final exam, but the in-between exams which help us predict their mark (and no, I'm not getting into that either)). Because they know the marking system, they'll start to exploit it by only doing the bare-minimum to get by, and they'll just nerd-out on old exams (which they can acquire online easily enough). In summary, things don't always turn out great.

This class seems alright, though. First quiz on Friday. We'll see how things are going.

* * * * *

So, that about sums it up for my kids. I'll leave out the part where we've had a guy in the department off on a leave since just before first-semester exams, and a revolving-door of supply teachers have filled in, and that means I've had to prepare his lessons on top of my own, and also deal with marks from his first semester classes, which were messed up in a bunch of ways and I had to fix them and field countless questions from his students, all of which fucking sucks balls, but thankfully it's over after this (mercifully) long weekend. Shit got real, as they say.

June is soon, right?