Mentor:

It’s funny that you wrote that post. On Friday I actually had to speak with my 3UI class about their behaviour while I was gone to NTIP on Thursday. Believe it or not, it was my 3U course, not my 3C course, that had attitude problems.

When I started speaking to the students whose names were on the page I realized that there was more to the story than a “poor attitude”.

When I confronted one student about what was written (it said she refused to do work and was rude) she admitted that she was rude. Instead of attacking, I asked if she was okay and if she could explain what happened. Do you know what it was? It was her birthday that day and no one had made her feel special. She also hadn’t taken her pills that day and didn’t feel comfortable asking if she could work in a different room. 

So, to the supply teacher, she was rude and non-compliant. In actuality, she just needed someone to show her that they cared. 

We were able to rationally talk things through. I first started off with a “happy birthday” and “tell me what you did for your birthday”. Gradually, I got to her conversation with the supply teacher. She admitted that she was short and rude. She was also able to understand that the situation would have been handled much differently had she mentioned to the teacher that she was having a bad day and didn’t take her meds. 

On another note: How about my TPA? Scary. What kinds of things will I have to do? In my letter it stated that I will be having a meeting shortly to discuss finer details.  As much as I thought I wouldn’t be nervous about it, Im kind of freaking out! Isn’t it funny that I will be reviewed and Im in my 5th year? I think this would have been beneficial had I been in my first year teaching and in need of guidance. 

Oh, another thing I wanted to ask…sorry, I’m all over the map on this one! On a rubric I provide a mark as well as level.  Why do we have levels when markbook is still all in marks? (I know we can input it as levels too but don’t). Why do we still do marks on report cards rather than levels? Does everything even out in the end? I heard it does and that because marking is subjective (for the most part) each person would end up with a mark somewhere in the same range. However, what about trying to get into university or college? An 82% is very different than an 85 or even 86%. Why are we all still in levels but not post secondary? This whole system just doesn’t seem to be consistent…especially teachers that refuse to use levels, rubrics, etc.

Just something that I always think about 😉

Thanks mentor!