Staff Meetings and other nonsense

 Yesterday we had our quarterly staff meeting. I really can't complain about the fact that we go in on a Friday for 4 hours once a quarter. In all my other schools, it was Wednesday afternoon once a week. Granted the meetings were shorter, only an hour or so, but they were every freaking week. Ugh!!!!  So it is hard to complain about this. But 4 hours is a long time to sit anywhere. And yesterday we were in a teacher's classroom that had only desks. Ugh!! I brought my office chair down and pulled a desk in front of me. I'm too old and large to sit in one of those for 4 hours. Ugh!!!

Anyway, that really isn't the topic of this post, though I wanted to comment on it. This post is about me having lost my mojo for teaching. I'm not sure if it's permanent or temporary or what, but it is real. It could just be that this past week was brutal because of the lack of planning on my part (see previous post). I'm definitely feeling better having a real plan for next week. I spent my afternoon yesterday doing some grading, putting the chemistry test on ExamView so that I can make multiple copies, and creating a review game for them. So that makes me feel a little better. I still need to finish the notebook so we can do that. Otherwise, chemistry is all ready to go. Now I just need to do biology and I'll be all set for next week. I need to plan every weekend so that the weeks go smoother. I say that I will do it Monday morning, but face it, 90 minutes isn't enough to get a good solid plan in place. That just makes my week go so much better. Also, once I have a plan in place my mind is free to come up with creative stuff. I can't be creative if I don't know what I'm doing. 

I did do some grading also. That has been weighing on my mind all week and that may be why I've been out of it too. Of course, it was most likely the perfect storm of not grading and not preparing. That just basically made for hell week. I used to devote an afternoon on the weekend to grading, I think I need to go back to that. If I have a dedicated time to do the grading it is much more likely to get done. But then, of course, I was finishing up the last grading and PowerSchool went down. Ugh!!! So one class didn't get entered. But it's done so all I need to do is transfer the grades into PowerSchool. I do have some more grading to finish up, but that is by hand and really shouldn't take too long. 

So the question remains, have I lost my mojo for teaching or am I just behind and therefore feeling salty? I guess I will find out next week. You know, I used to go to school on Friday mornings and get my grading done. I'm too far from school to do that now, but I could devote Friday mornings to grading. Hubby has to go to school on Fridays to spray and disinfect and to meet people, so that basically leaves me alone to do as I wish. I've been filling the mornings with personal trainers and chiros, but I could shift those things around and make Fridays my designated grading/planning mornings. I'm not opposed to that. The benefits are manyfold. I would have a dedicated time for doing those things that need to be done. I would be in the quiet of my home and could work diligently for that whole time without interruptions. I would get that all done at the beginning of the weekend and that would leave the rest of my weekend for me. I think that's the plan from now on. Friday mornings will be devoted to school work and nothing else. Hubby usually leaves about 7 am, so from 7 to 11 will be school time. I like this. I'm going to mark this in my planner so that I don't forget. So this weekend I catch up and next week the new plan begins. Yay me!!!!!

Okay, I'm out. Going to walk the dog.