Administration Frustration

I am feeling better today, which is a great relief to me - I was not looking forward to another day of being worn down by my kids! Even the grey, cold, rainy weather can't get me down!

But now that I'm feeling better I can focus on some of my other problems - namely formal observation. Working at this small school has been an interesting experience for many reasons, some of which I have alluded to elsewhere (no ESL resources in a predominantly ESL school, so far 3 teachers have left unexpectedly during the school year and 3 more recently announced they would be doing the same, somehow within my first three weeks at this school I was asked to run the events committee which I have come to realize is a ridiculous idea and somewhat akin to being a figurehead, since without any official budget, event planning ends up being a lot of late nights cutting out snowflakes!) and the whole formal observation debacle is merely another chapter in that experience.

The whole thing began several months ago, back in November when the principal (who is pretty much universally disliked for his poor management style and seemingly unreasonable decisions) announced that he would begin doing formal observations shortly and that these observations would be unannounced in order to catch teachers "al fresco", which in addition to making no sense, put everyone's hackles up because it made people feel like he was trying to "catch them" doing something wrong or something they weren't supposed to, which merely added to everyone's frustration.

My colleagues who have been teaching for 25 and 30 years were indignant because the principal had been a teacher for only 5 before the old principal walked out in the middle of the year (are you sensing a pattern?) and our current principal was tapped as "interim" principal and then made permanent. These experienced teachers ask just how exactly this man is going to evaluate them based on his 5 years of teaching and without any training in administration or observation? In addition, they point out, formal observations are not supposed to be unannounced - they are supposed to be planned out in advance, with both parties agreeing on a time and a lesson that will be taught, and meeting to discuss it afterwards because the point is to guide teachers not spy on them. If you don't think we are doing a good job as teachers, they point out, why did you hire us?

This question of, "If you're going to do X (treat us this way, not trust us, etc.), why did you hire us?" seems to be a continual refrain at this school. As it turns out, formal observations were postponed because of outside circumstances, but they recently reappeared, this time with a sign-up sheet for a three day window during the last two weeks of the semester, which had the high school teachers laughing because they are doing nothing but revision and final projects, so practically no teaching. And the three day window did nothing to appease teachers who saw this as an attempt to catch us out.

Up until now I had been observing the drama from a fairly detached perspective, I was not too worried about observation because a) as a first year teacher I don't really know what I am doing so what can they expect and b) I don't know enough to change what I am doing even if I did know when they were coming. But now even I am annoyed. I dutifully signed up for my three-day observation window, last week, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. And I planned interesting classes, postponing watching Sarah Plain and Tall until Friday figuring I didn't want to inconvenience the principal if he came during one of those days and we were watching our (administratively approved) movie. But he didn't come. And then on Friday, right before last period (I mean really, last period on a Friday, that's just cruel) the vice-principal (not the principal) came up to me to say he was going to come observe right now. Which I said was fine, but we were watching a movie, so it didn't necessarily make sense. He said he'd come back this week. And now I am frustrated because a) since they didn't come when I signed up I am on edge not knowing when they are going to come, which makes me a little jumpy and b) the vice principal's daughter is in my class, and while I know he is the one with elementary experience and it is probably preferable to have him observe me (his feedback may actually be constructive) it is going to be very disruptive for him to come to my class because his daughter is very nervous about getting his approval and any time she sees me talking to him she thinks we are talking about her.

Anyway, this whole drama may not seem very serious, but put on top of all the other things we have dealt with this year (shady tax and pension practices, advertising of someone's position before they were advised there was something wrong, additional work and bureaucratic paperwork at a school of 130 students to mention a few) people are particularly sensitive. It's almost like we wake up every day wondering "What now, what's going to happen today?". So I'll just have to wait and see - will today be my day for observation or will the vice-principal appear again last period on Friday?