I’m entering what will be 10th year teaching (if you count my pre-credential year). In those 10 years, I have seen the “year end duties” event play itself over and over. It’s an experience of stress but also wonder as these kids you’ve spent a year teaching prepare to move out of your classroom and into the next level.
Walls: I’ve written posts on walls. Walls have always been a challenge for me. Even now, after 10 years I still wrestle with making them and more importantly, making them effective. At the end of the year, we rip down all the butcher paper to start new. Any art we as teachers made as a frame for the student art becomes history and we have a new “canvas” on which to begin. This year we are seeing some significant changes in staff and I am looking forward to what the metaphorical canvas will bring. One of the great aspects of teaching is the opportunity to “start new” every year. Of course, as a professional there are many other duties year to year and you are never truly “done,” but a new schoolyear gives you the chance to start new and do a better job than the year before. I like that about teaching. I know as a kid I liked that aspect of school as well.
Duties: Making report cards, categorizing supplies and equipment for checkout, getting classes organized for next year, these are just a few of the duties teachers are bombarded with at the end of the year. I am going through all these now. One particularly difficult one is putting data into each child’s cumulative folder. This can be a harrowing task and take up several hours non-stop. Teachers have a lot of duties all year but at the end of the year they get overwhelming.
With all the changes going on in education, the future promises to be exciting and full of change. Still, there will always be those duties at the end of the year. They remind you of your age and how all this stuff that once felt so new, can become commonplace if you let it.