Wacky Wednesdays (a week in the computer lab, part 3)

Whew! It's been a busy week. I thought I could hammer out the overall details of my days in just a short while, but this past week has been crazy – on par with the busiest (non-yearbook-deadline) weeks in the States. The kind of week where grading, lesson planning, and special events just pile up yet have important deadlines. Starting tomorrow is “Mock Exam Week,” where my secondary students take practice final exams. In my two classes, I have 5 exams to give. Now, we use past exams from the Cambridge curriculum, but I still needed to go through past exams, select the best ones and edit them for various reasons, PLUS prepare a heap of study and review materials, PLUS my other classes all have projects due. I will know I am an expert teacher when I can plan to stagger the workload from my different classes. It seems I always manage to make major projects due at the same time for everyone! Now, not only do I have grading but also planning the next project. Oops.


OK, teacher woes done. The original point here is that normally Wednesday is my busiest day of the week, and I should tell you the readers (ie, hi Mom) about it. It's Primary Day! The British terms I use most often and most naturally now are “Primary” and “Secondary” school, and “Grade 5” instead of “5^th Grade”.


Each Primary class gets 45 minutes a week of computer class. Everyone except Grade 4 comes in on Wednesdays. I do have a few breaks in the day since Primary school and secondary school have different assembly times and break times. Also, I do get help with Primary. Juniors and seniors have campus service hours to fill, and some of them are assigned to come help me on Wednesdays. I can't imagine trying to handle the classes of 24-27 primary students by myself (though sometimes I have to when my helpers are sick or busy!)


The big trouble with Wednesdays is that our computer servers cannot handle this day. I seriously have only 1 awful day of computer troubleshooting a week, and it is always Wednesday. I cannot figure it out. The first few times the problem felt like Murphy's Law. But I've learned since that there is something about the software we use or just the volume of kids we try to handle that shuts things down. Today, the servers crashed I think 3 times each. (There are 2 servers). When a server crashes, ½ of the computers in the classroom freeze, and then restart. All work not saved is lost. The kids have nothing to do for at least 5 minutes during the reboot, and then they have to start all over. Even worse, the younger grades don't know how to log on to the computers, so I need to go to every computer and log it in, load the program we are using, and get it all set...24 times. Sometimes I get them all going, and then the server crashes again. Yeah, you might say it's frustrating.


In order to fit everything into the proper schedule, Grade 5 shows up right away in the mornings, at 7:35. Grade 5 and Grade 4 are focusing on presentations, Internet research, and note taking. Grade 5 is currently finishing up research on Tanzanian butterflies, which accompanied their class trip to a rain forest.


Grade 2 comes next. This is Charlotte's class, and I get a lot of love from Ci-Ci and all her friends. Grade 2 and 3 are working on a poem book. Using a nice multimedia program I purchased earlier this year, they can build pages filled with text, clip art/stickers/photos, and painting. I taught them a few simple poem styles (Acrostics, Cinquains and Haikus) and they've written and decorated pages. We're just finishing this up now.


After Grade 2, I get a bit of a breather. Some time to plan (I usually try to firm up plans for K & 1), plus our weekly school assembly, plus lunch break all in a row. (It strikes me that assembly could be a post in and of itself.) In the afternoon, I take on Grade 3 (more poem books).


I finish the day with Grade 1 and Kindergarten. Grade 1 and Kindergarten are interesting. Some of them are pretty good readers, and some of them are still learning their alphabets. For the most part, we spend our time playing educational games. Early in the year, I found a way to download web-based games (these are usually “locked” on a web site, but I found a few tricks.) Our Internet connection isn't fast enough to handle all the computer lab computers hitting web games at once (I tried that our first week...oops!) So, I created my own game site. It is just a bunch of simple web pages and Flash files I've been able to download and link all together. I'm rather proud of it, and I've built up over 50 activities. Most of them are painting games – kindergarteners and first graders LOVE to paint it turns out. I've also found some clever math, typing, science, and other games.


Other bits of Wednesday:
Assembly is from 10:00 – 10:45am. “Assembly” is our version of chapel. I'm not exactly sure why it isn't just “chapel.” We start each week singing the national anthem, as well as singing praise songs. We have a speaker (usually our chaplain) bring us the Word. The comparisons between EC chapel and HOPAC chapel are actually pretty interesting, worthy of more blogging.


Staff Meeting:
After school on Wednesdays is a weekly devotional, prayer time, and staff meeting for teachers. We sometimes get special snacks! And this is also usually when I get mail. We got 3 packages today, with another package late to arrive from the post office (for tomorrow). Plus, it's a chance to catch up with fellow teachers! (especially since I so rarely leave my room).


Pizza and football:
Wednesday nights are also pizza night, as a nonprofit group creates pizza dough for the teachers on Wednesdays. All we have to do is bring home the crusts and sauce, throw on some cheese, and dinner is ready. It is also community football (ie soccer) night. Now, my first week of this back in the fall went horribly wrong, as I ended up with a mild concussion while playing goal keeper for the first time in my life (in the dark). Once I did get back into the games, I've slowly improved, but still often got hurt. Recently I have been able to go for many weeks in a row without scraps and bruises! Unfortunately, tonight I decided I needed a break. My knee has been acting up and I think I've got some tendonitis.



So, that's Wednesdays. By the time 2:30 rolls around, I am usually quite fried, especially on bad computer days. Let's just say my contributions to the staff meetings are usually pretty subdued.