Back at Square One

Last week was a frustrating one. I’ve heard from volunteers and PC staff alike that at about the one-year mark, you go through a slump. I wasn’t necessarily anticipating this, but it seems to have happened. Perhaps it is coincidence, or perhaps it is that I am having a harder time coping with setbacks because of the timing. Either way, this week was not easy, and in many ways, I feel like I’m back at square one.

Monday’s frustration was a result of a visit from the DOE District Office. The week before, I attended a meeting with our district representative where I was told that the Provincial Office is sponsoring a “pilot project” where they monitor, evaluate, and possibly award schools that have established and use a school library. This district representative told us that we would be given “support” in the coming weeks to enhance and build on what we have started. The first of these “supportive” visits came on Monday.

The three representatives from the district arrived just past 11am, which would have been the perfect time for them to see the library in action, as grade 6 has library class from 11am-12pm on Mondays. But instead, class was canceled and the students never left their classroom because the representatives said they wanted to see the library “undisturbed.” This really should have been my first clue.

After a few minutes of the standard greetings, one of the representatives asked to see our Accession Register while another started to look through the books on the shelves. In a matter a seconds, we were told that our numbering and labeling system did not match the official system and the books would need to be “reprocessed.” When I pointed out that their official labeling system would not allow for us to distinguish between duplicate copies of a book (because all the copies would have the same spine label and we would not know which one was missing should one go missing), one of the representatives responded simply by stating that we should not be allowing books to be checked-out since we did not have a full-time librarian to properly run the library. When I asked how our school should go about applying for a full-time librarian, if that was the case, the same representative responded by saying “there are no postings available.” I laughed out loud. Just to make sure I understood correctly, I said, “So the DOE expects schools to have functioning libraries, BUT they can only be functioning if there is a full-time librarian, BUT we cannot have a full-time librarian because the DOE has no posts available.” The response, “That is correct.” Way to be supportive! Instead of saying “great work” for figuring out how to overcome the obstacles of no resources or help, they basically came to say “you’re doing it wrong.” They cared only about appearances and nothing of the true work that was being done by the teachers and learners. One of the men that came from what I was told was the “resource center” looked through every book on every shelf without saying a word. He never said what he was looking for or why this was such an important task. None of the three visitors asked how the library was used. They never asked how frequently learners came or what programs were established to promote reading. Their concerns were with the book labels and recordkeeping. And in that regard, we were told we needed to go back and “reprocess” things. Back at square one.

So that’s how the week got started. The other teachers did not take it as hard as I did. Possibly because they are so used to the way the DOE functions, that they recognized this as par for the course. Or possibly because none of them has put as much work into the library as I have. I don’t really know. But neither I, or any other teacher at the school, has any intention of starting this task any time soon, so it is hard to say how it will work out in the end. But it was not really the news I was expecting to hear.

Friday was when I got my next “start over” notice.

The first two weeks of the term, I was teaching fractions in grade 5. It was new material as far as I could tell, and it was not going great, but they were progressing steadily. I didn’t want to immediately give a test on only fractions, so I decided to do a brief review of all the whole number concepts that we had studied in terms 1 and 2 and then give a formal assessment that covered all that material. As an added bonus, it also happens to be what the curriculum says. I expected them to be rusty and need reminding, but nothing could have prepared me for how little they seemed to remember. And then it dawned on me – we had a THREE-WEEK vacation between terms 2 and 3. I think a three-week school holiday would spell disaster in my American classroom. Here in a rural school, it is nothing short of catastrophic. It’s as if terms 1 and 2 never even happened. It really felt like starting a new school year with these concepts. Virtually nothing seemed to have moved from their short-term to long-term memory. There were two or three learners who had relatively few problems, but I think that it was review for them when we did it earlier in the year as well. The information had already transferred to their long-term memory. For the rest, we needed to practice as much now as we did several months back, and unfortunately, there was little time for that. I reviewed the big things (addition with carrying, subtraction with borrowing, and rounding) as much as I could and gave the test on Friday. Not exactly the results I was hoping for. In the week we spent reviewing the whole number concepts, many of them forgot the few new fraction concepts, and it became apparent that most of the whole number concepts were still shaky for quite a few. I finished marking the papers and then put them aside. Back at square one.

I’ll think of a plan for re-teaching and reviewing soon, but the rest of the weekend I needed to spend time reminding myself that it is not a waste of my time to be here. Gains are small and often unnoticeable or immeasurable. But they are there. And I’ll get back to square two soon enough.