This is my first year at a private school outside my home state, teaching elementary after 4 years at the public middle school level doing one subject. Wow, this place is wild. I expected the politics, why I didn’t expect was the absolute lack of communication on the team.
At my old schools, it was expected that all teachers did the same activities and the same assessments. Grades had a big shared drive where they dropped their lesson plans and resources for YEARS. No questions asked. You added what you had, took what you needed. Obviously, not every activity came from there, things got altered for my personal kids, I added my own activities, etc etc. it always worked well for past teams. In fact, transitioning to this sharing style took a former school from an F rating to a B.
This place? Yikes. Teachers don’t share ANYTHING. They claim they “just wing it”. I’m currently teaching subjects I’m not qualified to teach (math and science) and I’m struggling with the curriculum. Additionally, this school doesn’t have laptops and we have limited prints, so I’m transitioning to good old paper and pencil for the first time in my career (5th year. All my kids had laptops at the middle school level.) I keep asking for resources and help reteaching concepts kids didn’t understand or whatever, and I keep getting brushed off. Dude, what? I’ve never prepped for 3 subjects, this is new material? Share what you’ve got? I’ve shared all of my resources and… yea. There’s a reason the education these kids are getting is wildly inconsistent.