Today we had a faculty meeting. I was going to bring up the RSOL issue, but the meeting was running late and no one likes it to last too long. Especially me, because once 5:00 hits, the assistants supposedly stay with the kids, but the kids can run free--and confused, lost and bewildered, if they don't speak Russian.
Valerie brought up, once again, what is the point of the assistants? There is no handbook, and no job description. She explained what assistants do in the US--help the teachers with copies, cutting, filing, etc, as well as discipline. She was told that, sure, she can ask her assistant to help her with that, but that's not really the assistant's job. As the teacher, she should do her own work.
The assistant is the class's assistant, not the teacher's. Still, it is unclear! And, Valerie made sure she said, we wouldn't mind getting a job description for ourselves either! It's not just that we want the assistants to help us--we want to know what they are expected to do, what we can ask them to do (and they must do for us, not simply because they're feeling nice)--but we want to know what we are expected to do too!
Today, they discussed the attendance slip. The matter was discussed as if they were clarifying a few points about it, as if we were already using it. I had seen the slip once or twice and had wondered about it. No one had ever told me that we were taking attendance. Now I learned that I had been supposed to fill one out at the beginning of every lesson.
I did not want to sound lazy, but I thought that taking attendance at the beginning of every lesson is a waste of time. Why can't the assistant, who is with the students every day, take the attendance at the beginning and then mark as students come late or leave early?
Because it's my class, and this is my job.
Then I learned that if Michael, my Saudi Arabian student, comes to school and never comes near my classroom, and I never see him and thus have no idea that he even left his house that day, that he is MY responsibility. If he is at school and does not come to my classroom and something bad happens to him, then it is MY fault.
What about my assistant? I asked. You just made it very clear that she's the class's assistant, not mine. So shouldn't she be in charge of Michael, since I have no clue he's even at school?
No, I am still responsible for him.
I am serious. I have not seen that child for weeks. His sister is usually in my grade 5 math class, but not always, and I don't usually ask her if her brother is here. I had assumed that he was sick (he had been out for a week due to illness) but recently someone mentioned that he was in the hallway. So apparently he is coming to the school, and thus I am responsible for him.
See what a messed up school this is? At my former school, if a kid did not come to my classroom & I did not know he was there, I would mark him absent and a parent would be informed. If he came and then ran away, then, well, I'd be stressed, but I also would be aware of the time he ran away, and I could quickly get someone to help me chase him down. (There was a first-grader last year who was notorious for running away and driving his teacher--and the principal--crazy!)
But this is ridiculous.
Come on, people! Parents are PAYING to send their kids to this school! Try to make it worth their money!
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