It's the weekend and yet…

I’m bashing out a Powerpoint presentation.

I don’t get paid well enough to work after school or at weekends, but because the distribution of classes throughout the week this year is crap (viz. insufficient time between most classes), I’ve started bringing textbooks home at the weekend and doing some preparation in advance. I shouldn’t be spending most of my Saturday doing such things. I shouldn’t be spending any of my Saturday doing such things because, as we all know, the more we do, the less recompense we’re getting.

Employers appear to believe our jobs are our lives. No, they’re not. I don’t hate my job exactly, but I don’t like it, either. I do it out of necessity. When I was one of the long-term unemployed, I found I didn’t need a job to keep myself gainfully occupied because I had other things to do. It’s a pity those other things weren’t things from which I could earn a living. I didn’t spend my days slacking off relaxing myself [sic! fnarr fnarr!], but as I said, no one would’ve paid me to do what I did.

What’s changed this year? I’ve never been one to allow work to interfere with my free time when I can avoid it. I’m teaching just as many classes as I ever have, but it’s the way the classes are distributed throughout the week that’s messing things up. Start – middle – end; Wednesday mostly free. The intermediate parts are enough to do one thing or another, but not really both, and it can’t be blamed on interruptions and distractions.

The introduction of the InterBac programme has also thrown a spanner in the works as I get used to that. The SoW isn’t exactly helpful since it was written by the author for the author rather than for anyone else. It’s a good example of

1. I don’t understand the topic.
2. I gain an understanding of the topic.
3. I can no longer explain it to others.

and there’s no fourth step about being able to explain it. See one, do one, teach one doesn’t quite seem to work.

I’ve taken to doing some work at home to take pressure off me during the week so that I don’t feel as if I’m always catching up. The only problem is that the intermediate parts are still being occupied by something. This week it was horrible student writing. Next week it’s probably going to be more of the same.

And the depressing thing is that I have no idea how much ever fills one class. I may have most of next week’s teaching done, but I was hoping to cover summaries and exam ex. 7. The latter may end up make an appearance late next week. Perhaps. Oh well, my fault for not having a relentlessly robotic approach to all this. Unlike Rupert Bear. (I may say more about Rupert Bear in future posts, but let’s just say that he’ll end up in a position of responsibility and utterly despised by his underlings.)