Presence Counts
Now that graduation is over and entrance exams have finished, I, along with most of my fellow teachers, have entered the long period of time in which we must show up to work but we have absolutely nothing to do.
Right now, for example, the teacher directly to my left is reading a novel. The man across from me is taking a snooze. Another teacher is doing what I do best, reading everything possible on the internet. And I am writing on this blog.
It isn’t that I don’t want to do anything productive, it is simply that I don’t have that much to do that would keep me productive for a six week span of time. I have lesson planning and curriculum mapping to do for the upcoming school year and I do spend a little while each day working on that. But, aside from that, there isn’t much else.
Before spring break began my supervisor asked me what I would be doing during this six week period when I will not be teaching any classes (because there are not any classes to teach – students were taking final exams and now they have their end of year break). I answered her question with a question of my own, what should I be doing? To which, she replied, “I think, maybe, you should bring a good book. And maybe your knitting.”
And, so it goes. I have spent the past two weeks at work reading, working crossword puzzles, doing some online educational research, planning my upcoming school year, studying japanese, sleeping (occassionally), eating long lunches at restaurants, and knitting. It has been strange, and a little boring, to be doing so many things that are not connected to my work and would not be tolerated in an American workplace, but also sort of refreshing.
First of all, I like that there is no pressure here to “look busy.” There isn’t a single person in this office that pretends to do work if they don’t have any to do. If you don’t have any work to do, do something else. It is ok.
Second, it is interesting to see what different people choose to do doing their free time at work. It is fun discussing books with other teachers and talking about recent news events. It is interesting seeing one of the teachers embroider, and I would love to get up the courage to go talk to here. It is nice to see all these teachers using their extra time to enjoy some of their favorite pastimes, while at work, without their being any shame or blame.
It is also nice that although we do not have much to do, we do have time to work on lesson planning and curriculum building. We have time to collaborate with our colleagues before the new school year starts. Sure, we probably don’t need six weeks of time to accomplish this task, but I definitley prefer having a surplus than a shortage. In Chicago, for example, teachers only started work three days before the students. Three days was nowhere near enough time to plan, set-up, and get ready for the students.
So, today I am going to work on an essay that I’ve been asked to write. Continue reading One Drop by Bliss Broyard (really good book, by the way) and maybe even play a little Nintendo. I have three more weeks of this, if you have any other suggestions about how I could spend my time, I would be more than happy to hear them!