Career Change: I Don't Want to Teach... At Times!

Now, don't get me wrong -  

I LOVE TEACHING!!!  

In fact, even though I'm a first-year teacher, I think I'm a pretty decent teacher. Mostly because my heart is in the right place, but also it's something which for me is innate! But I have discovered that in my current position, there are certain specific times of the day that I just dread teaching.  Let me explain...

I was having a discussion with a couple of colleagues the other day and we all came to the same agreement - there are times during the day which are consistently harder to teach than other times at our school.  Unfortunately out of the 5 classroom blocks, there are 3 blocks which are much, much, MUCH harder to teach than others.  Our school has a rotating schedule so we never see the same classes at the same times every day.  Therefore, it's not even about the individual classes, it's about the time of day.  Here's what we've concluded:

1. Block A - the ability to teach is high.  Students have just arrived at school and are still pretty tired and mostly are quiet, attentive, and slightly engaged in learning.
2. Block B - the ability to teach is at its highest.  Students are more awake than Block A and are not yet ready for lunch.  They have an interest in class and are generally engaged in the material that the teacher is presenting.  (There are some students who will never be engaged even if the teacher is set on fire while dancing a jig.)
3. Block C - the ability to teach is low.  This block is just before lunch. Students are restless, hungry, and completely indifferent to learning.
4. Block D - the ability to teach is low.  The block after lunch is even harder - students are on a high (literally and figuratively) from lunch and their desirability to settle down and learn is low.
5. Block E - the ability to teach is at its lowest.  As the last class of the day, students just want to go home and have zero interest in learning!  They have decided that this is their time to chat with each other, text their friends, and ignore anything that the teacher is doing.  (If this is the last class of the day on Friday, it's like going through the 9th circle of Dante's hell - and it's even worse if this class is before a long weekend or a vacation break. I know it's hard to believe that there's something worse than the 9th circle of hell, but trust me, there is.)

What my colleagues and I are curious about - is this phenomenon a characteristic of all schools or is it particular to our school? The answer to this particular question would be helpful to know.

As I said - I love teaching and plan on teaching for the next 20+ years - pretty much until I'm taken out in a pine box, but we have concluded that the teachers at BMF should only have to teach the first two blocks of the day and then after that, we should go home and they can bring in babysitters for the remainder of the classes.  :o)

Okay, okay, I don't actually mean that, but we do find it increasingly more difficult to teach those last three blocks of the day and it's disheartening when you give 200% effort to teach students whose interest is at 0% -- if not lower.  Naturally, this scenario does not apply to ALL of our students, but, sadly, this applies to approximately 85% of the students. Oh, well - I will soldier on and will continue to attempt to reach all 90 students that I currently teach.