After two days of meetings, professional development and other things that made me want to stick a pencil through my eye, today is finally the first day of classes.
About the only thing that keeps me in this job is the enjoyment I get working with students and teaching my classes.
The rest of the stuff - the Common Core meetings, the PD, the forced professional learning communities jive, the focus groups - enervates me and takes away much of my energy and enthusiasm for teaching.
And of course that's what that stuff is supposed to do - remember, education reform is about pushing out as many teachers as possible, closing as many schools as possible, converting as many public schools to charters as possible, declaring the whole public education enterprise a "failure" and looking for ways to privatize the system.
Supporting teachers in a happy, healthy environment does NOT help the privatizers in that agenda.
This year, I have vowed to let as much of that stuff roll off my back as possible and continue to focus on the positive parts of the job - working with students, helping students, teaching students and learning from both my students and co-workers.
How about you?
What are you going to focus on this year?
This year I'm going to try to ignore the stupid stuff. I would also like to find a source of info about what isn't supposed to be allowed. My Union rep is useless. I wish there was a hot line or forum we could check.
ReplyDeleteLike can they tell us to put two thirds of our class' work on a bulletin board?
And if we start on the 2nd of September, why do we still finish on the 26th of June? Easter break is shorter. I don't get it.
First day with students is always 100x better than PD days. Very glad to meet some new students, and to have old ones visit. Already had four students ask for college recommendation letters and I know a lot more will be asking soon. So I will enjoy these first few gradingless days as much as I can.
ReplyDeleteI m going to focus on really teaching my students how to be good advocates, bring in history and open minds about how schools can and should be. If they don't hear there are other ways, they will think that school- reform test jjve and the cycle gets perpetuated. And, I am going to try every week to wear comfortable clothes to deal with the whole pencil in the eye phenomena. I always say a pencil in my ear or a spike through my brain- I am going to adapt the visual of a pencil through the eye. Gracias.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to the removal of Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon based on my book-length official misconduct complaint that also indicts Farina for her sleazy role in the cover-up of Regents cheating at the Cobble Hill School of American Studies, which Condon corruptly dismissed.
ReplyDelete