Leave
The reason I'm not burned out right now, although close, is because I get to miss every staff meeting due to softball. Students don't stress me out: coworkers are my demise - usually. This sounds horrible, and I like a decent handful of my coworkers.
My school has not met AYP standards for too many years in a row, so we are being mandated to implement a school improvement plan. While at softball, here's what happened: the staff acted like assholes to two teachers who were asked to represent the staff on the district committee responsible for the implementation. They said things to these people like, why should we give our input, nothing ever gets better. Or if the state wanted to fire us, they would've fired us by now. Or go ahead, let the state fire us. Nobody else would work here. Why are they attacking these two teachers? Besides, what teacher wouldn't want to try to improve the school's standards? Here's my metaphor: Teachers have to update their lessons or toss them out completely when they have the opportunity to teach them again, because students and their dynamics are constantly changing. Why isn't that true for the operations of an entire district when its enrolled population's needs are always changing as well?
An anonymous teacher put a note in the union reps's box saying that we deserve hazard pay for working in our district! It also stated that teachers only work at the school for the paycheck.
My response: leave. If you don't respect our students then get the hell out of their school. I work here by choice, not because I can't get a job anywhere else.
For the first time, two of these teachers' actions disrupted my own classroom yesterday. Two students came into my room raging during first hour. Apparently another teacher made a passive-aggressive-sarcastic remark to one student in the hallway. Another teacher was an asshole and wouldn't explain why the other student received detention. My response and attempt to calm them down to to my work was to apologize to the other student for that inappropriate comment and not to worry about him. The teacher told him he was tardy when he wasn't. I told the student I was the teacher right now and to forget about the other one. I proceeded to serve dishes full of positive reinforcement for showing up, because he's been MIA lately. I told the other student, also steaming, that he should go ask the vp for an answer, and I'd be more than happy to write him a pass. Detention is supposed to correct and prevent behavior, but how can it if kids don't know why they're serving? (Not that this form of discipline even works)
Grrrr.
Besides that, my day of teaching yesterday included laying out on the grass in the bright sunlight and fresh air reading The House on Mango Street. It's refreshing to watch students devour books.
My school has not met AYP standards for too many years in a row, so we are being mandated to implement a school improvement plan. While at softball, here's what happened: the staff acted like assholes to two teachers who were asked to represent the staff on the district committee responsible for the implementation. They said things to these people like, why should we give our input, nothing ever gets better. Or if the state wanted to fire us, they would've fired us by now. Or go ahead, let the state fire us. Nobody else would work here. Why are they attacking these two teachers? Besides, what teacher wouldn't want to try to improve the school's standards? Here's my metaphor: Teachers have to update their lessons or toss them out completely when they have the opportunity to teach them again, because students and their dynamics are constantly changing. Why isn't that true for the operations of an entire district when its enrolled population's needs are always changing as well?
An anonymous teacher put a note in the union reps's box saying that we deserve hazard pay for working in our district! It also stated that teachers only work at the school for the paycheck.
My response: leave. If you don't respect our students then get the hell out of their school. I work here by choice, not because I can't get a job anywhere else.
For the first time, two of these teachers' actions disrupted my own classroom yesterday. Two students came into my room raging during first hour. Apparently another teacher made a passive-aggressive-sarcastic remark to one student in the hallway. Another teacher was an asshole and wouldn't explain why the other student received detention. My response and attempt to calm them down to to my work was to apologize to the other student for that inappropriate comment and not to worry about him. The teacher told him he was tardy when he wasn't. I told the student I was the teacher right now and to forget about the other one. I proceeded to serve dishes full of positive reinforcement for showing up, because he's been MIA lately. I told the other student, also steaming, that he should go ask the vp for an answer, and I'd be more than happy to write him a pass. Detention is supposed to correct and prevent behavior, but how can it if kids don't know why they're serving? (Not that this form of discipline even works)
Grrrr.
Besides that, my day of teaching yesterday included laying out on the grass in the bright sunlight and fresh air reading The House on Mango Street. It's refreshing to watch students devour books.
