ditch day

It's ditch day for me. That's code for it's Election Day in the city and rather than sit through a day of "professional development," which conversely to it's fancy title really means being yelled at for taking days off, not following directions and not teaching our students how to write, I'm sitting at home not grinding my teeth and not developing the ticks that lead into alcoholism.

Because the fact of the matter is, I don't take days off -- well, actual teaching days that is. And I do follow the rules, unless the rules are wrong. And I categorically do teach how to write papers. So I'm at home, not getting yelled at for things I'm not doing, and I'm beginning to understand why the smartest kids often end up in detention -- because they're smarter than the system and choose not to participate in it.

So while I sit and do some actual work (ie, grade the mountain of papers I assign), I don't feel an ounce of chagrin for ditching school today. Because it's not really school today, it's teacher detention day.

If you happen to be sitting at home too, I recommend this op-ed about how to reform teacher training. It's just a hunch, but if we reformed teacher training, we may not have to remind people that you shouldn't take a personal day once a month (or once a week) when you get three months of vacation time as it is, and that in order to teach students how to write, you're probably going to have to assign papers and return them in a timely manner with constructive feedback. Just a thought. But what do I know? I ditch school.