My confession. I'm not a teacher. Well, not according to the pieces of paper I'm supposed to have. I have a transitional license, which means I'm getting my masters in education in addition to teaching everyday. So I don't have my pieces of paper, but I'm teaching, which either means I'm doing a rubbish job because this would be like a surgical intern performing brain surgery on her first round or my medical school and the whole medical training process is rubbish. It's both possibly, and some days it definitely both.
But here's the great part. As rubbish as teacher training is, sometimes I come across a nugget that even makes the other rubbish my school and district tells me to do look like total and complete rubbish. Because it's right and true and makes sense and totally confounds everything I'm told to do. So that's gotta be hard.
It's better to rant here before I try to write a paper, because ranting doesn't usually earn high marks. Not even in rubbish school. It's been 10 years and two lifetimes since my last confession. Thanks for listening.
Showing posts with label teacher training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label teacher training. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
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.
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.
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