Work=Death
I can't shake this black mood. Or maybe that bad case of The Mondays is lingering. I feel like I've lost a good friend, and it makes me sad.
Maybe it has something to do with my job, and the fact that I have to attend an all-day K-12 English Language Arts curriculum meeting today. We increasingly chase the test scores, and base everything we do in the classroom on improving them (thank you Bush). The curriculum is geared toward that end.
And I always thought "curric" should be a verb, that it was something you do together with students. That you, as a teacher, find out what your students need and base learning activities on that. That it should be different each year, based on a new group of students. It should never be repeated, because once done, it is dead.
The public school system is so fucked up. I don't even believe in what I am doing. And it is, with the surveillance that takes place, almost impossible to be subversive.
So I gotta get ready for my meeting (the curriculum director usually flips out on the teachers and I have seen yelling matches in the past - I don't yell, I just observe. I'm trying to slip under the radar.) Yup, I'm struggling today, kids. Wish me luck.
posted by MJ @ 5:53 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
I'm with you MJ. I went to a Waldorf school where my teacher constantly changed his lesson plans to suit what we were interested in. Can you imagine the work involved in that? Can you imagine the excitement of a classroom full of kids who would be actually interested in what was being taught...and would (gulp) find a love of learning intrinsically? Yeah that's not going to happen in public schools as long as we worry about state standards and meeting national standards. We already fall short of student standards. I leave my soap box (for now).
Wow! I went to the Waldorf Institute for their orientation year (after my BA), was planning to go for their teacher training year, but got pregnant instead. What a cool time. Waldorf schools are wonderful. I loved it that the teachers followed their students for eight years.
I have been trying really hard to maintain compassion in an abusive environment. (It wasn't like this at the alternative school where I worked for 11 years because it was voluntary. Kids knew it was their last chance, and they didn't see us as authority figure enemies, but friends. We broke down those walls. We were on a first-name basis. They were really thankful for what they were getting. Not all, but a lot of them.) But we weren't making enough money for the district (yes, they used us to make money for the general fund) and they closed the school and moved the teachers to traditional ed. I really don't fit in there, but some of the outcasts need me there. The other teachers don't like them, but I think they are wonderful.
I got the Tawni O'Dell book today at the library. I see it takes place in Pennsylvania....
Ha yes...always trying to promote my fine state. I think that's another reason why I liked it I think. My mom grew up around where this book takes place and it's such a desolate area. Now the people mirror the abandonned strip mines and no one knows how to "keep" young people there. Every time I go there, I whisper, "Get out as fast as you can." I think it's genius that my mom got pregnant there and ran away here.
PS. I'm still debating the Waldorf institute. I'd have to go back and get an elementary degree I think if I want to be a class teacher (since I teach high school). Oh, and I teach both ends of the spectrums--the school's darlings, and the one's I have to keep "quiet at all times". I love them both.
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