Blogboard

Katie from Tiny Nose. Big Heart. revels in her decision to leave teaching. But, much as she is enjoying her new life, teaching apparently hasn't entirely left her.

I miss having the identity and moment-to-moment thought processes of being a teacher. I find myself reading while at the gym and thinking, "Oh, I ought to share this passage with my students. It offers a perfect illlustration of literary allusion," or "Wow, this song contains great examples of well chosen adverbs." I definitely get a little bummed out when I think that I'll never get to share these tiny wonders with my very own students again.

Why is it always the good ones who leave?

Curiously, Katie finds her ability to remember dreams has returned. Like this one:

In my dream, I received a memo informing me and the rest of the school staff that teachers who did not drive HUMMERS or at least Lincoln Navigators were no longer allowed to park in the school parking lot.

Dreams. The stuff nightmares are made of.

Posted by Jeanne McCann at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

High school graduation is a meaningful milestone. There are the beaming students, dressed smartly in their caps and gowns, and their proud parents and family members, clicking away with the cameras and waving from the audience. Excitement and anticipation fill the air.

Except for the teachers.

As Erica Jacobs of Teacher Talk points out, graduation loses some of its luster when you sit through it every single year:

The speeches, always cliché-ridden, are rarely memorable. This year, on a scale of one to ten, I’d rate them a four. Usually the speeches are about a two, so this was above average.

My favorite graduation speech was delivered by a Virginia congressman. Twice. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising that politicians don’t compose new speeches for each graduation, but when we heard the exact same speech two years apart, the teachers were rolling their eyes, and grateful that the students and parents had no clue.

After all, for the teachers, graduation is just a speed bump on the road to summer:

Just as the speeches are always a ten for parents, the year looks better and better to teachers in hindsight. Yesterday the year was an eight. Today a nine. And tomorrow?

Posted by at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's summertime, and that means the teachers—especially the younger ones—are back in school. Graduate school, that is. And Epiphany In Baltimore recommends it highly:

I spent today marching along the brick paths of Towson University, a backpack slung over my shoulder and a college freshmen look of confusion on my face. How I loved it. College campuses have this energy to them that I miss in my everyday life; it's so cool to be part of whole little community all focused on education.

And it's nice to get away from the institutional demands and paperwork of your average public school and really be immersed in learning about learning. Epiph continues:

Today, I completed a research evaluation on a study that shown absolutely no correlation between school uniforms and academic achievement, attendance, substance use, or behavior. I wished I would have known about that study this past year, when our school was considering the implementation of school uniforms.

But now he knows. And that, of course, is half the battle.

Posted by at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Fred the Fish over at Are We Doing Anything Today? reflects on the anonymity of teacher bloggers and commenters:

I don't know that you need to know who I am to consider my teaching reflections. ...the anonymity of the blogosphere allows me to reflect publicly. It also enables people to vilify others, using language that I wonder ... would you say that to a person's face? A complete stranger?

Are teachers more likely to blog incognito than, say, any other sector of worker bees? What with colleagues, superiors, and students as potential readers, it seems as though teachers may indeed have more reason to remain veiled. On the other hand, it seems like employees in any sector of the workforce who share their deepest thoughts about their place of work put their economic futures at risk. Unless those deepest thoughts are only posts about how great their boss is.

But even then. Seems more prudent to stay under cover.

Just ask Dooce.

(Are We Doing Anything Today?)

Posted by Jeanne McCann at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Sometimes it feels really good to be right. Hobo Teacher had one of those moments when he ran into a former student who had been part of a class that often complained about the rigor of his assignments, telling him "This isn't college." His standard response was, "You're right."

They were right, because college would chew them up and spit them out. That in college you don't get 10 absences for each class, each semester, let alone 21 tardies. You lose points is what you get. You don't get make-up time in college. You get zeros. You don't have me, a teacher that stays hours after school to help you with your work, but a professor with set office hours—and it's not for free tutoring.

But the former student, now actually in college, said Hobo Teacher's class had prepared her well:

After this former pupil confirmed that I was indeed right, she thanked me...she realized that all that "really hard stuff" that I had them doing in my class was somewhat geared towards the college environment; and that even though it wasn't nearly as tough as the real thing, she is coping much better than the other first year students.

And we congratulate Hobo Teacher for resisting the urge to gloat. Mostly.

(Hobo Teacher)

Posted by at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Every teacher has likely been saved, at one time or another, by lesson plans that come from somewhere other than his or her own head —the Internet, a teachers' guide, another teacher. But when the source is a close colleague, things can get dicey. Junior High School Teacher recently blogged about the frustration she felt when another teacher—who had been a student teacher in her own classroom a few years ago—commandeered key parts of a beloved poetry unit (right down to the same poems as examples) to use in her class. Then, when the 7th grade students from that teacher's class got to JHS Teacher's 8th grade class the next year, they complained that they'd already done the unit. JHS poses this very valid question:

How do we go about differentiating between ripping off another teacher's lessons, and sharing our expertise? I know I've used things almost word-for-word I've found on-line or which other teachers have given me. I'm also quite perturbed right now about my poetry unit. Where do you draw the line? Should there be a line?

Sounds like a good issue for teachers to puzzle over during the summer months.

Posted by at 10:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

Reflecting on the testing period gone by, Waterfall of A Sort of Notebook offers a bit of practical classroom wisdom that new teachers in particular may benefit from:

Never drink two liters of water in the morning when you have to give a 2.5-hour exam in the afternoon. ... Words of wisdom from someone who learned the hard way.

Thanks for sharing, Waterfall. (No pun intended. That's really her nom de blog.)

Posted by at 2:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)