Blogboard

Entering her 10th year in teaching this fall, Junior High School Teacher is starting to think about the future—i.e., does she see herself being a teacher for the next 10 years? On the pro side, she views teaching as “the most important contribution I’ve made so far in my life. … I’ve made a difference as a teacher.”

But there’s a major con: She feels she’s being worn down by the “political climate of teaching”—which, for her, primarily takes the form of mandated, one-size-fits all curricula:

Last year I threw out almost every thing I'd ever created to teach from [a prescribed textbook]. I kept to the schedule, even when it made no sense. I spent at least one class period a week on spelling, because that's the area administration decided upon which we would focus. More than halfway through the year, the English chair decided we would adopt the Sheri Henderson way of teaching writing, and we had no say in that decision. So, yet again, I threw out something (this time, something not even well-tried) for the newest "solution."

She goes on to lament the trend toward uniformity in education:

I think most people, at least most thinking people, agree that giving everyone the exact same education is not giving everyone a fair education, yet that's what's happening. This crap about being on the same page on the same day in every eighth grade classroom in the district is actually being given consideration.

One thing’s for sure: It would be a shame if politics and the associated top-down mandates drove a veteran teacher like JHS (and who knows how many others?) out of the profession she loves.

Posted by at 6:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (20)

California ELL teacher TMAO posts his goals for his recent South American jaunt to Peru, along with the outcomes of each. (You read that right: TMAO had goals for his vacation.) One of which, to ride an alpaca, was not as easy as it sounded: "They are, however, delicious. Much like veal without that guilty feeling."

But what teacher travels without bringing back the goods for the kids? To wit, goal #4:

Return with Incan artifacts suitable for use in 6th and 7th grade social studies classrooms.
Not so much. I did learn that "Inca" referred only to the individual ruler, as in Qushfasfj was the 3rd Inca; while the common people were known as Quetcha.

Goal #7 was similarly lofty:

Free that fluent Spanish speaker that has been imprisoned within me all this time, desperately waiting for a moment of true immersion to burst into triumphant living flame like the phoenix of legend.

Um, that didn't happen either.

But forget all that. TMAO finally gets down wi' it:

Cavort with local women.
See, this isn't as it easy as it sounds, given the Wall that exists between locals and tourists, as well as my lack of fluency in the universal language of dance. There was, however, one captivating woman from Arequipa who I invited to California no fewer than six times, using at least six different pretexts. We'll see how that one turns out.

Who told you teaching was easy, TMAO?

Posted by Jeanne McCann at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)