During my misspent undergrad years, one of the non-regrettable portions comprises three years of Spanish that extended into Spanish-medium classes in linguistic theory and history.  From second year on, papers and presentations became a main focus in order to more or less beat people into hitting a useful level of fluency.  However, a certain portion of the class, instead of learning to write anything longer than a sentence in Spanish, found out about Babelfish, with the result that the rest of us also learned to spot a Babelfished paper.  (It was really easy when they accidentally hit Portuguese instead of Spanish, although the two are similar enough for a Babelfisher to not catch the switch until it’s too late.)

A bag of potting soil proudly announces that it is “Made from All Natural Organic Ingredients,” and below that, “Hecho de Todos los Ingredientes Orgánicos Naturales.”

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As I dig through the internet, I’ve been hearing from so many other teachers, and former teachers, that got out or want out, because of what teaching has turned into–crowd control and babysitting, basically.  The system isn’t working for the teachers, and from what I’ve seen it’s not working for the kids.  I’m not sure who it is working for, but it seems to be increasingly tolerable the further up the ladder one is.  I mean, being a principal sounds awful (paperwork and politics, ick) but they can take a freaking bathroom break.

Who owns this mess?  Who could fix it?  Who’s getting something out of the way it is?  Because a system that doesn’t work for anyone would get fixed by whoever signs off on it.

I can think of a whole better system, if I had The Button to push.  There are tons of alternatives from the top.  But, from down here…there aren’t a lot of options.  There’s what’s called teaching, aka crowd control and babysitting, and the more I think about the reality of it the less I think I can put up with what it’s turning into; I still want to do what it’s supposed to be, is the thing, and I hate the thought of walking away because I’ve never had the chance to get my feet firmly under me, but…maybe it’s too broken for me to work with.  There’s private tutoring, which isn’t really an option for a job–the hourly rate is good, the number of hours sucks.  There’s classroom aideing, which pays enough to live on for someone who lives modestly and has only the two years’ worth of student loans that are expected to get into it.  There are more options for people who have the special ed degree or license since that’s a part of the field that’s less about all fitting the same mold.

I’m trying to temper this with the facts…I’m some form of burned out right now because of getting screwed over by the last job, not every job has to be that extreme…but at this point, I don’t know if I can work myself around to be able to function in this system faster than it would spit me out again.  Maybe subbing will work for that, I don’t know…I’ll try it, if I get a chance.  But I wonder if the reason it’s not working is because it just doesn’t work, if grouping the kids by only age and expecting them to all work at the same pace on the same stuff is just fundamentally fracked to the point where it naturally chews up and spits out anyone that gets near it.  Even though I don’t want to be that statistic, the 50% that burns out in less time than it took to get through college to get there…maybe it’s time to walk away.

And do what, though?  I know that teaching, in the actual sense of the word, is what I’m supposed to be doing; I don’t even mind doing a modest amount of paperwork like a reasonably comprehensive lesson plan or anything else with some practical value.  That’s what I’m about.  There are things that I could see working my way into, further along in my career, but they’re not things a person gets to do before they pay their dues.  I kick butt at tutoring but I’ve never met anyone who could do that as a full-time job; the hours just aren’t there since most of the kids’ awake hours are taken up with being crowd-controlled.

I’m just at a loss for what to actually do.  I still want to make it work but maybe I just found out six years and $70,000 too late that it’s too much of a mess for me to function in.  If I saw anything else that uses what I’m good at and would pay the bills, I could probably walk away…but so far, I just don’t see it.

Is there anything left to fix?  Is there anything else for me, if there’s not?

Are higher-order thinking and nonambiguously-measurable objectives inherently at odds with each other?  Or can the two be combined so that making all standards measurable for accountability’s sake doesn’t have to shortchange the kids on the most transferrable skills?

Check comments for my thoughts–I’m going to hold off on posting them for at least a week to see what other people think first.  Discuss, debate, post links to other articles, even cite Wikipedia if you have to.  Definitely invite your friends.  But as you tear each other’s arguments’ faces off, be polite.

Dear Office,

Second hour is not present for class today.  They seem to be present for an episode of Springer, but that is not a subject that I teach, so as far as I’m concerned they are ditching.  Please mark them accordingly.  Thank you.

That’s not quite a direct quote, but it’s a very close paraphrase, to the note that I sent up to the office today with a blank attendance form because second hour wouldn’t get quiet so I could take attendance.  These…ridiculous little brats…

I just found out about this today.  This is going to be a transitional year; the new standards are supposed to be fully implemented next year.  The standards in use last year covered all four grades, even though the test over the standards was in 10th grade.  The new standards are split out into 9-10 and 11-12.

I’ve only glanced over them a little bit, so this is pretty much pure knee-jerk.  Take it for whatever it’s worth.

Splitting the standards into pre- and post-AIMS is, as far as I know, the smartest thing that’s happened to the curriculum in a long time.  The downside seems to be that the 9-10 curriculum narrows slightly as some of the harder stuff is bumped to after AIMS.  However, the 11-12 curriculum is expanded to include more precalculus type stuff.  So, we no longer have to justify everything higher-level than Algebra 1 and Sophomore Geometry as being related to those standards.  I can use this…

As of now, I for one welcome our new Standards overlords.

My bosses’ boss: “The reason we have to deal with all this intrusive state paperwork is we, as a profession, dropped the ball for a long time and it showed in our product.  Our students weren’t learning math and science, and now our national security is suffering because of it.”

Compare to what I say about NCLB: “It’s obnoxious and annoying, and the only thing worse is the 40% pass rates that used to be acceptable back when it didn’t mess with the district’s wallet.  While politicians don’t know anything about running schools, they kind of had to step it when it got that bad–and we need to be asking ourselves, how did it come to this?”

I heart working for people who get it.

Now and then…all right, let’s face it, too often; I need to get out of my head…I look at where I am and who I am. Now and then, I even figure something out.

Contrary to grad school telling us that we were all going to be leaping tall IEPs in a single bound, I’ve turned out so far to be a mediocre teacher. Contrary to grad school, and then Pendergast, telling us that nothing but perfect was good enough, I’m OK with that. I’m first-year; I have a right to be mediocre. After all I’ve had to do to drag myself to this point, I deserve to be mediocre for a while.

The problem is, in pretty much everything else I can think of in my life, I’m falling short there too…on any given measure I can think of, I’m so far from who and what I was supposed to be right now, especially for what I used to be. I miss being a kid, for that; I like the independence now but I also liked being good at stuff, and as a general rule I’m not any more. “Good at stuff” as the foundation of my identity doesn’t work so well when it stops being true. It doesn’t help, I guess, that work is pretty much the only thing in my life. That’s what makes it hard to accept being mediocre; if I’m only doing one thing, I should at least be good at it.

According to one parent (of a really nice kid), half-hour detention is mistreatment.  And another kid thought he could be excused to go buy ice cream.  So…yeah.

I tried a new test generation program. Instead of printing 31 copies of the same test, it made 31 versions of the test with different right letters even in the multiple choice section. I didn’t catch this until I was partway through grading it off of one version of the answer key.

I have to grade this. Which means I have to work out all these problems on all these tests. GAH!!! WILL TAKE FOREVER!!!!! *dies of frustration*

Student: Hey, other student, is the answer to problem 3 40?

Miss Klaus: Are you kidding me?

Student: Gee sorry, I guess I didn’t take it that serious!