Happy National Teacher Day
I'm up from my nap, maybe my sleep, at 1 a.m., greeted with the news that our legislators have counter-proposed a 4.6% pay cut for teachers next year. Of course, in this economy I'm supposed to say the following:
"Thank goodness we have jobs at all."
and
"Thank goodness it's not the 12-16% pay cut the governor has suggested."
And I might be able to say either with sincerity, but then the message boards are filled with posts about overpaid and underworked teachers, with asinine comments like how we get summers off. (Well, no. We aren't paid for summer. It happens that some teachers choose not to work between contracts, giving the illusion of a paid summer break, although many teachers do use this time for another job. I don't, because I need that time to recover from the "cushy" life of babysitting 200 underparented teenagers a day.)
Also, this has now established the low end of the negotiating dance. Lawmakers start at 4.6%. Gibbons starts at 16%. I'm not optimistic about where the compromise will fall.
And to make up for whatever salary cut we don't take, we'll be seeing more kids in the classroom. (Again, there are the message boards, with our "defenders" talking about the perils of "possibly" 35 kids to the class if this happens, Friend? Thirty-five is already what we aim for.)
Yesterday was not a good day. One class, an Honors one, didn't get to go to the lab to work on rough drafts for the final exam's essay component because the school needed the lab for that period. So, we worked on the drafts in class, sans computers. I know - such Barbarianism! The kids actually asked if they were being punished. (The final is 4-5 weeks away, but why wait to cram it in at the last minute? I'm starting to stagger instruction with review.)
And by "worked on them in class," I mean that I said they didn't have to turn in their drafts, unless people just socialized and didn't work. Which means people just socialized and didn't work, because they didn't have to turn in their drafts. Yeah, perfect sense.
Therefore, I collected the drafts for a grade, to make a point about what happens when you waste time, except the point was lost because students who wrote down only a few sentences (copied from my example on the board) tried to use the "I wrote something!" claim to escape a penalty for not working. Worse: they really believe they are in the right.
Before I woke up just now, I dreamt that I put together a slideshow/movie with images and short clips designed to stimulate writing, and periodically a writing prompt would appear. It was quite soothing in the dream... until more and more kids arrived in the class, and someone turned on the lights, and then everyone just talked and no one worked. Part of me woke up inspired to make a PPT with inspirational slides and music... but thankfully the rest of me knows better. More time for Kindle-ing, or World of Warcraft.
And so... Instead of practicing courtly dancing or illustrating Mercutio's speech or dividing the class into Capulets and Montagues or letting interested parties reenact the Tybalt/Romeo showdown or projecting Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting up on the wall or making R&J board games to help study, it's writing and grammar for the foreseeable future... perhaps until any given class of Honors students can learn to walk in, follow directions, work hard, and not screw around. I'm the devil in clogs, trying to live up to her reputation.
"Thank goodness we have jobs at all."
and
"Thank goodness it's not the 12-16% pay cut the governor has suggested."
And I might be able to say either with sincerity, but then the message boards are filled with posts about overpaid and underworked teachers, with asinine comments like how we get summers off. (Well, no. We aren't paid for summer. It happens that some teachers choose not to work between contracts, giving the illusion of a paid summer break, although many teachers do use this time for another job. I don't, because I need that time to recover from the "cushy" life of babysitting 200 underparented teenagers a day.)
Also, this has now established the low end of the negotiating dance. Lawmakers start at 4.6%. Gibbons starts at 16%. I'm not optimistic about where the compromise will fall.
And to make up for whatever salary cut we don't take, we'll be seeing more kids in the classroom. (Again, there are the message boards, with our "defenders" talking about the perils of "possibly" 35 kids to the class if this happens, Friend? Thirty-five is already what we aim for.)
Yesterday was not a good day. One class, an Honors one, didn't get to go to the lab to work on rough drafts for the final exam's essay component because the school needed the lab for that period. So, we worked on the drafts in class, sans computers. I know - such Barbarianism! The kids actually asked if they were being punished. (The final is 4-5 weeks away, but why wait to cram it in at the last minute? I'm starting to stagger instruction with review.)
And by "worked on them in class," I mean that I said they didn't have to turn in their drafts, unless people just socialized and didn't work. Which means people just socialized and didn't work, because they didn't have to turn in their drafts. Yeah, perfect sense.
Therefore, I collected the drafts for a grade, to make a point about what happens when you waste time, except the point was lost because students who wrote down only a few sentences (copied from my example on the board) tried to use the "I wrote something!" claim to escape a penalty for not working. Worse: they really believe they are in the right.
Before I woke up just now, I dreamt that I put together a slideshow/movie with images and short clips designed to stimulate writing, and periodically a writing prompt would appear. It was quite soothing in the dream... until more and more kids arrived in the class, and someone turned on the lights, and then everyone just talked and no one worked. Part of me woke up inspired to make a PPT with inspirational slides and music... but thankfully the rest of me knows better. More time for Kindle-ing, or World of Warcraft.
And so... Instead of practicing courtly dancing or illustrating Mercutio's speech or dividing the class into Capulets and Montagues or letting interested parties reenact the Tybalt/Romeo showdown or projecting Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting up on the wall or making R&J board games to help study, it's writing and grammar for the foreseeable future... perhaps until any given class of Honors students can learn to walk in, follow directions, work hard, and not screw around. I'm the devil in clogs, trying to live up to her reputation.
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