Update: While I stand by every word I wrote this morning (below), I'm not quite as crabby this afternoon. It wasn't even a particularly good day at work, but sometimes all it takes is a decent-enough day to hang in there. Sucker -> Me.
Everyone is a'buzz about Obama's suggestions, while I'm furrowing up my face with a sarcastic, "Welcome to Last Week?" Seriously, I remember making it a journal topic for the kids last year. How is this (new) news?
I probably even already posted my opinion on the matter here, but now that I'm old (F-O-R-T-Y), I can't remember stuff. So here we go again. Maybe.
Should we have longer school days?
Should we have a shorter summer break?
I cannot answer these questions without asking for more information. Namely, will our school systems otherwise be unchanged?
Will we still not be allowed to kick a disruptive student out of the room without first contacting the parent then completing a form with blow-by-blow narrative, quotations, and a complete overview of previous measures taken?
Will we still have to bump all failing grades to a 50% before the final exam, regardless of whether the student has done any work?
Will we still allow students who fail freshman English to continue on to sophomore English so they can stay with their graduating class?
Will we still have classrooms of 40+ kids in 30+ seats, with a goal of getting the class size down to a nice low number, like 35?
Will the amount of mandatory paperwork, mandatory conferences, mandatory emails, mandatory videos and trainings, mandatory horizontal team meetings, mandatory vertical team meetings, mandatory other-team meetings, and not-mandatory-but-highly-suggested-ifyouknowwhatimean committee meetings continue to use up all before school, after school, and prep time, leaving us nothing but off-the-clock time to grade those 150-225 items just done in class today?
Will we still accept students into our regular classrooms for no credit, students who have zero motivation to do more than fulfill the court order to warm a seat?
Will we still be expected (by the students or the administration) to provide opportunities for near-daily grades for those 150-225 students - grades that then need to be posted online for student, parent, fellow teacher, and admin perusal every week?
Will we still debate over things like whether this year we're allowing kids at a fourth grade reading level into the ninth grade class, or if the cutoff will be as high as fifth grade this time?
Will we still put eighth grade reading level kids into ninth grade Honors classes? (I know reading level is just one measurement, but I question the rationale that says if they test that "high," meaning a grade level below the grade they are in, they should go to an advanced class for that grade.)
Will we still excuse an unlimited number of absences, as long as there is a note?
Will we still allow pre-excused absences of two weeks per chunk for students with failing grades? (Will we still expect the teachers to provide two weeks' worth of make-up work on as little as a few hours' notice?)
Will we still allow those pre-excused absence forms to be written completely in Spanish with all information from the parent (where the student is going, what resources they will have for homework, etc.) also in Spanish, with no process for translation at the office level, despite the designated common language of the school being English?
Will we still be expected to just take it when students rudely tell us off for not (as far as they assume) speaking Spanish, because to complain suggests racism (what race?) or a less than stellar commitment to multiculturalism?
(Will we keep defining "multiculturalism in our schools" as "celebrating Mexican or 'African-American' people during their designated weeks/months", and never mind if the school is mostly Hispanic or has students from over 50 countries or if you'd rather just cover black writers as their work naturally fits and not wedge them into showcase moments?)
Will we still shrug off students who go to Mexico at the start of December and return at the end of January? (Because this is just good sensitivity to multiculturalism.)
Will we still shrug off students who enroll in school three, four, five weeks late because they were in Mexico or "Cali" with their relatives? (Again, let's not be insensitive.)
Will we still allow students to sit in our class all semester doing nothing, and will we still expect teachers to be compassionate and "student-centered" when, in week eight, those students ask what they are missing and when they can turn it in?
Will we still be expected to stick around our room after school or before school (and not get some of that paperwork or those meetings done) for students who refused to work during the actual class?
Will we still be expected to complete weekly grade check forms - during class - for athletes, club members, and simply curious students despite the previously described mandate to post all grades online and provide internet access at the school so students/faculty/parents may regularly check those grades? (No, it's not a big deal to post a hard copy of the grades, but that leads to endless, endless, endless queries - during class - about why they were "given" some grade six weeks ago, plus see the previous item. Sure, you can tell them you won't do it during class, but you still have to deal with the request and the whining that follows.)
Will we ever be allowed to collect student property again? (Make-up, iPods, cell phones... anything that the students aren't allowed to use in class but we aren't allowed to touch lest it be lost, yet at the same time the deans are overworked with larger problems and would "prefer" we handle the problem in our rooms? Cue the verbal warning, the written warning, the parent contact... the paperwork, paperwork, paperwork.)
Will we find a way to have lunch periods where every student has a place to sit and enough time to eat? (Given these proposed longer school days.)
Will we start sending kids home for dress code violations instead of giving them a cover-up shirt, then letting each teacher for the rest of the day get into an argument with the student because they've pinned up said shirt to resume exposing four inches of stomach? (Again, it's always "recommended" that we sort out problems in our room.)
Will we keep adjusting our tolerance of discipline issues because, hey, it could be worse?
Will we keep pumping kids into college, treating vocational education as if it's less worthy than analyzing literature?
Mr. Obama, I have so many questions, but I guess it all comes down to one thing: If you increase the time we spend in school, will you also increase the number of students? I don't mean the number of bodies, I mean the number of students. What is your plan for converting all of these idle, entitled bodies we have into students?
Because, those other countries? The successful ones we want to emulate? Yeah, some of them have longer days. Some have longer terms. But some have the same hours and days. What they all have in common isn't time, it's students. People who understand that they are expected to work, and if they don't, they don't get to attend Teen Day Care and Social Hour.
I'm not necessarily opposed to longer days or shorter breaks, but what's the point without students?
(It's 3:30 a.m. I'm going to try to get a couple more hours of sleep, hopefully dreaming up a way to make a million dollars and retire by 6 a.m. Even with two advanced, relatively motivated classes this year to serve as a dangling daily carrot, I've lost the will to fight. Oh, I'm not going anywhere, not in this economy, and I'll still do my best by the kiddos, but here I am in my sixth year, past the proverbial "we lose half of all teachers in the first five years" statistic, and, you know what? It may be easier, but it's still insane. Screw the future of society. If I can save myself, I WILL.)
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