Sunday, February 15, 2009

Vacation

I should probably be excited for this break. Though it seems to come so soon after the last one. I barely had a few weeks with my new batch of students and now I am on break. Slightly...odd. Most people were excited for the break though. I can't say I wasn't...who wouldn't be excited at the prospect of having a week off?

My modem wasn't working yesterday. Not sure why, but it just wouldn't work. Luckily, someone else in my area did not secure their net, so I can piggyback off them for a little bit. I have Optimum coming on Wednesday, at least that is what they said. The guy on the phone seemed nice enough...for a support tech anyways.

Probably won't think of education for a good week or so, which is cool. More of a day to day person anyways. I mean, I have an idea in the back of my mind for the future, yet, I usually go to day to day with my lessons.

I have to say, I am getting the hang of this teaching thing, being a 2nd year and all. Not sure where my idealism is exactly. I have the mix of understanding that it isn't what they make of it in grad school, and yet, I use lots of new ideas in the classroom. One girl asked if I had "Paranoid" on my ipod Friday. I said yeah, so we were listening to Black Sabbath while they were working on their projects. I like the fact that I can play music in my classroom, even if it is a History Class. Makes the environment so much better for everyone really.

My colleague is one of those people who is all about Obama. Literally and figuratively. I like Obama, but I'm still skeptical. I hate when politicos talk about "firing bad teachers." This bugged me when I popped into my colleague's room on Friday. He was teaching essay writing, which was cool, had a great format, but a kid was putting on the board a topic about school, and a problem was "bad teachers." I guess this re-awakened this problem for me.

I get that there are teachers who maybe aren't very good, or maybe they've lost their way, or maybe...maybe they just need some help. But I don't feel like saying someone is a bad teacher. Hell, I don't know, maybe they were great at one time and just got tired. Besides, what is and is not bad? If the kids learn, and are involved in the learning process, then the teacher can't be all that bad can they?

There are obviously lots of other reasons, which i don't feel like burning in my first post. So, I won't. I just hope I have a job come September. As in, I hope I don't get layed off. That would suck. Considering I am really enjoying my job this year.

3 comments:

  1. You sound great! I hope you have a job too. I'm betting that there will be lots of retirements this year, Tier I's cashing in on their $100,000 for pension benefits.

    You have the right mix of enthusiasm and skeptisim.

    Hopefully the colleague will help point out some of the things about bad teachers that actually aren't so bad. The essay topic might not be as awful as you think.

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  2. I just have a different philosophy, which means that if there is a problem, find out what the root of the problem is. If kids aren't passing, is it the teacher's fault, or is it the school's fault? Or is it society's fault? Because if you fire these "bad" teachers, replace them with newer "good" teachers, and these kids are still failing, then the problem isn't "bad" teachers.

    I didn't so much have a problem with the essay topic. Getting kids to write essays in class and having them write about their school experience I think is a great idea. It was just something that struck me. Thanks for commenting.

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  3. Hey, nice start, and good luck!

    Jonathan

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