Sh*t, Grit, and Motherwit:

A commentary and reflection upon my life and times in MTC.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Uhh... so when do I get to teach?

I feel like all of JPS, and my school particularly, is so concerned with external appearances that they've forgotten (or either don't care, which is a scary thought in itself) what an effective classroom should really look like. Exams start this week. I was told, along with all the other teachers, that our final exams had to be in at the beginning of the week. Proud of myself for actually being a little ahead of the game, I turned in the two exams I was giving on time. That afternoon, I was called into my department head's classroom and told that one of my exams had to be changed. Actually, I was told, "Can you make this one look more like this one?" I replied, a little confused, "What's the difference?" My coach continued, "Well, look. The is exam is typed and nice and neat. This exam has the numbering written on it in sharpee marker. And look how some of the questions are a little crooked." I stared at her dumbfounded. "Are you serious?" I stammered. "You want me to retype the entire exam, 87 questions and answers, because some of the questions are 'a little crooked'?" She explained, "Yes, see it's not professional. If someone from the district came in and saw this test, they would say it wouldn't look professional and think that it wasn't a good test." I laughed. I had too. What else can you do? I guess I should explain that the vast majority of the questions on this exam were taken from previous tests/books, so we had placed them on a sheet and photocopied the sheet. So question one on our final exam, for example, may have been question twelve in the book or test it came from; therefore, it was necessary that we rewrite the new numbers in sharpee (I say we because I work with a very competent teacher who teaches the same subject -- she was as appalled as I was). So I wasted a good 45 minutes of my night last night retyping the damn test. Even though I already had a perfectly good one. Why does anyone even give a shit? Why can't they look at the questions and say, "Wow, those will really make the kids think?"
We had two departmental meetings within 5 school days that were the exact same meeting. The exact same agenda, handouts, words, everything. Why? Because we were having a "learning walk" (new buzz word down here) in the next few days, and they wanted everyone's word wall to be eye level in black ink, agenda on the board, all the same subject teachers teaching the same thing, all wearing the same clothes, all saying the same thing, all becoming more and more like the robots they wish they could create. The best part? The fucking learning walk never even took place.
When will someone come in and actually listen to my lesson? When will people stop telling my desks are too crowded, my handwriting is too messy, my lesson plans are in the wrong format, my work displayed doesn't have a rubric, and start fucking paying attention to what and how I teach?

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