I'm back

It's been a while, huh. Lots of excitement here on the home-front - new glasses, job interviews, garage sales, etc., and so on. Busy busy busy.

I'm going to miss teaching - at least some parts of it. I'm going to miss the students, and the energy in the classroom. I'm going to miss the light-bulb moments when my students "get it". I'm going to miss the humor and the playfulness of my students. I'm going to miss the students who are wise beyond their years, and who seem to understand the purpose of all of this even when I've forgotten.
I'm going to miss thinking about and planning lessons, studying resources, looking up information and learning new things while I'm doing it. I'm going to miss my colleagues - intelligent, sophisticated, funny, generous, gracious, and sarcastic. I'm going to miss the smell of the cedar trees in the bright, crisp morning air.

I'm not going to miss report cards. Conferences. Grade grubbers. Enabling parents. Hovering parents. Passive Aggressive parents. Parents in Denial. Mean parents. I will not miss staff development. PLCs, FQLs, CAI, POS, SOLs, and all the other county effing initiatives. I will not miss the inept and unprofessional division level department coordinator who likes only to hear herself talk, and will not listen to anyone else. Ever.
I will not miss the principal, who says things like "the die has been mixed", and "vice" instead of "versus" (as in the Bears "vice" the Colts). Who openly admits leaving the classroom because "I wasn't very good at it, so I became an administrator", and who then treats teachers like they know nothing.

Sometimes, I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I realize I won't be in the classroom next year. What purpose will I have? What will I do during the day? And then, I realize that I probably won't be blogging at 12:36 am on a Sunday night/Monday morning, attempting to forestall the inevitable morning mayhem of dragging my ass out of bed and figuring out what we're doing today in class.

Please, if you're out there, anyone, please visit www.educatorrountable.org and sign the petition calling for an end to NCLB.

POS, SOLs, FQL, PLCs, FUBAR

Our school district is currently proposing some drastic changes to the POS (program of studies) for high school students. Most of the changes are a reaction to one school's failing SOL (standard of learning) scores . The FQL (framework of quality learning) is a mammoth document telling all teachers what they've been doing must STOP, and that they must meet in PLCs (professional learning communities) to be brainwashed into following a lock-step model. This, of course, is supposed to increase rigor and encourage more kids to care about SOLs. But in my opinion, it's only going to result in public education being FUBAR - more than it already is.

It's Not Rocket Science

This is my seventh year of teaching. It has taken seven years to feel like I'm capable (well, at least some of the time instead of never). The thought of moving next school year disconcerts me because I'm just starting to get good at this.....
But it's exhausting. The emotional stamina required to sustain teachers has to come from somewhere, you know? Ultimately, I would like to be an advocate for educators. I think if more parents knew about the initiatives, and the ulterior motives related to the initiatives, there would be enough outrage to change the system.