Friday Afternoon Staff Meeting
10/12/2018
As I sit in this meeting, thinking back to using the Lucy Caulkins books with prepacked anecdotes, and listen to this lady drone on about the test and how accurate and valid it is, I can’t help but feel like I’m being replaced. I and my colleagues, as the districts prepare to replace teachers with technicians and then eventually with screens displaying a computer application.
As I sit in this meeting, thinking back to using the Lucy Caulkins books with prepacked anecdotes, teaching points, and lesson phrases, listening to this unfortunate lady drone on about the recent standardized test and how accurate and valid it is, I can’t help but feel like I’m being replaced. Not just me, but I and my colleagues, as the districts prepare to replace more and more teachers with technicians, and then eventually with screens displaying a computer application. Any Ray Bradbury fans in the house?
I thought there was a lot of research about Wednesdays and how receptive people are to information and new ideas and the like. I am sure Friday afternoon is the worst possible time and day. Let's see if this helps or hurts our communication problems this year.
Maybe I need to be more than Press-Conference-Peyton-Manning. Maybe I need to be braver. Maybe I need to be a professional, demanding a damn roster spot, because I am talented, and I work hard.
That, and students will need school more and more as the place where their socialization takes place, as technology and virtual connections continue to override older tools and tribal connections.
And this post, like many, has officially become three-in-one (or more). Maybe I'll get more focus, more clarity as I continue to write and organize that writing. Here goes!
11/29/18
I wonder if the schizophrenic feelings I am experiencing are a result of the fact that I enjoy most of my day at work and many aspects of my job, such as my colleagues and most of the students, and the flexibility I am afforded as a professional educator - something you do not find in every school building. I also go literally crazy (swearing, pacing, storming out and sheepishly returning, ranting at my wife, and so on) because of it. Or parts of it. Parts like sentence frames that do more limiting than helping and students who are "grown" but need to regularly remind other adults of this fact for some reason. I like the work I do most of the day, most of the time, and then I get word of another meeting about noodles. Or we change the schedule or some rule, and then change them again. The demands of the job are inconsistent. The daily reality is hardly so.
I definitely feel this way when I am asked what I think about some proposed change to our shifting and unfettered structure, that my input won't likely influence, and that directly affects students whose feedback isn't even solicited. Like I would tell the circle: "My name is Robert, I'm about a 7 & 3/8, and I feel good/positive/caffeinated/ready for the day. Today, I feel stifled, stymied, bamboozled, and hoodwinked."
1/11/19
Sorry, but you lost me at hyphenating reset.
As I sit in this meeting, thinking back to using the Lucy Caulkins books with prepacked anecdotes, teaching points, and lesson phrases, listening to this unfortunate lady drone on about the recent standardized test and how accurate and valid it is, I can’t help but feel like I’m being replaced. Not just me, but I and my colleagues, as the districts prepare to replace more and more teachers with technicians, and then eventually with screens displaying a computer application. Any Ray Bradbury fans in the house?
I thought there was a lot of research about Wednesdays and how receptive people are to information and new ideas and the like. I am sure Friday afternoon is the worst possible time and day. Let's see if this helps or hurts our communication problems this year.
Maybe I need to be more than Press-Conference-Peyton-Manning. Maybe I need to be braver. Maybe I need to be a professional, demanding a damn roster spot, because I am talented, and I work hard.
That, and students will need school more and more as the place where their socialization takes place, as technology and virtual connections continue to override older tools and tribal connections.
And this post, like many, has officially become three-in-one (or more). Maybe I'll get more focus, more clarity as I continue to write and organize that writing. Here goes!
11/29/18
I wonder if the schizophrenic feelings I am experiencing are a result of the fact that I enjoy most of my day at work and many aspects of my job, such as my colleagues and most of the students, and the flexibility I am afforded as a professional educator - something you do not find in every school building. I also go literally crazy (swearing, pacing, storming out and sheepishly returning, ranting at my wife, and so on) because of it. Or parts of it. Parts like sentence frames that do more limiting than helping and students who are "grown" but need to regularly remind other adults of this fact for some reason. I like the work I do most of the day, most of the time, and then I get word of another meeting about noodles. Or we change the schedule or some rule, and then change them again. The demands of the job are inconsistent. The daily reality is hardly so.
I definitely feel this way when I am asked what I think about some proposed change to our shifting and unfettered structure, that my input won't likely influence, and that directly affects students whose feedback isn't even solicited. Like I would tell the circle: "My name is Robert, I'm about a 7 & 3/8, and I feel good/positive/caffeinated/ready for the day. Today, I feel stifled, stymied, bamboozled, and hoodwinked."
1/11/19
Sorry, but you lost me at hyphenating reset.
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