Metaphors

I had an interesting staff meeting the other day. I would encourage all people, administrator, teacher, random guy giving a presentation to his board of directors on Thursday, to check your metaphors before you make them.

You may have noticed the picture. Well, this leads into my interesting staff meeting. My principal, and it really is very difficult for me to keep this anonymous because my goodness, made a reference to the staff thinking that she was making this brilliant metaphor. She told us that we were a lot like Sisyphus. Now, if you don't know who that is, here is a link to the story. http://www.mythweb.com/teachers/why/other/sisyphus.html Essentially, this guy, Sisyphus, was condemned for eternity to try to push a rock up a hill, and would never EVER be able to succeed. My principal, told the staff that we were Sisyphus. Eternally damned to roll a rock up a hill but never quite make it.

Now, I'm really not quite sure what she was trying to tell us, but she seemed so proud of her analogy. We just keep trying, I think was the basic message. What I don't think she got is that she was essentially telling us that we have chosen a profession that is eternally doomed to futility. To constantly try, but to never get where you needed to be. We push rocks for a living, and every single year, we just get a new set of rocks.

The only logical conclusion that any of my colleagues and I were able to come up with, and it wasn't a very happy one at that, is that we must also be doomed to working in Hades. Hooray for the Greeks!

The Golden Moment

I always try to make a point to make sure my students know that I'm proud of the things that they do in my classroom, and beyond, so I definitely feel like I had to make mention of a very special thing that happened last night. I'm currently at a theatre festival with many of my students, and I was going around to do my room checks last night, or to let them know it was time to go back to their own individual rooms. They were all together in a room, and I, apparently, came upon them in the midst of heavy bonding. I was brought into the room, and told that they had decided to have everybody go around the room and say something nice about every single person in the group. So I indulged them, and sat with them, as they all decided that I was to be the subject of the next round.

Most teachers will tell you that teaching is a thankless profession. The students rarely recognize the benefits that they are getting on a day to day basis, and when they do, years later, they rarely take the time to make the contact to say thank you. And that's ok. We don't get into this profession because of the high recognition potential. Which is what made this moment very special to me.

To give a basic outline, last year I replaced a very beloved teacher, and the transition was a bit rough. My wife likes to describe the first year at this school as a shake down. The overlying message of my students was this. "We're glad we didn't scare you off. We're happy that you're here. We like what you are doing. And we are grateful to have you as our teacher." I have to say that this was one of the most touching experiences that I have ever had. For all the times I complain about the frustrations of work, admins, parents, students, or anything and question whether things are worth it, this is one of those rare moments that tells me, in the clearest terms possible, that it absolutely worth it. I've never been more proud of my students.

Administrators

I have had the worst luck in the world with administrators. I've only taught at 2 schools, thus far, and I seem to have just found the pack of some of the most ill-mannered principals out there. The first school I worked at, the principal put on this great face of empathy, and presenting unity, and the air that he would work with people to find a solution to benefit everybody. Then, when a problem actually came up, he threw me under a bus, quite literally. It was a horrible experience, and nearly drove me out of teaching altogether.

At this second school, I have a few principals that seem to have been bitten by the grouchy pants bug. The principal of the school has very little respect for, and from, anybody on the staff. Possibly because she has, and has done this to me, come into teacher's classes and, in front of students, belittled them and yelled at them. Insulting them personally and professionally. Then putting on this smiling face and saying how much she loves all her staff and how they're the greatest in the world. Totally full of it. Which might explain one of her assistant principals. She seems to have the same, "I must prove that I'm the one in charge", mentality that the main principal does. (I'm doing my best to keep names out of this) Another episode happened with me today. I'm currently with students on a trip to a drama festival. On Monday, while I was running around and trying to get everything set up for my class for the next 3 days, and making sure that all of our final arrangements were done and set and ready to go, I was informed that there was an outside event coming into our space next week and that I needed to run a whole bunch of tests on things. Now, the fun part about this is that I had no previous warning of this event, and it isn't the first, nor will it be the last time, no matter how much I tell them, that they will approve something without checking with me. I managed to fit the time in to check things, but forgot to e-mail the tech guy with the information he wanted. I received a call today, from said asst. principal asking for the info. No worries in and of itself, right? Well, then the phrase, "You need to find a little bit of time for some professionalism" escapes her mouth. I am quite good at repressing my anger, so I just managed to answer all the questions and let him know what was needed without saying anything that I would regret.

But what is the deal with this? Are all administrators this way? This is maybe the second issue all school year that she has had with me, the first one I had taken care of before she game into my room (in front of students) yelling about it and making a big deal about something that, as I consistently reminded her, that I had taken care of. This is definitely an issue that runs through my whole school. Almost none of the administrators seem to be able to solve anything without resorting to public embarrassment or unnecessarily pulling rank. Do they not seem to know that the teachers are adults, too, and probably know it when they make a mistake and are able to own up to it? Are they that insecure in their own positions that they must continually make an example out of people? I had mulled over possibilities of doing administration, but I have to admit that, if this is the type of person that I'm going to become, I want absolutely nothing to do with it. This is just my third year teaching and, thanks to a lot of rather unprofessional actions by supposedly professional individuals, I'm already feeling quite burned out. Here's hoping that summer comes soon.

Plagiarism

I was grading papers over the weekend and came across one of my absolute least favorite things to deal with in the history of things to deal with in the classroom. A student of mine plagiarized a paper. As with pretty much all schools in the country, that equals an automatic zero on the paper, and I think there are probably a few other things that will happen as well.

I just can't wrap my head around the concept of actually going and plagiarizing something. I thought about it one time in college, but realized that the time it would have taken in order to make the paper look like it wasn't plagiarized was roughly equivalent, if not more involving, than actually taking the time to do the paper itself. But, then again, I've always been a good student and never really needed too much motivation to do my school work. When did students become so lazy?

How do I know this was plagiarized? Pretty simple. It was really only about half of the paper that was obviously plagiarized. Reading the first half sounded exactly like her, kind of scattered, shorter words, mistakes in grammar. Then, suddenly, things began getting strangely well written. I took the first sentence of the very well written part and just put it into my google engine, and guess what came up? Word for word, the exact same thing from sparknotes. Right down to the typos.

I remember one I had last year, another plagiarist, whose mother said the most interesting thing to me. I called to inform her that her daughter had been caught plagiarizing, copying and pasting from the internet. I am not even kidding about this next part. Her response was, "You mean she can't do that? I don't understand how she's supposed to write 5 pages in her own words!" It makes no sense to me. How do other people deal with plagiarism in your schools or your classrooms? And what do you do when you come across a parent who literally doesn't understand that plagiarism is wrong?

Through the Eyes of an Educator

Welcome to my site, ladies and gentleman.

Though it should, more or less, go without saying, I am a teacher. I have decided that I should write a blog because there is really a lot to say about education in the United States. Some of it is quite controversial, and some of it everybody seems to agree on. I intend to cover a lot of these topics, as well as use this for a personal journal of my own experiences. Since my experiences may involve specific people, I intend to keep all things vague enough that it is never fully clear exactly who I am, nor is it ever clear who I work with. If I ever refer to people directly by name, it is because I have their permission to do so, but I will still only use their first name.

I think that it would be fantastic if this became an open forum for teachers, parents, students, or just the casual observer to discuss education. Problems, successes, talk about solutions, or even exchange lessons. I hope that this will be the first of many posts, and look forward to all replies. Thanks very much!