Lunch Email

This was an email I wrote during lunch. I felt it qualified as a blog.


Good Day, Amy,
It is lunch time and I just wanted to send you greetings. I feel the fatigue of late nights and early mornings setting in but I feel a need to connect to a willing listener - namely you (my new favorite connection).

Yes, I express myself better through writing. I guess that is why I find myself more popular online and kind of awkward in real life. Many of my friends, family, and especially people I'm not that close to have complained about my lack of calling - I'm not big on dropping everything I am doing to use the phone. I also find that most people are socially uncomfortable so I strain to "make conversation."

I find that people in general have become too self centered. You try to talk to someone and they don't want to listen. I once gave up on a group of friends I would get together with now and then. I found that all they would talk about is what they did when they weren't with me.

I also find that people have gotten too protective of themselves. Either they are protective of how they appear to others, or protective of their expertise and what they have to offer, or protective of their own emotions and weaknesses. So now you have a whole bunch of people walking around miserable when they could be helping each other. But god forbid they should reveal any weakness to the others.
Choices....I do have the contrarian view that people genuinely have a finite number of choices. As you go through life you make choices that involve an enormous responsibility. And, being a choice, it means sacrificing the alternate choice. If you have a choice between A and B (adapting a sick orphan child vs. backpacking alone across Europe) then once you choose A, you lose choice B. If sacrifice wasn't necessary then it wouldn't be called a choice!

Complaining....one argument I've gotten into with people, including on Facebook is when somebody flippantly says that they are tired of people who complain. My feeling is that as long as I give and contribute to the world, pay my taxes and union dues, do my good deeds then I will never ever ever relinguish my right to complain. I guess there are several types of complaints, whining vs. a genuine injustice or failure. But I think of people who complain just want a friend to listen to them. So these people who dump complainers aren't very good friends. What about the person who doesn't complain - how does this person find an outlet for his or her frustration? Does he keep his mouth shut until 5pm then go down to the local bar and kick back a few before driving home? Or down a bottle of pain killers while caring for their children? Or tuning out for hours in front of the tv, or other self destructive behavior, instead of expressing themselves. People need to talk - it's the price of friendship.

Ok - so their are some of the things that float through my mind during lunch. Hope you are having a special day and the sun is energizing you with its life giving brightness.

Josh

Motivating the staff

Administrators don't get it when they are in the position to address the staff on critical matters. I have noticed that they impose their own values and never respond to a teacher's set of values or motivations. What motivates a teacher is not the same thing as what motivates an administrator. Teachers were the good students who spent many years doing homework and behaving and working hard and going to college. While we acknowledge that students may be slower than us we have a hard time comprehending that they should work any less or behave any worse than we did. Those teachrs who are parents also know that discipline should be swift and shocking, not like the drawn out court system model.

They speak of keeping a binder. What binder? What does it look like? Does any experienced teacher or administrator have a satisfactory binder to display for al to model?

They speak of making phone calls. Where are the phones? Where are the easy places we can keep our logs and our binders. The places where teacher's congregate are lacking phones.

They speak of buzzwords such as "differentiated learning" and "inquiry". What are those things? Buzzwords are created because the people in charge hear it all the time from the people above them. So by the time they get to tell the staff we hear - "Everybody should be doing differentiated learning. That is what they* are looking for." Instead, a meeting should begin - there is this cool new method called "Differentiated Learning." Allow me a minute (as in 60 seconds) to tell you what it is. And if you indulge me another minute, I can tell you why it is important."

*They And who is "they." It seems like administrators are motivated by some boogie man they can neither define or justify.

Symposium - where this comes from.

Teachers are on the front lines and have to balance the thin line between the students they are responsible for and the administration they answer to. And they find a lot of absurdities on both ends - limits to how they have to deal with students and unreasonable demands from administrators they cannot realistically deal with.

I was watching a discussion on one of the news programs on teachers and education and surprise surprise, no teacher was invited to speak. they do not hesitate to interview every pundint, politition, and camera hogging superintendant (with 5 or less years of classroom experience). On the rare occasiona that a teacher's opinion is asked for they cart out the stereotype - tie and sweater wearing fad follower who just loves loves loves the kids, as if that was the true definition of what a good teacher is. You may even see the patched on the elbows.

Another thing is the whole thing with business money and merit and teachers. So hand us a few thousand for raising grades. That is not what teachers value and a few extra grand, while nice, is not life changing. If they want an experienced teacher such as myself to teach in a needy school, then keep your money...give me a parking spot in front of the school and someone to watch my car. Give me a stable class that doesn't turn over, and a security officer to pull out (instantly and permanently) unruly kids. My own class with plenty of closets would be nice. You get the idea. This is what teachers think about when they dream.

The Teacher Symposium

What if teachers had meaningful input and control over how the school system could improve? We could have a symposium of teachers to discuss how they would change and mold a school. In the discussion would be the areas that needed to be changed, improved, a wish list down to the minutest detail. This would not only include teaching, but programming, guidance, discipline, technology, limitation, legalities.

Teachers at the symposium would have two demands - brevity and reality. Both are flexible. Sometimes it takes longer to make a point so their should be no time limit to speak. However, many teachers go off way too long without an idea as to how long its been since they made their point. Reality - based on the laws of physics and the ten commandments. We cannot use transporter technology to travel from our beds to our classrooms, but we are permitted to dream of a parking space in front of the building. We cannot waste time demanding capital punishment for our students but alternative settings or immediate consequences are legitimate discussions.

One thing we can do to prepare is to fill out a questionnaire. The purpose here would be to set out guidelines and allow participants to prepare their thoughts and answers. I believe the questionnaire would include the proper setting for the symposium, what a school should look like....not just limited to in class processes and complaints about administration.

...to be continued.

So how do we get started?

I would need to ask a number of people to come up with a questionnaire to send out to more people, all of who would be potential participants. This does not mean the formation of the questionnair is limited to those committed to attending the symposium. But the creation of the questions should be be favored toward more experienced teachers and teachers who think in terms of their own job, not just being parents to the kids.

One the questions are agreed on the questionnair is sent out to the potential particiapants. this is where they are told about the symposium and given an opportunity to express themselves in whatever detail they like. Also, this will allow them to craft their thoughts and responses.

The opinions should be compiled and ideas for the discussion should rise to the surface.

I envision a "wiki" in which all topics and ideas are set out in wiki formation and people can add to them, edit them, leave opinions.

The symposium has to be moderated, recorded and improved upon. Follow up symposiums should include specific aspects of education life.