it's done.
i didn't check it at all. no proofing, no idea check, no grammar check, no "did i get rid of all my [[explain this bit?]] brackets." nothing.
cross your fingers that i don't get pulled from my classroom. woot.
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
oh yeah
Also, I took the day off to work on my credentialing paper, due this Friday. You can see how hard I am working. I can't stop imagining my students behind my desk defacing my photos and stuff. Maybe playing with the lighter (which, though it is deep within my desk, I neglected to lock up yesterday. Dammit.)
No paper = no credential.
This thing is a nightmare.
No paper = no credential.
This thing is a nightmare.
the view from the chair
So there's this woman in the ESL department, let's call her "Linda," who has been crazy supportive and wonderful to Rachel and me over the last almost-year. She was my next-door neighbor before I moved back upstairs. She's been an invaluable resource. Only, I hate her.
OK, maybe not hate. But things have gotten weird. Historically, Linda has butted heads with the head of our SLC. They just don't get each other. SLC head is an activist for our students, very in-the-trenches. Linda is a teacher, from now until death, and she makes this known whenever possible. You wouldn't think this would be a conflict, but that's because you are neither a teacher nor an activist.
Anyway, the ESL department has always been housed entirely in our SLC, CALA. For the upcoming year, it is being split between CALA and MPA. But Linda, frustrated with our current and soon-to-be-changing-anyway leadership, pulled a fast move and, without telling anyone, got herself switched an entirely different SLC. This has ramifications for everyone, students and teachers alike. Already, I am unhappy.
Imagine my surprise, then, to see that instead of being given the ESL co-chair position unopposed, as is usually the case when someone steps up for a thankless job, I am running against Linda. And imagine my further surprise when, instead of being at the ESL department meeting where we are voting on department chair, Linda instead attends the English department meeting where, I am told, she tells everyone that she would love to run for English department chair, if she were not already the chair of the ESL department, and that next year the two departments should be merged.
What the fuck?!?
Anyway I found out yesterday that I am, in fact, the co-chair, and that our most excellent frat-boy/hardass Rene is the chair, as I'd thought all along. And I can tell you that if I have anything to do with it, we will be working very closely with the English department, but we will not be merging. There's so much drama and political infighting there that I feel the focus very rarely strays back to the students. The strength of the ESL department has always been that, as a closely united front, we don't have this problem. Or at least, we never have before.
OK, maybe not hate. But things have gotten weird. Historically, Linda has butted heads with the head of our SLC. They just don't get each other. SLC head is an activist for our students, very in-the-trenches. Linda is a teacher, from now until death, and she makes this known whenever possible. You wouldn't think this would be a conflict, but that's because you are neither a teacher nor an activist.
Anyway, the ESL department has always been housed entirely in our SLC, CALA. For the upcoming year, it is being split between CALA and MPA. But Linda, frustrated with our current and soon-to-be-changing-anyway leadership, pulled a fast move and, without telling anyone, got herself switched an entirely different SLC. This has ramifications for everyone, students and teachers alike. Already, I am unhappy.
Imagine my surprise, then, to see that instead of being given the ESL co-chair position unopposed, as is usually the case when someone steps up for a thankless job, I am running against Linda. And imagine my further surprise when, instead of being at the ESL department meeting where we are voting on department chair, Linda instead attends the English department meeting where, I am told, she tells everyone that she would love to run for English department chair, if she were not already the chair of the ESL department, and that next year the two departments should be merged.
What the fuck?!?
Anyway I found out yesterday that I am, in fact, the co-chair, and that our most excellent frat-boy/hardass Rene is the chair, as I'd thought all along. And I can tell you that if I have anything to do with it, we will be working very closely with the English department, but we will not be merging. There's so much drama and political infighting there that I feel the focus very rarely strays back to the students. The strength of the ESL department has always been that, as a closely united front, we don't have this problem. Or at least, we never have before.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
ch-ch-changed back
This just in: one of our teachers, slated to move to A track, has been accepted to teach in Japan this year. Now, Rachel is moving to A to teach his classes, I am moving in to teach Rachel's classes (and reclaiming my chair), and we're hiring a new English teacher for the nines and tens I was assigned yesterday. As the new year starts in 5 weeks, I strongly suspect we will be finding a Program newbie to start late, as Rach and I did last year, and still have not recovered from.
I swear, this place is run by monkeys.
I swear, this place is run by monkeys.
Wednesday, May 17, 2006
ch-ch-changes
Today I found out, in rapid succession, that
1. I had been voted the B-track ESL department co-chair
but
2. I cannot be the ESL co-chair
because
3. I no longer teach ESL, but instead four periods of 9th grade English, and one of 10th.
Fuck fuck motherfuck.
1. I had been voted the B-track ESL department co-chair
but
2. I cannot be the ESL co-chair
because
3. I no longer teach ESL, but instead four periods of 9th grade English, and one of 10th.
Fuck fuck motherfuck.
Thursday, May 11, 2006
i <3 bad boys
...but not like that.
So I'm back in the saddle again, as it goes, and yes, my classroom is slightly out-of-control and deafening in the afternoons, but ALL FOUR of my previously failing "bad" boys are passing now, three of them averaging B's on their tests; I think that among other things, chiefly the realization that school's over in six weeks and they don't want to be stuck in ESL 3 again, they have figured out that I do not think of them as "bad," and that when I say that I missed them in class yesterday, I really mean it. For my part, I think they're hilarious and the light at the end of my exhausting days. We are working on the whole cursing/chasing each other around/yelling at the top of their lungs issues, but in all likelihood this behavior will continue, they will pass, and my co-workers teaching ESL 4 will hate hate hate me.
All semester I had been considering the possibility that I might be that ESL 4 teacher, but the master schedule is up, albeit in sticky-note form, and unless some otherworldly power disrupts the amazing stability of the stickynote system, I am teaching ESL 3 in the morning, freshman English mid-day, and then ESL 3 again in the afternoon. At first I was nearly delirious with glee at the thought of having only two preps, but then I forgot about wanting to hate my life less and realized it freed me up for other things. A for instance: the official vote isn't until tomorrow, but it now looks like I will be chairing the ESL department on B track, with a co-chair in the new Multilingual Preparatory Academy on track A, the abbreviation for which is pronounced "moopa," as in "moopa loopa doopahdee doo." Technically the responsibility will be split 3 ways, with Rachel and I dividing up work on B despite the fact that only one of us gets our name down on the paper. The idea is that year 3 we'll switch and she'll get all the glory, fast cars, and hot hot women, but you never know; once you start livin' that large it's hard to come back down.
My school has gone completely wacky since Ye Olde Riot, or maybe it's just that I'm noticing. Admin is MIA unless it's making bizarre announcements over my (grrr) newly-working PA, and the kids are restless and looking for a fight. Add to this several new species of bureaucratic hassle/"that's public schools for you" hitch, ie WASC accreditation, several rounds of state testing, and the near-certainty that I am working in a sick building, and you've probably got a pretty decent explanation for the surprising degree of apathy which I bring to my job each morning. This is not what I had in mind last semester when I wondered if the Morning Dread would ever go away. As I say, by the end of the day I'm energized by the unending game of "guess what The Four will get into next and prevent them from doing so," but the mornings are rough, and despite this potential new position of responsibility, I kind of still suck at my job.
Last night I had my penultimate meeting of the year with my Program Dude, in which we were supposed to take an hour to discuss what's holding my students back from SFGs (Significant Fucking Gains.) We got about three minutes into the meeting before I told Program Dude - or rather "spat accusingly," I fear, that I take extreme offense to The Program's exclusionary focus on SFGs, and to its framing of everything I do in SFG-related terms, implying that I signed on to reach SFGs by any means necessary, whether or not I needed a clasroom of students in order to do this, and if not, so much the better. I did not sign on for this, I told him, but rather to teach, and I explained my belief that SFGs are necessary chiefly for enticing investors, so that investors are forthcoming with the moneys, so we can hunt down more would-be teachers and mold them into SFG-chasers, and on and on ad infinitum. The whole point of the Program, I reminded Program Dude, is to educate all our kids, and that at some point we are going to have to stop rah-rahing how huge we're getting and start rah-rahing how our numbers are shrinking if we're going to call ourselves successful, and while I understand that this is a very long ways off, it seems those up at Corporate have forgotten that it is, in fact, the vision. You know: kids, and educating them. The disenfranchised. Or whatever.
At this point Program Dude starts taking notes and asking me for concrete suggestions as to how to change the LA region's extremely alienating Numbers Focus. I was not expecting this. But, I had already gotten going, so I just kept going. For a little over 2 hours, in fact. I have always really liked and respected Program Dude, so much so that I do not think of him as part of The Program, but now I am trying to work out the fact that his very non-Programminess, ie That Which Makes Him Great, is what will likely keep me in The Program for another year. Plus, he has said that he will take me to really bad classrooms next year, and even that he will try to track down a Program Nalgene for me. I cannot overemphasize how much having this Nalgene will boost my morale.
So I'm back in the saddle again, as it goes, and yes, my classroom is slightly out-of-control and deafening in the afternoons, but ALL FOUR of my previously failing "bad" boys are passing now, three of them averaging B's on their tests; I think that among other things, chiefly the realization that school's over in six weeks and they don't want to be stuck in ESL 3 again, they have figured out that I do not think of them as "bad," and that when I say that I missed them in class yesterday, I really mean it. For my part, I think they're hilarious and the light at the end of my exhausting days. We are working on the whole cursing/chasing each other around/yelling at the top of their lungs issues, but in all likelihood this behavior will continue, they will pass, and my co-workers teaching ESL 4 will hate hate hate me.
All semester I had been considering the possibility that I might be that ESL 4 teacher, but the master schedule is up, albeit in sticky-note form, and unless some otherworldly power disrupts the amazing stability of the stickynote system, I am teaching ESL 3 in the morning, freshman English mid-day, and then ESL 3 again in the afternoon. At first I was nearly delirious with glee at the thought of having only two preps, but then I forgot about wanting to hate my life less and realized it freed me up for other things. A for instance: the official vote isn't until tomorrow, but it now looks like I will be chairing the ESL department on B track, with a co-chair in the new Multilingual Preparatory Academy on track A, the abbreviation for which is pronounced "moopa," as in "moopa loopa doopahdee doo." Technically the responsibility will be split 3 ways, with Rachel and I dividing up work on B despite the fact that only one of us gets our name down on the paper. The idea is that year 3 we'll switch and she'll get all the glory, fast cars, and hot hot women, but you never know; once you start livin' that large it's hard to come back down.
My school has gone completely wacky since Ye Olde Riot, or maybe it's just that I'm noticing. Admin is MIA unless it's making bizarre announcements over my (grrr) newly-working PA, and the kids are restless and looking for a fight. Add to this several new species of bureaucratic hassle/"that's public schools for you" hitch, ie WASC accreditation, several rounds of state testing, and the near-certainty that I am working in a sick building, and you've probably got a pretty decent explanation for the surprising degree of apathy which I bring to my job each morning. This is not what I had in mind last semester when I wondered if the Morning Dread would ever go away. As I say, by the end of the day I'm energized by the unending game of "guess what The Four will get into next and prevent them from doing so," but the mornings are rough, and despite this potential new position of responsibility, I kind of still suck at my job.
Last night I had my penultimate meeting of the year with my Program Dude, in which we were supposed to take an hour to discuss what's holding my students back from SFGs (Significant Fucking Gains.) We got about three minutes into the meeting before I told Program Dude - or rather "spat accusingly," I fear, that I take extreme offense to The Program's exclusionary focus on SFGs, and to its framing of everything I do in SFG-related terms, implying that I signed on to reach SFGs by any means necessary, whether or not I needed a clasroom of students in order to do this, and if not, so much the better. I did not sign on for this, I told him, but rather to teach, and I explained my belief that SFGs are necessary chiefly for enticing investors, so that investors are forthcoming with the moneys, so we can hunt down more would-be teachers and mold them into SFG-chasers, and on and on ad infinitum. The whole point of the Program, I reminded Program Dude, is to educate all our kids, and that at some point we are going to have to stop rah-rahing how huge we're getting and start rah-rahing how our numbers are shrinking if we're going to call ourselves successful, and while I understand that this is a very long ways off, it seems those up at Corporate have forgotten that it is, in fact, the vision. You know: kids, and educating them. The disenfranchised. Or whatever.
At this point Program Dude starts taking notes and asking me for concrete suggestions as to how to change the LA region's extremely alienating Numbers Focus. I was not expecting this. But, I had already gotten going, so I just kept going. For a little over 2 hours, in fact. I have always really liked and respected Program Dude, so much so that I do not think of him as part of The Program, but now I am trying to work out the fact that his very non-Programminess, ie That Which Makes Him Great, is what will likely keep me in The Program for another year. Plus, he has said that he will take me to really bad classrooms next year, and even that he will try to track down a Program Nalgene for me. I cannot overemphasize how much having this Nalgene will boost my morale.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
