I just had a kick-ass Day After my First Day Back. Day One wasn't bad, just kind of exhausting and underwhelming. Today was smooth sailing, and I'm excited to really get started over the next week or two.
The real reason I am so happy today, though, is that I got hooked up.
We are a Title 1 school, meaning that the government gives us money to "improve the academic achievement of the disadvantaged." We just lost one of our teachers - my mentor-man, in fact - to a new post as the Title 1 coordinator. My department is affiliated with the Bilingual program, which gets a bunch of money from lord knows who. I am a first-year teacher, thus entitled to first-year goodies, ranging from tissues to technology, funded by The District. There is a boatload of money in my school, and I have all of these "ins" to help me gain access to it. That being said - it is IM.FUCKING.POSSIBLE. to get a laptop.
The story is that all first-years are supposed to get a laptop when they are hired, for planning/grading/online poker-playing purposes. (That last part was a joke. Only the APs' secretaries are allowed to do that, and they must use clunky desktop machines for it.) Laptops were ordered way back in mid-summer, and at some point, for reasons that no one can really articulate, the money was frozen mid-order and now requires an administrator's all-clear to free it up again. We are supposed to just wait on that, as it should be happening any time now.
In case you have not been keeping track, it is almost November.
Anyway, you can't get a laptop. Don't even ask. Don't make me laugh. Yeah, sure, we can put you on a list. Yeah. You'll get one just as soooon as we get them in.
Unless, of course, your department head, an alum of both TFA and the B-Eng department, is the daughter of the tech guy.
Then when you walk up to his uber-wired little hidey-hole and he says, before you can even take a breath, "No laptops. None. So whoever told you there were, is lying," you can counter with "Oh...because Tiffany told me-"
At which point he produces not only a new lappy but an LCD projector as well, plus two nifty tech bags for the toting. No one has gotten an LCD projector yet. Couple this little duo with the printer I am keeping for an off-track Riley, and I am big pimpin' to the fullest.
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We requested an LCD projector last year.
Rejected.
And a laptop? Ha. I have to use my own computer at work because the teacher computer in my room doesn't work.
Technology in schools is such a terrible place to be. You can do wonderful things with it, but it usually gets perverted with politics (shocking!) I hated not being able to help teachers because I tasked to roll out some meaning-less "credit recovery" software that was basically used to baby sit high schoolers so they could just hire a lab tech and not a real teacher.
hey, the only reason i have a lappie (remember i'm the district SpEd secretary) is because the tech guy got tired of hauling my big ass, rebuilt by the incarcerated, computer down to the county (two-day inservice) twice a year.
schools. gotta love em.
Alan - When I interviewed at another high school, in Hollywood, they asked me how comfortable I was with technology. Quite, I said. Good, they told me. Because they have a program that teaches kids how to write, and it would be my job to, you know, run the program.
When robots are finally a reality, the teacher profession will be razed within a year.
Amelie - Yeah, every classroom has a computer for the students. I have only been in a room with a working computer once, while subbing for the basketball coach. Mine just sits there mockingly. A smaller complaint is that I don't have internet in my building. The worst is that there are no printers, which is why I borrowed Riley's. Otherwise, what do all the computers in the world matter?
I hate to brag, but the LCD thing is just so exciting. My advanced ESL class is doing a unit on space exploration this week, and while they're fabulous at absorbing vocabulary, what the hell does "Manned Manuevering Unit" mean when you lack any context? I am going to the video store later this evening and renting some space movie, Apollo 13 maybe, so we can watch a few clips and get some good visuals of things like "weightlessness" and "tethers" and "routine monitoring and maintenance."
I swear to God that is one of their vocabulary terms.
Incidentally, my Spanish speakers pronounce "Apollo" like it means "one unit of chicken." I try not to think this is hilarious.
I know, to say that there is a *huge* disconnect between teacher and the administration would be an understatement. I find it shocking that most of them talk about how they used to be teachers while they roll out computer software and lab techs, and fire any non-tenured teacher that doesn't "obey". I swear if you took the average district bureaucrat and made him Jesus Christ, his first miracle would to make a blind man go deaf. Of course these are the people that get to dictate how tech is used in the classroom =)
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