Sunday, November 13, 2011

Feeling a little grown-up

What does it mean to be a grown-up?  I've often asked this question as I look around the townhouse I bought almost three years ago, and I come to the same mind-jarring conclusion; I'm responsible for this shit.  Being a homeowner means getting calls that workmen accidentally broke your basement window and you may just have to fix that leaky toilet yourself (not hypothetical situations, btw).

Bottom-line, I absolutely love my home and I do like taking care of it.  People comment that it is full of my personality and warmth.  I agree.  There isn't much room for someone else's stuff... which is a whole other post I could get into later.  I like making coffee in the morning, opening the blinds and reading the paper.  Last week, however, I was bemoaning my sad sofa a bit.  I've had three sofas in the last fifteen years; a foam loveseat that weighed about ten pounds (college days); a curved, powder-blue loveseat that I got at a flea market for $25 (first on-my-own apartment), and a pull-out hand-me-down from relatives (somewhere for company to sleep).  It was that last one, the battered, cat-clawed, slipcovered sleeper that I kinda lamented.  It saw me through some good and bad times, and sometimes that stuff is hard to part with, but it's just part of the larger story.  Move along, little sofa, have a nice life in someone else's house.  The promise of a nicer, slightly used sofa set was too much to pass up.  And I got a lot of furniture for a bargain.


Do I qualify for adulthood now?  Maybe, but I still need to make room for someone else. :-)

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Nevermind, November

I like to create titles for each month: Awful August, Snarky September, Obnoxious October.  These titles correspond to how I feel about public education. Don't get me wrong, I love teaching.  I love my students, (and I don't say that just because they stalk me and found this blog... hiya, 8th block!) they get me up in the morning, they soak up learning, they prank me, they teach me, and they make me laugh.  It's the extra crap I loathe.  
Senior Prankery last May
 I'm so disheartened when people don't support teachers, either financially or emotionally.  I'm disheartened when I bust my butt planning and grading and instructing and then 10 other tasks are added to my already full plate.  Let's just set the record straight, teachers work hard, and so do counselors, custodians, kitchen staff, paraprofessionals, and yes, even administrators.  But in that hard work, we seem disparate and defensive.  We seem to be working towards different goals.  We end up being REactive instead of PROactive.  We do this mostly because we are afraid.  I fear for my job, and I fear for the jobs of others who help me do my job.  I fear bigger class sizes and higher expectations.  Listen, if I have to teach 190 students, how do you expect me to grade papers, give them good feedback and make the learning valid and authentic.  I'm not a highly paid babysitter.  And the problem with policy and bureaucracy and mandates is that I'm treated like a babysitter, but also expected to raise standardized test scores at the same time.  Enough.

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”  --Eleanor Roosevelt

My friend Matt was telling me about Stephen R. Covey last night.  I looked it up today because it stuck in my head last night.  The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People makes sense for education.  One of the habits, "put first things first" is especially poignant in this discussion.  If we spend our time in public education dealing with the policies we have in place instead of new policies we feel will work better, then I think we might be more productive, we might even spend money more efficiently.  True, there isn't a panacea for the problems of public education.  But the remedies are already here, they just aren't being used.