Another drop in the bucket...

Ah... finals!  Do you know what I do all day when the kids are taking their finals?  Nothing... at least I'm not SUPPOSE to do anything.  In reality, I try to get my grades in order, since they're due on Monday.  I try to plan some lessons for the new trimester.  And I read emails.  Since teachers aren't allowed to leave their rooms while testing is occurring, we can't socialize with each other.  So we email.  The thought of it makes me chuckle a little bit.  I was actually emailing my friend, who was just across the hall.  Of course or emails were brainless, but that's the best part.  We got to be brainless at work for a little while. :)


While we were testing, however, my principal sent out an email detailing how we were going to have to have our unit plans turned in on Friday and from now on they're always due a week before we teach them. Not a bad thing, until you realize that before the end of the day on Friday we have to have our grades done.  My district tests I give have to be graded in front of administration... I'm forbidden from having them unsupervised... which means I can't take them home to grade.  And let me tell you... reading student's paragraphs and determining their grades takes longer than it sounds.  I'm guessing our principal has no concept of how full our bucket really is.  He's not realizing that one drop will cause us to overflow... and that drop is coming soon.


I was talking to my friend about it today at work, and my principal's micromanaging has reminded me of something.  Let me tell you a brief story.  When I was doing my first student-teaching, I had this amazing cooperating teacher, Bob.  He was phenomenal.  Anyway, I taught a lesson that was really good on paper, but the execution was faulty.  I did some on the spot changing, but nonetheless, it was a flop.  I talked to my teacher about it later, and was crushed because I'd never had a lesson fail before.  He told me something I'd never forget.  Bob told me that every teacher has lessons that fail, and not just when they're new teachers.  The key to great teachers is that they recognize that they failed that day, and they know WHAT failed about the lesson.  They don't always know why the students don't understand a part, but they know what part the students don't get.  So let me tie this back to the present.  My great concern right now is that my principal is doing all of this micromanaging and changing things all over the place and isn't realizing that it is failing.  Every time someone talks to him about it, he doesn't think those feelings apply to the whole school, or he just thinks that people feel like this because his ideas are new.  I'm concerned that he won't realize things are failing, will continue on this path, and will make life at school miserable.  He'll force teachers to just spend their days trying to figure out how to jump through specific hoops and not coming up with creative ideas on how to teach our kiddos.


For now, point me in the direction of my hoop and hope I don't get burned as I jump through...


Some closing thoughts for today:
"I am a firm believer in the people.  If given the truth, they can be depended on to meet any national crisis.  The great point is to bring them the real facts."
-President Abraham Lincoln
"In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on." 
-Robert Frost
"The strength of the United States is not the gold at Fort Knox or the weapons of mass destruction that we have, but the sum total of the education and the character of our people."
-Claiborne Pell