I'm Just Amazed!

This week I started back to work getting ready for the school year. I've sat through seemingly endless meetings learning whatever the district deems important this year, and hearing about the goings on at other schools. I'm just amazed at how some people actually got to be principals or higher ups. For example:

1) The staff development I sat through yesterday was aimed at integrating writing into the other subject areas. The concern is that too many of our students are scoring a 2 on the writing rubric (out of 4) and that's just not acceptable. An okay writer would score a 2. Anyway. The goal is to get other grade level teachers to teach writing and not just 4th, 7th, and 10th (those grades are officially tested by TEA). Things flowed smoothly and I was able to connect something they were saying to a lot of what goes on in Science, and a little bit in Math. We hit a rough patch in the afternoon when it came time to discuss how to incorporate writing into the unit on Space, Atmosphere and Plate Tectonics. Most of the teachers talked about having their kids write travel brochures for each of the planets and do an expository writing on which planet they'd like to explore or visit if they could. Don't get me wrong, these are great ideas. However that's not what we're supposed to be teaching. It says: 6.5A - identify and describe a system that results from the combination of two or more systems such as in the solar system. There are other ideas that we're supposed to teach like identifying objects of the solar system and how they relate to each other. And then there's even one that add on to 6.5A by saying students should be able to recognize why a system works better as a whole and not just the parts. Well, one teacher mentioned this to the group saying their ideas were great, but we didn't have a whole lot of time to teach the unit, and that's not even what we're supposed to teach them. That's when the Language Arts "guru" popped up and chastised that lady for saying something. Her basic message was: I don't care if it's not what you're supposed to teach, what's important is they WRITE.

My thought was - UMM, weren't you a teacher at one point? Geez, kinda scary thinking what your kids learned, just as long as they were good writers.

I suggested to the group that they have their students write a prediction about what would happen if we took the sun out of our solar system. They'd be writing AND learning what they're supposed to.

2) I used to work at a school in a hard part of town. All of our students were apartment kids, 95% was economically disadvantaged, and parent involvement was low (so low our PTA was really a TA). The kids were rough and mean and disrespectful. To give you an idea of how rough it was, we had a building wide discipline plan and the first year the school was open we had more kids in ISS than any school in our area.

We didn't just send kids down if they looked as us cross-eyed mind you. We went through our plan, usually had several kids on behavior plans, and tried to fix the behaviors in house (in the classroom). By the time the students got to the office, or principal and assistant principal knew we'd done pretty much everything to get the kid under control. About a year ago, they replaced the principal at the school - the district usually moves people ever 3-5 years. I transferred out to a school closer to home, and boy am I glad I did. The principal they have now has been moved a lot (not a good sign), and she started implementing a new discipline plan last year. I found out the other day that this year there can be no office referrals - zip.

If a kid curses you out you say, "Probably so" or "I understand." and then put them in the back of the room because you've lost control of them anyway. If they throw something at you, you say the same thing.

What? Excuse me? Sorry, if a kid cursed at me enough times and I couldn't write an office referral I'd call the police. Also, if they throw something at me or hit me -- the local police department will be getting a phone call.

3) Last one - At my school we went over the grading policy. Here's the one I don't get - If a kid doesn't turn in their homework I give them a demerit for not having it. This continues for 3 days then I stop giving them demerits. When the work gets turned in I grade it like that was the due date. What the? One of the 5th grade teachers mentioned it and my principal thought it was a great idea. So, if it's the Friday before the six weeks ends and Bobo the Clown turns in an assignment that was due 4 weeks ago, I have to grade it like I assigned it the day before. WHATEVER!