A Lesson: I told one of my classes about a Frog and Toad story that spoke to me recently while I read it to my daughter. It was about procrastination and making tomorrow something to look forward to by getting the stuff that’s hanging over your head done today.
I had four students from that class in my room after school looking for make-up work and extra help…score.
Creeped Out: An AP (young second year admin) came to me unsolicited while I was on duty this morning and casually asked me if I was doing OK this semester. You know, getting what I needed to get done, done etc… After the usual attempt at the required sarcasm “yea sure” and “it’ll be a squeeze as usual” he asked if I had a chance to look over my copy of the new version of the state curriculum. I said that I go online and look at all the latest updates… he responded with something about making sure I was getting all the tested material covered and then slyly slipped in a question about a hard copy of the doc my DH should have given me and how often I consult it. I got suspicious and changed the subject.
If the guy has an issue why can’t he just say he’s seen something that has him concerned related to coverage and he would like to talk to me about it? I have nothing to hide, my door is open but…the dude makes me nervous…
A real question from a real kid: Recently during a discussion about migration and the industrialization of the U.S. a student asked me if I thought that the idea of the American Dream was “manufactured” in order to get more people to come to the U.S. from poor foreign countries so that big business could maintain a cheap labor force. After the smelling salts snapped me back into consciousness, I told her to stick to the time period we are studying and we’ll talk about current events on Friday (I’m Kidding about my response). This thoughtful, full of questions and desire to learn student student has an F in my class due turning nothing in ever and will likely blow off the state test. Damnitall. (Yes there are extenuating circumstances but sonofabitch I don't want to lose this one to life)
3 comments:
Your AP is a walking example of the kind of person who sets up an antagonistic - rather than colleaguial - type of atmosphere in a school. Our district is like this, not in our building, but at the upper administrative level. It's wholly unproductive; in fact, it's bead for the business of educating kids.
And it's stupid.
*bad*, not "bead"... Sheesh.
It's that kind of atmosphere that I ran screaming from at my last district. I hope that the dark side doesn't win out here.
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