After being interviewed by the school administration, the eager teaching prospect said, "Let me see if I've got this right."
- You want me to go into that room with all those kids, and fill their every waking moment with a love for learning.
- And I'm supposed to instill a sense of pride in their ethnicity, modify their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse and even censor their t-shirt messages and dress habits.
- You want me to wage a war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, check their backpacks for weapons of mass destruction, and raise their self esteem.
- You want me to teach them patriotism, good citizenship, sportsmanship, fair play, how to register to vote, how to balance a checkbook, and how to apply for a job.
- I am to check their heads for lice, maintain a safe environment, recognize signs of anti-social behavior, offer advice, write letters of recommendation for student employment and scholarships, encourage respect for the cultural diversity of others, and oh, make sure that I give the girls in my class fifty percent of my attention.
- My contract requires me to work on my own time after school, evenings and weekends grading papers.
- Also, I must spend my summer vacation, at my own expense, working toward advance certification and a Masters degree.
- And on my own time you want me to attend committee and faculty meetings, PTA meetings, and participate in staff development training.
- I am to be a paragon of virtue, larger than life, such that my very presence will awe my students into being obedient and respectful of authority.
- You want me to incorporate technology into the learning experience, monitor web sites, and relate personally with each student. That includes deciding who might be potentially dangerous and/or liable to commit a crime in school.
- I am to make sure all students pass the mandatory state exams, even those who don't come to school regularly or complete any of their assignments.
- Plus, I am to make sure that all of the students with handicaps get an equal education regardless of the extent of their mental or physical handicap.
- And I am to communicate regularly with the parents by letter, telephone, newsletter and report card.
- All of this I am to do with just a piece of chalk, a computer, a few books, a bulletin board, a big smile AND on a starting salary that qualifies my family for food stamps!
You want me to do all of this and yet you expect me... NOT TO PRAY!!
But I did have a great "warm fuzzy" feeling the other day. A student of mine from last semester came bursting into my classroom last week. "Guess what?" she said. "I totally want to thank you for what you taught me last semester! I totally got to use it last night! My dad had this huge spreadsheet and and he started running into problems with it and I came over and was able to fix it and make it easier for him with what you taught me in computer tech!" I just sat there and smiled. I had never had a student come in and tell me something along those lines. It really helps make this job feel worth while.
Film is just plugging along. They have the film festival coming up in April and I'm tempted to make them a deal that if they place in every category except for 2, then I will change everyone's grades to an A. I don't know if I'm going to do it or not, but we'll see what happens. I need to see how they are working next week when I change things up a bit. Normally I would say that every 5 days they need to turn something in, but some of them really aren't working all 5 days and they just try to slam everything into 1 day. So I'm going to start making certain things due every day and if they aren't be productive I've got a project for them to do. I've got this "game" of sorts called Camcorder in a Box. It has a bunch of ideas for films or skits or short story starters. I'm going to make copies of the original cards and then when they are just sitting there doing nothing or goofing off, I'll hand them a card and tell them that I want the footage done today and the editing tomorrow. Making this kind of a 48 hour shootout. I don't know if the idea will work, but I'm willing to try it out to get certain students from just staring at the computer screen the entire time.
The digital media class seems to like the 3D that we're doing this week. I'm going to finish it up next week and quickly touch on a programming freeware program called Alice. I don't know if they'll enjoy it as much considering it is aimed more towards junior high and elementary students, but I find it interesting and it gets them programming without really realizing that they are programming. It is a mixture of 3D elements and programming. I'm still up in the air about everything, but it is either that or I go back to 2D animation and touch quickly on a program called Pencil.
I'm really into getting the students to learn freeware programs so they can go home and do some of the work there as well, but I'm just not sure what I want to do in the next couple of months. We've got the multimedia arts festival in May and state testing in April. I'm going to let them work on what they'd like to submit during the Month of March and then have a little "festival" of sorts for the class to see what actually gets submitted. The school has won awards every year and I don't want this to stop just because I took over. I placed in this festival when I was in high school and the school's name has been in the festival every year since, so I don't what to stop a good thing. Plus, if my students do well, that reflects good on me. Selfish, yes I know, but as a teacher if I want to possibly come back next year and keep my job then I've got to get my students to perform well in festivals and on state tests.
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