Quick reminder to all who are listening we are going to designate Tuesdays as Black Tuesdays for the duration. Also, we do need to stick together, to beat a historical quote to death, as Ben Franklin said if we don't hang together we shall surely all hang separately. Please don't throw your colleagues under the bus.
Ken
Monday, October 26, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Walk throughs from a student's point of view
A student at the high school published this on their blog recently; it's re-published here with permission.
Right now, school really blows. I've never been one to really hate school. I always have been that nerdy guy that enjoys going to school and learning. You can never have enough knowledge. And the more you know, the more you can do in the world. That's the mindset I went into school with this year. I turned down setting myself up for early graduation to take advantage of things like AP classes, Front Range classes, and scholarship opportunities. I was looking forward to really getting ready to head off to college this year. Boy was I wrong. With all the administrative bull**** this year, the school has really become a prison. I don't think the administration realizes that the institution of education isn't actually supposed to represent an institution. That's the joke part, guys, seriously. I knew that going in that this year was going to be different. We had a different school structure by switching to the acadamies, a new dress code, and a new super-intendent. I did not, however, expect to see everyone getting so royally shafted at every available opportunity. The walk-throughs are particularly ridiculous this year. Before, walk-throughs by the high-up admin like the superintendent were conducted maybe once or twice a quarter at most. The supervisor would sit in the back of the class for the whole period, watching how the students and teachers interacted and how well they felt the teachers were doing their jobs. This year, somebody must have been smokin' something because now they come through twice a week. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Wrong. Instead of sitting through the entire class and really paying attention to get a real, in-depth experience of that teacher's style and interaction with his/her students, the supervisors (now in groups of twos and threes, the little hyenas) sit in the class for maybe a couple of minutes at most. Even if you can evaluate somebody that fast, I have a hard time believing you're paying attention when the only muscle that seems to be working is your mouth. And it gets better. After sitting and speed-dating with each other, the two waltz about the room. They don't walk, they may prance, slink, sulk, sometimes even buzz but they never walk, especially not silently. They scour the walls and boards for anything that should be there that isn't or vice versa. This usually involves the "objectives" and what not, but we'll get to that in a minute. My favorite part is when they disrupt students to "have them explain what they're learning". Yeah, because we all know you're too damn busy to shut the hell up for five minutes to find out for yourself. That and telling students what is and isn't appropriate to have out in what class. After they've thoroughly pissed the students off, they feel comfortable moving onto pissing the teacher off. This is done marvelously by bringing the class to a screeching halt so that our duo of duh can take the teacher out into the hallway to tell them what they think is wrong. Unprofessional, disrespectful, and downright stupidly contradictory to your job of getting these kids ready for their futures.
Objectives. These are the most retarded thing I've ever heard of. Not because of what they are or for what they are for. Obviously, they are meant to give the "students" (I personally think it's actually for the donkeys upstairs) an idea of what they are learning and what they are supposed to get out of the class unit. What makes these so retarded is the fact that they are to be written in "kid-friendly language." Um.........you do realize your in a high school right? I'm supposed to be learning words like pugnacious, epistemology, irreparable; not mean, think, and broken. I would rather like to get to college and speak like a normal 18-year old, not like an....oh, well an admin :). They've had quite the streak of stupidity this year too. One of our teachers was told she needed to "tone down the enthusiasm, she was being overly enthusiastic about her work". I forgot signed up to be taught by Ben Stein for all my classes (clear eyes, anyone?). This same teacher has had the immense privilege of repeatedly telling the admin that they are correcting her on how to teach the wrong class. As in "I'm teaching Civics this hour and you're correcting me on how to teach World History." Brilliant, just brilliant. When I heard about all this, I really wanted to call the zoo and let them know where those escaped monkeys got to.....
Other than stupid administration policies and decisions this year, there are other things that annoy me at school. At lunch, for instance, we are all crammed into the cafeteria. We have a gigantic courtyard not ten feet from the cafeteria door, but no, we're all confined to shoulder to shoulder sitting space. Now, I'm not against buddy-buddy relations and being close to other breathing bodies, but I don't appreciate having to act like a sardine for 30 minutes of my day. And you know how everyone looks forward to taking those free periods their senior year? Well, over at ACHS, unless you're apparently a dunce, you don't get that option. If you aren't in the bottom 40 of your class, you can't take free periods. How dumb is that? I couldn't believe that. It's not everyday that you're told that Captain Slacker and the Lay-Z-Boys get more privileges than the students who show up to learn.
Right now, school really blows. I've never been one to really hate school. I always have been that nerdy guy that enjoys going to school and learning. You can never have enough knowledge. And the more you know, the more you can do in the world. That's the mindset I went into school with this year. I turned down setting myself up for early graduation to take advantage of things like AP classes, Front Range classes, and scholarship opportunities. I was looking forward to really getting ready to head off to college this year. Boy was I wrong. With all the administrative bull**** this year, the school has really become a prison. I don't think the administration realizes that the institution of education isn't actually supposed to represent an institution. That's the joke part, guys, seriously. I knew that going in that this year was going to be different. We had a different school structure by switching to the acadamies, a new dress code, and a new super-intendent. I did not, however, expect to see everyone getting so royally shafted at every available opportunity. The walk-throughs are particularly ridiculous this year. Before, walk-throughs by the high-up admin like the superintendent were conducted maybe once or twice a quarter at most. The supervisor would sit in the back of the class for the whole period, watching how the students and teachers interacted and how well they felt the teachers were doing their jobs. This year, somebody must have been smokin' something because now they come through twice a week. Doesn't sound that bad, does it? Wrong. Instead of sitting through the entire class and really paying attention to get a real, in-depth experience of that teacher's style and interaction with his/her students, the supervisors (now in groups of twos and threes, the little hyenas) sit in the class for maybe a couple of minutes at most. Even if you can evaluate somebody that fast, I have a hard time believing you're paying attention when the only muscle that seems to be working is your mouth. And it gets better. After sitting and speed-dating with each other, the two waltz about the room. They don't walk, they may prance, slink, sulk, sometimes even buzz but they never walk, especially not silently. They scour the walls and boards for anything that should be there that isn't or vice versa. This usually involves the "objectives" and what not, but we'll get to that in a minute. My favorite part is when they disrupt students to "have them explain what they're learning". Yeah, because we all know you're too damn busy to shut the hell up for five minutes to find out for yourself. That and telling students what is and isn't appropriate to have out in what class. After they've thoroughly pissed the students off, they feel comfortable moving onto pissing the teacher off. This is done marvelously by bringing the class to a screeching halt so that our duo of duh can take the teacher out into the hallway to tell them what they think is wrong. Unprofessional, disrespectful, and downright stupidly contradictory to your job of getting these kids ready for their futures.
Objectives. These are the most retarded thing I've ever heard of. Not because of what they are or for what they are for. Obviously, they are meant to give the "students" (I personally think it's actually for the donkeys upstairs) an idea of what they are learning and what they are supposed to get out of the class unit. What makes these so retarded is the fact that they are to be written in "kid-friendly language." Um.........you do realize your in a high school right? I'm supposed to be learning words like pugnacious, epistemology, irreparable; not mean, think, and broken. I would rather like to get to college and speak like a normal 18-year old, not like an....oh, well an admin :). They've had quite the streak of stupidity this year too. One of our teachers was told she needed to "tone down the enthusiasm, she was being overly enthusiastic about her work". I forgot signed up to be taught by Ben Stein for all my classes (clear eyes, anyone?). This same teacher has had the immense privilege of repeatedly telling the admin that they are correcting her on how to teach the wrong class. As in "I'm teaching Civics this hour and you're correcting me on how to teach World History." Brilliant, just brilliant. When I heard about all this, I really wanted to call the zoo and let them know where those escaped monkeys got to.....
Other than stupid administration policies and decisions this year, there are other things that annoy me at school. At lunch, for instance, we are all crammed into the cafeteria. We have a gigantic courtyard not ten feet from the cafeteria door, but no, we're all confined to shoulder to shoulder sitting space. Now, I'm not against buddy-buddy relations and being close to other breathing bodies, but I don't appreciate having to act like a sardine for 30 minutes of my day. And you know how everyone looks forward to taking those free periods their senior year? Well, over at ACHS, unless you're apparently a dunce, you don't get that option. If you aren't in the bottom 40 of your class, you can't take free periods. How dumb is that? I couldn't believe that. It's not everyday that you're told that Captain Slacker and the Lay-Z-Boys get more privileges than the students who show up to learn.
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