Wow! I don’t think I cried while driving today. Wonder if we can make it two in a row. And today was ANNOYING because of the grocery strike. I decided tonight after finding my way to a Gelson’s in Los Feliz/Silverlake that next time I need groceries I am crossing the picket lines and that is that. I think the workers are being treated unfairly but at the same time, I am not the one doing it to them. And I don’t like the way they are treating people either. But I won’t deal with that til I get home from Texas because I bought enough to last.

I HATED work today. Not only did I find it repetitive in all the workshops we always have to attend but I don’t like MANY of the people I work with. There are so many who bitter and mean spirited. Being around them makes you feel like you have a giant weight on you. YUCK! One year, I tell myself—just one year. I can do it. There is a teacher at work I like—the Christian guy. I asked him today if he finds himself comparing Colorado schools to California ones. He said he used to, but he tries not to “or I become embittered.” Read: I think CA schools are not great either. I actually saw a test in the copy bin when I turned in a copy order. I had to lay my copy request on top of it. It said “Standard 10.2 Test.” All that says to kids is that we are teaching them a state generated formula. It says, you are not people; you are the subjects of my Standards teaching to get paid and evaluated.

Another teacher asked me if when I was evaluated I was going to “use EDI.” I told her EDI was just initials to me. They stand for Explicit Direct Instruction—an educational buzzword—buzzterm. I said I do that anyway, but no I was not designing a lesson around it. Another asked to see what I was writing on the forms I have to turn in tomorrow—like our self evaluation form in Texas, I showed her but cautioned her.” You might not want to use mine as a model because I am just using catch phrases. You might really want look at someone else’s because I don’t care.”

The whole negative experience reminds me of graduate school when some students in Bibliography acted like they would DIE if they did not rent a cot in the library—while people like me popped in, picked up a couple books and went home and enjoyed my life. Some of them were horrified. They got physically sick over that class (and in this case it was not the teacher—he was great). I thought THEY were the crazy ones. They almost killed themselves. In the end, the ones who were zombies and I all got As anyway. The only difference was I was happier at the end and enjoyed the four months. Now I am surrounded by new teachers who are stressed about doing everything perfectly and old teachers who gripe and rant and rave—and then a few like my dept head and the Christian guy with whom I occasionally get to ENJOY a conversation. I want to stand up in these meetings and says SHUT UP AND TEACH.

If you are teaching well you don’t need to freak. If you can’t teach, no listing of state standards will ever help you be competent. I cannot teach in California. I will finish this year but I will not teach in the CA public schools past this year. If for some reason I were to stay in CA I would either leave education temporarily or work in a private school if either could pay me enough—which is unlikely. But the fact is, in some districts they give kids checklists and ask them to check off the standards the teacher teaches them! So the state standards have overtaken a teacher’s authority in such a way that you can’t really do your job. So what is the POINT?

Today the buzzword was METACOGNITION. They were talking us how to teach our kids to “think about their thinking.” I wanted to tell them that my 24 developmental kids could almost all define METACOGNITION, use it in a sentence AND identify when they did it—and they have been for weeks. And yet the curriculum director was worried I was not filling in my sheet right to practice learning so I could teach it.

I do not mean to imply I am some master teacher; in fact, I know I am not. I am not always happy with my own teaching—most of the time I know I could improve greatly. But the thing is, I am NOT GROWING as a teacher when I am dumbed down to memorizing standards and having the same four things drilled in me all year. And then my curriculum coach wants to come in and videotape me teaching a lesson because that is what they do. I told him no. It is not in my contract; therefore, I am not doing it. End of story. Come watch me, see me teach, offer me feedback, but I am not sitting down with you and a videotape of me. I want to learn and be better but that comes from going against the grain (Dr. Hayes always said to me “I never follow the rules.” There is a line between being rebellious and being a good teacher in that sense. Maybe I was spoiled with the best, but this is ridiculous.) My kids learn and mostly are not bored doing it. ISN’T THAT WHAT MATTERS??????

ARGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This ends my dissertation of the decline and dumbing down of modern education.