Hedgetoad Teaching

The other day, I received an email saying something along the lines of “our meeting will be at school X. There is a lot of old curriculum and supplies at this school, if you want to look around to find things you can use, please arrive 15 minutes early to take a look around.” Any guesses as to how early most people were? Remember it was a work day… if you said one hour, you are the winner.  By the time I arrived, (not being a principal capable of leaping out of my desk to rocket over to school X), HUGE piles of crap had been assembled. Art supplies, books, microscopes from 1953 (still good!), even a garbage can full of yard sticks. Kleenex boxes! One enterprising person raided for copy paper – something we are currently fighting for. It like a dress sale at Klien*felds. It’s not just the bad economic times, teachers have always had sticky fingers whenever anything is up for grabs. Otherwise it would be coming out of our own pockets. I grabbed a bookshelf, some very, very ol...

I know I’ve mentioned several times previously about how little time I feel like I have these days – every minute there are several projects needing attention. And it’s not just me, everyone I talk to feels like their lives have spun a little out of control. Are we all working harder? Trying to pack more in, in less time? What ever happened to simplifying life? Sometimes, I think those pioneer women didn’t have it so bad… washtubs notwithstanding. The other day, it was brought up in a meeting that my lack of time to devote to RTI meetings was a hindrance to our moving forward. The solution proposed? Offer me more money to spend more time at school… yeah, seriously, that was the genius answer administrators come up with. Give more money to spend more time at school or give more money to those who teach better (determinedly? faster? “intentionally”?). The problem, much like the problem with merit pay, I already stay after school for hours. Without being “paid”, I might add. The money...

Tomorrow is our first mandatory day back. Starting at 7am for breakfast – I’m sure it will be refrigerator bagels and Folgers coffee. Sadly, even if there were someone in the region who knew how to make an actual bagel, it would be rejected in favor of those lounging in a plastic bag on a grocery shelf with a sell-by date. Despite the cornucopia of fresh foods available, this area is where foodies go to loose a few pounds. But I digress. I somehow found myself volunteering to help present information about RTI to the district. I’m sure my thinking was something along the lines of… I won’t have to listen to endless presentations about things I already know about. Now, however, I’m thinking, Crap! I’ve given up hours of planning and prep I could be doing while pretending to pay attention. Why do these welcome back days have to be so boring? Besides the obvious fact that while teachers are continually lambasted for lecturing to students for more than 15 minutes, teachers will be lect...

So far, my school has not found a new principal. At least, this is what I've deduced since no announcement has been made and the job ad is still posted. I assume that this is what those who were interviewed for the job also deduced. And how much would that suck? Knowing that you didn't loose out to a better person, but to the possibility that someone else will come along. Harsh. Of course the gossips of school are all a flutter as to what this means and what is really going on... because a job posting or job interview does not mean that there actually is a job available or that some shenanigans aren't going on behind closed doors. Or it could just be summer and we don't want to talk about the weather any more. Meanwhile, AP scores are out and I'm more than a little disappointed. I knew that some students hadn't taken the test very seriously and didn't even bother to complete the essays, but seeing it in black and white made me feel very sad. I gue ss I ...