Wednesday, September 23, 2009

I am back!!

1. These past few weeks have been CRAZY. The administrators are incredibly dysfunctional and exist only to evaluate and nitpick over stupid shit.

2. Why doesn't my school have a framework manual for teacher regarding discipline issues. The assistant principal for behavior have yet to articulate how teachers are supposed to use all the adjunct personnel - psychologist, behavioral management specialists etc. Each teacher does something different simply because they don't understand how to use the existing resources. While the administrators dither, the students figured out there are no grown-ups in charge and have effectively gamed the system.

3. Why are kids with extreme emotional and behavioral problems allowed in the regular classroom. I have several kids with EXTREME problems who need intensive psychotherapy and everything else in Freud's arsenal, yet I am still expected to teach when they DISRUPT the class at every turn. They get upset when they are in the class and when they are sent out.
4. I have been told Fuck-you so many times in the last few week by kids that I consider it a barge of honor.

5. The IMPACT evaluation was such a fucking joke. How about the principal couldn't explain to the teachers why the district gave several of the model teacher low ratings? Every teacher in the audience gave several of the model teacher high ratings, but the principal who will be evaluating us could not explain the district rationale.
6. IMPACT = RIFFED

5 comments:

  1. My God!!! It sounds like how I would imagine schooling in Zimbabwe.

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  2. I am the husband of a talented and passionate young teaching fellow who was riffed today after more than two years of dedicated service to her students.

    Her urgent dedication to helping raise the achievement of high need and disadvantaged students has been a theme of her career. In rural Nepal, aged just 18, she creatively led a class of primary students through an uninspiring national curriculum (often protecting them from the headmaster's cane). In east London, she worked patiently to improve the employment prospects and English language skills of impoverished Bangladeshi immigrants. In Sudan, she developed a practical curriculum to improve the spoken language skills and cultural awareness of thousands of primary school children and hundreds of university students. On arriving in the district, she worked to train teachers for placements overseas before being accepted into the DC Fellows program, where, for the last couple of years she has worked tirelessly to raise the achievement levels of DC's young men and women.

    I am so angry about the turn of events that led to her dismissal and so totally exhausted by the lack of support and appreciation by the successive administrations of her school that my faith in the DC school system and its leadership is all but gone. I question both the competence and strategy of its leadership at both a district and school level, but most of all I cannot understand the turn of events that led to her being evaluated as teacher that should be dismissed under any circumstances.

    I am the fortunate position to have witnessed her inspirational teaching and her tireless dedication to her students. I include myself amongst the many teachers she has trained, and was impressed and inspired when I taught alongside her in Sudan. She was observed for no more the five minutes by her current administration.

    The DC public school system is truly in a sorry, sorry state. Today, in my humble opinion, DC students lost one of their most caring and committed advocates. They cannot afford to loose many more.

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  3. Hello there!
    Just wanted to stop by, offer support for your blog and encourage you to keep on updating. I'm interviewing for DCTF this March and it's encouraging to read about your experiences, both positive and negative.

    To the comment above, all I can say is my goodness, what an awful turn of events. I hope that your wife finds somewhere to teach where she can receive the support she needs in order to continue affecting lives fro the better.

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  4. Hi everyone....I am a New York Teaching Fellow from a 2004 cohort. Let me start by saying I feel your pain. I was apart of the same screwed up dysfunctional school system in New York and it sucked. however I just want to tell you there is life after the Fellows program. Once you finish the program get your post graduate degree and some teaching experience under your belt you will have more opportunities available to you. If you trully love teaching but hate dealing with all the BS associated with teaching in an urban school district my advice is JUST STICK IT OUT!!! Not every place is bad. I did 3 years in hard to staff schools in Brooklyn, got my degree through the Fellows program and now I am at a school in VA where I love teaching. Adminstration is supportive and I dont go home crying every night. I use to hear these urban legends about teachers sending behavior problems to the principal's office and they were suspended but in New York we never really seen that happen since we were expected to deal with ALL PROBLEMS NO MATTER HOW SEVERE. But I am here to tell you there are actually schools where it happens...you send a child to the principals office and the principal actually deals with them. So hang in there...I know it is frustrating but it will all pay off in the long run.

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  5. So what happened? How did the year turn out? Are you teaching again in the fall?

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