Saturday, February 27, 2010

Fingers crossed

So, it's out there, I really can't stand working for this corrupted system and I can't stand administrators regurgitating useless information that they get from their millions of "meetings" with their networks and mentors and data specialists many of which do not even have degrees or experience in education. It's all just such a waste of time and it's meaningless for the children.

Right now my school is on a big "inquiry" kick. Now, don't get me wrong, I think teacher inquiry is a great thing and something that I participate in with my own classroom and instruction each year, mostly informally, but also formally on occasion. I want to be on board with inquiry, but I just can't stand to be at meetings with the data specialist and the assistant principal. They are constantly butting heads and spouting off useless stuff about what our binders should look like and what the table of contents could look like that they are not listening to the teachers about the needs of our students and they are not helping us shape our inquiry and look deeply at our practice (which is the whole point, right?). Anyway, I'm one of those people who does not have a poker face, so when I hear something ridiculous, I just can't hide it (my colleagues tend to nod and agree with everything, so I'm pretty much the only one). The data specialist was running her mouth about how we need a separate binder for each teacher and another binder for the grade level and blah blah blah and I looked across the table at a consultant we work with from a university nearby and her face was just like mine and I thought to myself "I don't know what I'd do if she weren't here." You see our consultant actually comes with expertise in the area of literacy and listens to the teachers and cares about the children. She comes from a university with a strong research background and knows about the current research and findings in the field. If I were her I'd probably run away as fast as I could.

THIS is why I have to get my doctorate. I don't know what I would do if my school did not have a relationship with a university. I'd be lost in the land of standardization and education as business. Sometimes I actually feel like I'm in that movie "Idiocracy." Deep breath. At this point I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping to be accepted to the only program to which I applied (in retrospect putting all my eggs in one basked may not have been the best of ideas). I know that with an acceptance letter, I will be able to anchor myself to this university and to find company in the community of educators who do actual research. I can't wait to get my own research in place for my students. It is the ONLY way I feel I can stay at my school. If I am denied acceptance I'm not sure what I'll do. I guess I'll apply somewhere else.

Wish me luck!

1 comment:

Ms. M said...

It's not just your school, I think it's pretty much the whole city (or any school that has a Quality Review). Luckily my principal doesn't take it too seriously and our data specialist it our computer teacher who doesn't make absurd recommendations about binders and tables of contents. Still some teachers are freaking out about the whole thing. Also, like you said, our meetings tend to be about what we are going to do but never really about the children and how they are learning which is the whole point. Yet another example of some administrative people taking what was working at one school and imposing it on all schools. Oh yeah, and it should have been done YESTERDAY so get started NOW!