Do you feel like the kid in the picture sometimes? An awful lot of teachers do. It seems, particularly with an evaluation system that bares its teeth at us, that a lot of supervisors speak to us like that.
I began as an English teacher. I ended up as an ESL teacher by happy accident. For one thing, I could never find a permanent job as an English teacher. By the time I did, I was already enamored of teaching kids from other countries. I turned down an appointment, took a job playing guitar in the worst Irish wedding band on earth (it paid well), and waited until I actually had the credits to teach what I wanted.
Nonetheless, I'm a lifelong reader, and my preference is fiction. Fiction places you in a position to see and feel other viewpoints, but it's looked down upon by the geniuses in Albany, not to mention the Common Core architects. NY State has dropped the Common Core name, but fiction is still devalued. Instead we make kids read tedious tomes that interest them not at all. I'd argue it would be better to have them read comics, like the kid in the picture, and learn to love reading, rather than dread it. Of course, I'm only one voice.
Still, there are a lot of crazy administrators. Look, for one example, at the large number of them who insist on enrolling as teachers in Google Classroom. There is absolutely no viable rationale for that. Most of us now place all our grades online. Anyone can see them. All of the assignments we give are available to anyone registered as a CONTINUE READING: NYC Educator: Bad Admin and Crickets
