Salvete,
I picked up a note today that said the following (in paraphrase):
Male Student: What's cookin' good lookin'? LOL!
Female Student: Nothing...do you know anything about Wicca? You got a religion?
MS: Not much...I'm a Christian but I don't go to church.
FS: It's about being kind to people and nature. Wanna join my coven?
This is the stage of the note-passing at which I plucked the note from their guilty fingers. I don't know if I wrote this last week (and I'm too tired from work to check...) but I picked up another note that was practically pornographic last Friday. BLEH! Oh, the things going through the minds of these little ones...I see girls with their breasts practically falling out of their shirts, and I want to say, "Do you know what boys are thinking when they see you like that? Because I assure you, you wouldn't like it. You may want them to notice you, but they would do that even if you had on a nun's habit. I promise." Teenage boys are disgusting.
Forgive the seeming disjointedness of that last paragraph. I just needed to get it all out there.
There was an interdepartmental coworker issue today between one of my English Team Members (ETM) and Foreign Language Team Members (FLTM). ETM routinely refuses entry to children if they are late, and also routinely ejects children from class if they are unruly. I have every respect for this teacher's methods. I wish I were more like her (she is what they call a "Hard Ass" and is greatly revered by both her students and her team). FLTM found one of ETM's (r)ejected students wandering, and, without knowing the whole story, went to our principal to let her know what was going on. What is wrong with reporting ETM, you say? I can hear the advocates of sound educational theory now: The children have to be in class to learn! The children should not be wandering the halls! That teacher obviously does not care about that child's cognitive development!
I say, HA! But anyway, here is why what FLTM did was wrong. Most obviously, FLTM broke the chain of command. In the workplace (yes, even in the public schools) there is a chain of command that must be followed. This chain keeps the Highest-Ups from having to deal with every little issue that arises. FLTM should have gone first to ETM's team leader, then to her department chair, and THEN to the principal if the problem persisted in such a way that FLTM was unsatisfied with its outcome. However, FLTM broke that chain and went straight to the top, violating the prerogatives we have as teachers to govern our classroom as we see fit. A few other things that should not have happened: FLTM misquoted and therefore misrepresented ETM's take on the situation, and FLTM did not discuss the issue/misunderstanding with ETM first.
The moral of the story is, pay attention to the way you treat your coworkers. If you have a problem with the way someone else runs their classroom, talk to them first, and then follow the chain of command from there. And just know that not everyone has the same ideas about Classroom Management that you do.
Valete,
Magistra
1 comment:
Wow, that note is hilarious! It's funny to get a glimpse of what students are REALLY thinking while their teachers are speaking.
My view on the ETM and the FLTM situation: I truly believe that students have to be open and willing to learn. If, on a particular day, a student is distracted because of a tough situation at home, or if the student simply doesn't care at all about what is being taught, he or she is no better IN the classroom than OUTSIDE the classroom, especially if he or she is being disruptive. Teachers need to think about the big picture: I think that it is important for teachers to really put effort into reaching every single student, especially the hard-headed ones. However, after a certain point, the disruptive student is being unfair to the other 29 students in the class and should be sent out.
On FLTM's behavior, I get the feeling that FLTM is jealous of ETM's reputation and respect from other teachers and students. Here's a good analogy: Mom and Dad are divorced, and Mom says that child cannot have a cell phone because child is too young. Dad wants to seem like the cool parent and wants to undermine Mom's authority in order to feign power, so he tells child that he will get a cell phone despite what Mom says. Now Mom looks like the bad guy. This is pretty much what happened between ETM and FLTM. I only hope that FLTM did not go to the principal and complain in front of a student, which would be even more unprofessional.
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