Well, count another one out. I heard yesterday that a long-time colleague who had been in guidance and returned suddenly to the classroom because of budget cuts left. In the long run it will be good for her because the whole situation was so stressful, but it was not a good way to go out.
In the morning paper, the Extra section had a round-up of facts about each school district in the region. Besides the basics, like names of superintendents and tax rates, there was a blurb about each district. The information was obviously provided by the districts in an attempt to convince residents and potential residents that in spite of the budget cuts, they were soldiering on and offering great things. There were two interesting things about it.
1. Many of the facts were wrong. It listed my husband's school district as starting classes next Thursday, when in fact they started this past Monday.
2. Many of the districts featured the same canned programs and tried to spin negatives into positives. The reading program touted by many places as a plus was the same reading program that my experienced colleagues were frustrated by when they were forced to use it in place of the methods and materials they had had success with for years.
It seems that the upper administrations in the area attend meetings or are part of a network, and when one district tries something you can bet it will show up in most of the other districts in the area before too long. My husband and I use to laugh at the dinner table at this phenomenon. My district would try something for a few years, then by the time we were dropping it, his district would begin to implement the same thing. Or vice versa. Always looking for the magic bullet.
I never understood in my 26 years of teaching and multiple years of preparation why no one trusted teachers' instincts to use the unique blend of personalities and needs of students every year to make things work. That's when things worked the best: when no one watched over my shoulder and I could use my personality to make my students want to work for me. During those times, my lessons might not have fit the required structure that was the latest miracle cure, but I have run into 40-year-olds who still remember lessons and classes that really clicked. But what do I know?
So instead of helping students unravel the mysteries of language acquisition, which is what we'd be doing this first week, I'll be planting shrubs, helping my mom take a bath, making lunch for my cousin and scanning some pictures for her. And that's okay.
Lunch will be an experiment of a polenta bake. Dinner: grilled salmon with the chipotle sauce and baked potato salad.
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