Negative Teachers Get Out

I have just read on twitter @MrLeBrun @TheWeirdTeacher have been discussing teachers proclivity to quit and write editorials to the newspaper proclaiming why they just couldn’t hack it anymore. We hear all the time about the outside interests taking over education. National lobbyists and government pushing their way into evaluations through standardized testing, sgos, slos, and the implementation of the common core. Boards of Education members are in charge of making decisions about the direction of schools without being required to have any knowledge or understanding of how schools run. There are millions of reasons why teachers are feeling the squeeze from every direction.

Really teaching is easy though!! Schools are unionized. The weak teachers are protected. All you have to do is get tenure. Then you can just float through doing nothing because getting rid of a bad teacher is a costly endeavor that is rarely done. Teachers only work 10 months a year. Their benefits are first rate and costly. They only work 6-7 hours a day. Out of that they get a lunch and a prep that combined can total 90 minutes. The easiest job is being a physical education teacher! After all those who can, do, those who can’t, teach, those who can’t teach, teach gym.

Teaching is the easiest job! My only question is why doesn’t everyone teach if the job is so easy? The reason is simple. It is because it is not as easy as people want to portray it. This blog is not about how hard it is teach or the amount of hours and money that a teacher puts in above and beyond their contractual obligations. It is about the burnt out teachers who have only negatives to say about the profession. It is about the teachers who can no longer connect with this generation of students coming through the schools. It is about ADHD becoming the norm. It is about technology furthering education and teaching not supplanting it. It is about teachers preparing kids for life not just for tests. It is about people who would teach for free if money were not a necessity. Teaching is an honorable job that when done right can change lives for the better. For all those that retired due to burnout I applaud you. We don’t need you in our schools creating negativity, dragging your feet when the inevitable change comes. We don’t want you in our classroom berating kids and whining about how things used to be. When I get there I hope some young punk teacher walks up to me and says you should quit and write a negative editorial whining about how teaching just isn’t what it used to be.

Daddy Hands

My whole life I have felt like only part of a man. My father was an art teacher who paints, draws, sculpts, and does pottery. Anything his hands touched would turn out to be gold. This man could take a piece of wood and chisel an animal out of thin air! A piece of clay on his pottery wheel was putty in his hands (excuse the poor pun). My dad put up his fence, redid his kitchen, and remodeled the living room all with his hands. Me not so much. It only got worse for me after I met my wife. Her father is a farmer. He fixes tractors, built a whole edition on his house, and hunts. He is a man's man. I can't even put together a wicker Christmas ornament for the front yard!! What good are my hands? What man things can I do with them? I can’t draw, paint, shoot a gun or fix anything. But today my life changed. I was following my daughter up the stairs. I held her hand in front of her to steady her as she started walking up the stairs. There was complete trust that she could pull on my hand and it would get her up the next step. Just then it dawned on me. I have Daddy Hands. Hands that are trusted to do the most important things in life. Hands that catch my children when I throw them way too high in the air. Hands that that are trusted to swing my 3 year old in a circle without him flying into the stratosphere. Hands that have held two innocent newborns that had only been in this world for seconds. I don’t need any other type of hands but Daddy Hands. Daddy Hands trump every other type of hands.

GAFE introduction

I am starting my blog because my PLN on twitter insists that blogging is a necessity in this new digital age we live in. My school has just transitioned to GAFE. We used the google drive all year but we didn't truly embrace it due to lack of technology. The kids learned how to use the Google drive and share but that was the extent of our GAFE. There has been a lot of trial and error with this new system just as there would be using any new technology. One example is when I gave a test using Google docs and sent it out to the mass of the class with editing privileges. Needless to say I had 25 kids all typing on the same test at the same time!! After that I became smarter and gave the test on Google Forms. The only problem with that was about a third of the class didn't finish the test and there is no way to save. Like all technology, if I have a problem thousands of others have had the same problem and I learned about doctopus and the various other apps and extensions that can help teachers. I will blogging about how GAFE will change my school for better or worse. Hit me up with any advice you think will assist me as my school changes from paper and pen to Chromebooks and laptops. Justin Schleider