Do Not follow DUMB Advice

We tell students and our own children all the time to think about the advice they are following - or at least I do.

"If someone told you to jump off a building, would you do it?"

A friend was forced out of the profession this week for following, you guessed it, dumb advice. The administrators (or at least one wack job) lectured us in a meeting that if students say something that offends us, we should repeat the same word/phrase back to them so that they see how offensive it is.

Right.

Most of us realized this is an unsustainable piece of advice. I mean, I don't know what your students say daily but I know I am not repeating what mine say unless it is writing it on an office referral.

Friend had a student ask if he was the "only n***a" required to do something and she told him, yes, you are the only n***a. Sorry, most of us cannot say that word without penalties. Her penalty was her job.

Don't get me started on how THAT word needs to go away.

But, to go back to my point, it was dumb advice to begin with and it was dumb to follow it.

Shaking my head - you can't fix stupid.

Now is not the time to become a Georgia teacher

The state took a survey of teachers earlier this year. The methodology is flawed in that teachers received and email and could choose to answer it. Basic result, more than half would not recommend that their students or children become teachers.

I know I would choose a different route, even though I derive a lot of satisfaction from the successes my students have had.

Here is a story of the survey and here is the state's report.

Today, the same columnist is talking about the state's evaluation system which is designed to run teachers out of the profession.

Let's see. A large percentage of teachers quit teaching before they have taught for 5 years.It would seem if you are already eliminating the ones who cannot teach, if you know that that the stress of the profession is wearing on the teachers, AND you chose to implement an evaluation system where most cannot win after 10 years with furlough days and no increase in pay . . . the result seems obvious to me.

Those people with children under the age of 14 or who intend to have children in the future, you may want to plan on paying for private school or homeschooling. I do not think the public school system will survive much longer.

You teach all kinds

As a teacher, you run across all kinds of students.

Today I learned that one girl (I taught her several years ago) has just purchased her first house. She is 19 and had an incredible work ethic.

I also learned about a current student with a different set of ethics who was arrested over the break for robbery.

Nightmare

Had an interesting nightmare last night, last night of vacation. I can tell what it means, so I thought I would write it down.

I was being chased through the school by someone who wanted to kill me. I believe it was a teenager, but not one I know.

At one point I needed to go through the ladies' bathroom to get to the other side. An principal wha had it out for me was standing at the door, monitoring the long line of women teachers waiting to use the restroom. I went to the front of the line (since I just wanted to go through) and got some catcalls and some rude remarks from the ex-principal. Then he left and I went through and couldn't find the door that was supposed to be on the other side of the room.

So I went back outside and I don't remember anything else.

Happy second semester.