FYI: Trade Secrets

I'm not a golfer, but many of my colleages are. There's a group of men who openly admit that teaching is the only profession that allows them to golf 3 months a year and have two weeks around Christmas to go to Florida or Arizona to golf. These guys usually teach business, social studies or PE/health. They call each other "Coach" since many are coaches themselves: football, basketball, baseball, so on. These guys are also buddies with the principal and other administrators who make up the 'good ole boy network.' They can give their students worksheets and show videos (that's teaching?) and are often held to different standards and are exempt from certain protocols than the rest of the staff.

An anecdote:

When I was first hired into [Name] High School, we would have observations by our department heads, principals, district curriculum heads, and sometimes the superintendent himself. Since I taught more than one content area, I had 2 department heads, 2 principals, and 2 curriculum heads visit my class (guess I was 'okay' enough not to warrant the superintendent's visit). In my first year I had 6 different people observe my class and write reports to include in my yearly evaluation.

Fine, I had already taught for a few years in another state; I wasn't too worried.

In his first year, the baseball coach next door (a nice guy) was observed once, by the principal. At the end of the year I went to sign my evaluations and discuss my year's performance with the principal. He explained that he never gives 5's to people their first year (the scale was 1-5, "poor"-"excellent," for a number of evaluation criteria). I had all 4's, he was pleased and glad to have me on staff, blah, blah, blah, and my observation reports from the 6 other people were all positive. A few days later I was chatting with the baseball coach. He confided that the prinicipal gave him all 5's. I was stunned. This guy had one observation, and though the principal doesn't give anyone 5's their first year, this guy was all 5's. It bothered me for days.

I realized these coaches are largely off the hook. It's somehow more important to run solid sports programs than anything else. In both schools where I have worked, sports came first, then standardized test scores, then everyday academics. I coached as well, but somehow cheerleading was different.

In most schools the jocks are in the popular crowd. It's like that for teachers as well. Jock-coach teachers are often the most popular among popular students (because their classes are easy), among parents (cause they give out a bunch of As), among other staff (because they throw great parties and buy rounds of beer at the bar after games) and among administrators (because they make the school look good for sports). They are not popular with people like me who see problems with all of this.

I'm NOT saying all teachers who coach are slackers or 'good ole boys', but after teaching in two different high schools (in two different states), this has been my experience. Every school district and school is different and unique, but I bet it's the case elsewhere as well.

Unless it's a Waldorf School...

Summer Vacation

Well, it's been a while. The last few weeks of school are hectic. Even on the last day of school, it's not really the last day for staff. The students clean out their lockers entirely, and I usually roam the halls after they've cleared out picking up pen(cils)s, notebooks that can be recycled, winter gloves, etc...basically anything that I could use to pass on to students again in the fall. Otherwise, all that stuff ends up in the trash. We have recycling bins, but truthfully, I saw a custodian dumping the contents of the paper bin into the trash, so who knows where these things wind up? Nonetheless, I've now got a desk full of school supplies to give to students next year when they need to borrow a writing utensil or need paper.

There were still final exams to grade coupled with the straggler student who comes in with his crumpled 27 missing assignments and wants me to take them so he won't get an F...my policy is that late work is 1/2 credit and after a while, the kids realize 1/2 credit is better than zeros. Some would argue with me that I shouldn't accept late work at all, but we have students in our school who literally show up to class without a book, a pencil, etc...and when they finally at the end of the semester actually do these assignments, I think granting them something, albeit 1/2 credit, is well warranted. Many of these students also have IEPs, and if I didn't accommodate them somehow, I could be at fault and subject to a lawsuit if any parents were all that concerned. (But this issue is altogether another area of concern, something that will appear in a later entry.)

We also tend to have inservices and meetings after school is out, simply because there's not always the time for such during the school calendar, we so have a bunch of half-days, inservices (with lunch sometimes provided) and after all of that, getting my room squared away for summer maintenance, after a week or so from the last day of school, I'm finally home. BUT, there is still cheerleading stuff to do and regular practices have since begun and fundraising (ugh). I've made it a point a few years ago to take the month of July off, to give me a break and to allow for family vacations that otherwise would conflict with obligatory fundarising events, practices and of course, the dreaded cheerleading camp.

So what does the teacher do in the summer? As for me, I like to get caught up on my fiction and nonfiction reading, work in the yard, maybe paint a room in the house. I usually make a few trips to visit friends and family. I stay up late to try and sleep in, but the rigor of getting up so early for work, tends to stick. In summers past I've taken courses or workshops for continuing ed. credits, these kinds of things, but there are always aspects of the job that stay on my mind all summer long. Thinking about how to teach X differently next year. Wondering if that awful kid you failed will be in your class again, wondering if maybe class sizes will be a bit smaller, wondering if your principal will finally retire. One thing is for sure: teachers for the most part, get a fresh start every fall, which is a neat thing (in my opinion). I don't know too many people in other careers who can say that.