cordeliasub
Posts: 528
Joined: 11/4/2012 Status: offline
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First, I almost never joined the teacher's union because...well, in my state they are just political lobbyists who whine all the time. That being said. I worked a ten month contract....and my pay for that ten months of work was PRORATED over 12 months. They spread out the ten months' of pay over the whole year. THAT is why I got a paycheck every month. I got to school before 7 a.m. every morning, spent almost every weekend doing SOMETHING at the school, worked at home, and went to professional development and seminars and system mandated teacher training during the summer. Most teacher have 25 or more students in their classes, several of whom may have IEP's, all of whom learn at slightly different levels with different learning styles. There will also be the kids with actual behavior disroders and then the kids who seem like they have behavior disorders because no one has ever told them no. There are the gifted kids who get looked over because "hey, they're smart so they'll get it - the teacher can just give them extra stuff to do." In addition to planning lessons, teaching lessons, grading papers and projects, and managing a classroom without the benefit of most of the disciplinary tools WE all grew up with (because it might damage self-esteem), they attend meetings, do paperwork for assessments, give repeated assessments, are evaluated several times yearly, meet with parents, pay for the kid's field trip whose parents won't, buy a coat for the kid who doesn't have anything to wear except his big sister's hand-me-down pink and purple one, clean the roaches outof another kid's backpack, explain to the helicopter mom why her baby didn't get the lead in the third grade play......mend boo boo's, listen to Suzy cry because her parents are getting a divorce, share her lunch with Tommy - who never has one. I am a teacher. I love kids. I love when their eyes light up because they get it. I love when the kid you had to stay on top of for throwing a book across the room, asks if he can eat lunch with you because he is glad someone finally gave him limits. I love the creativity and excitement they have. I love it when they get into a heated debate over The Declaration of Independence and forget they are "studying" because it is so much fun. I love it, and I didn't gp into it to get rich. But I am sick of people who wouldn't make it one WEEK in a room full of kids deriding what I do. 99% of the teachers I know pour blood, sweat, and tears into every kid they teach. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpog1_NFd2Q After more closely reading a few of the responses and not just the OP, I have to add a question.... Do we REALLY want to see our CHILDREN as products? I mean, do we really want to treat them like ipads or pie charts or quarterly reports? Let's get real....we are talking children. Not inanimate objects. Anyone who knows anything about either children or education knows you cannot apply some dry business model to the minds of growing human beings. I believe every child CAN learn and every child CAN progress......I do not believe that every single child in every school building in America can read on grade level by third grade. I do not believe every child can pass advanced algebra (I mean actually doing unmodified work). Not every kid is going to start on the football team. not every child will write an award winning essay. Children have different intelligences, and until we stop looking at a bubbled-in high stkes test and start looking at our kids....we aren't going to get it.
< Message edited by cordeliasub -- 12/25/2012 5:42:24 PM >
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