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I'm sure Fin has been wondering why I'm not a towering pile of outrage at being labeled a "terrorist" by Mr. Paige. Just so we're clear on this, he could call me anything he wanted, and I wouldn't particularly care, given the source. No, I have no respect for my boss's boss's boss's boss. Sorry. Teachers are used to vilification, anyway. We're a pink collar profession, to start with, so we get a lot of "They're mostly women, what do they know about anything?" Yeah, that seems odd for the 21st century, but it happens. I've been told *to my face* that I must not be a very good teacher, simply because I'm female, by both parents and administrators. Never mind that the folks traditionally entrusted with molding young minds have been female, that is, mothers and teachers. Obviously, we haven't done our job right, if there are still morons like these out there. In many school systems, like mine, there's also a tendency to look at teachers as dangerous, money-grubbing, status-quo-upsetting nuisances. I find it hilarious that the people who expect me to do the impossible because they can't or won't don't have any confidence in my ability to do the things I'm forced by them to do. (You follow that?) My performance is measured primarily through one twenty-minute evaluation each year, and test scores. My kids' test scores are generally excellent, but this doesn't mean I'm a good teacher. It necessitates close questioning of my methods, because I must be cheating somehow. I guess Fin, and Hun-e-b (bless you, Your Grace!) have touched a nerve. I spent two hours this afternoon helping my department chair score a dumb unit test that we were forced to give today. It was sent to us from our admin office "downtown," full of typos and invalid questions (those with no correct answer choices), and we are to report our results by Monday. This was dumped on us two weeks before the writing SOL tests, one week before progress reports, when every second of class time is precious and we have no free time outside school, because we're scrambling to go to all the SOL training meetings and grade papers. Out of sheer frustration, we marked all over a copy of the test, rewriting the crappy questions and correcting all the typos, and sent it back to the head of the English division. She'll probably chuck it in the trash, muttering, "Damn teachers. What do they know, anyway?" I'm gonna go pet the dog now. He thinks I rock, because I have wiggly fingers that scratch ears nicely. |
 
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Not a terrorist OR a ninja, thank you.