Yesterday may have had a flowy-y kind of a start with the kids, but the staff meeting that wrapped my professional day was all quicksand and mud. It began with a thinly veiled attempt to guilt us into not taking any leave because there is a substitute shortage, which was billed as a problem-solving session asking for our suggestions without actually providing a forum for us to offer them.
Next we moved on to an overview of the teacher evaluation process, and the juxtaposition was not lost on many, nor was the irony that the presentation started with the data point that, among school-related factors, effective teachers matter most to student achievement, and experience is the number one indicator of teacher effectiveness.
I was sitting at a table with combined teaching experience of over a hundred and fifty years, good teachers all. And even though we were directly in front of the presenter, as the presentation went on, detailing all we should be doing to show all we are doing, one of us was literally nodding off in the darkened room. Another laid her head on the table and sighed that this is the kind of shit that makes her want to quit teaching, and a third shook her head and muttered that she really had to retire. All that effectiveness down the drain.
I said nothing, but the entire experience reconfirmed my chronic complaint that teaching might be manageable if it involved no more than the time spent planning, grading, and instructing the students, but all the other things that we are required to do literally amount to another part-time job. I regularly work 55-60 hours a week, and I never feel caught up.
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