Waste of Time

Our district had a secondary inservice yesterday afternoon. Wednesday we let the kids out at noon so that we can attend stupid workshops and lectures. Yesterday we had to sit for two hours through the monotone voice of Dr. Jeffrey Sprague. He has written a book or something on "Managing the classroom through best behavior practices."

Just once I want one of these idiots to hold a workshop or a lecture like they want us to give to our kids. I read one of my short stories for class. There were a gazillion little conversations going on. Other teachers were grading papers. If they taught like they wanted us to teach, that wouldn't happen. They always say to be interesting and motivating--but how do they say it? By lecturing.

This is another case where the material wasn't even really for us. The people at my table (did I mention that we were stuck sitting at the lunch tables in the commons in very uncomfortable seats for two hours?) agreed that this conversation was really geared toward administrators. He even mentioned the fact that this takes support from administrators.

The other day, we'll call her Susie, Susie was having a bad day and I didn't know about it. When I handed out the district mandated Advanced Learning Placement Test that I had to give out, she threw it on the floor. I told her to go outside because I didn't appreciate that, in a very nice voice actually. She stormed out screaming, "I don't give a fuck!" After the write-up, all she got was Saturday school.

In high school, Vince Termini was fooling around in the lunch line when the Spanish teacher walked by. He yelled out in a joking manner (really) in a disguised voice, "Besa me cudo!" which means "kiss my ass." If you knew Vince, you would know that his voice was never disguised. After the write-up, he got a three-day out of school suspension.

Which was worse? The outright disgust showed by Susie or the Spanish joke? I'm not saying Vince shouldn't have gotten into trouble. But that's what consequences were back then. Have we lost that? And do I have to tell you that Susie HAS DONE THIS BEFORE TO ME AND OTHER TEACHERS? Does that change the penalty now?

So administrators can give us all these inservices. They can evaluate the consequences we teachers give. But in a case where I have to send a student down to the office because she dug her own hole, there should be some harsh consequences. Especially at the beginning of the year. They aren't afraid to go to the office to get "formal warnings" or Saturday schools (that the rumor around my table at the inservice was that if students skipped Saturday school, nothing really happened to them).

So maybe administrators should listen to these inservices. Huh?