Places I love to go
The dentist’s office. The DMV. Both of these are places I just love so much to go. but none so much as what I get to do tomorrow. LAUSD in its infinite wisdom “mandates” that math teachers attend required trainings 4 times per year in order to learn how to administer what is, in essence, a fancy-looking word problem. Yes, this word problem (guised in the clever language of a “Concept Task”) apparently requires a room full of 25 college grads (including many post-grads) to decipher and determine how to teach best to a group of 150 13 year olds who, quite frankly, might possibly care even less than the substitute who will no doubt be in my classroom tomorrow morning.
Trust me, I’m actually a pretty optimistic and positive person. I’m much more likely to find the good in something that look for the bad, but if there’s anything that makes me more jaded and cynical about the current state of education in Los Angeles is the fact that taking teachers out of their classrooms to attend a training that covers material that could, in fact, be learned in, oh, approximately 15 minutes is nothing short of scandalous. Even worse, tomorrow is a minimum day at our school (which is essentially a “half-day” to make up for the fact that we spent an extra 2 hours at work tonight doing parent conferences). So while my colleagues will be heading home at 12:40 tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be returning from my lunch break to sit through another 2 hours defining the word “rigor”.
Anyway, on a much more positive note, tonight was parent conference night, and while most of the kids I saw were the kids who are already achieving high levels of success, I got a great opportunity to put in a plug for the fact that parents in Los Angeles have choices about where their kids go to high school. By giving them literature about both LAUSD magnet programs and Los Angeles charter schools, I hope that my kids next year will end up at a school where they can actually stand a good chance to really succeed! For those of you who live in LA, if you have any other helpful information about school options for high school, I’m all ears!!!
Themocracy
Maybe you should consider switching to a Magnet or Charter school yourself. Then you might/would have the kids who are really striving to get ahead. :)