Taylor the Teacher

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Harry Wong warned me in grad school not to hang out in the teacher’s lounge. Too much negativity and hen cackling in there. I found that to be helpful advice more often than not.

My school barely has teacher’s lounges. That’s one way to solve the problem.

No reason to be overly negative, right?

But, on the other hand, why do I feel like I have to “play nice” in my tone when talking about important educational issues? Why can I not be included, as one of many teachers, in the decisions that affect learning? I do know something about it. Not everything, by any means, but am I, the teacher in the classroom, not worth asking?

Example: We’re all supposed to wet ourselves over these Promethean boards that cost fifteen thousand dollars a piece. But I can’t get computer time for my students. Then they buy access to databases, online test prep, online e-books. When they gave the online e-books “inservice” I was honestly confused. I thought there were going to be some handheld devices to read these books on. When I realized that they honestly think my students will be in front of a computer long enough to read a book I laughed out loud.

Can they be this out of touch?

And why didn’t they just ask me what technology I think I can use instead of telling me what they’re willing to buy? They are wasting money. They shouldn’t be allowed to do that.

I can do more with 20 laptops than I could ever do with a Promethean board.

Sometimes I wonder if somebody’s getting paid. Somebody is related to a sales rep or something. I don’t know how these things work.

But it’s probably just that we haven’t agreed on what the goal of schooling is. That’s at the root of everything.

But wait! I forgot. We can’t be honest about that. Someone might call us cackling hens.