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Faculty meeting today. The best thing I can say about it is that it ended at the insistence of the fire marshal. I felt like I was at Gitmo. There was no food. We have been utterly spoiled by the food our PTA brings us. I would say I am spoiled, but I know it’s not just me. Several people mentioned it. We weren’t being brats about it, but we definitely missed that food today.
Ok, so, going without food for 45 minutes doesn’t exactly qualify as a hunger strike. ~even though it WAS at the end of the school day~ But I definitely felt trapped like an enemy combatant. Still, soldier that I am, I was making the best of it, listening for the most part, but also looking through my Star Wars Visual Dictionary ~coping mechanism~ and writing notes with the people next to me, and pulling out my cell phone to look up something very meeting related in wikimobile. But I’m sure it looked like I was screwing around, so as far as THEY are concerned the looking up of something I was curious about counts as useless cell phone activity. ~never mind that we have no real wireless access to computers in that school without using cell phones. we have the wireless network, but only “authorized” devices can use it, and none are~
So I’m screwing around while I’m supposed to be listening to this guy. ~that I couldn’t hear or understand talk about something that I had NO introduction of any sort to regarding a law I didn’t even know existed and a “program” in our school I’m vaguely aware of but have no idea what it does or to whom not because I don’t read my emails but because nothing has come my way about it. at all.~ But I have no idea what he is talking about or why I should care. Or even what I am being asked to do, for that matter. But I still look up the law he’s talking about on my mobile.
I am soon punished for that act of curiosity by the blinding sun coming through the library windows. It is BLINDING. I cannot face it. My face is getting hot. Opening my eyes is impossible. The fire alarm goes off. Forever. I can’t see or hear anything, but I have to sit here and try to absorb “development” for myself.
Hunger. Blinding interrogation lights. Hard, stiff chair. Heat. Hunger. Deafening noise. Endlessly repetitive sounds. Confusion. Hunger.
God, I hope my class never feels like that.
11 responses so far ↓
1 NYC Educator // Jan 24, 2008 at 10:17 am
Man, do I hate meetings. Since they’re mandated, administrators have to sit around and think of things we need to meet about, and they’re almost invariably useless.
After they waste hours and hours of time you’ll never get back, they have the nerve to wonder why you don’t want to go to the endterm party, and spend fifty bucks to listen to even more of their interminable speeches about who knows what.
NYC Educator’s last blog post..Better Spend More Money, Moneybags
2 ken // Jan 24, 2008 at 10:28 am
You’re like that guy in Camus’s “The Stranger”.
Good thing you didn’t have a gun in your pocket.
Teaching is, without a doubt, an existential nightmare and a bleak path through the Absurd.
ken’s last blog post..clear and present conjecture
3 Taylor // Jan 24, 2008 at 9:03 pm
@NYCeducator
There was a Christmas party @ my school with a play (semi-professional) for five bucks plus another 20 or so for dinner, and NO speeches from anyone related to school and I still said no. I said “no” on the form, but I said “no fucking way” in real life. (never mind the obvious incongruity of a social event that involves a form.)
@ken Now I’m depressed.
4 David // Jan 27, 2008 at 8:41 pm
My school has one meeting a month in the morning. Yes, I have to wake up a bit earlier then usual but at least the meeting has to end before the students enter.
5 Taylor // Jan 27, 2008 at 9:19 pm
Years ago at my school we had something similar in which one day a week was a “late start” day for the students, and teachers always had a meeting. I thought it showed a lovely sense of respect for the time of both students and teachers.
The only downside was when they (a couple of times, not all the time) gave bad news in the last five minutes of said meeting, which consequently ran late, and sent me hurtling down obstacles to get to class and open the door before the bell even rang. Forget preparing for class, or getting my mind on the extremely important task at hand. Plus I’m stuffing anger about whatever bad news was delivered. And now, on a dime, I’m supposed to be not only brilliant and aligned with the standards, but politically correct and utterly sweet.
6 Damian // Jan 27, 2008 at 11:46 pm
NYC Educator hit it right on the money.
Why do we have faculty meetings?
Because they can make us.
I haven’t been to a faculty meeting in years where information was conveyed that couldn’t have been distributed in an email. Not. A. One.
Damian’s last blog post..NSFW*
7 Kaelie Curbxstomp // Jan 29, 2008 at 1:33 pm
I do have to say that I used to view Star Wars as a great evil, but after watching them again, and kind of delving into them, they aren’t so bad. I like the newer three better though, because I really don’t like the actors in the older three. Except for Harrison Ford. Yum.
Kaelie Curbxstomp’s last blog post..Silence
8 Damian // Jan 29, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Awesome Faculty Meeting Update!
Mon., 1/28: We file into the auditorium and are read to off a Powerpoint slide for 40 minutes (key words: “read to”)
Tues., 1/29: We all receive an email with the Powerpoint attached.
???
Why couldn’t they have skipped Step 1?
Damian’s last blog post..TTP 5: The Twitteracy Project is Dead, Long Live the Twitteracy Project
9 Taylor // Jan 29, 2008 at 6:36 pm
Faculty meetings suck!
They do that read-to-the-idiot-teachers-then-send-exact-same-power-point thing to us all the time!
Star Wars, BTW, rules.
10 Miss Profe // Jan 30, 2008 at 6:46 am
Taylor, are you sure you aren’t describing the faculty meetings at my place of employ? The scenario you describe seems oddly familiar.
Miss Profe’s last blog post..Gifted Children Left Behind?
11 jose // Jan 31, 2008 at 9:25 pm
I wanted to say this last time I read this, but I didn’t get to for the very reason you’re bored at faculty conferences.
when I get bored, my laptop and freecell are my friend.
jose’s last blog post..Ewing and I
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