As one who has been teaching in a classroom for some 45 years, I can vouch for the truth of the above graphic.
Instead of margaritas in the teachers' lounge, however, we teachers have settled for a coffeepot. Heh.
Header Image (book)
Saturday, April 7, 2018
Weekend Humor
(For politics, please scroll down)
One of my Facebook finds (Click to enlarge):
As one who has been teaching in a classroom for some 45 years, I can vouch for the truth of the above graphic.
Instead of margaritas in the teachers' lounge, however, we teachers have settled for a coffeepot. Heh.
As one who has been teaching in a classroom for some 45 years, I can vouch for the truth of the above graphic.
Instead of margaritas in the teachers' lounge, however, we teachers have settled for a coffeepot. Heh.
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I only taught for twenty years –– much of that privately –– but when I belonged to a faculty, I soon discovered the best way to keep my sanity was to STAY AWAY from the OTHER TEACHERS as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteThe Teacher's Lounge was a hotbed of sedition where all my "colleagues" smoked incessantky while they aired their grievances. It was depressing and demoralizing to listen to how much resentment these people harbored against A) the kids, B) the adminstration, C) Colleagues not present, D) How poorly we were paid, E) and their Love Lives –– or lack thereof.
I saw right away that it would be dangerous to open my mouth –– even to commiserate with these people –– because whatever you said against ANYONE was sure to be REPEATED to them asap. So the flames of distrust, dissension, resentment and lack of genuine camaraderie, cooperation, and mutual support worked against every one of us –– and certainly against the quality of the work we were supposed to be doing.
I fared much better by concentrating on my students and trying to discover better ways of meeting their true needs.
I honestly ENJOYED that, but GUESS WHAT?
Other faculty members –– some of whom were buddy buddy with certain key members of the adminstration–– RESENTED my obvious success with my students, and did their best to put in a BAD WORD for me with fair frequency.
Ergo, teaching in a private boarding school bears an uncanny resemblance to working in Washington, DC!
In this world wherever two or three are gathered together in the name of ANYTHING, there will be unwholesome intrigue, fault-finding, backbiting, treachery, villainy, disloyalty, jealousy, calumny, and willful misunderstanding.
Fortunately, I really loved my kids, –– a few of whom have stayed in touch wuth me decades after they graduated ––, and have been blest to be wholeheartedly devoted to whatever task I set my self to perform.
As my Great Aunt Etta advised me when I graduated from Sixth Grade seven-hundred-fifty years ago:
"Get you happiness out of your work, or you will never know what happiness is.
I doubt she ever knew the importance of the contribution she made to my young life, bless her heart!.
FT,
DeleteThe Teacher's Lounge was a hotbed of sedition where all my "colleagues" smoked incessantky while they aired their grievances. It was depressing and demoralizing to listen to how much resentment these people harbored against A) the kids, B) the adminstration, C) Colleagues not present, D) How poorly we were paid, E) and their Love Lives –– or lack thereof.
I despised the teachers' lounges and avoided them whenever possible -- in the public schools and in the last private school where I worked. In the private school where I worked for 18 years, we didn't have much of a teachers' lounge, and, looking back, I see that the school's owner deliberately avoided establishing a teachers' lounge.
The above said, a teachers' lounge can provide needed down time and essential venting time. Time to vent can be essential for teacher mental health.
When I worked in the public schools system, I came to the conclusion that many of the teachers were there as career "educators," not because they had a love of teaching. To be fair, I should say that these disgruntled "educators" may once have loved teaching, but that their love of teaching was destroyed by the system. In fact, some of the older teachers often stated outright: "I'm counting down the days to retirement." I've never felt that way.
In my view, one of the biggest mistakes in education has been deeming the pursuit of teaching a career. Teaching should be a calling -- not a career.
A "calling" implies that there is a "Caller".
DeleteThat opens a can of worms for them.
I had always been encouraged to think of teaching as a PROFESSION, but –– after twenty years of dealing with arbitrary administrative policies and idiotic parents –– it became just a JOB.
DeleteMy sister, a teacher as well, would likely agree. Passing this post on to her.
ReplyDeleteAgree precisely with WHAT, Anon?
DeleteCould you please be more specific?
Thanks.
The poster on the post?
DeleteI know I'm being a "stickler," just as I was when I was teaching back in the SICK-sties and the SEVEN-ties, but since I had posted a rather lengthy anecdote earlier, I thought it politic to ask –– as politely as I could –– whether the remark was directed at solely at AOW's Poster or possibly at MY comment as well.
DeleteIt's a perfectly reasonable question, and frankly I am sick to DEATH of the insufferably rude, hopelessly vague, lackadaisical, slipshod way people operate in the blogosphere.
And since I'm too old to give so much as a tinker's dam WHAT others may think of me, I am GOING to CONTINUE pressing points I believe need attention.
So there!
):- [>
FT,
DeleteI hope to get around to responding to your anecdote. I just got home from Saturday piano lessons and private tutoring (9:00-4:00, with no breaks).
Not to worry! My ego got out of control. It was foolish to mention an undesirable element like that at all.
DeleteIt has already brought bad repercussions at my blog.
You were right, and I was wrong. Please accept my apologies.
We all have our stupid moments.
<(;^∂
My apology. AOW's poster.
DeleteViolet and Sebastian Venable said
DeleteHUH?
FT,
DeleteI work longer hours on Saturdays than on any other day of the week.
I love teaching my classes of homeschoolers, but now that I've cut back on the number of courses I offer, I need to make up some of the lost income stream. Furthermore, the wage when I was teaching some 10 courses was never a livable wage. My cousin has often told me over the years, "They don't begin to pay you enough for the hours you spend."
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFT,
DeleteMany a commenter doesn't have a blog. Just sayin'.
Anyway, enough of blog gossip. It perpetuates too often.
I didn't consider it "Blog Gossip," I considered it a significant piece of NEWS. The blog ownership status of others is irrelevant. I don't know anyone in the blogosphere who hasn't been stalked, heckled, badgered, and routinely insulted by that character, who took apparent pleasure in "Dive-Bombing" most of th,e remarks at Conservative Websites. He proudly functioned as a MAJOR PAIN to everyone but the Den of Leftist Vipers that nursed him on its bosom, thus transforming him from a self-described "libertarian" to a merciless Leftist Gadfly with the sting of wasp.
DeleteAt any rate, I'm much more interested in what you and others might think of the rather lengthy anecdote I wrote to you first thing this morning.
See the film “Teachers” with Nick Nolte. Funny and true.
ReplyDeleteHi, Mustang.
DeleteRegrettably, I haven't seen that one yet.
If you remember Blackboard Jungle and Up the Down Staircase, I think you might agree that they too pertain very well to this topic.
If we want to hark back to a bygone era, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Browning Version, The Winslow Boy and even Tom Brown's School Days –– all Briitish films –– provide wonderful insights into faults –– and the considerable virtues –– of Public School Education as it was practiced in pre-WWII Britain.
Anyone interested in watching The Browning Version (highly recommended) should make sure it's the Michael Redgrave version (masterful) and not the remake.
DeleteGlad we can agree on SOMETHING, Ducky.
DeleteIn case anyone's interested here's a link to the 1951 version you recommend so highly:
https://youtu.be/eVqDsP_d6l8
Michael Redgrave win judos for his performance as well he should have.
Never knew a remake HAD been made. I agree that "remakes" are generally inferior to the prototype, but author Terrence Rattigan was primarily a PLAYWRIGHTm even though he wrote the screenplay for The Browning Version produced in 1951.
Because Rattigan wrote PLAYS I think I'd like to see this "reach" if oly to find out what th,e filmmakers made of Rattigan's origimal. I bekieve i noticed Judy Dench was associated with the 1994 reenactment, so it can't be ALLbad.
I think significant plays are much like great pieces of music in that dozens –– sometimes hundreds –– of different performers play the dramatic roles as conductors, orchestras and soloists play the same piece of music thousands of times over many years.
SInce the different viewpoints, insights and subtle variations di[fferent performers bring to music I've known for more than half a century help keep it fascinating and enthralling, so might different productions of the same play. And I'm NOT taking about cheap, gimmicky nonsense like Shakespeare in Modern Dress –– presenting Macbeth as a Mafia Don, etc.
I enjoy movies s much or more than most, but I have ALWAYS thought it much too bad that what certain established stars bring to a role is bound to be the ONLY portrayal of the character involved we'll ever get to see.
Take a dear old chestnut like Mildred Pierce for instance. I oved Joan Crawford in role –– in fact I rarely miss a chance to see Mildred Pierce as silly as the story really is. It's probably Eve Arden's empathetic cynical quips and Jack Carson's masterful portrayal of a crass Babbity opportunist that keep me co]ming back as much as anything. i don't analyze these thub gs, I just enjoy them fo
r what they are.
HOWEVER, I understand Bette Davis and Barabara Stanwyck were also up for the role and both were favored over Crawford by Mchael Curtiz.
I've often thought it would be great fun if Hollywood had made the movie THREE TIMES with each of those different leading ladies in the starring role.
I understand perfectly well why this was "impossible," –– $$$$$, of course ––, but the supremacy of the profit motive is probably the Central Flaw that has prevented the movies –– except in the rarest of instances –– from reaching the level of high culture.
The Browning Version (1994), –– which incidentally does NOT involve Dame Judi Dench ––, is available on YouTube, but it's awkwardly presented chopped to bits in a lengthy PLAYLIST.
DeleteSince Ducky has piqued my curiosity by panning it, I will probably watch it this afternoon –– or at least give it a try.
I'm curious to see what Albert Finney brings to the role of the frigid, rule-bound, emotionally stunted Mr. Crocker-Harris, who is, nevertheless, a man of true integrity.
The play, itself, while hardly contrived to make audiences skip merrily from the theater having happily escaped from the burdens of reality for a while. Instead, it's a poignant, truly serious piece that probes the depths of human motivation, and lays bare the soul of a tormented, basically decent individual who has been victimized by his own emotional and psychological paralysis.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCB08DB7DA003D469
Mustang,
DeleteI've seen that film. A real howler!
7 to 3 and summers off and a book with all the answers. ;)
ReplyDeleteTC,
DeleteMost of the teacher's keys I have state: "Answers may vary." Literature and Composition at the levels I teach are that way.
Was just teasing you ;)
DeleteI am thankful for my public school teachers that realized I was / am easily bored. I was tested to have a college graduate reading comprehension level in 4th grade so I got to skip a lot of mundane lessons my peers were doing. By 6th grade I was in a "gifted / advanced placement" magnet school.
DeleteTC,
DeleteLockstep placement is one of the biggest problems in education. I was fortunate that I my own student experience was in a private school which was much less lockstep with placement.
BTW, I got bored in 7th grade and became a classroom brat. I didn't have enough to do! The school bumped me up to 9th grade the next year. No more behavior problems from me because I was, once again, challenged.
I got out of advancement for social reasons, stayed bored and occasional trouble. To fix that, I was given responsibilities by the nuns.
DeleteAnd I was convinced you folks had a Margarita machine. Maybe only in the Southwest.
ReplyDeleteI have to commend you AOW, my lunch pals were teachers 30 years ago. They are very strong, hard working conservative people, and they had to give it up because of the teaching/school environment.
Kid,
DeleteI bailed from teaching in the public school system here in 1978.
I'm still in the classroom, but on a very part-time basis (classes of homeschooled students).
One of the best parts of teaching homeschoolers is that I don't have to put up with the kind of administrative nonsense with which I had to to contend in a traditional school. And, overall, the parents are conservative.
I wonder if homeschooling shelters students too much with homogeneity of thought. There is no such thing as "home colleging" so I wonder how someone brought up in Christian and conservative education deals with the college philosophy and ethics course that gives weight to monsters like Peter Singer (of infanticide advocacy fame) or brain damaged pseudo-historians like Karl Marx.
DeleteWhat I'm getting at is, how well are these students prepared to defend views that have never been attacked by the classroom authority figure before?
I remember a college philosophy course where the professor labelled my paper ripping on utilitarianism via Kantian categorical imperatives to be "bombastic" and refused to grade it until I rewrote it. He didn't much like that I added "So, f*ck you!" to my conclusion paragraph and turned it back in. Wound up with a "B," lol.
DeleteNot all homeschooled students are imbued with homogenous thought. We might be in the minority, but our curriculum is not religiously-based, and we teach our daughters to question everything and make up thrown minds, especially regarding politics and social mores.
DeleteTC,
DeleteWhat I'm getting at is, how well are these students prepared to defend views that have never been attacked by the classroom authority figure before?
Not 100% well, IMO.
Of course, our homeschool group's graduates who attend(ed) Hillsdale College stand strong!
CI,
DeleteI find many religiously-based curricula to be less than satisfactory. For that reason, I supplement the material. Some parents don't appreciate my supplementary material and disenroll their children. Most of those children which are totally immersed in Christian curricula typical "fall by the wayside" when they attend universities.
TC,
DeleteWound up with a "B," lol.
You lucked out!
I have much respect for (respectable) teachers. Being homeschool parent/teachers of two daughters, do any quite bring the same experiences as above......but designing a curriculum that includes first aid, hands on history and marksmanship certainly has its advantages.
ReplyDeleteCI,
DeleteA lot of work goes into doing homeschooling thoroughly!
Absolutely. Curriculum development, scheduling and grading/recording alone, are not for the faint of heart!
DeleteCI,
DeleteWhat I do in the classroom and in private-tutoring sessions -- diagnostic and prescriptive teaching -- looks easy. It is not!
And the time spent grading essays! YE, GODS!
This school term, I am, in a way, grateful to be teaching few classes with fewer-than-usual enrollees. I feel my age since my terrible cycle of illness 2016-the first half of 2017. I haven't bounced back to what I was before this nightmare of illness struck me.
Ah, well. Enough of that complaining.
"It is what it is."
Bless all you teachers. You are worth every penny ++.
ReplyDeleteBaysider,
DeleteIf teaching is done the way it should be, there isn't enough monetary compensation possible. Just sayin'.
There are some professions that the professional would do for free if they could. But they can't.
DeleteUnfortunately, that means they'll work cheap. :)
All right. I decided to hold my nose, and check to see for myself what may be going on wth Bloggjng's Bloodiest Nuisance.
ReplyDeleteLES CARPENTER, himself, known to most of us Rational Nation USA, RN, The Registeredf Nurse, –– or possibly best among the numerous enemies he's made as NURSIE POO-POO –– has posted a formal announcement at his site that he is CLOSING HIS BLOG PERMANENTLY.
I feel compelled to add that I hope that means he intends to LEAVE the BLOGOSPHERE completely, and STOP BEDEVILING CONSERVATIVE BLOGS with his never ending PLATITUDES, WITLESS TAUNTS and JIBES.
Woo Hoo and Hot Digidy Dog!
DeleteAs some of you know, I substitute a lot...My sis got me a T shirt that says in large letters "I AM SILENTLY CORRECTING YOUR GRAMMAR!" Haven't worn it yet, but am looking forward to it.
ReplyDeleteIf I hear "Me and my brother..." or "Him and me went to the mall..." or likewise, my head will explode. And, of course, I'll hear plenty of it.....if that's 'teaching,' we have a problem, folks.
I seen what you wrote there....
DeleteZ,
DeleteOne of my students gave me a T shirt which says, "I'm the grammarian about whom your mother warned you." I wear that T shirt quite often.
Don't get me started about the grammar errors I constantly hear -- and sometimes from credentialed "journalists."
Ed,
DeleteUh-oh!
Phyffe Teigh said
ReplyDeleteNada, zilch, nichts, rien, zero