Friday, April 20, 2007

Sleeping With the Enemy


My mom has agreed to the surgery. She is going to have it on Monday. Tonight I left her for the first time in 9 days feeling like she might have a chance. My dad has temporarily stopped crying Let me try one of my bitch posts again in an attempt to get back to normal..


The new thing in our school is study groups to take the place of faculty conferences. Everyone signed up for a group they are supposedly interested in. Here is where the problems come in.

1. Most people are not really interested in any of these groups. We had to sign up for something, so we did.

2. Because the school is so large, and we are on so many different sessions, it was impossible to meet with the group many teachers signed up for. We were told to just go to any other group that fit into our schedule--real meaningful!

3. Some teachers were assigned "homework" from their groups. Contractually, we have to attend these meetings. We don't have to do any outside work for them.

In discussing these things with other teachers, we all wonder how our Chapter Chair did not object to this obvious contract violation. This only confirms our opinions that the Chapter Chair and the principal are "sleeping together"

3 comments:

ms. whatsit said...

Oh yeah, our math department did study groups a few years ago. We were told that this strategy originated in Japan.

All of our departments are slated to do them next year. We'll have to give up our planning period six times in order to make the six observations, and we'll then have to write a reflection of sorts. I am opposed to the loss of planning time, but most of my colleagues like it because it frees them from having to read a book over the summer. I happen to like reading books.

I suppose that this kind of staff development is just fashionable right now.

CaliforniaTeacherGuy said...

If I were in your shoes, I'd go to the required meeting, take a good book along, and read while the "meaningful" stuff is going on. That way you're not wasting your precious time.

Anonymous said...

They should be writing the menu for next year's 6R, soon.

My principal approached me last week, (and we probably could have got it done quick), but the UFT asked that Chapter Leaders do a training on whatever changes there are out there before agreeing to anything. For Bronx HSs, our training is next week. Do you know when your CL is going to your borough's training?

In my school, I will hold a meeting to specifically discuss what the members want and don't want on the 6R menu. Do you think your chapter might have that sort of meeting?