Great Idea...Let's Get Ride Of Research!

It's true, the GOP is trying to put forth a plan that will eliminate sabbaticals for professor's in the state of Iowa.  Why?  Because according to Danny Homan, president of the largest state employee union, Professors should be in the classroom to teach, as there job "description" requires...

"They are being paid to not do what they were hired to do, and that's teach in the classroom," he said. "It's time that practice ends. We don't have the money."

Part of the problem with this statement is the mere fact that professors aren't simply being hired to teach, they are being hired to be a contributing member to their discipline.  The Sciences go out and discover new innovations and contribute that to the world on multiple occasions, writing is going through constant changes which require extensive amounts of research, and history profs. are constantly faced with the new discoveries found by archeologists that they must implement into the classroom. Mr. Homan wants us to believe that these profs should be in the classroom and teach.  But how a teacher one teach if they are unable to do what is necessary to stay up to date with their discipline?

Unlike most jobs where you learn everything you need to know in within the place you work, college professors have to go out on their own to research the ever-changing qualities and knowledge of their profession.  It's hard to grasp the audacity of the GOP in forcing a state-wide sabbatical cutting mandate for all Iowa, government funded universities when they obviously have no idea what good this time off from teaching can do for the educational standards within the classrooms.

"I'm sure they feel it has great symbolic value," said John Curtis, director of research and public policy for AAUP "But the loss, of course, is what the whole purpose of sabbatical is: to allow faculty members to do research, to engage in understanding new developments in their discipline and then to bring all of that back to their teaching."

Educational standards have been steadily declining within American's colleges and universities while they raise the standards of the athletic programs and popularity contests.  If the Republicans want to help decrease spending, but maintain and/or increase the the academic excellence of the students, start looking into cutting spending on other things and not the professors ability to better themselves as teachers.

My mother is a college professor and is actually the head of the English & Foreign Language Department.  From what I learned of her time spent on sabbatical, while still having a lot more free time than she had while teaching, she still utilized this opportunity to finish and publish her dissertation, which resulted claiming the title of Doctor Trapp.  This is what she was hired to do, teach and to contribute to her society and discipline!  And she is better for it.

I don't actually see this GOP plan being put into motion as many Iowa profs will move elsewhere so they can have this opportunity given to them.  But the fact that it's even being considered by Republicans just shows how much they value the education in general.

The Difference Between The Humanities...And Everything Else.

Most of the jobs I've held in the past have paid very little and demanded more of my time than my paycheck justified.  Working in the schools systems, I was constantly met with stupid children who took their stupidity out on teachers who merely try to educate them.  I have been hit at, kicked, punched, sexually advanced by minors, broken up fights, dealt with mind games from children, and fought with administration about how they treat their "classified" employees.  My pay as a substitute teacher was $125 per day, and my hourly rate as a paraprofessional was close to $11 per hour.  I had to deal with my team arguing and discussing how to handle certain situations and student IEP plans without that information ever being relaid to me effectively, and then finding myself in situations where that information would have been handy.

The only person that seemed to have her head on straight with my team was my boss, Sara Thompson.  She took her job by the neck and shook it like a dog, not allowing the frustrations of teaching children with behavior disorders to take her over.  She always made sure I knew about changes in IEP's and always kept in the loop about what was going on.  The other two, while I still liked them, always seemed put off by me and kept me secluded from the activities of the students in the BD program.  Plus, if I was trying to help one of our students calm down, and Sigrid walked in, she would interject and take over the situation, destroying any hope I had of establishing myself with the student.  By the beginning of the second semester I was so burned out by certain individuals and how they treated me, I completely gave up caring what they thought and decided to just go about helping the students in my own way despite what the "Behavior Model" said.  I knew this would potentially lead to my removal, but to be honest...I didn't care.  So many times I thought to myself, "Why the fuck am I doing this?  Everyone is pissed at each other everyday and nothing ever seems to go according to plan."


A few days ago I realized something.  My current job, of which I've been employed for just under two months now, is paying me $41,000 per year with numerous opportunities for receiving overtime.  I begin my job at home and END at home, meaning I don't have to leave at 7:00, or even 6:30 to beat the hectic morning Denver traffic on I-25 to get to work.  The company has given me a company truck which I use to drive from job assignment to job assignment, and gas and maintenance on the vehicle is paid for by them.  I receive full benefits, a "Touch Pro" Sprint cell phone that I use for both personal and work related ramblings that also allows me access to the Internet, texting, and a plethora of other features.  My job has me working through a ticket system, which means I only go out on jobs if and when I receive a job ticket; I almost always do, but there have been days where NO job tickets came my way.  In essence, I still get paid my salary even if I didn't do a lick of work.  But even when I do have to work, most of my time is spent driving to get to a cell site, and a lot of the time it's on a beautiful day in the mountains.  I do have a supervisor, but never do I have someone hovering over me making sure I'm working.  Basically, if I don't have anything to do, I don't have to try and FIND something to do.  This new job is amazing!  It has it's downsides, but never in my life have I been as stress free with a job as this one.

How is this possible?  This job pays SIGNIFICANTLY better and the job I busted my ass at paid me shit.  Can someone say "oxymoron?"  But this is the truth of the matter.  Many of the jobs I've had have kept me in the humanities field where I worked closely with the development and prosperity of people and children.  I now work in a field where all I do is make sure cell phones maintain coverage and drive around a lot.  This is the difference between careers in the humanities vs. everything else.  The values of modern society are basically telling us that paying teachers more is not an appropriate way of spending district and city wide funds funds, but when it comes to out cell phones, pay the technicians and switch operators anywhere from $50,000 to $100,000 per year.  I'm not complaining about my job, I love it.  I will never look for another job for as long as I can help it.  But the standard of education is so low in comparison to keeping a cell phone up and working.  It's sad and somewhat frustrating.

It's people like my last boss, Sara Thompson, who deserves more than what she was handed.  I applaud her and her natural ability to teach and her love for it despite the flack she gets in return.  It's people like her who need to multiply the most if we are to have any more people with the same drive and ambition.  I can only hope one day, someone will put their foot down and make sure teachers get the paycheck that they deserve for putting up with the many hardships that come with humanities.

I Hate Working

I discovered last week that my position will not be renewed for next year.  The assistant principle pulled me into his office explaining the situation and how there will not be enough kids in the program to justify having me on board for the next school year.  This really did come as a shock to me as I was told not 3 weeks ago that I was secure in my position and there wouldn't be any issues as far as that is concerned.  But last minute changes were made on the District's end of things which forced them to make some decisions beyond their control.  So the hunt in on once again for a full time job.

It is a relief to me in a way though, I was getting rather tired of the kids I deal with on a day to day basis.  But the sad truth of it all is I never quite grasped the behavior model that was to be utilized by the SPED teachers and myself.  Now there is about 60% of the behavior modeling system that I completely disagree with as a Sociologist, but the other 40% that I took no issue with never stuck in my brain.  I constantly found myself reverting to old habits which have always worked for me in the past and have helped to build relationships with the students I've been around.  The Behavior Modeling system didn't allow me the opportunities for that type of relationship building that I have successfully built into my subbing career in the least.  I have a sneaking suspicion that my inability, or unwillingness, to perform the aspects I disagreed with played a major part in the decision of my non-renewal.

However, if I were to look back on the whole experience of this school year, I would have to say I was excluded more than I was included.  My boss, Sarah, did her best to keep me updated and "in the know" with each of the students on her case load, but even she neglected to keep me informed of everything.  I was only included in one meeting which was at the beginning of the year.  After that, things constantly occurred that I never knew about until a week or two after.  I can't count on my two hands how many times we've had kids bump up and down in levels and how many times our kids had different IEP goal changes that were never relayed to me.  But worst of all, I found myself constantly interrupted by the two teachers I work with when I was processing with a student on their behavior.  While I still was used by both teachers in dealing with students, I equally felt belittled and constantly disregarded during behavior interventions.  I think that conditioning might have had something to do with my inability to use the behavior model effectively. 

While it sucks that I have to find a new job, I'm actually quite relieved that I don't have to do this again.  When you have two very qualified teachers who are so driven and motivated, it's really hard to do anything for them as they are always striving to do the very best in what they do.  I certainly hope the Para they find for the next school year is the match they are looking for within their team.

Pondering The Future

It's very difficult to suddenly realize a career choice might be way to much for you.  Today was one of those days.  It wasn't even a very bad day necessarily, just a tad bit on the slow side.  In all of the lag that went throughout my day, I found myself contemplating on the future of this type of career choice.

If I were to pursue a career in teaching I find myself constantly asking myself the question, "Can I honestly do this knowing most of my lessons will be thrown out the the back door of student's minds as boring and irrelevant in their owns lives?"  On a daily basis I am in classes where the majority of those students care very little about what they are being taught and allowing those educational opportunities to pass over them like an air ball during a Basketball game.  The value of receiving a good education no longer exists within the youth of today.  Values are now placed on increasing the amount technology one has in order to stay entertained at all times, or to at least be entertained at the touch of a button.

I understand how they feel, it sucks to be forced to stay in a building requiring you to use your academic and problem solving skills for seven hours out of every day.  I went through it for twelve years, and then even more so during college.  seventeen years of my life have been spent in school, learning and applying my knowledge to paper.  And if I go back to school to earn my teacher's certification, that will be exactly 20 years of my life spent inside the walls of academia.  It's not a fun ride and I hated almost every minute of it for all my years in school, but I at least gave it my best.  Sure, there were many times where my behavior wasn't the best, but I always tried to do well in school.  Today, kids could give a flying fuck about what their grades come out be or if they will pass or fail.  Their self worth is no longer based on an educational standard.

Do I really want to continue down a career path that I know will be even worse condition once I get a teaching job?  The past couple of days have been filled with contemplation  about this very thing and I'm becoming more and more hesitant in pursuing this goal.  I don't want to do what it takes to be a college professor, but I'm not sure I want to put up with the absolute idiocy that will come along with teaching children under the age of sixteen.

Studying = Failing.....

So I was in a Writing/English 8th grade class today and one student decided to write what seemed to be a mathematical equation.  If you can explain this to me, I would be much obliged because I don't get it!

No Study = Fail

Study = No fail

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No Study + Study = Fail + No Fail

(No + 1) study = (No+1) fail

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Study = Fail

This is a pretty common theme with middle schoolers these days; they try to give logical arguments to teachers why studying is a bad thing.  In the first five minutes the teacher decided to indulge the class and allow them to prove to him why this equation could be true.  A plethora of arguments were thrown out there, most of which consisted of ridiculous claims and poor use of the English language.  However, one student did say something which made some sense...

"Teachers give us so much homework and we become too tired to finish it.  I think teachers think that we just do homework all the time and not get tired."

While this argument makes sense, Students these days whine and complain about having way too much homework to do.  At the middle school I work at, most students have two daily classes, mainly English and Math, while having two periods that only run every other day.  The homework in the "every other day" classes are due on the day of class, which means they have homework due on Thursday, and have 5 days to complete the homework due for the following Tuesday.  These classes consist of Geography and/or History.  However, on the days they don't have those two academic courses, they have either art, band, technology, or computer class, depending on what the student wanted to take for that specific quarter.  These electives typically have little or no homework as everything is done in class.  So, to be honest, they only have homework in their two daily classes that is due everyday...if that.

However, homework in these two everyday classes consist of worksheets that are no more than 10 to 15 problems and/or questions.  Yeah, they get writing assignments, but the English teachers typically only ask for no more than two paragraphs (4 - 8 sentences per paragraph) for each assignment.  For the most part, teachers will give examples to help guide their students in the writing process when working at home and most likely allow them to start the assignment before the period is over.  Needless to say, this is NOT A LOT and it is NOT DEMANDING!

In the English class I was in today, the 8th graders were learning about Pathos, Logos, and Ethos.  After explaining these concepts with examples and instructions, the teacher allowed the students to grab some magazines and look for ads using one of these three rhetorical concepts.  You'd think they would be all about looking through magazines and ripping up pages, but no!  Every single students complained because it was "too much work" and they "didn't get it."  Conversations are great with these kids as they seem to enjoy talking about issues like abortion and how "people who have abortions should receive the death penalty", but when you ask them to think on their own, everything goes to Hell.  It's sad and disheartening, but so very true.