[Miscellany]

For the past three years at the school I've enjoyed a very nice relationship with the parent community. My name has been bandied around the local kindergartens as a 'great teacher' and people come to the school knowing who I am and/or wanting their child to be in my class. This is very flattering for someone who has the self esteem about the size of a kangaroo fetus and for the most part of her life has felt like the girl in your class who wears braces and eats clag.

Next year at the school my role is changing somewhat. I'm going to be teaching a level of children that is a "hard sell" to parents - mostly because it will be a standalone class - but for other reasons too... I'm finding now, for the first time, in a long time I'm not a popular choice. Parents who I don't doubt would have followed me up the school with their children, are saying a polite "no" to this class and then coming to see me to apologise because, they assure me, they love me but ...no, this class no. I know that if I was faced with putting Guappo my fake adopted Somalian baby into this class I'd struggle too, so I really can't blame them.

This is the first time in my life however that I've actually had to battle against my Ego. I never thought I had one, you see - and it's a bit of a shock to find out that yes, yes I do.

In a way it's good for me to have my Ego checked by this little life test. It's good to be humbled sometimes and to have the shoe on the other foot.

But I want to make this perfectly clear: I hate it.

Labels: ego, musings, obsessive parents, stressed teachers, teacher dramas, teaching

posted by M at 10:44 pm 3 comments

I'm constantly amazed by the amount of people in "high places" that just DO. NOT. GET. IT.

A great example is the Education Department in Vic. Latest on the ever-increasing pile of crap that will eventually lead all teachers running from the profession is the banning of sugar from Victorian Schools. Now I don't actually have a problem with banning sugar from Victorian Schools. Whatever, good idea - I don't care. Hey I found a quote from Bronwyn Pike herself: "it is vital that we reinforce the healthy living message". Onya Bronny - true dat.

Oh but wait a sec, what's this? "Students will still be allowed to bring sweet treats to school in their lunchboxes". Ummm...what? So apparently this is yet another, let's put all the pressure on the schools to parade the old moral code and take all the pressure off the parents, trick. Great. Let's change things but not actually taking on the most important people in this equation (the parents, duh).

I don't understand why they bother regulating schools with spot checks for healthy food when apparently it doesn't matter what they bring from home in their lunch boxes anyway? I don't know how many times I've said it but the primary influence on young children is not school but their PARENTS. Is this such a difficult thing to understand? Why not do these so called "government spot checks" on student lunch boxes instead of on schools? I don't disagree with having a healthy eating policy in schools - just the opposite actually, but putting all the pressure on schools to enforce eating habits in children is completely missing the mark on promoting healthy eating. Bottom line, if parents can't do it their child isn't going to either. Target the parents. Target the fast food chains. Target advertising on the tele. Oh wait, this results in revenue lost? Ahhh..now we get to the bigger issue; Corruption. I'm sick of schools being a scape goat for problems that could easily be solved if the government/media/parents/workplaces were willing to lose some revenue doing it.

The other example of people in "high places" just NOT. GETTING. IT. comes again in the form of the government. Namely the Federal government and their new stance on internet filters.

Basically the proposal is that Australia will become the new China when it comes to internet filters. As in: all the good sites are banned. Why? Oh, a mixture of things including the internet being unsafe for children (porn, chat etc).

Here's an idea: How about parents control what their children can and can't do on the internet? I know, sounds like a radical idea - but it goes like this: When you have a child you commit to raising them. Raising them includes keeping them out of harms way. Keeping them out of harms way means that parents will actually have to be involved in their child's lives. And that means, less time on the xbox or with the mothers club and more time teaching your child about how to surf safely, be wary and be responsible. If that fails, ever heard of a Net Nanny? It was only invented about a million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, geniuses. Why punish those of us who are barren of children by reducing the best bits of the internet just so parents can keep NOT raising their children? Why on earth people have children when they just don't want to raise them properly is beyond me.

But I don't blame the parents entirely. I'm aware that we live in a society that promotes long working hours and discriminates against stay at home mothers (or fathers) from job sharing or getting back into the work place after a while. Maternity leave is a joke and paternity leave is virtually non-existent! A lot of parents can't afford to take the time to raise their children these days not only because it's too hard to make ends meet - but because we (the people who live in this society) are fucking GREEDY. People want it all. Having it all involves having children AND living the life you had before you had kids and that is actually impossible unless you give up one little thing: Actually raising them.

It's a messy old web we weave. No wonder we just don't get it.

Labels: fake mad but not really, kids, obsessive parents, rant, school, stressed teachers

posted by M at 9:56 pm 10 comments

I decided to beat prin to the punch this year by getting some displays up early for our parent information night next week (we had another parent night last week too, I have no idea why they can't just combine them). Last year in my first year of teaching art Prin decided to suddenly spring btw the whole school needs to be decorated by you two days before the night. This year I am on my game. Oh yes! Of course since the school is doing a lot of pre-testing at the moment I haven't actually taken the whole school for art yet. I have no art work to put up at all. I've gotten around this by putting up only photos. In order to fill up the mammoth sized boards though I've had to take a hell of a lot of photos. It's been very fiddly and expensive but it's the only thing I can think of that will tide me over until the art program officially starts.

Instead of teaching art I've been back in the classroom subbing for their teacher who is doing pre-testing. It's actually been a lot of fun being back in the classroom. Having one grade exclusively for a few days in a row seems like such a luxury to me now. You can follow up on discipline properly, you can carry work over and there's a hell of a lot more control and downtime. I think I'd like to move back into the classroom in a couple of years. Maybe even next year. I love battling with them through their learning difficulties. I want to teach them to write perfect sentences and how to use different strategies to add. Then again...I love the freedom the art program affords me. I love the excitement in the kids when we learn something new in art and I love the lack of parents being aggro.

I had a taste of it in the classroom this week. Since we are officially only 8 days back the kids are still being tested for reading/writing/maths. Typically what happens with children's reading is that over the holidays they lose a bit of practice and so when tested teachers will find that they move down a couple of levels. This is VERY short lived and the kids are back on track very quickly. In the classroom I was in, the teacher hadn't tested reading yet so for one week she put all kids back one level so they could get used to reading again and then when she tests them next week they will be on their correct levels. Of course I had a bazillion anxious parents in with me complaining that their children were not progressing in this class. I wanted to shoult, we're EIGHT DAYS IN, go take a valium! But somehow managed to channel the spirit of Mother Theresa and was serene and sweet instead.

Kids get stressed when parents are obsessed about their progress. I caught a 7 year old BAWLING her eyes out in the corridor the other day. When I asked her what the matter was she could hardly speak for all the gasping and crying. I'm n-n-not s-s-sma-a-a-art enou-u-ugh! she eventually said. Talk about heartbreaking. I know this child very well. I taught her two years ago and she didn't match up to her peers academically. I wanted her to stay down but her parents wanted to move her up - so she did. The next year the gap between her and her peers widened even more. The damage has already been done. She feels dumb. Never mind that she's a beautiful kid, great artist and great dancer. None of that counts...even though it should.

It's a tragedy for which both teachers and parents are to blame. Kids have way too much pressure on them to succeed in Literacy and Numeracy. Schools put pressure on them because results count these days (I mean they're even talking about paying teachers according to the results they get - ridiculous!). And parents put pressure on their kids by being obsessed with reading scores and how much homework they're getting and their successes in school. Parents compare results in the yard and so kids compare each other in the classroom too. The whole thing depresses me a lot.

Maybe I do want to stay in the art room.

Labels: obsessive parents, pressure, school, stressed teachers

posted by M at 8:29 am 16 comments