Teachers are stuck at the bottom of the totem pole in the education beurocracy. We answer to assistant principals and principals and central office personnel and parents and councilors and the voters and the King of England and your mom. And with every breath our critics use to praise our sacrifices, they follow it up with a lecture on our deep flaws.
That's why I wish I could just shut up and do the proper pedagogy and keep my head down, but I just can't. At my old school I was always getting in trouble for talking about religions other than Christianity, or for expressing my opinion that stupid things are, in fact, stupid. I just can't seem to write the correct things on the board to get points. I never really learned how to kiss ass properly.
I was told today that because we were reading Julius Caesar aloud in class without the California standards written on the board, my kids "weren't learning anything." Apparently, I need to hand out more worksheets. I've long held a theory that an administrator should be able to walk into my classroom at any moment and see what I do, so I don't make plans to change anything the day of my observations. Other teachers break out the dog and pony show with aplomb, but I figure that this is me and I'm not going to apologize for it. But now I feel deflated, because an administrator whom I admire greatly and would follow to another school in a heart beat just lambasted my methods. I'm not straight out of an education class. I've got too much common sense.
Next time an administrator comes into my room I will dutifully put up the California standards on the board, spew forth the boring, organized lesson and wait for them to leave so I can teach again.
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