First Quarter Score

Well, the home team's losing, but they looked better as the quarter went on, and there's hope they'll survive to the end of the game.

The state poobahs are coming in next week to do a full-school review, and they will presumably be spending time in each classroom. This has me a little concerned, but my concern is nothing compared to the hysteria this has caused with the administration. Which of course has trickled (more like "gushed," really) down to all the teachers. We have been given marching orders on at least a dozen things, all of which are "non-negotiable," and been told in no uncertain terms that we're all replacable, and that if we don't feel like meeting some of these demands, or we feel as if we don't have time, then we should find a new job where the demands won't be so heavy. Gee, I don't know if I could find another job that pays this well, in such a nuturing environment, where the physical space was so inviting and I was so well appreciated by both my bosses and my subordinates.

(It occurs to me I haven't talked about the physical space... the high school itself... with the exception of a brief mention of my portable classroom. Turns out I'm in the lap of luxury out in the boondocks. The classrooms in the main school are, frankly, abysmal. Mine smells kind of moldy, but at least it's big enough so that it doesn't feel like a prison cell with 35 people in it.)

So anyway, all of the teachers are at the breaking point -- at least 4 of them have been at meetings or received memos that left them in tears. We got a new set of ludicrous demands today, adding to an already ridiculously over-filled workload. Personally, my plan is to do what I can in the 10 or so hours per day I'm willing to devote to work, and deal with the wrath that will befall me when not enough of the "non-negotiables" are completed. For me, it's the only way to stay sane, and not be angry all the time. I expend enough energy trying to figure out how to teach without spending all of the rest of it trying to achieve the impossible. I imagine the rhetoric will be toned down some after the state leaves, although if (when, really) we get a bad report, we'll undoubtedly get a new round of "non-negotiables."