I just recently got Jack's mixes that he's been creating since last summer. I feel like I'm just starting to truly come out of the bubble I was in since June. I think part of it has to do with the fact that I'm just now ending my six+ month ride on the anti-depressant train. Just the other day, in fact, I found myself feeling irritated at someone for the first time since August. It was very good to feel that way again.
Also putting me in a particularly nostialgic mood is the fact that I just posted a bunch of pictures from all this time. Check out the new pictures from TFA institute, the Outer Banks trip I took with Lin and a few others, as well as the most recent Olympic adventure. The shots of the random field are those of my soccer field that I took the last day I was out lining it.
As an extra note for whomever is concerned, the trip to the Outer Banks quite possibly saved me from giving up on this whole TFA fiasco. Thank you ladies who came along and made sure I was actually enjoying life and relaxed for more than a few minutes. I remember being distinctly exhausted and unable to finish the australian movie we picked out later that night because I so calmly fell asleep. Quite possibly the best I've ever felt from exhaustion. Do know that I was very happy that day, no matter what it seemed.
Finally, I've figured out what it takes to make schools work. First, I need to point out that there are many times that school boards, states, or the federal government feign at giving money to poor schools because they claim it will not help. Untrue.
For the most part, it seems like administrators and superintendents pur money into new computer labs and facilities and whatever else they can concieve, then get frustrated when it doesn't work. In the menatime, teachers remain so poorly paid, yet so rediculously overworked that it doesn't matter what kind of money goes into their classroom. Not to mention that the dark secret of education is that reform fails usually because the teachers somehow reject it.
The problem is that everyone thinks they know what should happen in education and teaching, because everyone hase been a student. Sorry, but being a student is fucking easy. Anyone who thinks that their masters in education puts them above even two months of classroom experience can eat shit and die as far as I'm concerned.
Solutions to school reform always seem to make things more complicated and more consuming. Instead, school boards and other bodies should be figuring out ways to make teaching more maneagable.
In my estimation, there are two things that really affect good teachers:
1) That teachers have classes that are just plain too large.
It's rediculous to put someone in front of 30 ghetto children and think they're going to be doing anything more than babysitting. With my own true experience as a testament, I can clearly vouch for the fact that a class of 10 kids is thousands upon thousands of times easier than a class of 26.
Solution: use the money to hire more teachers. Easy.
2) Workload. Not only do teachers have to monitor and teach x kids a day, but they are also pressed to have a good plan for each day, and to do all the grading afterward. Usually without assistance.
Solution 1: secretaries are more prevalent in education. Make an assitant for each team of teachers. This person will be in charge of making sure all the grades are entered, all plans are typed neatly.
Solution 2: Teachers get every other Friday or Monday off for teacher work-days. These are such beautiful mental health days, since it gives the chance to sit back and relax, while still being productive in our classroom.
But don't take my word for it: check out This American Life.