New Layout
Workday - 8:30am-4:30pm
Nothing that exciting to report, today. I just thought I'd post that I'm trying out a new template for the blog. The chatbox is gone, but it's been replaced with the option to post comments for each entry. I'm hoping the comment link will appear with this new entry.
Actually, I guess I'll give one rant.
There's this one teacher who teaches the same math course I have, and she's slowly (and unknowingly) making my life hell. A while back I posted my complaint about teachers who don't do their jobs and how it affects me when they're teaching the same course. Well, the teacher I complained about then is one and the same. Now it's not that she's not doing her job, but that she's doing it wrong.
It was her job to write the final exam for the course we (plus a few others) both teach. I looked it over last week and noticed questions on it that were beyond the grade 9 level. Now, it's technically scheduled for us to teach some grade 10 concepts in the grade 9 course just to get students introduced to them ahead of time. I taught them, but told my classes they wouldn't be tested on it nor would it be on the exam. This other teacher not only taught the required concepts, but went beyond into more difficult ones as well. Now she's included these problems on the exam and I have to go back and tell my students that I'm a liar.
Actually, I'm going to ask her if she can take them off first. They're really not supposed to be on there.
Secondly, next week all grade 9 math students have to write a standardized test. The mark they get on this test doesn't affect them in any way, but the results are used to see how kids are doing all over the province. Being grade 9s, these students wouldn't even think they had the option to not write the test.
However, this same teacher is telling her students she'll give 5 bonus marks to anyone who "shows up". It should be a given that they'll show up! And, more importantly, you can't give bonus marks for that. Just as we're no longer allowed to give any marks for attendance or participation or completed homework, these types of "mark giveaways" are a thing of the past. Meanwhile, of course every kid in her classes has told their friends this bonus mark story and now these other kids are going to their math teachers to ask for the same.
Not only that, but they also now have the idea that they can simply not attend. I have some of my best students (best in math and best behaved) asking why they should come at all.
I just told my class that this other teacher "can't do that". She can say what she likes, but in the end there's no way she can get away with it. I don't care anymore if it's unprofessional of me to badmouth a colleague. The fact is, she's either lying to her students or trying to get away with breaking the rules.
I said to my students "if you want, I can lie to you too". They all nodded eagerly.
So I grinned and spoke deliberately "Ok. I. Will. Give. You. 5. Bonus. Marks. Too.", shaking my head on each word.
Nothing that exciting to report, today. I just thought I'd post that I'm trying out a new template for the blog. The chatbox is gone, but it's been replaced with the option to post comments for each entry. I'm hoping the comment link will appear with this new entry.
Actually, I guess I'll give one rant.
There's this one teacher who teaches the same math course I have, and she's slowly (and unknowingly) making my life hell. A while back I posted my complaint about teachers who don't do their jobs and how it affects me when they're teaching the same course. Well, the teacher I complained about then is one and the same. Now it's not that she's not doing her job, but that she's doing it wrong.
It was her job to write the final exam for the course we (plus a few others) both teach. I looked it over last week and noticed questions on it that were beyond the grade 9 level. Now, it's technically scheduled for us to teach some grade 10 concepts in the grade 9 course just to get students introduced to them ahead of time. I taught them, but told my classes they wouldn't be tested on it nor would it be on the exam. This other teacher not only taught the required concepts, but went beyond into more difficult ones as well. Now she's included these problems on the exam and I have to go back and tell my students that I'm a liar.
Actually, I'm going to ask her if she can take them off first. They're really not supposed to be on there.
Secondly, next week all grade 9 math students have to write a standardized test. The mark they get on this test doesn't affect them in any way, but the results are used to see how kids are doing all over the province. Being grade 9s, these students wouldn't even think they had the option to not write the test.
However, this same teacher is telling her students she'll give 5 bonus marks to anyone who "shows up". It should be a given that they'll show up! And, more importantly, you can't give bonus marks for that. Just as we're no longer allowed to give any marks for attendance or participation or completed homework, these types of "mark giveaways" are a thing of the past. Meanwhile, of course every kid in her classes has told their friends this bonus mark story and now these other kids are going to their math teachers to ask for the same.
Not only that, but they also now have the idea that they can simply not attend. I have some of my best students (best in math and best behaved) asking why they should come at all.
I just told my class that this other teacher "can't do that". She can say what she likes, but in the end there's no way she can get away with it. I don't care anymore if it's unprofessional of me to badmouth a colleague. The fact is, she's either lying to her students or trying to get away with breaking the rules.
I said to my students "if you want, I can lie to you too". They all nodded eagerly.
So I grinned and spoke deliberately "Ok. I. Will. Give. You. 5. Bonus. Marks. Too.", shaking my head on each word.
2 Comments:
It seems like every time you blog I find another reason to be grateful that I didn't become a teacher as once planned. I've got my share of colleague problems though, so I feel your pain!
By
yiddles, at 12:44 a.m.
Heh, thanks. Well, I do have a lot to whine about but it's never enough to make me reconsider teaching. The good still outweighs the bad. And I DO post the good stuff! Still, yeah, teaching isn't for everyone.
By
Ms. Smartypants, at 6:37 p.m.
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