Wed 27 Aug 2008 @23:11
I am oh so sorely tempted to send an email to certain colleagues [who neither guide nor counsel it seems]. And it may look like this:
[Begin sample email]
Subject: Thanks for ALL you do
Since we’re all so consumed by numbers right now, I thought you might enjoy this bit of humor.
Smart by Shel Silverstein
My dad gave me one dollar bill
‘Cause I’m his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
‘Cause two is more than one!And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes — I guess he don’t know
That three is more than two!Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just ’cause he can’t see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head–
Too proud of me to speak!
Thanks for ALL you do!
~Tim
[End sample email]
But… I am trying to practice more restraint than last year. And while some parts of the students’ schedules are not as monumentally fubarred as last year, the schedules aren’t all right either. Still, doesn’t this just ooze innocence and optimism?
August 28th, 2008 at 07:40
i assume you have tenure? i say go for it.
I don’t think any of the public schools still have tenure in the sense most people think of it. But aside from that, my hesitance is not based on a fear of being fired. It’s just not usually a good idea to annoy people that can so easily make my job much more difficult. ~Tim
August 28th, 2008 at 17:58
Don’t know if you saw my most recent post, but according to the head of Guidance, only 32% of the schedules were up and running on the first day of school, and the staff has hand-scheduled 68% of our school’s population since the 18th. They are all ready to kill the admin in charge of their unit (not that they are perfect. . .but one of them, [redacted ~Tim], was screaming at said admin today at the end of lunch and flinging around words like “incompetent.” He keeps changing the Master Schedule without telling them, and it was his brainchild to cancel Gifted services.
That said, I really like the Silverstein allusion. Nicely done.
So we were really only 2/3 fubarred — not totally so. Obviously I just need to relax more…. ~Tim
August 28th, 2008 at 22:58
i looked at my high school website to see how many of the teachers are still there. actually, quite a few. surprising when you consider i graduated in 1985
my religion/philsophy teacher Mr Powell is still kicking. he has been a teach for 42 cranky assed years.
i am sure he starts every fall with hope and optimism too. (-: how else could he have survived this long?
Well, he could just be an obstinate bastard… but let’s go with the optimism thing! ~Tim