It’s not all bad. Teachers are notorious for not only talking about how many years they’ve been teaching, but also complaining about their jobs. Sometimes they have a good reason for complaining. This newsletter isn’t about that, because I’ve found that the two most destructive tendencies for people working with young people are:
1. Despair
2. Cynicism.
Giving in to either of these two things is the kiss of death.
So far this week:
One of the difficult things I have to fix is the fact that young people today haven’t been taught geography. None of the students in one of my classes, when shown a satellite image of Africa, could name the Sahara Desert.
Someone dropped the ball during the schooling process, apparently.
A positive aspect is that teachers seem more able to use the technology (smart boards and the like) to make classes more energetic and fun. In the past, we had administrators who had taught mind numbingly dull classes lecturing and hectoring us to be more “exciting”.
Mind you, we on staff had remembered these admins as teachers, and remembered the students running out of their classrooms like they were shot out of a cannon because they were so happy to leave.
Now, perhaps because the staff has gotten younger, the audio / visual aspect of classes has ramped up and things look and sound better.
Personally, I use my smartboard all the time, and it makes class more palatable. One of the few things I’m good at is balancing the duller aspects of English (grammar comes to mind), along with the fun stuff like The Odyssey, Spartacus and The Cask of Amontillado.
Overall, things are going reasonably well, all things considered. The school system has been watered down, our students have gotten a raw deal via Common Core, and it’s up to us to fix it. There are serious problems with the Public-School System and the students it has churned out. I will go into that another week. For now, I’d like to stay positive and work on fixing what’s broken.
That’s what I’m trying to do here.
Thank you.
Douglas Marolla– English, MVHS, Room 227
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