The Nonteaching parts of being a Teacher, or We just want to have FUN!

It is a rough time to be a teacher in the United States. You can not turn on the news without hearing about teacher layoffs somewhere. California, Illinois, Texas. Our district has a new superintendent and with a new superintendent comes changes. We are now in the middle of some major reorganization and the dreaded "RIF" or reduction in force. Also, not a day goes by that our district is not on the local news. Just part of working for the largest urban district in the nation I guess.

All of these changes have come at a cost. Employee morale is not good. Everyone is frustrated. Rumors abound.

This does not sound unlike the banking world I left two years ago :)

Today was not a good day. If I have a bad day, it is almost always on a Thursday. My Thursday starts with two meetings and it is a block schedule day and I do not have an off period. I have after school duty. Today I left school immediately from duty to go to a 2 hour inservice at the district headquarters. So my school day was 12 hours long. I was in a bad mood and snapped at the students all day long. Nodobdy wanted to do their work because it wasn't FUN. I understand--it is very hard to make a computerized training module to prepare for a Microsoft Certification FUN. Where in the world have students gotten this idea that EVERYTHING should be fun? I spent 20 years in banking and MOST of it wasn't fun!

By the time I got to my inservice I was also not having fun. Grumble grumble I did NOT get into teaching to go to meetings! I like the FUN part of teaching--which is the TEACHING. Oh--and the students. The inservice was happening on the same evening as the monthly school board meeting. Really heavy controversial stuff on the agenda tonight so a crowded parking lot and every TV station in town.

So I got home and did something I have NEVER EVER done--I turned on the school district channel (yes you from small towns--we have our own TV channel)and WATCHED the end of the board meeting. After all the business at the very end the public can come and make comments about ANYTHING for 3 minutes. Tonight--there were four speakers about Pop Tarts for breakfast (all against). Who knew there was such public interest in Pop Tarts? But what did catch my interest among all the politics were the very real parents, students, and employees who obviously care so much about our educational system to come and sit for 4 hours to have their three minutes. Not a one of them spoke about having fun. They all have real world, serious BORING issues to deal with. If you call bullying, losing jobs, and the state of school cafeteria food boring. Not fun at all.

My lesson today wasn't fun and I wasn't fun and I wasn't even a very good teacher today. My students, parents, and co-workers deserve better. But I think that the expectation that somehow the schools are NOT the real world and we as teachers should be blamed if our lessons aren't always "fun" is incorrect. The real world is not always fun. How are we teaching our students to cope with real world challenges if the expectation is that there is never conflict or boredom? How do we better prepare our secondary students for life beyond the school walls? What happens the first time they put down their heads down and take a nap on the job because "I don't want to do this--it is boring". Maybe we should start with our own behavior first!