After a certain point of jousting everything one sees as wrong and improvable in a teaching year, one has to put down the lance and recover from the battle axe blows and such.
Humans adapt to the environment better than we realize. Given the relatively ridiculous amount of vacation time teachers get, we as teaching humans merely pack in all the mental damage of a 50 week working year into 36 weeks.
The long haul (again, relatively speaking) between the beginning of Spring Semester and Spring Break is an excellent example of both the mental damage and the need to recover. At least for one humble blogging teacher guy I know.
In other words, we gotta get out of this place. Like now.
We'll make it through the next five days before Spring Break starts, but only with a limp and our chain mail dragging along the classroom floor. Guided by the North Star that is the clock, we'll count down the approximately 378,000 seconds until Friday at 3:05 p.m., then sprint out to the parking lots as fast as our bedraggled, vocationally wracked bodies allow. We'll collapse into our cars (or bicycles in some cases), shudder a bit as we shake off the mortal District coil of the last 10 or 11 weeks and sigh in blessed exhaustion.
In less than 378,000 seconds now.
P.S.: Speaking of obsessive number counting, those keeping score at home will note that your humble blogger is going for a five-for-five this week: riding into work every day. That blasted time change messed up my mornings last week (that and an incessant parade of IEPs), but sunrise should be early enough now to ride up Isleta Blvd. with at least a fighting chance of being seen (i.e., staying alive). Meanwhile those who track the disparity between outrageous claims like "I'm going five-for-five this week" will want to stick around to laugh at your humble blogger when he reports on Friday that "things came up" and was unable/unwilling to cycle more than once or twice.
P.P.S.: Well under 378,000 seconds now, closing in on 377,000.
Monday, March 16, 2009
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2 comments:
Scot,
Please excuse the backdoor email.
Next Tuesday morning, Mar 24, at 7:30 (I am trying to get the meeting moved to the evening so stakeholders can attend), the Policy Committee will meet to decide whether they will put the rolemodeling clause back into their own code of conduct.
It reads;
in no case shall the standard of conduct for an adult, be lower than the standard of conduct for students.
If it is reinstated, the leadership of the APS will find themselves honestly accountable to a nationally recognized, accepted and respected code of ethics; the student standard of conduct.
If not, they will remain virtually unaccountable to any standards at all, even the law.
fyi, and should you care to weigh in.
grateful for your time and attention.
ched macquigg
I feel like Spring Break isn't nearly enough. I need summer. NOW.
At least the majority of my days directly after break will be spent testing. A different sort of stress, but at least doesn't involve lesson planning.
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