Tested makes me wanna scream!

Last week I was reading Tested and I just can't help but feel fustrated by everything I read among the pages. It seems like working in a school like that would be so incredibly difficult. The principal, reguardless of the fact that she is a fellow Tina, would drive me insane. Her over-zealous attitude would destroy me. I fully understand that a low income, low test score school like her's would need someone with that kind of pep and upbeat, yet relentless attitude... but seriously?! I would go nuts.

She seems like a principal I used to work with, only like a million times crazier. It's the kind of principal that acts really enthusiastic when parents are in the office, even more so when speaking to teachers about new ciriculum. But at the end of the day, she has yet to step foot in a classroom during her 8+ hour day. Maybe that is just my lack of understanding, but I feel that a principal that zealous about her school would want to spend as much time in the classrooms, seeing first hand what kind of learning experience is happening within the walls of their school. Again, maybe that's totally not what a principal is supposed to do... but it makes sense to me that way.

Another aspect of Tested that really pushed my buttons was the third grade teacher who "used to be nice" and now "feels like a bitch." I'm pretty sure this is just after 4 years of teaching. Do people really get that jaded about teaching in such a short time, or is the school in Tested really just that bad!?! Yikes!

I did take some personal lessons out of that chapter though. I am perpetually a person who moves every couple of years and begins a completly random new chapter of my life. After seeing how distruptive leaving a teaching job can be for the school, I feel like that has to be somehting that I change about my own lifestyle. I think that I have to be patient in choosing my first school/district so that I am happy there for a very long time. I never really thought of switching schools as distruptive behavior, I mean your kids are gone come June anyways, right? But after reading the after affects of a teacher leaving in Tested, I know realise that there is much more to worry about then just the 20-30 young people in your classroom.

I'm a bit worried about our wonderful essay due next week. How to show that I think deeply and carefully?!?! I mean, I feel like it might as well be asking me, "prove that you are innately inteligent." I guess it's not that I don't understand the assignment, we are just supposed to reflect on what being a teacher means in a deeper level than when we started the class. But having more questions then when I started just makes me more confused, not more deep and carefully thought out.

I feel like I have learned how to analyize my classroom more "deeply and carefully" since the beginning of the quarter. And by more, I most likely mean that I never really analyized it before and now I keep relating my work to my school a freakin lot. Mostly, I learn ideas in class and in our readings and I pull examples from my real life experiences in the classroom. Does that mean I am thinking deeply and carefully? I think it just is easier for me to put things in order if I relate them to what's really going on. Theories in books, I believe, don't do any good unless you can relate them to your life in a real, concrete way.

So my question, I suppose, is do I talk about that sorta stuff? Or is that too specific to my little bubble in one classroom, in one preschool, in one city? My general ideas on teacher haven't "changed" in this big, huge collosal way since I started this course... and I don't think that they really should have. We all come into this program with a different thought of what teaching means, and I think that is what makes us so important. If all teachers had the same monentinous idea of what and how and why we teacher, we would never hear stories of awesome teachers who thought outside the box and made miracles happen. But is pin-pointing my huge deep thought process on one classroom missing the mark?

Sorry if I sound overally fustrated. I have completely loved the unique projects we have been pushed to create this quarter. The image project was simple and fun to create, but the time and thought everyone put into was so huge! You could tell by looking at everyone's project that they didn't just Google "teaching" and pick 5 top hits. It was cool that we all took so much pride in our seemingly simple task. The poems speak for themselves. I think everyone discovered a bit about themselves and a lot about their classmates in a fun, but serious way. Even the metaphor was crazy unique-- not nearly as much fun for me, but I just jumped in feet first and ended up with a pretty awesome metaphor. I guess I am just kind of sad to have to write a reflection on a set of reflective blogs.