Teach

Teach : - 2/5/2002

Mold the Future of our Nation
Change lives
Show that you've got what it takes
My Commitment, Our Future.
Teach: Spend three hours learning how to fill in forms.
That's what we did during staff meeting today. Yup, we learnt how to fill in the new compentency forms. Piloting the new teacher assessment process, the school has to compress what normally takes place in one year within a five month period. Further, this assessment is juts for fun, to model what the REAL assessment will really be like and to get feedback. Still, forms are forms and no matter what, forms have to get filled. So while we were taught how to fill in a whole stack of forms that are supposed to represent our aims for the year, our golas and our achieved results, I was happily day-dreaming. And also assigning marks to work (Sat in the back row where even if the important people saw my "ostentatious indifference", they wouldn't be able to make disapproving eye-contact.
Now - in case you're wondering and thinking to yourself - you hypocrite - you expect your students to pay attention to your classes and yet you can't be bothered when someone else is showing stuff, let me expound.
1. Instead of just dismissing it with "they pay to come to school" and "I get paid to come to school", I shall say that the roles a teacher and a student have in life are very different.
2. I'm old enough to vote. IE it's my life and I do suffer the consequences of not paying attention. I won't be able to look impressive on the Work Review and it'll directly affect my career. On the other hand, kids not paying attention in class means I have to explain it again, I have to mark lousy scripts, parents have to be very troubled and worried, their friends will be distressed ... you get what I mean.
3. Forms are forms are forms. How hard can it be to read the instructions and fill in forms? I'm pretty sure I can navigate the forms (if I choose to) independent of the briefing: sadly students can't. And so they need to listen in class to model thought as they're not confident enough to think clearly for themselves.
Three arguments should be fine.
How Quantum Theory is related to Form Filling
One of the "discoveries" of Quantum Theory was that in a quantum universe, because of the smallness of the particles and thus phenomena involved, even the most "objective" act of observation, affects the result. In this case, you ARE what you RECORD. You might be a fabulous teacher in a hundred ways, but the recording process only captures 14 that are valuable to the organisation. The organisation thus sees what it wants to see. It's set up like a science experiment that CAN'T fail, or rather, chooses its failures. As such, you no longer need to be a good teacher, you just need to know how to PHRASE what you do, in a manner that fits the required descriptions.
EG. Teacher picks up litter from the floor and throws it into the bin.
This is phenomena that can be ignored or can be reported as
I constantly model expected behaviours for my students. For example, I ensure that litter is picked up and thrown away, even if it means doing it myself.
Of course it's a silly example but it does not exagerate the kind of reporting that is possible.
You might think that someone who loves writing language and elaborating would love the exercise - but believe you me, I positively detest it. Just for the record, I will state that form filling is one of the main reasons I will leave MOE.
Having said that - a thought occurred to me during the day-dream: I'll fill in my work review this year, as a chain of rhyming couplets ... I might even try putting it as a Sonnet!
Goal for Sec 2 English is 2.5
Towards this goal I daily strive
By conducting Monday and Thursday remedials
And by checking student work via e-mail.
Heh heh - think I'll download that rhyme dictionary I saw recently ...