Monday was the principal’s day to indoctrinate our receptive minds. Several years ago our district somehow got through a plan that added a work day every two weeks to the time we were at school. Of course it was done with no pay and it was for the children. The kids spend the same amount of time in class. Four days a week are longer but they go home early on Monday. We get to stay the full time so we can be trained to be better teachers. Sounds good.
Monday part of the plan was a vocabulary lesson. In a box labeled “Task #1" was the title “Three Rules at __________” This was followed by three words, all caps: SAFE, RESPECTFUL, RESPONSIBLE.
I don’t mean to nit pick. Well, yes, I do. I am old school. This looks like three adjectives, not three rules. We spent a good deal of time writing things on sticky notes, walking around the room and placing our notes on butcher paper taped to the walls. Then we had someone stand up and read the exciting things we had written. This included revolutionary ideas like, “No running in the halls.” I think the idea is that students don’t know they are not supposed to run in the halls. Administrators think students have Alzheimer’s and can’t remember what they were told two minutes ago.
Then we were given a list of sixteen innovative “management strategies” and we were to vote on the three we would all implement. Are you ready for the three we chose? 1. Show and repeat classroom rules and procedures. 2) “Positive greetings at the door to establish a positive classroom atmosphere an precorrect problem behavior.” 3. A visual posting of daily activities. As you can tell, I can hardly wait to get back to the room to start doing the things that I have been doing for over 20 years. I can feel the changes already.
Behind all this is a new program with the initials RTI. Somewhere there is a federal grant behind this. A select group were paid to go to training to lead us on the great leap forward.
And remember, you are the one paying for this.
homo unius libri
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Comments are welcome. Feel free to agree or disagree but keep it clean, courteous and short. I heard some shorthand on a podcast: TLDR, Too long, didn't read.