Parent-teacher conference

Thursday, August 31, 2006

Brain spillage Current mood: drained The past eight months I have been living a life that is unusual for me. I did not attend school Spring or Summer semesters last year because my pregnancy with Abby was high risk and I had to juggle a ton of appointments. I have since returned and just completed my second week of the Fall semester and I am in a funk. For some reason, I have started to question if teaching Math IS in fact what I want to do as a profession. Nice to think of this now that I'm classified as a junior and all. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had something else in mind, but I don't. I am at now the exact point I was when I was 18 and dropped out the first time. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I WANT TO BE WHEN I GROW UP. Why has this come up now of all times? My daughter is in Pre-K and struggling with getting adapted. I don't know how her teacher is handling it. I'll find out tomorrow at a conference. But in the anticipation of the impending rendez vous I am trying to think of questions I want to ask or issues I'm concerned about. Then I put the shoe on the other foot and try to think of what her response to my questions and concerns SHOULD be. The operative word is SHOULD. One more time just for emphasis....SHOULD. The reason I am so stuck on this dirty little six letter word is that often times (and I've found this out in my education program) teachers are armed with stock responses they are supposed to say in certain situations. As a teacher, you give up the right to think for yourself. You give up the right to speak from the cuff and actually say what you want to say (even if what you want to say is in the best interest of the child and what you should say is not). Often times you are encouraged to identify (and in my opinion misdiagnose) learning, social, or behavioral disabilities when you're are not qualified to do so and the reason is because the administrators feel that they need something to blame the fact that a child is not flourishing on and they're not willing to take the blame or admit fault in any way. Instead they are told to place the problem on the child so it is not a reflection on them. As teachers, you're at the mercy of the administration and are given politically correct stock responses to recite in situations that may affect future learning environment for a student for the rest of their education. In teachers' efforts to conform to what is expected of them based on certain criteria, they in turn are told to expect their students to fit into their criteria. Any children on the outskirts of such criteria are labeled as problem children or children with problems. This is not fair. No es justo. N'est pas just. If I knew more languages, I'd throw those in too. There is a mold (not admitted by educators or school boards) for teachers and students alike. Those that don't fit are often forced to quit. Being an individualist and an independent thinker, am I best suited for the bureaucracy that is education? I used to think so. Now I don't know. I used to think, "I can be the unique one. I can make a difference." Little did I realize that those are the people that are forced out because they are looked at by administrators as the squeaky wheel that must be oiled. All this spills out of my brain as I am prepairing for my first parent-teacher conference...go figure!