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Jonathan From The Mailbag

By • September 15, 2007 • 8 Comments

From the mailbag

Jonathan, from Admin v. Doctorate:

Why canโ€™t you manage your effort/energy better? Itโ€™s a little problem.

Two text-heavy slides from last year:

The same two slides, revised and expanded this year:

I can’t settle on what I know to be inferior.

I reckon we agree that some people shouldn’t teach. Maybe, like me, you think that’s pretty obvious.

What is less obvious to me, but what is also, honestly, no lie, probably true, is that I am one of them. I imagine this seems like a bit of pointless self-deprecation to most, but it’s an idea that’s made a lot of sense of a lot of frustration these last few weeks.

Like with those two slidedecks up there, I can’t settle on what I know to be inferior, no matter how much time it costs me. This is an attribute which, in my life, has always lived on the line between vice and virtue.

Once teaching and I met, however, it became fully vice. Teaching, like no other job I’ve worked, is greedy for that work ethic. It takes and doesn’t stop taking.

I used to think that relentlessness made me great for this job but now I’m not sure.

What Isn’t The Challenge

By • September 13, 2007 • 13 Comments

A Stephen Downesian cross-posted comment, here in reply to a post by Minnesota’s Teacher of the Year who writes:

So many of my concerns about the nuances of classroom management can be addressed most effectively if I simply focus my energy on making my classroom fun, challenging, and engaging.

I don’t have your experience or acclaim but I share your revelation. Here, at the start of my fourth year, I’ve realized that what seemed the essential challenge of my first three years was largely a fool’s errand.

The challenge, I’ve decided, isn’t in establishing an airtight and comprehensive system for dealing with misbehavior (that pyramid of discipline: verbal warning, written warning, parent contact, detention, suspension, etc.).

The challenge is in creating a classroom environment so supportive, so engaging, and so respectful that misbehavior doesn’t intentionally cross a student’s mind and when it crosses her mind incidentally, as it inevitably will, its correction involves a civil, straightforward conversation outside.

Reading your description and then describing it to myself in this comment makes me feel like a dope for realizing it only this year. But, to my credit, the revolution that’s brought me here has been intensely personal and only a little bit professional. Pent up in my desire to control was a lot of fear, I think.

Unfortunately I’m not sure how to describe that release to myself, much less anyone else.

[Updated: ’cause I botched the link to the TOY.]

NYT-Quality Charting Using Dumb Ol’ Excel

By • September 13, 2007 • 2 Comments

I’ve been obsessively cynical about the design capabilities of Microsoft Office โ€“ particularly Excel’s clunky charting and PowerPoint’s … well … name it โ€“ but, I’ve gotta eat a few of my words. It takes a lot of configuration but, man, Excel tunes up properly if you’ve got the time and patience. Watch the construction of the best Excel chart I’ve ever seen. [via Communication Nation]

Admin v. Doctorate

By • September 11, 2007 • 35 Comments

Feels like I need to open up a new post every time you people come out to play ’cause the commentary is too fine to restrict it to the comments page. I’m very grateful for the advice of people who’ve already made their selection from this buffet line.

Also, naturally, I appreciate the affirmation of my current classroom position. It isn’t on account of any dissatisfaction that we’re having this conversation.

Why Quit The Classroom

There are, however, two reasons why I don’t think I’ll retire thirty years from now (or whenever they let me retire) a classroom teacher, why I’m pretty sure it can’t last much longer.

  1. One is that growin’ up will seriously affect my effectiveness, which isn’t to deny the effectiveness of a whole lotta thirtysomething (and beyond) teachers out there.

    I’m just keenly aware how much of my strength as a teacher derives from my ability to relate to student culture, to talk like they talk and dress like they dress without looking like a sneaker-wearing, slang-slinging anachronistic joke.

  2. The other reason is possibly the most tragic revelation of my short career, that in spite of good advice to find balance, to moderate the amount of time I spend on lessons, I cannot.

    I get these ideas, you know, stuff that is obviously superior to what I taught last year and, though I know the tax my body is paying in developing them, though I know that creating them until one in the a.m. is leaving me too depleted to teach them well, I can’t not. It’s not in me to not.

    I’m kinda shocked by the melodrama in what I’m typing next, but I find it completely true that what I love most about this job is what’s eventually gonna drive me away from itWorkaholicism’s always gonna be a demon I’ll have to chain and feed, but with as much foresight as I’ve got in me, I don’t think it’d be near the same problem in a job where I don’t feel obliged to entertain as much as I do in this one..

If, however, I find myself relating to my kids this well even into my twilight years (30+) and if I find the load easier to bear, there will be few jobs out there to tempt me from the classroom.

Why the Admin

  1. Without indicting any administrators I’ve worked with, either past or present, I find so much lacking in the relationship between principal-teacher and principal-student. I’d like a chance at that one.
  2. I want to make teachers’ jobs easier, make it easier for them to teach well, unfettered by the unnecessary. (Man, how many lame administrative careers were launched with that motto in mind?)
  3. I feel an instinctive facility for leadership, interpersonal communication, presentation, and design which high school freshmen only stretch so far.
  4. An admin credential would keep me closer to students than a doctorate would. (Pending correction from Dan.)
  5. It’s hard watching the best classroom blog on the ‘net slowly transform into the best administrative blog on the ‘net without wanting to put some money down on that action.

Why the Doctorate

  1. It’s where my gut โ€“ an unreliable consigliere if ever one was โ€“ is pushing me right now.
  2. I need to teach older kids, I think, kids for whom entertainment isn’t such a priority. It’s the entertainer slice that’s murdering me right now.
  3. I had a ridiculously positive teacher ed experience, one which I feel equipped to emulate.
  4. Corrections always requested, but whereas an administrative credential draws out over a fixed career arc, my impression is that a doctorate spokes off in a few more directions.
  5. I’m tempted to take my practice entirely online, hopping on the payroll of Phoenix, Capella, and anyone else who’ll have me, maintaining flex scheduling (maybe teaching 60% on the side) and a mobile lifestyle. Is that bad? That’s bad, isn’t it?

Next fall one of them’s gonna happen.

Y’all have been a lot of help so far and if any of this strikes you as particularly right, wrong, or worthy of comment, please have at it.

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