Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m a simpleton. I sat in training last
week with thoughts of how we as convict-teachers have lost site of reality. Not
that I’d do anything to upset the bureaucratic applecart, and even if I wanted
to, it’s far too late for that—the blindfold is tight, we're not supposed to
peek; Michigan House Bill 4465 made sure of that with a personalized message:
Any educator who participates or engages in strike activity would have their
teaching certificate suspended for two years. I certainly wouldn’t want to
“engage” or “heighten” awareness to all the foolery attached to our wonderful prison-education
system, especially while carrying a sign. Let the powers that be call the
shots; what do I know?
Anyway …
I sat in training learning about MAERS (The Michigan Adult
Education Reporting System). The public schools have been using it for years to
capture Federal money; whereas, the Michigan Department of Corrections has been
using OETS (The Offender Education Tracking System). So now we as convict-teachers
have two reporting systems meaning more paperwork. The real irony is that my
employer has the largest population of adult education students but only gets 6
to 10% of the funding. It seems to me that my employer should be the driving
force behind the data; however, this isn’t what’s happening—we are being told
what to report and how to report it by the Michigan Adult Education gurus in Lansing . Probably for
very good reason: Nobody cares about the education of convicts except for when
it comes to funding programs elsewhere.
Anyway …
Another Michigan House Bill, HB-4142, says our rookie
teachers will have to earn their tenure based on their effectiveness as
educators; if they’re not effective (i.e. filling out reports), an additional
probationary period will be given. It’s all about the paperwork from here on
out. All teachers will have apples placed on their heads. Call it target
practice. My only request: Use a crossbow.
5 comments:
If a .38 was good enough for Burroughs then it's good enough for Snyder. It's always been "illegal" for public employees to strike..so now is it double dog dare ya illegal?
It's a wonder anyone goes into teaching. I'm thinking of getting out of the game myself. Not sure I can do anything else though.
Bureaucracy – the bane of teachers’ existences everywhere.
Wise move not to make yourself a moving target.
Jim, It is five a.m. and I'm out of beer.
But education, yes.
I am a wigged-out english teacher, and I'll tell you a story about my experience here in whitebread Ontario, Canada.
A token male in Seneca's English department, I was eventually cashiered, stripped of epaulets, moustache and medals and sent out into the desert of Main Street like a badly behaved Legionnaire.
Ten years of teaching gives you an authoritarian complex, you've got to lecture, compare, explain.
Having no one to lecture to (my wife had had enough and had moved out) I went out to Fairy Lake there to lecture to ducks, geese and assorted racoons.
I went to Wilkinson's Studios and lectured there, and Bruce Wilkinson decided I might make a pretty good tripod for his cameras, albeit a little noisy.
What to do when you're a fallen professional?
I got into politics and they burned my house down.
Homeless, I went back to lecturing ducks. Some would shuffle notes around the grass. Others would look up with some interest, but would stop paying attention once they realized that I had eaten all the bread in my bag.
I went out to Frank Stronach's farm to lecture horses, but these were an elite breed, holding their tinted cigarettes between hooves and pasterns, adjusting their Sixties-style blinkers and commenting on my lectures with loud whinnies and horselaughs.
"Go back to ducks," seemed the message.
Unpublished horses and unskilled bongo players really piss me off.
Eventually I got a job in an auto parts department, upon which time my girlfriend at the time complained that my lovemaking had become somewhat mechanical and would I watch more Sue Johanson, that grandmother from Hell.
Was Sue getting some? Any?
I tried Sue Johanson's advice but soon found that I was using up all the batteries at Radio Shack and had to go high tech.
Yep, there's a real world out here. Mechanics know more than PhD's.
At the college, they used to call me Doctor.
At the Bonanza, when I am in my cups, they call me something out of anatomy. Rhymes with Courtney Love.
I'm afraid the good old days are only beginning.
With the types of students we have now and the amount of paper work being demanded from us the job is nearly impossible to do. I don't believe anyone has a clue accept those trying to do it... At the same time our salaries keep decreasing as our premiums and copays keep rising and of course those making these decisions are not affected by them. Our elitist legislature keeps talking about how they should have the same benefits as us but do nothing to change it. Seems to always fall short. The salt in the wound has to be the board of canvassers who have elected not to allow the proposition on the Financial Manager Powers given to our Executive Branch( by our elitist legislature) over democratically elected officials because(even though more than enough signatures were collected to put it on our November ballot) it was ruled they used the wrong font or type size.
Enjoyed the read. Sorry for the diatribe. When you work in dirt you see the "dirt." The dirt man. MW
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