Education Law

What a Monday!

Or should we start off by saying, “what a weekend?”  In case you weren’t paying attention to Serena Williams’ meltdown, Kanye West’s embarrassment, Jay Leno and Bob Costa’s awkward interview, the tens of thousands of protesters marching in Washington over the high deficit (among other things), or the beginning of the NFL season, just to name a few of the tidbits that hit the news this morning, we’d like to get you back on track–on a more positive note.  The winner of the women’s U.S. Open tennis tournament is a 26 year old mom, who wasn’t ranked in the tennis world and brought her 18 month old daughter out on the court to celebrate.  There’s a start to some good news.  This week is likely to be action packed as well, with the president giving another big speech–this time on the financial situation over the last 12 months, which will hopefully continue some good news on the financial front.  Health care remains on everyone’s mind, and who knows what’s around the corner.

So this piece from yesterday’s Washington Post caught our attention (somehow) about a teacher going through what she calls a whopping midlife crisis in teaching, and how a 45-year old book that she read over the summer invigorated her for the new school year.  While many of us slog through the daily grind of our jobs, whether in an office, as an administrator, a school board member, or in front of a classroom, we all have second thoughts on our careers.  Nancy Schnog read “Up the Down Staircase” and realized that the 1964 novel still held true today.  Red tape in schools, check.  Students disinterested in literature, check.  Teachers working hard to make school interesting, yet feeling like they’re running on a treadmill of misery, check.  If you’ve ever taught, this paragraph summarizes life as a teacher about as accurately as one paragraph can:

This was the dilemma ruining my sleep. Even though as a private-school teacher I benefited from small class sizes, the multitasking high school grind was dragging me down. My daily rounds included five literature classes with roughly 10 minutes to review assigned books before class. That was all the time I had to prepare lessons and grade papers too. In between 250 minutes of instruction each day, the “free periods” were a mind-numbing dash from students’ questions to parents’ e-mails to administrative duties. Throw in, too, the daily troubleshooting: investigating a case of plagiarism, fixing the Xerox machine (again), explaining to the girl texting during class why she is going to the discipline committee.

But wait, it gets better, we promise.  Over the course of the summer, she meets the 98-year old author, Bel Kaufman, accidentially, and realizes that she has made the right choice to stay in the classroom.  Ms. Schnog may have conceded many things in her life to remain a teacher, but she knows she’s doing good things and has a purpose.  She knows that the educational jargon is often the focus, when in reality a good relationship between a student and a teacher is more valuable than the latest trends.  She is one of the teachers out there worth listening to so maybe the rest of us can learn something from her.  And we know there are thousands out there just like her, doing great work.  So let’s stop and pay attention to something positive today–isn’t that what we would tell all those students in school after a wacky weekend like this one?

Full post as published by BoardBuzz: NSBA's Daily Weblog on September 14, 2009 (boomark / email).