[etni] FW: My vacation rant
- From: "David Graniewitz" <graniewitz@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "'ETNI'" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>, <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:33:27 +0300
_____
Dear colleagues,
The other day, we sat through yet another end-of-year event which again
turned out to be a meeting of a rather exclusive mutual admiration society
that the rest of us were forced to watch cringingly. This is not something
particular to our school. In every school there is a small group of teachers
who purport to do most of the important work and for whom the end of the
year is an opportunity to pat each other on the back publicly for it.
I sat, I watched, I cringed, I got frustrated. I had seen it all before and
I was annoyed with myself that I wasn't able to take it all in my stride and
put it down to experience - that's the way things are; grow up already and
grin and bear it. But it seems that it does affect me far more deeply than I
thought and each year it gets worse for me.
The truth is that I really don't expect to be thanked publicly. After all, I
have only been doing my job and, in spite of what might be printed on my pay
slip, I am not doing it voluntarily. So why do people feel the necessity to
get up at the end of the year and make a big deal about other people who
have been doing their jobs? I can understand saying a few chosen words about
teachers who are leaving or even those who are going on their well-earned
Sabbaticals, but the rest of it seems totally out of place.
Perhaps the problem lies with the fact that many of us, in particular
English teachers, teach subjects that are so demanding that we really don't
have the time or, very often, the energy to busy ourselves with those types
of activities that will give us credit in the eyes of the rest of the staff.
I would love to be involved with the social side of the school, but I know
that my work as an English teacher would be affected detrimentally by it.
Those teachers who do have the time to be involved socially (some of whom
are even paid for doing so) are amongst those who are singled out for
special thanks at the end of the year. This goes as well for those who are
home-room teachers. It is nigh on impossible for an English teacher to teach
4 or 5 (or more) different classes and take on the added responsibility of
being a "Mechanech".
Any "extra" work that we do is done within the framework of the subject we
teach. This can include writing our own worksheets to supplement the
coursebooks to make the material suitable for the highly heterogeneous
classes we are forced to teach in the junior high school to assigning
"unseens" and compositions every week to Bagrut classes which means taking
the damn things home to mark in order to give them back by the following
lesson so that they can be gone over in class. We could all make do with
just what is in the books or with just assigning two or three "unseens" and
compositions a term, but we don't. We couldn't do our jobs properly if we
did. All the extra stuff becomes essential after a while.
In addition, the way we measure our success differs from that of teachers of
other subjects. A history teacher could deem a lesson successful even a
third of the class wasn't really paying attention. As long as 5 or 6 pupils
are taking an active part and most of others are fairly attentive, he/she
can more or less ignore the pupils who have no idea what is going on. For an
English teacher, this can never be the case. We have to ensure that all of
our pupils are paying attention and understand the lesson and, because we
are language teachers, we have to aim for as much class participation as
possible. We cannot just stand there and lecture the class. In short, we
become "nudnikim" constantly getting on our kids' nerves with our incessant
questioning and probing to make sure that the material has been understood
by all. A pupil that does not pay attention in class when a new grammar
topic is being taught, for instance, will not be able to catch up on his/her
own by reading the chapter in the book a couple of days before an exam. This
is no way to curry favour in the eyes of pupils who basically wish to be
left alone as much as possible by their teachers.
Imagine, if you will, that English was not a compulsory school subject that
everyone regardless of intelligence and aptitude had to take, but one that
could be chosen as a major by pupils in high school much like physics and
chemistry, drama and art. We would be teaching smaller classes of talented
motivated pupils with few discipline problems. We could spend our time
teaching literature, drama and creative writing. Our work would be less
monotonous and more inspiring. We wouldn't be dealing with kids who haven't
got an iceberg's chance in hell of passing the Bagrut (at any level). But
more than this, at the end, the pupils would show their gratitude as we
would be teaching them a subject that they had chosen, not one that was
forced upon them. We would also be showing them a happier face as we would,
no doubt, be enjoying our work more. And the moment that the kids are
thankful the word would spread to the hierarchy of the school and we too
would get singled out for special praise at the end of the year. At the
moment, only teachers who work with English-speakers come anywhere near this
scenario.
So there you have it. Our lot in life is to be overworked and
underappreciated. Only an English teacher can appreciate another English
teacher's workload and investment in his/her job. Those outside the fold
will never have a clue what we have to go through each year. Perhaps the
best thing is to grin and bear it. But I suppose at some point I will simply
stop coming to these end-of-year events. They are simply not worth the
aggravation.
Have a great holiday and thanks for reading my rant.
David
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