This term is a start of a new 3 year cycle I'm turning 40 and when these freshmen graduate I'll definitely have more grey hair but I'm hoping I'll be all the more wiser.
Most of us have aspirations for our teaching career and mine is to bend those young minds, stretch their perspectives and perhaps start them on a path in life that will take them on a great adventure. There are moments in the classroom where things just fall into place. There is a flow that could be compared to what surfers call the perfect wave. Each lesson can be like that, there are ones that put a smile on your face for the rest of the day and then there are those that leave you feeling like a washed up castaway.
I've come to realize something that our School Board and Ministry of Education has missed and that is, teachers do not choose their career because they are fond of administration work, or documentation, or even evaluation and yet these three duties have become the focus and foundation of our daily practice. We enter teachers college wide-eyed and with the conviction that the majority of our time is going to be spent on inspiring students, building relationships and yes actually teaching. There is nothing more satisfying than having planned a lesson that results in that perfect wave. But sadly the time spent refining the art of creating and preparing that lesson for a specific class that you know is really going to enjoy it, is eaten up by the numerous and tedious tasks that have little or nothing to do with actual teaching.
So what happens? We sacrifice the time we would have spent tailor making our lesson and follow a pre-packaged lesson plan or throw out a second rate "keep them busy until next time when I have something prepared that I'm proud of" lesson. It's the equivalent of paint by numbers for a skilled artist, the fast food menu for the trained chef and the lip-synced version of the audience's favorite hit. So yes there is the high you experience when you catch that perfect wave, when the flow in the room gives you a fulfilled warm and fuzzy feeling deep in your gut, and then there are the lows. It's the unimaginative painting, the greasy after-taste from that burger and fries that now feel like a brick in your stomach, and the fear of being seen as a fake when the crowd realizes the mic is not on.
I fear where we are headed, because the new job description for my profession is soon to be recruiting another breed of teacher, and that is the one that sees the actual teaching part as the tedious duty in the to do list of the day.
