#DWHabit - Word of the Day - Sarcasm

Today's word was chosen by me. I utilize sarcasm when I find myself frustrated with a situation beyond my control. I’ve been told that I am very good at being sarcastic. I am going to let you be the judge of that. 

I believe that teachers should no longer have to go to school to get a teaching degree. After all, we all know that teachers don’t know how to teach.  Why do I say this?  Simple. Teachers must not know how to teach because the district is always telling us how to teach.  We select a textbook because we like the way it is set up. It goes along with our state standards. It goes in a logical progression.  They agree and purchase it. Then they write pacing guides and curriculum maps that take those logically progressive units and switch them all around.

Another reason we loved the text book is because it is full of graphic organizers and text structure strategies. But we all know that teachers don’t know how to use those resources. So what does the district do? They purchase a program for tens of thousands of dollars that mandates the teaching of text structures. Instead of just using the textbook and all of its built in text structures we have to reinvent the wheel and  find other passages from other places to teach the text structures.  We need to do this separate because it wouldn’t make sense to follow the natural placement in the textbook.

The next thing we are going to do is purchase a writing program.  Now it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t meet your needs. If your students are high functioning writers this program is going to let them know that their writings are unscorable because it doesn’t match any of the other essays  of those lower level writers that they have to compare it to.  Now don’t worry, this will make your students feel one of two things. They will either take it personally and feel like they can't really write, or they will think that it is useless writing and being made to use a program that is just a time waster.

Your textbook is online and actually came with a writing program. But we need to spend thousands of dollars on this program that is excellent for those who really need help with their writing because they are not on grade level.  We are going to make everyone use this program and ignore the program that came free with the online textbook and all of its resources. We are also only going to give you half of the licenses you need for this program so that you will have to take money you need for other programs and use it to purchase the extra licenses.  Now we are going to add this in to your already burgeoning curriculum and expect you to have your students write, edit, revise multiple times in a 40 minute period. It doesn’t matter that many of these children can’t do this from home because they don’t own computers or have Internet. You can always assign this writing as homework so that they can type it at home, save it to a flash drive  and then upload it to the program. That is if they have a computer at home. If not they will need to try to type it all in during that 40 minutes period and then edit and revise.

Yes, my students tell me I am the queen of sarcasm. They find it funny when they or their parents complain about some of these ridiculous programs and I reply with sarcasm. I have figured out it is the way I deal with these situations so that I don’t go nuts.  I had to sit in a meeting, where they pulled me out of my class to meet with reps from one of these programs. I asked them if the program was done the way it was set up to be run, how long it would take for students to use their program and read their articles, prompts, etc. to write, revise and edit it multiple times.  They hemmed and hawed and never did give a complete answer to our administration.  I told them that as an author I can’t write a chapter and revise and edit it multiple times in one week if I want quality. Their response was, “Well I used to be a teacher” and “well you can always have them write it first and fix it up, then upload it into the program.”  As long as we have canned programs that try to be a one size fits all while they expect us to differentiate the instruction, you will find this teacher utilizing her sarcasm.